As part of the THE GISH SISTERS BLOGATHON hosted by Movies Silently & The Motion Pictures

Although Lillian Gish set the standard for excellence when she first started out in silent film having been discovered by D W Griffith in 1912, I’ll always love her as the resolute Rachel Cooper in Charles Laughton’s masterpiece Night of the Hunter 1955

Not to mention her memorable performances as Mother Mary of Mercy in Portrait of Jennie 1948 and Laura Belle McCanles in Duel in the Sun 1946, & Victoria Inch in The Cobweb 1955. I’d love to see the 1969 television version where she plays Martha Brewster in Arsenic and Old Lace where she co-stars with Helen Hayes.

In Body in the Barn, Lillian Gish brings her manifest greatness to bare as Bessie Carnby a strong willed old lady who refuses to be coddled toward death, is a centerpiece of the community and loves the Apple Jack she hides under her pillow. When she butts heads with new neighbor Samantha Wilkins the sparks fly and Gish gives one hell of a performance!

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

Body in the Barn (3 Jul. 1964)

Season 2, Episode 32

Directed by Joseph Newman with a teleplay by Harold Swanton from a story by Margaret Manners.

Wonderful set direction by Julia Heron and John McCarthy Jr and cinematography by William Margulies.

Lillian Gish plays Bessie Carnby an intractable grand old lady who refuses to hold her tongue when the pretentious Samantha Wilkins (Patricia Cutts) and her ‘saggy kneed’ husband Henry (Peter Lind Hayes) move to the county and put up a fence.

Maggie McNamara is Bessie’s niece Camilla Peter, Kent Smith (Cat People) as Dr Adamson, Josie Lloyd (Lydia Crosswaithe The Andy Griffith Show and daughter to Norman Lloyd) is The Wilkins’ housekeeper Nora, James Maloney is Ed the storekeeper Doodles Weaver as Gregg, Bruce Andersen as Huckaby Richard Niles as the Deputy and Kelly Thordsen as Sheriff Pate O. Turnbull.

What makes this simple genteel mystery story set in a bucolic quaint American town work so well is Lillian Gish’s fortitude that brings a stunning exactness to her performance as a stubborn and proudful woman whose fierce independence won’t let the truth be denied its due.

In the opening prologue, Hitch as one of his various props is dressed up like a scarecrow. It was suggested that since he’s been frightening people for years ‘why not birds’.

It’s one of his funniest little introductions as he tells us about the evening’s story all Tuxedoed, stuffed with straw…and typically cheeky.

He had a number of visitors “One little girl and a tin woodsman who are quite bothersome. They seem to be under the absurd impression that I’m going to be up the road dancing with them…”

The story as Hitch suggests is one which inhabits a ‘Bucolic Mood.’ A pleasant little tale of homicide, lust, deceit revenge, and greed. A story that works its way backward in order to bring us up to the present day, using the lead character Bessie Carnby’s narration to tell us how things came to be the way they are. The episode has a bit of the voyeurism of Rear Window 1954 in it.

Lillian Gish brings to life Bessie Carnby, a staunchly proud woman, fearless and pragmatic. She’s an irascible old gal who’s been fending off death for years, can stand on her own two feet, and doesn’t like the idea that Samantha Wilkins, a harpy who owns a prosperous farm in the county has put up a fence along the community path.

Samantha’s veins are filled with ice as she bosses her husband Henry around and doesn’t care about being a good neighbor. After Effram Judge, Bessie’s handyman falls off the cliff into the white water rapids below though the body is never found, the vitriol and venom flow between these two women who have no need to parse words. Bessie blames The Wilkins fence for Effram’s accident. Samantha Wilkins shows no sympathy or concern for the poor man’s death or what the community thinks about her fence. It’s on her property and that’s that.

Bessie lives with her niece Camilla and is seen by Doc Sam Adamson. The unassuming Henry Wilkins befriends Bessie and Camilla and gets himself invited to dinner. But when he doesn’t show up, Bessie becomes suspicious that the virulent Samantha might have killed her husband and buried him in the barn.

Bessie has been listening to Camilla who shares Henry’s private confidences that his wife once attempted to murder him and he fears she will try again. After months with no letters or postcards or calls, Samantha refuses to tell anyone where her husband might be, Bessie and Camilla are convinced that something foul is afoot after Bessie spies on Samantha with binoculars watching the woman go back and forth to the barn with flashlight and shovel.

