I liked The Man On The Ledge the first time I saw it, then (go figure) inexplicably forgot the ending, which happens a lot with me, as I guess I like to forget endings to as to be surprised all over again. I do this a lot with the Hitchcock half-hours especially. Somehow, ironically, and I suppose paradoxically, I want to at least try to figure the thing out all over again.
Okay, enough about me. There were undercurrents in this episode, in Merrill's predicament, in the nature of the story, which were never wholly explored. If they were there, in some discreet manner, I didn't catch on. Such as: was Gary Merrill's character impotent? That's a big issue now and, needless to say, then; and given that he was old enough to be his wife's father, something worth pondering.
I don't recall so much of one line of dialogue as to suggest impotence, near verboten in Fifties prime time (such as "I guess I wasn't man enough for her", in reference to his cheating wife; or "she wanted more, more than I could give her"), which, as Merrill seemed like an upper middle class New Yorker, wouldn't be a reference to money but something else, as in "hint! hint!".
Okay, it was a bunch of things more likely rather than one, as it so often is. Best guess on my part: the marriage had been a good one for a while, yet Merrill really was getting seriously older, while boytoy Mark Richman was, in looks and manner, rather a several years younger Gary Merrill: attractive in a rugged way, virile, not violent or abusive.
Still, the ending makes the issue of death seem almost meaningless, as the three principal characters (one dead already) were dealing with death in ways that seem way over-dramatic. Why not a separation? Marriage counseling was quite the thing back sixty years ago. The Fifties in especially New York was a sophisticated time. There were so many better options than suicide. But in the Hitchcock series logic was secondary. Emotions got the upper hand.
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