The prodigious TV and film director Arthur Hiller was almost a fixture on the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series and this was one of his more light-hearted entries. Two old prospectors (William Demarest and Roscoe Ates at their cantankerous best) have been informed by the local sheriff (Ben Johnson in cowboy mode) that they stand to be evicted from their ramshackle hovel in the middle of the desert unless they can prove that they can cultivate something on their land. The good news is that there's a modern old-folks home awaiting them in town and they might even get a decent meal for a change. But the two old partners are resistant to change (they're happy with a steady diet of rabbit stew and a couple of filthy cots) and Johnson is forced to give them thirty days to comply or else. Luckily for the two old geezers, a murdering mobster (Mike Kellin) shows up that evening after his fancy car breaks down in the middle of the desert. After some small-talk, he pulls out his gun and demands that the two fellows either lend him an auto (which they don't have) or figure out a way to fix his car so he can get to Reno to commit more crimes. But Kellin is barking up the wrong tree because no sooner than they realize his threats are real the sooner they decide to turn the tables on him. You don't mess with old-timers like Demarest and Ates, and Kellin finds that out the hard way. When Sheriff Ben reappears a few weeks later to check up on his two charges, he is amazed to find that the old boys have now found a way to cultivate their land. Unbeknownst to him, Kellin's corpse has provided the right minerals to push up some daisies (or rather, roses) just when our two heroes needed them. The host provided the real laughs in this episode by dressing up like a cowboy and telling viewers he was riding into the sunset instead of giving them his usual send-off. You haven't seen anything until you've seen Alfred Hitchcock wearing a ten-gallon hat.
Review of And the Desert Shall Blossom