Gossip and nosiness go with any small community, but once Bessie sneaks into the barn to snoop around she discovers a grave and now Sheriff Turnbull and the town discover a quick-lime cadaver clutching one of Samantha’s buttons and wearing Henry’s wedding band. The body is thus identified as that of Henry Wilkins.

All eyes are on Samantha now as she is the number one suspect in her husband’s murder.

I don’t want to give away the ending to the story so I’ll leave you in the barn with the quick-lime stiff.

Body in the Barn opens with moving men unloading the Carnby’s farmhouse antiques into a large truck. Bernard Herrman’s musical imprint pokes through the bucolic mood with clarinets and strings paying homage to nature and the simple life.

A dealer Mr. Huckaby (Bruce Andersen) is walking around appraising and cataloging all the contents of the house. The sundry knickknackery and antiques like milk glass, etc. Huckaby’s clerk (Charles Kuenstle) drops a milk glass vase as he fumbles with his clipboard.

When Huckaby inquires what it was, he assures the clerk that it was only a replica and to forget it. But the camera pans downward to show shreds of packing paper amidst the shattered shards of milk glass on the floor, and one rolled-up handwritten note sitting in the middle of the confetti debris.

Composer Herrmann’s wondrous musical swirls assist the lens in closing in on the note that was hidden within the small vase. Thus begins the voiceover… as Bessie narrates the evening’s story.

“By the time this is found, it’ll be all over. Justice would have had its day. The scales will be in balance again. {the scene begins to cross fade}
It will be all over with me too. I’m ill and tired and I’ve been dying so long I’m bored with it… I’d lived in the county a long time. This is my home. These are my people. Now they’ve turned against me. But still I owe them something. I owe it to them to set history straight. To bring to the light of day the two lies that together make a truth.”

We are dropped into a landscape of vast open fields. Lillian Gish as Bessie Carnby and our narrator is running frenzied in a nightgown and robe as if carried by the wind.

Aunt Bessie runs feverishly to the seaside cliff. She is met by her niece Camilla. “Aunt Bessie you turn right around and go on back home.” Bessie says, “Not on your life,” Bessie asks her niece, ‘Who was it? Who fell off that cliff last night? “ “There is nothing you can do about it right now go on back to the house” ” Was it Effram?” She looks at her aunt direly. Bessie begs her “Tell me, tell me” “They think so… they haven’t found him yet.”

Bessie takes in a deep breath.

Camilla runs after her fiery Aunt. The sheriff asks the Wilkins, “What time did you hear him yell?”

“A little past 8 I’d say” Henry answers,  “Before 8” he looks at her. “Samantha I was in the barn by 8” She insists in her rigid tone, “He yelled before that” Henry replies, “I could have sworn” “About 10 to, I was in the kitchen and I heard it from the opened window”

Bessie, out of breath comes running up the hill and asks the sheriff, if they’ve found the body. He points to the raging waters below and tells her that if he fell into that, he probably won’t be found by this side of Tightwater.

Sheriff Turnbull says, “He had no business walking this path, dark coming on with his eyes as bad as they were Bessie.” She defends such a notion, “He wasn’t used to this path!”

Samantha Wilkins snaps, “He could have taken the road.” “A mile and a half out of his way” Bessie croaks out a passionate condemnation at the cold-hearted woman.

The sheriff asks “Is this a piece of his MacInall?”

“He was wearing it when he left” Bessie begins to cry.

Sheriff Turnbull figures, “Well he probably got it caught in the fence here and tried to get it loose and  got careless with his footing.”

“My fence belongs on my property line. That’s where I put it and that’s where it’ll stay… If it fenced off a short cuts that’s too bad it’s legal and proper… make of it what you will but don’t try to put the death of Ef Judge on my conscience.” –Samantha Wilkins

The banter between Lillian Gish and Patricia Cutts is a wonderful piece of dramatic interplay.

Lillian Gish’s performance here is spectacular as she modulates her voice from an inner strength that springs forth from lifelong wisdom to a tone of righteous indignation.

