Wally the Beard
The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

Impeccable logic, impeccably acted and directed. A computer technician loves a card-puncher, she breaks their engagement all at once, his balding head and glasses make him “too plain,” he’s “a square peg in a square hole.”

A wig and beard and new name do the trick, “you must be famous,” says a new girl, “you look famous.” He buys a yacht to be her yachtsman, her boyfriend knows his secret, makes him harbor stolen goods or else “the tug of the beard.”

When the police investigate his disappearance, he unveils to them. The satchel in the water is her husband.

But observe the one small detail that determines the action. He tells the first girl he will find a rich one and walks off, a man turns back to look at him as he goes by.

Brown’s pictures at the foggy marina are terrific. “You always run around in phony beards like that?”

“No. Sometimes, just for fun.”

“No comment, you get what I mean? No comment.”