The Right Price is an adaptation of a Henry Slesar story by the Hitchcock TV team, and while the pace is a tad slow, the characterizations superficial, it works as a light comedy tale that seems to borrow in unequal parts from the short tales of two very different and at the time popular American authors: Damon Runyon and John Cheever.
Set in the kind of upper middle class New York suburb that John Cheever made his literary home, so to speak, for decades, it with a begins as a presentation of a comically dysfunctional middle aged couple of the postwar era; a husband and wife business team who bicker constantly, and even sleep in separate beds (the norm for television couples of the time anyway).
When they finally get to the bedroom for an (apparently sexless, but no matter) good night's sleep, the husband is awakened by sounds downstairs, where he is confronted by a genial looking burglar who holds a gun on him and proceeds to have the man of the house find objects of value for him to abscond with. That there appears to be less real friction between the perp and his prey cleverly foreshadows what is to occur in the story's second half.
As it becomes increasingly clear that there's little of real value in this nicely furnished home; and after wifey's calling downstairs and wondering what was happening (the husband said it was the radio), the plot thickens: the husband now wants to hire the burglar to work for him, as he wants the man to commit that has probably been on his mind for some time: the murder of his bossy, shrewish wife.
As there was never any real edge to this episode, and the major players. Allyn Joslyn and, especially, Eddie Foy, Jr., were known for "light" roles in film, one could see the comedy coming early. Foy was particularly good as a surprisingly laid bad crook; while Joslyn came across as more put upon than frightened.
What transpires in the end is a nicely done twist which I think it's fair to say most viewer wouldn't have seen coming when the show was first broadcast. I certainly didn't. As the set up was vaguely comical, and that Eddie Foy, Jr. had an easygoing, friendly way about him,
As Joslyn, or rather his character, has a genteel, Cheeveresque disposition, Foy comes across as a character out of the Broadway musical Guys & Dolls. He never seems to take anything too seriously; and this includes murder. Neither actor, or rather the characters these men play, seems out of his league or way too off his turf, and this tips the perceptive off as to the ending, which I see no reason t give away.
The Right Price is good clean fun, and it's droll even for a Hitchcock show. Neither the dialogue nor the story suggest great talent at work. There's a familiar been there, done that tone throughout that implies that while there may be a lack of much original talent that went into this effort, what talent there was available was used wisely and well. Also, for all the doublecrossing and trickery on display in this episode, it feels benign, almost innocent more than a half-century after it was first shown.
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