She misses, causing him to calmly respond:You""re losing your eye.You used to be able to pitch better than that.To entice her to stay as one of the paper""s few quality writers/reporters that has enough smarts to cover the Earl Williams case, he pretends that his only other writer capable of doing the job, Sweeney, is at the hospital tending to his wife having a baby: "Everything happens to me.He appeared to have only two favorite past-times: gardening and watching TV (that provided him with most of his knowledge about the world)." The case is considered sensitive because "Mr.Boz was a major contributor to the mayor""s campaign and Chairman of the Board of the Palace of Fine Arts.Friends had given me several addresses in Ramsdale where lodgings were available for the summer.In the host""s white-picket fenced home in Ramsdale, Humbert is escorted on a guided tour of the suburban house by a matronly-looking, boorish, wealthy widow Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters).(An uncredited James M.Cain wrote some of the script.)Director Jacques Tourneur, who collaborated with legendary producer Val Lewton, was well-known for his subtle horror films, includingCat People (1942)andI Walked With A Zombie (1943).