Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Safe Conduct (1956)
Season 1, Episode 21
What's He Up To
26 January 2017
An entry that builds suspense based on Cold War themes. Journalist Trevor is returning to the West by train from high-level trip to Soviet bloc nation. On train she meets hunky soccer star Bergerac who convinces her to smuggle costly ring past border guards so he can use it to pay for sister's operation. His charm convinces her. But then, surprise, surprise, he exposes her effort to border guards. Now she's in big trouble. So what the heck's going on since he seemed so sincere.

This is one of few series entries with a political subtext, and understandably so. After all, politics raises its own issues aside from suspense the series traded on. Fortunately, the communist officials are portrayed as recognizably human, an unusual event for the deep Cold War year 1956. That way their humanized presence contributes to the suspense instead of competing.

I love that sequence when Bergerac suddenly asks whether he can buy some of Trevor's underwear. It's dropped in so abruptly, we're as startled as Trevor. Something of a Rock Hudson look-alike, I'm surprised Bergerac didn't score more in Hollywood. Anyway, it's quite a suspenseful episode with a somewhat satisfying upshot.
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