***MAJOR SPOILERS*** Clever "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode of how a mob boss determines who's to work for him as a hit-man by testing his both loyalty as well as common sense. Art, Robert Vaughn, has worked his way up in mob boss Baberosa's, David White, organization where he's now slated for the big time in doing in one of Baberosa's top mob competitors bootlegger Moran,Walter Matthau,a former partner of his. Given by Babersoa an untraceable handgun and envelope containing $10,000.00 as bait and instructions where to find Moran, in an upstate winery, Art is more then confident that he can get the job done.
It's when Art gets to the winery where Moran is hold up it's him not the cagey Moran who's the one facing extinction. Moran knows what he's there for and is ready for Art with a .45 pointed at his skull. But instead of blowing him away he gives Art a chance to join him and his boys, or hoodlums, by going back to his boss Baberosa and icing him instead! Having no choice in the matter Art, whom Moran doesn't seem to know is armed, goes along with Moran's plan. What convinced Art that his boss Babarosa wasn't on the up and up is that the 10 G's he gave him to give Moran wasn't part of the payment to knock Moran off! In fact he wasn't being paid at all to do the hit-job on him.
***SPOILERS*** In the end we get see what a naive and stupid jerk Art really was. He never for once realized that not only was Moran on to him from the start but that somehow he was set up in advance to see if in fact he'll go through with his job of knocking off the guy. Even with Moran pointing a gun at his head he gave Art, by going back and forth getting himself a glass of wine and getting drunk, all the opportunity to kill him but he didn't! In fact Art was more then ready to double-cross or hit his boss Babersoa for the measly 10 G's that Moran offered him then in him becoming a top hit-man in his organization! That would have paid Art a hundred times as much! And what Art totally overlooked until it was too late was that it wasn't Moran who was to be whacked but himself if he didn't follow his bosses Babaroas's instructions down to the last crossing of the "T" and dotting of the "I". And in the end Art ended up getting X-ed, like in the 1932 crime classic "Scarface", instead!