Our Cook's A Treasure Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 1, Episode 8 Episode #8 First aired: 20 November 1955 Hitchcock time: 2:03 Story time: 21:03 Total episode time: 24:37 My rating: 6/10

Director: Robert Stevens    Teleplay: Robert C. Dennis    Story: Dorothy L. Sayers    Associate producer: Joan Harrison    Director of photography: Reggie Lanning    Art director: Martin Obzina    Editorial supervisor: Richard G. Wray    Film editor: Edward W. Williams    Music supervisor: Stanley Wilson    Assistant director: James Hogan    Set decorator: Jerry Welch    Sound: William Brady    Wardrobe supervisor: Vincent Dee    Makeup: Leo Lotito, Jr.    Cast: Everett Sloane, Beulah Bondi.

Plot summary: Ralph Montgomery (Everett Sloane) is a middle-aged real estate agent who lives at home with his much younger wife Ethel (Janet Ward). One morning Ralph goes downstairs to have his breakfast and tells the housekeeper Mrs. Sutton (Beulah Bondi) his wife isn't feeling well and asks her to take up a cup of cocoa for her later. He chews her out for reading his newspaper before he has had a chance to look at it himself. His wife then comes down to join him for breakfast whilst Mrs. Sutton prepares some coffee for her. Ralph leaves when his assistant comes to collect him for their train. The assistant informs Ralph that the newspapers are reporting about a housekeeper is at large for poisoning three women in their homes. Later, as Ralph is in his office dictating a memo to his secretary when he suddenly becomes unwell. He thinks it is just cramps and goes home to rest. His wife stays home to look after him, and cancels her plans to attend her drama school. Ralph, seemingly on the mend, is in his garage fixing a wooden chair when he discovers a tin of arsenic. He asks his wife whether she had purchased any weed killer recently but she doesn't know anything about it. That evening Ralph sits down with Ethel to discuss Mrs. Sutton. He asks if Ethel is completely satisfied with her services but Ethel suggests Ralph is just being silly because Mrs. Sutton wrinkled his newspaper. The two head off to bed as Mrs. Sutton emerges from the shadow of the kitchen, having overheard their conversation. At a card game with his pals Ralph reads a newspaper headline about the recent spat of poisonings from a disgrunted housemaid and decides to head home. He finds some cocoa on the stove and takes a glass but when it tastes funny he pours some in a jar and takes it to a laboratory for testing. When the lab chemist confirms the presence of arsenic in his cocoa, Ralph rushes home and fires the maid on the spot, though she kicks up a fight about it. She later turns out to be an important ally for him.

Hitchcock's prologue: (1 minute 23 secs) [Hitch is sitting at a table with three shotglasses in front of him, labelled X, Y and Z] "Oh good evening. No I'm not drinking on the job, not for pleasure for any rate. I'm an amateur wine taster. A friend suspects that someone has been tampering with his wine. Of course there's no use of going through the trouble of a laboratory test when any self-respecting gourmet can detect impurities. [Hitch takes a sip from glass A] Nothing wrong here. A very fine Burgundy, a Remani Conti, I would say. [Hitch takes a sip from glass Y] This is muscatel, home made no doubt. The do-it-yourself craze knows no bounds. [Hitch takes a sip from glass Z] Somethijng foreign has been added. A large quantity too. Anyone could have detected.... but exactly what? [Hitch drinks the remainder of glass Z] I have it! Arsenic. I wish I had more of it, it's very good really. That is, if you like a very dry wine. While you wait to see what possible effect that may have on me, you may watch our dramatization of one of Dorothy L. Sayers' stories." Hitchcock's epilogue: (40 secs) "That was a warm and touching little fable wasn't it? The kind of story that gets you right here. [points to his chest] Oh, about my wine testing; I'm afraid I was very much mistaken about brand Z. You'll be relieved to hear there was nothing wrong with it. Nothing had been added. You see, it wasn't wine, it was mosquito spray. The arsenic belonged there. Apparently the mosquitoes prefer their wine very dry. Next week at the same time I shall invade your living rooms again, provided your television set hold up. Good night."

My opinion: Unfortunately, the suspense is quite subdued by the predictability of the conclusion here. With an established pattern already set with this series whereby we head towards a 'twist' ending, it seemed a bit too convenient that Mrs. Sutton was going to be the guily party. The story tells of a young woman being behind the killings and so we may be forgiven in considering Ralph's pretty young secretary but she is nothing more than a red herring. The ending was quite obvious in my honest opinion. Hitchcock's opening dialogue is twinged with much humour; this one has him sampling three glasses labelled X,Y and Z. 'Z' is poison.

! SPOILERS ! Yep, it was the wife all along. She was trying to poison her husband to hide the fact she was having an affair with a man from her drama lessons. Mrs. Sutton was innocent all along.

Trivia: •In real life Everett Sloane was a little over fifteen years older than Janet Ward, the actress who plays his younger wife. •When the chemist telephones Montgomery to tell him the very important news, Montgomery doesn't even thank him and just puts the phone down! He also later abruptly does the same thing to the housekeeper. Honestly, the manners on this guy! •Hitch's closing remarks had extended dialogue, which has been removed from the UK DVD.

	Everett Sloane Ralph Montgomery
	Beulah Bondi Mrs. Sutton
	Janet Ward Ethel Montgomery
	Elliott Reid Earl Kramer
	Gavin Gordon George Brooks
	Doris Singleton Secretary
	Walter Woolf King Dr. Protchard, card player
	Olan Soulé Chemist

CREDITS This page was last updated on: 08 October 2026