Losing a weekend to twist endings and character actors

Also: The Emmys, an exciting new radio series, and The Woman King

View this email online by Linda Holmes Welcome! It was the week when we got our first look at a new take on a legend. It was the week when the film world mourned. And it was the week when Saturday Night Live just kept on keeping on. Let's get to it. Opening Argument: Losing a weekend to twist endings and character actors I used to watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents with my parents when I was a kid. (Before you ask, I was not a kid when it was originally broadcast, starting in 1955.) If you've never seen it, it's an anthology series in which some mystery or other unfolds over the tight running time of 25 minutes or so, including time for an intro and a dry, sometimes very dark-humored closing from Hitchcock himself.  It doesn't get as much chatter as The Twilight Zone, perhaps because it's focused more on straight mystery and doesn't dabble nearly as much in questions like justice, xenophobia, the threats of technology and so forth. But the shows have a great deal in common, including the presence of their creators (Rod Serling's voiceovers in The Twilight Zone are part of its legend) and the fact that they often adapt existing short stories. They also share a pleasing compactness, an ability to set up and pay off a plot in a remarkably short time.  I recently spent most of a weekend's leisure time gobbling up Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes, and while the pleasures of the show were familiar, I realized how many more of the actors I recognized than I did when I was so much younger. You could argue, as a friend of mine did on Twitter, that a show like this was almost the Law & Order of its day, giving all kinds of roles to all kinds of actors, some experienced and some new, just keeping folks working and working and working. It was entertaining to realize after watching that I had seen five of the 12 angry men from 12 Angry Men: Jack Klugman, Jack Warden, E.G. Marshall, Martin Balsam and John Fiedler. (I spotted Edward Binns, too, after I switched over to some Twilight Zone episodes.)  But there were also many people who were so young compared to when I got to know them. There was Burt Reynolds, as a young trucker in an episode that also features Harry Dean Stanton and Murray Hamilton, the mayor from Jaws. Charles Bronson, in the days when he was just an actor who wore suits. Steven Hill, who played the D.A. Adam Schiff on Law & Order, as a man in love with the wrong woman. (Men in love with the wrong woman are a theme.) When I didn't recognize people, sometimes I took out my phone and looked them up. There was a child actor who really seemed like a firecracker, a kid with a lot of flair, so I checked to see who he was and whether he kept working. It turned out I was looking at Barry Gordon, now 73, a character actor and voice actor who —  among other credits —  appeared in the film A Thousand Clowns and voiced Donatello on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He was also the president of the Screen Actors Guild. I looked up one actor who looked very familiar and found I was looking at Nehemiah Persoff, who did television for decades, playing Papa in Yentl as well as Papa Mousekewitz in An American Tail, and died just this year at 102. Leslie Nielsen, Richard Kiley, Walter Matthau, Joanne Woodward, Darren McGavin, Vincent Price, Denholm Elliott. Some just looked young; some were practically unrecognizable. They performed in grisly stories about burying bodies in the basement, poisoning people who have wronged you, betraying (and betraying and betraying) the people who love you, schemes for insurance money, schemes to fool the police, schemes to frame others, suspicions that turn out to be true, suspicions that turn out to be false and —  probably more often than anything else —  plots born from greed or anger that backfire horribly and often ironically, leaving no one to suffer but the plotter.  It's interesting to compare the tensions inherent within Alfred Hitchcock Presents with those in The Twilight Zone, given that both were created in the space between World War II and the upheavals of the mid-to-late 1960s. It almost feels like Hitchcock is more often looking back with skepticism at the violence and distrust lurking inside the domesticity and supposed peace of a time of relative bounty and thriving for the kind of people whose lives it considers (white, mostly reasonably well-off, often though not always in white-collar professions). The Twilight Zone, on the other hand, which started only a few years later, is often using science fiction to look ahead at the storms to come over militarism, prejudice, technology —  plus greed and self-interest and some of the other things that also were part of Alfred Hitchcock's worldview. But there's one thing that seems to unite these shows in spite of the very different attitudes of their creators. Both often rest their twist endings on the idea that some of the worst things humans do are pointless, in that they are either misunderstandings or futilities. That man didn't need to kill his wife anyway; that neighborhood created its own monsters; that hired killer targeted the wrong person. It's a cliche to say one's worst enemy in both of these anthologies is often oneself, but that doesn't mean it's not so. Newsletter continues after sponsor message Listen to the Podcast Sponsor-Free Support your favorite pop culture junkies AND listen without sponsor interruptions with a subscription to Pop Culture Happy Hour+! Learn more and sign up at plus.npr.org/happy. Learn More We Recommend Mike Gallegos for NPR Mandalit del Barco has a new NPR series on Latinos in Hollywood. Listen to the first piece here. (You can also read. But I do recommend hearing the audio she gathered!)  It's an unusual recommendation, but here goes: I don't know how I got on the topic of the 2009 CBS murder mystery series Harper's Island, but after Twitter helped me remember what it was called, I had a great deal of fun visiting its Wikipedia page and reliving one of the most truly bonkers network shows I can remember —  including the episode titles.  We got wonderful, wonderful news this week, which is that dear friend of PCHH Brittany Luse will be the new host of It's Been A Minute, which of course was the former domain of dear friend of PCHH Sam Sanders. We could not be more excited, and I commend to you the episode in which Brittany and dear friend of PCHH Eric Eddings (look, we have a lot of friends, okay?) talked about winding down their essential podcast For Colored Nerds as they begin new chapters. As if that weren't enough internal news, the great Alt.Latino was relaunched this week with Felix Contreras and new host Anamaria Sayre, who our listeners also know from conversations about Bad Bunny and West Side Story, among others. BUT WAIT. This was also the week that the Tiny Desk celebrated its 1,000th —  yes, 1,000th —  concert, featuring Angélique Kidjo. They've come a long way, truly. What We Did This Week Sony Pictures In anticipation of the Emmys, we re-shared our episode on Squid Game, featuring Stephen with Jae-ha Kim and Amil Niazi.  Then after the Emmys, Glen and I did our late-night recap of the ceremony, from Sheryl Lee Ralph's triumphant speech to who won and who lost. I also wrote up five takeaways from the ceremony. I had one of my favorite recent discussions when Gene Demby and Soraya Nadia McDonald joined me to talk about the legacy, athletic and otherwise, of Serena Williams.  Stephen, Glen, Aisha and I also got together this week to share some of the things we're interested in and looking forward to this fall.  And on Friday, Stephen and Aisha talked to Marc Rivers and Cate Young about the new film The Woman King. I have been very up and down on The Handmaid's Tale over the last few years, but I wrote about how the questions the show is asking in season five seem more interesting than some of the repetitive storytelling of its earlier runs. What's Making Us Happy (and other show notes) Every week on the show, we talk about some other things out in the world that have been giving us joy lately. Here they are: What's making Cate Young happy: Sheryl Lee Ralph's Emmy What's making Marc Rivers happy: The Kenan and Kel reunion at the Emmys What's making Aisha Harris happy: This Little Mermaid song What's making Stephen Thompson happy: The 1000th Tiny Desk and the musician Madison Cunningham and her song “Life According to Raechel” Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WBEZ (edit station). Subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+. Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free episodes. What do you think of today's email? We'd love to hear your thoughts, questions and feedback: pchh@npr.org Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Books, Daily News and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Pop Culture Happy Hour emails. 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