![]() ![]() The series was a bite-size half hour for most of its run, offering smart and fast-moving stories with great casts. Unlike EC, though, the Hitchcock show was not aimed at youngsters. The appearance of the Hitchcock silhouette, set to Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette,” and the director’s witty and often gruesome introductions teased what was to come in every episode: a morality play-an immorality play, really-not unlike what comic book readers saw from EC Comics before they were driven out of the market. A lot of viewers tuned in each week and heard his trademark “Good evening” and his intakes of breath between sentences. The sheer lack of choices helped drive viewers to shows like those Hitchcock produced. In the decades before cable and pay channels like HBO, most viewers tuned into just three networks, CBS included, and one or two local stations. ![]() Today, though, a look at the television shows that bore his name and which he hosted with what looks like macabre relish. The details of Hitchcock’s life-at times sordid and awful, especially regarding the reports of his dehumanizing behavior to women, including some who starred in his films-have become the fodder for many biographies. The 60-year-old director, who had always been a familiar figure to some because of his sly cameos in his films, had become a household name through his movies and his TV show, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” The half-hour anthology series began in 1955 and ran for 10 years, including the years when it was expanded and renamed “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.”Īdd to that “Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine,” which had begun in 1956 through an agreement to license the director’s name, as well as a series of thriller and suspense story collections, and Hitchcock’s fame as a director was without compare until Steven Spielberg became a household name in the 1970s. One of the director’s genuine masterpieces, “Psycho,” was released that year, on the heels of “North by Northwest” the year before, which had followed “Vertigo” and “The Wrong Man” and “The Man Who Knew Too Much.” “The Birds” lay ahead of him. Overall, the entry is an imaginative, if unfortunately flawed 60-minutes.In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock was everywhere. The climax is a surprise, consistent with a religiously themed episode, but done in a fairly subtle way. Lynley is well cast, looking positively angelic in a carefully composed way. Too bad, since a subtler approach had real possibilities. As a result, attention is moved from the plot to his excesses. He doesn't just move, he hurtles he doesn't just talk, he shouts. Trouble is the mood is under-cut by Gulager's egregious over- acting. Suspense kicks in fairly early since we wonder how the innocent-looking Pamela can go up against the thuggish Bresson. Now the Sister feels a duty to get it back, even though she leaves the convent for civilian life. Sister Pamela (Lynley) goes to pick it up, but has it stolen by low-life Bresson (Gulager) on her way back. A wealthy man (Armstrong) donates the antique to a convent to honor an elderly Mother Superior (Elsom) for her help when he was a boy. Unusual story involving a nun and a priceless antique statue.
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