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The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

Crime, Mystery, Drama • 1962

01

A Piece of the Action

4

Duke Marsden is an inveterate gambler who's about to lose his wife because of his habit. She gives him an ultimatum to either give up poker or else she's gone. He agrees, but there's one last thing he has to do first.

02

Don't Look Behind You

3

At a college campus, two young girls are killed while strolling through a nearby forest. Suspicion falls on a chemistry professor and an intense and brooding music professor named Edwin Volck. Harold, a psychology professor, convinces his fiancee Daphne to act as bait to help trap the killer. The trap succeeds and Volck is revealed as the killer. Harold, however, becomes worried. He believes that the killers bloodlust may have inspired other less obvious psychos on campus. Daphne realizes that Harold has been speculating about himself when he suddenly attacks her. She is rescued by the chemistry professor. The chemistry professor had been watching Harold's behavior since the beginning believing that he was a possible psychopath.

03

Night of the Owl

3

Jim Mallory is a forest ranger who along with his wife Linda, have adopted a girl named Anne. The couple have never told Anne that her parents died in a bizarre murder-suicide for fear that the news might disturb her. A blackmailer contacts Jim and demands money. He says that he will tell Anne the secret of her past if Jim doesn't pay up. Jim agrees to pay, but informs the police. The blackmailers figure out that something is up and change the site of the money drop. Later the blackmailers get into an argument and one of them is killed. When the police find the body, they suspect Jim Mallory. Jim manages to catch the blackmailer to clear his name, but he doesn't get to him in time to stop her from telling Anne the secret about her parents. Anne is troubled by the news, but manages to take it in stride. She tells the Mallorys that she loves them and has always considered them her real parents.

04

I Saw the Whole Thing

6

There are five witnesses for a hit-and-run accident at an intersection who all say the car did not stop at the stop sign, but are they all wrong?

05

Captive Audience

6

Warren Barrow writes mystery novels under a pseudonymn. He sends his publisher a series of tape recordings that appear to detail either the plot of his next mystery novel or the plan for a murder he is actually going to commit. Using his own name on the tapes, Barrow describes how he renewed a friendship with a very attractive girl named Janet West. Janey, however, is married and wants someone to kill her wealthy husband. Blinded by passion, Barrow agrees to commit murder. At the last minute, however, he gets cold feet and later, out of guilt, decides to kill Janet. The tape ends, however. The publisher and another writer, Tom Keller, become convinced that Barrow is planning murder. The publisher calls the police while Keller heads for Janet's apartment. At the apartment, Keller discovers Janet dead and Barrow holding the murder weapon. Barrow is taken to the police station where he provides an ending to his novel and a complete confession, all on tape.

06

Final Vow

3

Sister Pamela suffers a crisis of conscience just as she is about to take her final vows. Is her belief real or is she just hiding from the rest of the world? The sisters in the convent give her time to think everything over by letting her pick up a valuable statue from a reformed gangster. As she is returning, however, the statue is stolen by a young criminal named Jimmy Bresson. In order to get the statue back she leaves the convent and hunts Jimmy down. She arranges to have a date with him to get into his apartment. Unfortunately, she discovers that he has pawned the statue. She takes the pawn ticket and heads for the pawn shop. As she is about to get it back, Jimmy catches her. Jimmy and the dishonest pawn shop owner want to kill Pamela, but they want to have the statue appraised first. They call an appraiser, but it turns out to be the man who originally offered the statue to the convent. He tells them that the statue is worthless and convinces them to let Pamela go. Having confr

07

Annabel

5

David Kelsey, a research chemist, is in love with Annabel. He assumes another identity so that they can share their moments together in complete privacy. He even builds a beautiful dream home for the two of them. David is hopelessly infatuated with her. Unfortunately, Annabel wants no part of him. She's married and both she and her husband wonder when David will get the hint. He does not and eventually murders the couple. He installs her corpse in the bedroom of their dreamhouse so that she can be by his side for the rest of his life.

08

House Guest

4

John and Sally Mitchell offer a stranger named Ray Roscoe a place to stay after Roscoe saves the life of their son Tony. When Roscoe turns out to be a womanizing freeloader, they begin to believe that they made a terrible mistake. One night Roscoe wrecks their car and hits on a camper's wife. Angry, John punches him and knocks him to the ground. John is shocked, however, when the camper examines Roscoe's body and declares that Roscoe is dead. The camper suggests that they bury the body in the woods and forget the whole thing. John agrees and lets the camper deal with the body. Later, John is disturbed to discover that the woods are going to be excavated as a part of a new highway construction. Since he doesn't know exactly where the body is, he calls the camper and tells him that they must move the corpse. The camper agrees, but demands $20,000. He tells John that he will go to the police if he does not pay the money.

