Guns in America is one of those significant topics that remains repressed: instead of rational discussions and reasonable legislation, we have tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths annually and nothing done about it. In 1964 when this Kraft Suspense episode aired, the frequent mass killings, school massacres, and prevalence of automatic weaponry to facilitate these murders were still in the future.
After watching the show, I looked up the stats: America had 70 million guns in circulation in 1964, compared to over 400 million today. By comparison, our population was 187 million in 1964, now 335 million 60 years later. That means the population hasn't even doubled while guns in possession are up nearly 400%.
This screenplay by Robert Guy Barrows takes the issue into a melodramatic situation, way too contrived with stereotypes, hokey plot twists and a general lack of subtlety. I was 100% with the underlying message on the danger of gun fetichism and easy availability, but RGB did a disservice via poor storytelling.
The broad strokes here are simple, way too simple. Eddie Albert stars as a milquetoast dentist with wife and son living on an Air Force base. He's too timid to face up to a burglar who invades his home (looking for drugs), and is humiliated by his wife who grabs a rifle for him to defend them but Eddie won't take the chance, letting the burglar steal their car, too, and escape.
That sets in motion a beyond-farfetched story: kid becomes a gun fanatic, backed up by right-wing mom played by an unlikely actress for the role, Dina Merrill, who always sides with the kid. Scene after scene paints the teen as borderline psychotic, just right for her encouraging his hobby of marksmanship to "make him strong".
Saving grace of the hour is Isobel Jewell's fabulous histrionics as a crazy old lady who the son and his pal torment whenever the air base's jets stage incredibly noisy maneuvers, the youngsters pretending to be invading Martians to scare her. This builds to the show's climax when Eddie the mouse conveniently shows true bravery in time for a very phony happy ending. And another subplot of Eddie the birdwatcher crestfallen (and angry!) when his idiotic sun shoots a majestic prairie falcon is truly awful. I did enjoy Isobel's last line re: "Martians": "They should go back where they came from!", perhaps the all-time favorite motto of right-wing nutcases,
What if Sam Peckinpah had directed this story or at least a similar one with a far better script? He wouldn't have pulled any punches, and perhaps a Territorial Imperative theme like "Straw Dogs" would have emerged rather than this tepid episode. But as a drama, Sam would have been my choice, even if I didn't agree with him, because he was a true artist.
"Straw Dogs" was my second-favorite movie that I watched in 1971, right behind "Vanishing Point" -both action dramas conceived as philosophical parables. Fortunately, an impressionable me (age: 24) went out and bought a brand-new Dodge Challenger that year, not a rifle.