Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Cop for a Day (1961) User Reviews

The perils of being a hothead

[talonjensen · 8/10 · 27 April 2018]

The perils of being the hothead and the perils of partnering with a hothead.

Nicely done, decent writing and acting. Of course the episode benefited from Walter Matthau and his wife being good, experienced actors. The surprise twist at the end was quick and to the point, one of those rare ones I didn't see coming because I made a different assumption which proved wrong in about half a second. Make sure you don't miss Hitchcock's ending dialogue.

Here be SPOILERS

[Leopardman4 · 9/10 · 7 September 2017]

Many of us Hitchcock-lovers enjoy post-mortems where we pick apart the stories, particularly when we find plot-holes - and we often do. The action of a story carries us right past an illogicality, so that we fail to notice it until we go back for a 2nd look.

After enjoying Matthau's performance, I noticed that the rationale for rubbing out the female witness would be doubly applicable to the 2 cops guarding the witness. They both get a better look at the killer than the woman may have done.

No problem, Hitch: it gave me the extra pleasure of feeling like a schmotty!

Cold Blooded

[Hitchcoc · 9/10 · 1 June 2021]

When you have two crooks, and one of them is psychotic, there are troubles ahead. After a holdup, one of two men kills the guy in cold blood and is observed by a female witness. They impersonate cops and go about covering up things and plan to kill the witness. If there is a theme here, it would be that when two people are involved, there are no secrets.

His just desserts.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 3 January 2022]

In "Cop for a Day", Walter Matthau and Glenn Cannon play two thieves, Phil and Davey. Phil is older and clear headed...whereas Davey is young, impulsive and rather foolish. You see thus during the robbery, when Davey shoots the courier even thought there is no need...they got the money. Unfortunately, there was a witness...and although Phil is a much more professional crook, he realizes it would be prudent to get rid of the witness. But she's being guarded by the police...and so he decides to pretend to be one of them. This works perfectly....until it doesn't! See the show and you'll see what I mean.

This is one of four appearances by Matthau on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and it's exceptional. Well written, very well acted and, above all, ironic and with a nice twist.

The Loose Cannon

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 10 February 2013]

***SPOILERS*** It's the cool and calculated hoodlum Phil's,Walter Mathau, misfortune to hook himself up in a Mutt & Jeff stick up team with the fast on the trigger and slow in the brain Davey played by a Joe Pesci like, before anyone ever heard of him, Glenn Cannon: Thus my title for the episode. It's the shoot first and think later Davey who really got the two in hot water. That after robbing a bank messenger, Tom Begley, of $18,000.00 the hot headed and slow thinking Davey shot the guy in cold blood killing him. With a woman witnessing the murder, who's played by Walter Matthau's real life wife at the time Carol Grace, the two if caught and identified by her as the bank messenger's murderers may well end up in Sing Sing's electric chair.

With Phil & Davey holed up from the police in a flea bag hotel room Phil while going out to buy sandwiches and beer reads in the local newspaper that the messenger died of his wounds and that there's an eye witness to the killing! It's then that the the cagey Phil dreams up a plan that can solve both his and Davey's very pressing problems. Impersonate a cop and get to the eye witnesses', who's under 24 hour around the clock police protection, apartment and make sure by murdering her that she'll never live to testify against them.

***SPOILERS*** As cool as a cucumber Phil disguised as a cop talks his way, fooling the cops guarding her, into the eye witnesses apartment and with her thinking he's a cop guarding her she lets her guard down. After some harmless and friendly chit chat Phil coolly and cold blooded pulls out his police service revolver and murders the woman using a pillow as a silencer. Going back to his and Davey's hotel room Phil soon realizes the mistake that he made. Not in murdering the eye whiteness who's testimony can land him in the hot seat but in keeping his plan from his very unstable and paranoid partner in crime Davey!

"If you have any ideas, watch the trigger finger."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 3 March 2022]

Maybe Phil (Walter Matthau) wasn't such a smart crook after all. Why would you shoot an eye witness to a robbery, only to have spoken to two cops earlier, and long enough to be identified later. Especially when they were assigned to protect the woman who was the eye witness in the first place. That didn't make sense, and consequently, proved to be Phil's undoing, since he entered the apartment that he and accomplice Davey (Glenn Cannon) were holed up in, still wearing the cop uniform he bought from an old pal. Trigger happy Davey, whose motto must have been 'shoot first, ask questions later', did the expected thing and shot his partner in the back before he could even identify him.

