The prior Hitchcock episode was titled 'How to Get Rid of Your Wife'. This one triples down on the idea, but from the wife's point of view! I could see how Dan Duryea's character could be married to Marion Brown (Teresa Wright) since they were closer in age, but the other three women were beauties and much younger, so that didn't compute. Actresses Jean Hale and Linda Lawson were both three decades younger than Duryea! Not impossible, but what are the odds?
So anyway, with a little initiative, Marion goes on a wife eliminating spree to insure that she's the only one left after hubby Raymond completes his sales and gambling circuit. The bit with Ray's bookie Bleeker (Robert Cornthwaite) didn't make a lot of sense to me, more like filler than anything else as the character served no other purpose. Somehow the chronology of the first murder, Bernice Brown (Jean Hale), didn't seem to work, since Raymond was shown with most recent wife Marion at home in Baltimore after the murder, and later arriving at the crime scene in Newark at least a day later, with the body of Bernice just being wheeled out at that time. Seems like those scenes should have been reversed. There's also an anomaly in the script with investigating Lieutenant Storber (Steve Gravers) stating that Bernice's death was a suicide, but later telling Raymond that his wife was 'killed' yesterday. Well, what was it?
Anyway, Marion keeps things interesting with her noncommittal behavior until the very end when her comments to Raymond sound more like hints that she knows what happened to the dead women. What's extraordinary was how Hitchcock handled things in his closing comments. He noted how Raymond eventually paid the price for his bigamy, but no mention of Marion being sent up for murder. That was out of synch with the program's usual pronouncement of punishment for the guilty party, since in this case, it looked like Marion got away with it!
So anyway, with a little initiative, Marion goes on a wife eliminating spree to insure that she's the only one left after hubby Raymond completes his sales and gambling circuit. The bit with Ray's bookie Bleeker (Robert Cornthwaite) didn't make a lot of sense to me, more like filler than anything else as the character served no other purpose. Somehow the chronology of the first murder, Bernice Brown (Jean Hale), didn't seem to work, since Raymond was shown with most recent wife Marion at home in Baltimore after the murder, and later arriving at the crime scene in Newark at least a day later, with the body of Bernice just being wheeled out at that time. Seems like those scenes should have been reversed. There's also an anomaly in the script with investigating Lieutenant Storber (Steve Gravers) stating that Bernice's death was a suicide, but later telling Raymond that his wife was 'killed' yesterday. Well, what was it?
Anyway, Marion keeps things interesting with her noncommittal behavior until the very end when her comments to Raymond sound more like hints that she knows what happened to the dead women. What's extraordinary was how Hitchcock handled things in his closing comments. He noted how Raymond eventually paid the price for his bigamy, but no mention of Marion being sent up for murder. That was out of synch with the program's usual pronouncement of punishment for the guilty party, since in this case, it looked like Marion got away with it!