The two women frame a powerful exposition of the old vs the modern vs the sacred traditionalism of small-town ethics and suggest to us a commentary on class struggle. The modern world has intruded on the old quaint ways of a simpler time. With the wealthy and almost demonic Samantha, entitled and encroaching on the quaint ways of an old-fashioned woman and the world she used to inherit. Causing one man’s death and alienating an entire community. Before the Wilkins came and put up the fence, life was simple. Bessie spells it out in her tirade perfectly.

Samantha starts to attack Bessie, “Since when…” but her husband Henry breaks in as if to plead with his wife to show some compassion, “Samantha…”

Sheriff Turnbull finally breaks up the quarrel, “Now there’s no point hashing this thing over now.”

Suddenly Bessie appears to have an attack. She collapses and Sheriff Turnbull catches her.

Henry Wilkins picks her up and tells her he’s taking her home. She’s gasping for air and out of breath but she tells him to put her down. Camilla calls out “Aunt Bessie…” In a rasping voice, she tells him “I’ll get there on my own two legs.”

The sheriff tells Bessie that if the doc knew what she was up to he’d have her hide.

Henry begins to carry her. She continues to argue with the exhausted breath she’s got left.

Crossfade- Camilla is in the kitchen. Henry Wilkins has brought some kindling wood. “Sure she won’t throw me out?” Camilla tells him Aunt Bessie didn’t mean it, it’s merely her way.

Henry walks toward the stairs carrying the box of firewood. He stares upward and pauses.

Bessie is laying in bed with a thermometer in her mouth. Henry enters the room and casually begins talking to Bessie as if they were old friends.

“You know this is the first time I’ve been inside of this house,” Henry tells Bessie.

Bessie snaps quickly, “It’s no fault of mine.”

Henry smiles “You can’t be as bad as you sound.”

Bessie tells Henry solemnly, “I was very fond of Effram Judge.”

Henry’s face turns serious as Bessie continues, “He worked for me for over twenty years.”

“I’m awfully sorry about that. I want you to know that the fence on the property was none of my doing… Samantha put her mind to it and I just couldn’t change it… If Samantha wants a fence on the property line we put a fence on the property line.” Spoken like a man whose spirit has been broken.

Bessie injects some wit into her dig, “That’s what I meant by saggy knees.”

Henry agrees, “I suppose you have a point.”

Camilla comes into the room and tells them Doc Adamson’s pulled up. Henry assures her that he thinks Bessie is really feeling better and that he’ll be going.

Camilla tells Henry she’s made some tea. Bessie tells her “If a man wants to go there’s no point in holding him.”

Doc enters the room. (Kent Smith)

Camilla tells Bessie that there’s no need to be rude and Doc says “Comes easily doesn’t it Bessie?”

Camilla pours the tea, Henry asks what was all that about Apple Jack?

“She’s very fond of it and he won’t let her have a drop.”

Henry raises his teacup in a toast to Bessie. Camilla tells Henry that it’s kind of him and that Bessie is very old and very tired.

A flirtation begins as Henry stares at her in a way that portrays him as less weak-kneed now and more precise in his demeanor “You make a very good cup of tea.” This is a double entendre as his flirtation indicates that she is actually a woman capable of pleasing him.

It’s a subtle moment when we realize a relationship is brewing like tea, between the two. The scene fades out.

A flame is dancing in the fireplace.

As the camera shifts to the right we see that we’re in the Wilkins living room. Henry is lying on the couch smoking a cigarette. We hear Samantha’s voice.

“The doings out at Bessie Carnby’s farm the other day moved us to re-read what we always thought was one of Robert Frost’s best poems…’Something there is… that doesn’t love a wall.”

Samantha continues to read the local newspaper, then scoffs  “And we ask poor old Effram Judge if he were still around would agree.”

The housekeeper Nora comes into the room, having finished the ironing.

Samantha continues reading “Henry and Samantha Wilkins who lives up in High Hollow Farm like the neighbor in the poem, want every stone in place… Good fences make good neighbors they said but only if the poet would ask who are they walling in or walling out?… The fence we claim will never make good neighbors of the Wilkins Ef Judge who fell off the cliff into whitewater rapids because of the fence will probably never be found. And all we can do is hope that if ever a monument is realized to him, he has the good taste to include Frost’s opening line- ‘Something there is, that doesn’t love a wall.”