09

The Black Curtain

3

Phil Townsend suffers amnesia after he is mugged outside his drug store. All he remembers is that he is about to get married. A taxi driver takes him to his fiancée's house, but he discovers that she is already married and has been married for three years. Later, Townsend discovers that he has been living under the name David Webber for three years. He discovers that Webber was once the bodyguard of a rich criminal attorney and is suspected of murdering the attorney's wife. Townsend eventually manages to clear his name. Later, he checks into a hospital for treatment.

10

Day of Reckoning

3

Paul Sampson murders his wife Caroline and is relieved when the police rule her death and accident. His conscience gets the best of him, however, and he decides to confess the murder to his family and friends. Unfortunately, no one believes him. They think the stress of his wife's death has gotten to him. Later he tells another friend, who also happens to be a judge. The judge, however, knew all along. He was Caroline's lover. Knowing that Paul's conscience is killing him, the judge chooses to remain silent. When Paul continues in his attempts to confess, he is eventually committed by his family to a mental hospital.

11

Ride the Nightmare

3

When three of his childhood pals break out of prison, Christopher Martin is in trouble. When he was younger, he and his pals committed a crime. All except Christopher were caught and sent to jail. Each of them vowed revenge. Christopher confesses his crime to his wife Helen though he fears she will leave him. Helen is shocked at first, but she agrees to help him proving that his fears were groundless. Together they foil the three prison escapees when they show up looking for revenge.

12

Hangover

4

Hadley Purvis is an alcoholic advertising executive whose wife Sandra tells him that she will leave him if he takes another drink. Unfortunately, he drinks himself into a stupor. When he awakens he cannot remember anything that happened to him while he was drunk. He can't remember losing his job for being drunk during a presentation and he can't remember buying his wife a new scarf to prove that he had not been drinking. Ultimately, he discovers his wife's strangled body in his basement. Though he cannot remember, he realizes that, while he was drunk, he strangled her to death with the scarf he bought for her.

Cast

Reviews

GenerationofSwine
GenerationofSwineJan 2023
5.0

I read everything, and that isn't bragging because I read some crap that I hide from visitors because it's embarrassing. My history books, my philosophy books, they are out in the open... but the Romance novels, the trash western and adventure novels, those are kept out of sight. I've already been caught by a roommate when I was reading "The Wolf and the Dove," because I found a paperback for $1 at a library and it was the only thing that looked entertaining at the time. Anyway Hitchcock reminds me of the old pulp novels I pick up at antique stores. It reminds me of some of the pulp megapacks you can buy on Amazon... only in some cases the stories are a lot better with Hitchcock. He stands the test of time, my wife is watching him independently. As in, it's OLD, she is a Millennial, and I don't have to force her to watch something old for once. Usually with Millennials and Gen-Z "Old=Evil" and they actively don't bother.... but she is getting older and starting to embrace that what came before can be good too. That is a high mark, it's not an easy feat to get her into black and white anything. She ate this up. It stands the test of time, in the 60s it was good, and in 2022 it's still good. Not much ages like fine wine. Hitchcock does.

drystyx
drystyxApr 2023

Hitchcock and the commercials. Hitchcock's signature was his friendly rivalry with sponsors, which probably helped his sponsors simply by the recognition. It tough to rate an anthology, but most of these stories were very good. His best ones were with characters you didn't really relate with, but still felt something for. Such was the case for what I call his "masterpiece", with Gig Young and Robert Redford playing brothers with sky high superiority complexes in "A Piece of the Action", and with Robert Keith, Ed Byrnes, and Stephen McNally in "Final Escape", and with Mr. Haney himself in "The Jar". Then there were some comedies. One in which he purposely made it predictable that a "dining club" was eating its members when they got fat enough. The dark comedy was funny because of how oblivious the member was for being the next meal, even though everything pointed to it. There weren't many episodes where you felt you could relate to any of the characters, which is good, because most of the characters were fanatically arrogant, egotistical, or sadistic, so you didn't mind when they were buried alive or killed by mobsters who didn't like card cheats.

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