But you know what the really shocking thing about this episode was? Two corned beef on rye sandwiches and two beers for a dollar and sixty cents!

Good for Walter Matthau fans, not much else

[stevenfallonnyc77 · 3/10 · 13 November 2021]

Phil (Walter Matthau) and his trigger-happy partner in crime Davey rob $18k, during which Davey kills a bank messenger. A woman is a witness (able to ID Davey but not Phil), and she has police protection outside her building. Phil comes up with a plan to dress as a cop, get into her apartment, and kill her.

Since the main concern was eliminating a witness, this really doesn't make much sense, because Phil has to schmooze his way into her apartment by chatting it up with two real cops first. There's no doubt that the killer would be Phil, the fake cop, and the two real cops can very easily ID him.

The ending was yet another ending that can be seen a mile away. You gotta figure, Phil seems like he has some brains, why didn't he tell Phil, who again, is trigger-happy, that he'd be returning dressed as a cop? That makes no sense as well.

With all those holes this really doesn't make for a good episode, but again it's good for a single viewing if you like Walter Matthau.

A very interesting scheme

[searchanddestroy-1 · 10 June 2009]

I found this episode yesterday, among the thousands of ones I have in my library. I loved it. Because of the topic, simple but efficient, but also thanks of the Walter Matthau character, very unpredictable, surprising at the most.

Two hoods - Matthau and an accomplice - pull a petty robbery in the street; they steal a big wallet full of money and carried by a bank employee. They shot him. And afterwards, they discover through the headlines that the poor bank employee is dead. So, they decide to do something about it. Especially Matthau who intend to find the witness and eliminate him. Or, may I say, her. He goes to a shop, where a guy he knows - a sort of hood too - sells him a police uniform. And then , impersonating a street cop, Matthau goes to the witness apartment, just in front of the place where the robbery was pulled, and where two real cops are already standing to protect the witness. Matthau tells them that he has to investigate about the heist and ask some questions to the girl who saw the the bank employee murder. The two cops let Matthau get into the flat and our character begins to be polite with the young woman, who believes that he his a real cop. And two minutes later, Matthau shows his real state. The girl is frightened and tries to escape. But Matthau kills her with his gun. In cold blood. AND THAT'S EXQUISITE. Matthau with his good face, NOT A GANGSTER ONE - as could have been Lee Marvin's or Lee Van Cleef's one - playing here a cold blooded killer; and not a sadistic one, that should have been not credible at all, but a man who has to kill to protect himself against a poor woman who could testify against him. He kills her with no expression on his face, as easily as if he had to close a door because the place he stands in is cold...

I LOVED THIS SEQUENCE. And, I repeat, because it was Matthau. If it was Jack Lemon or Clint Eastwood, I would have told the same. But not Jack Elam or Neville brand.

Know what I mean?

I won't tell you more about this episode. Especially the ending...

It's very interesting too. And you can guess it. A gangster impersonating a cop, in the AH PRESENTS manner, with always very ironical results, you can guess it.

Unbelievably sloppy

[silversurfersgp · 2/10 · 13 June 2021]

A Henry Slesar story on Alfred Hitchcock Presents is usually a good one but the huge gaping plothole in this one is so jarring, it's just annoying. It's a pity, as the two crooks played by Matthau and Cannon are pretty good.

There is a witness to the robbery-murder by the pair of a bank messenger who was fatally shot by the young, reckless, hot-tempered and hotheaded Davey. So his partner, veteran ex-con Phil, buys a police uniform complete with genuine badge from a criminal associate and talks his way past the two young and naive cops, and the hapless witness they are guarding (who doesn't even get a character name), and shoots her dead. He talks to the two cops again on his way out and is home free until the final twist, which is also predictable if the viewer has been paying attention.

However, and it is inexplicable how no one in the entire experienced production spotted it, Phil kills the woman who may identify his partner, but he also has to talk at length and up close to the two cops to bluff his way in and out. He doesn't even have on a disguise or don a fake mustache. One was then expecting Phil to waste the cops on his way out since they can definitely finger him, but no, he doesn't.