Home
search
more | tips
IMDb > "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" Consider Her Ways (1964)
Prev | 75 of 93 Episodes | Next

"The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" Consider Her Ways (1964)


Videos
"The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (1962): Season 3: Episode 11 -- A doctor commits a murder after being injected with an experimental narcotic.

Overview

User Rating:
7.1/10   19 votes
Director:
Robert Stevens
Writers:
Oscar Millard (teleplay)
John Wyndham (story)
Contact:
View company contact information for Consider Her Ways on IMDbPro.
Original Air Date:
28 December 1964 (Season 3, Episode 11)
Plot:
Dr. Jane Waterleigh wakes to find herself in an obese body, having just given birth to her fourth baby... more | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
User Comments:
The Most Bizarre Episode in the Entire Hitchcock TV Series? more

Cast

  (Episode Cast overview, first billed only)

Alfred Hitchcock ... Himself - Host
Barbara Barrie ... Dr. Jane Waterleigh
Gladys Cooper ... Laura
Robert H. Harris ... Dr. Perrigan
Gene Lyons ... Max Wilding
Ellen Corby ... Chief Nurse
Virginia Gregg ... Third Doctor

Carmen Phillips ... Mother Daisy
Diane Sayer ... Mother Hazel
Dee J. Thompson ... First Doctor
Alice Backes ... Second Doctor

Eve Bruce ... Amazon
Ivy Bethune ... Nurse
Jennifer Gan ... First Worker (as Ginny Gan)
Stacy King ... Female Worker
more
Create a character page for: ?

Additional Details

Runtime:
48 min
Language:
English
Aspect Ratio:
1.33 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
Mono

Fun Stuff

Quotes:
Dr. Jane Waterleigh: Suppose that in ridding society of a pest it has gotten along with for centuries, you also destroyed society.
Dr. Perrigan: Sort of throwing the baby out with the bath water, hmm?
Dr. Jane Waterleigh: Or the operation was successful, but the patient died.
more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful:-
The Most Bizarre Episode in the Entire Hitchcock TV Series?, 27 July 2006
8/10
Author: Keith Lucas from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Warning: May contain partial spoilers!!!

"Consider Her Ways" begins bang in a nightmare state, with no warning or explanation beforehand: A woman (Barbara Barrie) awakens in a hospital maternity ward to find herself in a dystopian society she doesn't recognize. It's a quasi-totalitarian state in which an educated class of doctors and police oppress an illiterate class of servants and women whose sole function is to be "mothers"--to crank out babies that are taken away from them immediately and which the "mothers" never see. Though the "mothers" are to some extent coddled and pampered, they are also oppressed by being grotesquely overfed and kept under sedation. Adding to the strangeness of the society, all the members of both classes--oppressors and oppressed--appear to be women. There are no men anywhere. Our protagonist's attempts to convince others that she is not a "mother" but Dr. Jane Waterleigh, a physician herself with a husband but no children, are met with shock or disbelief--until she is taken to see Laura (Gladys Cooper), an elderly historian. Laura remembers her grandmother telling her about a society, long ago, that contained men.

Things are not as they appear to be in this Hitchcock episode, but what makes it more bizarre than most--and peculiarly memorable--is that the explanations don't even begin until 40 minutes in. For the first 40 minutes, the viewer is just dumped into an alternate reality, without preamble, and left to find his own way. The grotesquerie of the alternate reality brings "Consider Her Ways" closer in tone to one of the farther-out "Twilight Zone" episodes than to most of the Hitchcock series, but it's quite gripping, contains a neat (if unnecessary) extra twist at the end, and is very well acted by Barrie and Cooper, playing the only two characters who really matter.

Was the above comment useful to you?
more

Message Boards

Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (1962)

Related Links

Main series Episode guide Full cast and crew
Company credits IMDb TV section IMDb Mystery section
Add this title to MyMovies

You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.