Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Kiss-Off (1955–1962) Online

****SPOILERS**** Just released from prison after serving a six year sentence for knocking off a gas station ex-convict Earnie Walters, Rip Torn, goes straight to the nearest state tax office and, using a gun, robs the place of $12,000.00! That's armed robbery which can land Walters behind bars if caught for 10 to 15 years! At first you think that this guy Walters planned the robbery well in advance but incredibly he leaves his hotel key at the office that in turn leads the cops straight to his door!

You start to wonder if the six years behind bars somehow damaged Walter's brain and sense of reason but soon you realize that what he's doing isn't stupid at all. It's a well planned strategy to right the wrongs done to him by the local D.A, Kenneth Patterson, and detective Cooper, Burt Freed, who put him behind bars six years ago! Walters in fact did everything that he could to get himself arrested but that's not all. He did everything he could possible do to make sure that the evidence, if there is any, of his robbing the state tax office won't be able to stand up in a court of law!

***SPOILER*** Brooding over the injustice done to him six years ago a vengeful and filled with righteous indignation Earnie Walters had planned this robbery for years and pulled it off with absolute perfection. He not only got compensated, the $12,000.00 he stole, in the pain and suffering that he was put through by a faulty justice system but made complete fools of those, D.A Patterson & detective Cooper, who put him through it!

An interesting, character-driven and quite well done episode in which, to get back at the Police for a six-year prison sentence over a false accusation, Rip Torn commits a bank robbery under heavy disguise but taking care to leave behind the incriminating key to his own hotel-room! Of course, he is immediately picked up for questioning (which pleases his old nemesis Bert Freed no end) but, though the three eye-witnesses of the theft acknowledge a comparable stature between Torn and the aggressor, they cannot bring themselves to point the finger of suspicion at him! When the cop threatens to indict him regardless, Torn dares him to do so, since he knows full well the evidence will not stick (especially in the face of the earlier miscarriage of justice he had sustained)…

The changes in Rip Torn over the years make him almost unrecognizable in this appearance from fifty-six years ago. And it's not how slim he is here. Or his face. His voice is so much different. That's what really threw me. We've seen a lot of stars who thanks to re-runs age from youth to retirement right before our eyes. This was a well-written caper story with a big twist. A conviction crazy cop got Ernie with a bum rap years before. Ernie wants to get some payback. Will he be able too? Without going back to prison.