Classic TV: "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" Season One

July 1, 7:39 PMClassic TV ExaminerDoug Krentzlin

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                  The Master himself on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (Universal)

With rare exceptions like Masters of Horror and Fear Itself, the anthology show often seems destined for extinction. Which is a shame since the form provided television with some of its most beloved series, especially those devoted to scaring the bejeezes out of the audience, such as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Tales from the Crypt.

Of all the anthology shows, none was more diabolically clever and shocking than Alfred Hitchcock Presents, produced, hosted and occasionally directed by you-know-who, which premiered on October 2, 1955.  As usual, these stories of crime, terror and black comedy are basically miniature 26-minute long Hitchcock movies. Even the episodes directed by others have the Master’s distinctively macabre touch.

The four first season episodes directed by Hitchcock are particularly notable works. The pilot episode Revenge is one of the darkest stories of Hitchcock’s career. Ralph Meeker plays a distraught husband whose attempt to avenge the rape of his wife (Vera Miles) backfires horribly. In Breakdown, merciless business tycoon Joseph Cotton finds himself completely paralyzed in a car accident and in danger of being embalmed alive. The Case of Mr. Pelham is one of Hitchcock’s few forays into fantasy starring Tom Ewell in the title role, an ordinary man who discovers that a doppelganger is gradually taking over his life. And Back for Christmas, based on the famous short story by John Collier, features John Williams, one of Hitchcock’s most oft-used character actors, as a henpecked British professor who kills his nagging wife, but receives his comeuppance in the form of an unexpected Christmas present.

Two episodes come from the pen of the great fantasy/sci-fi author Ray Bradbury. Shopping for Death tells the story of two retired insurance salesmen who have figured out a way to predict murders. In And So Dies Riabouchinska, the wonderful Claude Rains plays a neurotic ventriloquist obsessed with his female marionette. (A young Charles Bronson plays a police detective.)

Celebrated pulp crime writer Cornell Woolrich also provided the basis for two episodes. In The Big Switch, a gangster’s plan for the perfect murder has tragically ironic results. Momentum stars a young Joanne Woodward as the wife of Skip Homeier, an unemployed man who is caught in an inexorable cycle of murder when he attempts to collect the wages owed to him by his former boss.

Trivia fun fact: Not surprisingly, it was Hitchcock’s favorite composer Bernard Herrmann who suggested using Charles Gounod’s “Funeral March for a Marionette” as the series’ iconic theme music.