Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Spotted: Albert Salmi

On "Dallas," he was Gil Thurmond, the slimy refinery owner who put the moves on both Sue Ellen Ewing and Afton Cooper while he was pitching deals to their men, J.R. Ewing and Cliff Barnes. A couple decades before that, though, Albert Salmi was equally slimy in a keen role on the black-and-white "Alfred Hitchcock Hour."

In the episode "I'll Be the Judge, I'll Be the Jury," Salmi is certainly shifty, too. He not only tried to run over a young couple with his car in Mexico, but he's also suspected of later killing the woman. A young, solid and dashing Peter Graves is his adversary in this tense tale, playing the husband of the young woman and the man who must attempt to gain Salmi's trust and get him to confess to the crime in this wayward place south of the border. The bespeckled, nervous Salmi effectively becomes a cornered animal. But then Graves comes up missing, and two of his friends then take it upon themselves to try to sting Salmi.

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