The Way Up to Heaven

One of my favorites I saw as a kid (parents were big Hitchcock fans & didn't mind my being spooked): Sebastian Cabot is grumpy Mr. Foster, who doesn't share missus's (wonderfully ditsy Marion Lorne) enthusiasm for travel.

Prolonging departure on a cruise, the Mister charges back into the fancy apartment building (which, evidently, is occupied solely by the Fosters: to prep for the cruise, they've sent their staff away), only to get stuck in the elevator. Mrs. Foster discovers this; chooses to depart without the old man.

She returns some weeks later to find ... well, grumpy Mr. Foster's grumpy no more, & Mrs. contemplates another trip.

Small correction to the previous review: Mrs. Foster is not leaving on a cruise, but flying from Adelaide (Kennedy) airport to Paris, to see her newborn grandson.

I caught this show on Jordanian TV in the seventies & loved every minute. It's an astonishingly good teleplay - better than the British remake ("Tales of the unexpected"), better even than the original short story by Roald Dahl.

In the original, Mrs. Foster knows exactly what she is doing, but in this adaptation she's an innocent. Some would dismiss this change as typical American sugarcoating, but IMHO it works very well.

To the viewers' growing horror, they're shown in great detail the psychological torture her husband puts her through. When he says "Oh, now the elevator's stuck!" she snaps - she's sure it's yet another delaying tactic. For her it's the final straw and she leaves for the airport without him.

Her return home is a moment of discovery for both her and the audience.

It would be great if some enterprising reader with access to this episode puts it on YouTube.