Slender episode, but shrewdly crafted. Snobbish theatre critic Fortune (Morse) purchases an old-time player piano that turns out to have revealing qualities. Seems people in his world are really two people, one they show to others and one they lock away, while the piano, it appears, turns the key.
I love that hellish shop where Fortune finds the infernal piano. It's full of lord-knows-what, maybe even Jimmy Hoffa. The repartee between the practiced theater cynic and the sour shopkeeper (Coolidge) is a model of sarcastic thrust and parry. And catch the slim-fast runaway Marge. It's Muriel Landers as the wonderfully over-weight party guest showing why you don't have to be slim and trim to be amazingly graceful. Then too, Morse is perfectly cast as the dislikable snob, just a couple years before hounding poor David Janssen in the ever popular The Fugitive (1963-67). Add the 110-year old Delevanti plus the lovely but star- crossed Joan Hackett, and it's an unusually compelling cast.
All in all, the characters make the show. So don't look for fancy special effects or much action. And, take my advice, whatever you do, stay out of antique stores.
I love that hellish shop where Fortune finds the infernal piano. It's full of lord-knows-what, maybe even Jimmy Hoffa. The repartee between the practiced theater cynic and the sour shopkeeper (Coolidge) is a model of sarcastic thrust and parry. And catch the slim-fast runaway Marge. It's Muriel Landers as the wonderfully over-weight party guest showing why you don't have to be slim and trim to be amazingly graceful. Then too, Morse is perfectly cast as the dislikable snob, just a couple years before hounding poor David Janssen in the ever popular The Fugitive (1963-67). Add the 110-year old Delevanti plus the lovely but star- crossed Joan Hackett, and it's an unusually compelling cast.
All in all, the characters make the show. So don't look for fancy special effects or much action. And, take my advice, whatever you do, stay out of antique stores.