Samantha stops her reading sets the paper on her lap and comments “Ha… seems we’ve not only taken on all of East Huntsville and the rest of the county we have to take on Robert Frost as well.”

“Henry I want you to go into town tomorrow and see this editor. This is a vicious personal attack and he’s got to be made to understand that…”

Samantha notices Henry’s daydreaming. She gets up and like a harpy tells him that she’s talking to him demanding he pays attention, but he stares out into space as she hovers.

“You know something, Henry Wilkins. Sometimes I wish it had been you had fallen off that cliff. If I’d been there I mighta given you a push.”

Henry remains in contemplation for a while until the scene fades into Henry fixing Bessie’s kitchen door. Bessie is sitting up in a rocking chair, a plate of apples on the table. There’s a quaint soundtrack of a pleasant day accompanying the scene.

“Mr. Wilkins thank you,” Bessie tells him that she’s not good at apologies. Henry tells her that he’s going to stop by from time to time to check in on her until she gets a new hired hand. She asks him to have supper with them.

He says he has to check with Samantha. She asks who wears the pants in the family and he jokes about her putting his saggy knees to the test.

Bessie tells him that it’s a formal invitation and Henry tells her that he’ll talk it over with Samantha and that if he’s still alive by supper time he’ll be there.

Later on…

Samantha comes out yelling that suppers getting cold. He tells her that he forgot the Carnbys had invited them over. She asks why?

“Just being hospitable I suppose,” Samantha tells him, “Well we aren’t going” “Why?” “Because I said so.”

“Well, I’m going and you’d better go back into the house” Samantha again defies Henry, “You are not going… is that clear.”

The scene fades- we see Camilla setting a formal table.

We hear Bessie call her from upstairs. “Camilla come here.”

Bessie is sitting at her window with a set of binoculars spying on the Wilkins Farm.

“There she goes again. She’s been out to the barn three times carrying a lantern. What do you suppose she’s up to?”

“Aunt Bessie you did an inexcusable thing daring him to come along.” Bessie answers Camilla, “Don’t fret about it… I don’t.”

“No matter what the provocation no matter what happened out there at the fence, you had no right to insult her.” Camilla reproaches her aunt.

“I don’t care if I did.” Bessie is stubborn as usual.

“You are old enough to know better and your big enough to bury your feelings for one evening.” Bessie ignores Camilla’s lecture still clinging to the binoculars set on the Wilkins barn.

Camilla says, “Come on we’re going up there to invite Samantha Wilkins in person” Bessie insists, “Oh I will not” “Aunt Bessie please… now don’t make me go up there alone.”

“Ohhh, the man has no gumption.”

Bessie hurries to the coat closet banging her cane, “He’ll stand up to her.”

Camilla tells Bessie how he’s in a trap and that Samantha owns everything. The farm, the furnishings, the car and she never lets him forget it.

Bessie says, “Well he could leave her.”

“He did once…She tried to kill him.”

“What?”

“With a pistol. She missed it and then turned it on herself. He still has nightmares about it. He is deathly afraid of her.”

“That she’ll kill him?”

“That’s why I don’t want to antagonize her, I’d feel responsible if anything happened.”

Bernard Herrmann’s wonderful score is half-filled with delightful irony and mystery as the strings cry out in the dark country air.

Camilla and Bessie pull up in their car at the Wilkins Farm.

Herrmann’s score becomes that bewildered cyclone of strings strokes the battle cry of mystery and danger.

Doc Sam checks under the pillow case as he walks out and finds the Apple Jack he lets the pillow back over it. and gives her a glance. Her fingers are knotted as she looks back at him pondering…

Bessie looks out her bedroom window at the Wilkins Farm.

The scene switches to the kitchen and a table set with afternoon tea. Bessie asks Nora the Wilkin’s Maid if she takes cream. Camilla sits across the priggish Nora.

They are asking her to come to work for them part-time, yet this is a ploy to pump her for information about her employer Henry.

“Well, I don’t know how Mrs. Wilkins will feel about that.”

Camilla says “There can’t be very much for you to do now since Mr. Wilkins left. Bessie chimes in “He’ll be gone a long time they say” Nora asks “Who says?”

