The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

For Alfred Hitchcock's centennial, Encore has been showing old reruns of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour tv show. I really have been enjoying them. Especially seeing Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield, who co-starred together in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, to team up again! I have only seen 4 but I am begging for more.:-)

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour has generated two schools of thought. Some think the longer format allows for more character development while others maintain it results in episodes having to be padded. I would say compared to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, these are of a more even quality. I scored a few 9 or 10 in both series, but AHP had many more boring, even terrible episodes, though to be fair more than twice as many were made.

My ten favourites, in chronological order: 3 Night of the Owl. The story may rather lack believability, but compensated by great performances from Brian Keith (who seems to me like an understated John Wayne) and Patricia Breslin.

8 House Guest. Not entirely dissimilar to the above, decent family taken advantage of by a cunning crook.

23 The Lonely Hours. Obsessive, childless woman steals her landlady's baby, all female cast.

33 Home Away From Home. Atmospheric drama, mental patients imprison staff and take over asylum.

45 The Magic Shop. Much more sci-fi than usual Hitchcock. Half a dozen reviewers compare it to The Twilight Zone's It's a Good Life, for my money this is creepier and has more content.

50 Final Escape. Uncomplicated tale of a prisoner who will take almost any risk to escape. Without doubt the most shocking denouement.

65 Return of Verge Likens. Man plots revenge on local politician who killed his father, undeterred by objections from his easy going brother. Unanimously acclaimed by reviewers thus far.

75 Consider Her Ways. Another episode escaped from The Twilight Zone. A doctor under the influence of a new drug hallucinates about a future earth without men, and determines to prevent it.

84 Death Scene. This is not universally liked by other reviewers. I enjoyed it as a nod, whether intentional or not, to Sunset Boulevard, with private movie theatre, classy old car, and swimming pool.

92 Night Fever. An injured robber falls for his older nurse, but is he just trying to use her? I include this one mainly to question the groupthink of several reviewers who accept the storyline claim that Coleen Dewhurst is plain. She is over 40 but surely better looking than the villain's floozy like girlfriend briefly seen at the end. It's in the eye of the beholder of course, but maybe these guys would say Diana Doors was better looking than Diana Rigg?

I've always enjoyed anthology shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and the Twilight Zone. Overall the all of them had some really great episodes that I love to view over and over. I now have them all on DVD or Blu Ray. My favorite episodes have some humor sprinkled in the the mystery and suspense. Then the twist ending or shock ending that makes them better. Some of my favorites are "Final Vow" with Carol Lynley, "Diagnosis Danger" with Michael Parks, "Last Seen Wearing Blue Jeans" with Katherine Crawford, "Terror at Northfield" with Dick York, "See the Monkey Dance" with Efrem Zimbalist Jr., "A Matter of Murder" with Darren Mcgavin, "The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow" with Patricia Coolidge, "A Home Away From Home" with Ray Milland, "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" with Fess Parker(My favorite episode), "The Jar" with Pat Buttram. There are far too many of the shows that don't feel like a Hitchcock show or are down right boring. But the episodes I listed above are well worth watching.

I saw "Change of Address" several years ago and it stuck with me because of Arthur Kennedy's fabulous performance - up there with the best acting I've ever seen on television - don't miss it-he is superb, in a rare role in which he portrayed an unambiguously heinous individual (episode 321 - Oct. 64) Also, do not miss this great actor in the film "Too Late for Tears" - (1949) - with Lizabeth Scott as possibly the most repellent femme fatale in the history of the genre - this actor was superb at portraying the halfway decent man whose moral frailties could be uncovered with the scratch of a pin - he deserves to be more well remembered

First of all, Alfred Hitchcock's introduction, station brake and wrap up monologues are worth the price of watching those commercials alone — which regularly were humorously ridiculed by Hitchcock himself. Watching these shows these many years later is therapy for the lightening fast world of the 21st century. Lots of husbands killing wives and wives killing husbands. And of course, then, nobody could get away with anything — if not in the story itself then in the ending wrap up by Hitchcock.

AND, it was an era when REAL ACTORS were on TV — not the pretty face empty nothing's on TV today. Living in impossible apartments and working in impossible work places and performing impossible plots.