Josie Lloyd is so wonderful at playing prim and tense. As the neurotic Lydia Crosswaithe on The Andy Griffith Show, she demonstrates how she is not easily pleased yet quickly vexed by chit-chat, guitars, car rides, the sun, and just about anything fun.

Bessie says, “I just happened to hear it uptown” Nora reiterates Bessie’s question with a question “A long time?” Bessie clarifies, “Well after all you should know Nora you do the upstairs don’t you?”

“Yes Ma’am”

“Well, you’d know if he packed for a long trip or a short one.”

Nora answers, “Well that’s just the point… he didn’t pack at all… no suits no clothes not even so much as a toothbrush.”

Bessie and Camilla murmur, “Well well, indeed…” Nora finishes “It’s the lord’s truth not even so much as his toothbrush.”

Bessie presses on, “Doesn’t that seem strange to you?… that he’d go off in the dead of night without packing a stitch?”

Nora answers, “Well it’s a strange house.”

Bessie says, “I mean suspicious” Nora is naive, “Of what?” Bessie, “That she killed him!”

“Killed him… good heavens no. Well she may jump on him now and then but she wouldn’t do a thing like that…. that’s illegal” Nora takes the tea to her mouth- Josie Lloyd really does a really good job of playing uptight, straight, and drab as a cinder block.

Nora’s presence injects a bit of humor into the otherwise gruesome aspect that Henry might have been murdered and buried in the barn. And it’s a great way to end the scene as it cross-fades.

Sheriff Turnbull pours Bessie a drink, “There’s no law that says a man can’t leave town with or without a toothbrush”

Turnbull hands the drink to Bessie. Camila turns it down. Sheriff Turnbull says,  “If I wasn’t on duty I’d join you. You know I think old Doc Adams is doing himself a mistake denying you that good belt of Apple Jack. Two or three times a day you wouldn’t be so darn mean”  Bessie slams the glass down.

Camilla takes the glass of whiskey from Bessie and tells her that she thinks his body is going to turn up closer to home she adds,  “I still wonder what Samantha was doing in the barn.”

Camilla and Bessie show up at the Wilkins Farm, Bessie holding a jar of preserves, “Peace offering” Samantha says, “I don’t know that I should.” Bessie tells her, “Go on take it whatever else I am Mrs. Wilkins I’m not sneaky… I don’t like doing things behind a person’s back. I was upset when your husband didn’t come for supper two weeks ago, I was puzzled when he didn’t come by to explain. But now a fortnight later and no word from him I must say I am concerned.”

“A phone call, a telegram? A letter?”

“Mrs. Carnby I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me.”

Tempers flair, as Bessie shows her true ire and tells Samantha, “He didn’t fly off this property” Samantha tells Bessie to fly off before she calls the sheriff and hands Bessie back the jar of preserves.

Outside later that night with her flashlight and cane, Bessie goes to do some investigation of the barn.

Herrmann’s score pulsates with low strings and oboe flourishes.

The gray night suddenly turns this sleepy soap opera about small-town gossip and feuding neighbors into a Gothic fairy tale. There are also elements of a classic horror tale. The crickets decry it’s late at night and an eerie solitude abounds as the camera focuses on a window.

A dog starts to bark. Samantha calls out to the dog Penny to quiet down.

Bessie sneaks into the barn with her flashlight and begins looking around.

Once again, Herrmann’s score pulses with lower tones and swells of strings as the flashlight examines the straw-laden barn floor. The strings ask questions too.

Bessie starts poking the ground with her cane, moving a bucket. She feels a spot where the ground is soft.

Next scene there are crowds of neighbors and police flooding the Wilkins’ barn.

Men are digging and Bessie asks “How long has he been dead?” She asks Doc Sam who says he can’t tell because quick-lime was used. As photographers snap pictures of the dug-up grave Samantha says “It’s not Henry it can’t be.” Sheriff Turnbull tells her that she did buy quick-lime in town just before Henry took off.

It’s a button that’s been replaced on the vest Samantha is wearing.

We leave you off now with Alfred at the intermission and the Body in the Barn…

I love this episode’s quaint atmosphere that guards an unsettling story of greed, duplicity, and murder, in particular because of the presence of the great Lillian Gish. It’s wonderful to get to talk a little bit about this entry in The Alfred Hitchcock Hour canon for The Lillian Gish Blogathon…

Yours Truly-MonsterGirl