Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) The Perfect Crime (1957) User Reviews

The Bubble Reputation.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 17 April 2012]

Vincent Price is Sherlock Holmes gone wrong in this engaging entry. It's New York at the turn of the century and Price is a detective who prides himself on his infallibility. He keeps mementos of each of his successfully solved cases.

One night James Gregory shows up and confront Price with evidence that the last man he convicted and sent to the chair was innocent. There are intimations that Gregory -- playing it straight here, rather than as a braying blowhard -- may leak the secret of Price's failure. Well, Price can't have that, so Gregory winds up strangled and turned into a vase in the pottery kiln. The vase takes its place among Price's mementos.

The performances are splendid for a half-hour television show, and the set dressing is more than perfunctory for a change. It's tautly written with no padding or wasted moments.

Price was an interesting guy -- out of St. Louis, a decent actor whose work included serious drama ("Leave Her To Heaven"), comedy ("Champagne For Caesar") and, later, the horror films of Roger Corman. As an added bonus, a combination of comedy and horror in "Theater of Blood." He was also a serious art collector and author of a book on a style of cooking approaching haut cuisine, but beware the recipe for eggplant parmigiana. A typo instructs you to add double the proper amount of bread crumbs. A word to the wise.

Smug as Smug Can Be

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 21 June 2013]

How can you lose with Vincent Price? He was a national treasure with his self assured nasal voice and wolfish expressions. In this he plays his favorite role, a know-it-all detective who draws attention wherever he goes, inscrutable and infallible. He basks in the sunlight of his admirers, always the winner, never the loser. That is until James Gregory comes along to spoil his fun. He begins to show that the great detective may have feet of clay. The story of the murder, for which a man has paid with his life in the electric chair, unfolds through Gregory's narration. Of course, Price isn't going to let this happen and there hangs the rest of the story. Price's mugging performance and the crime's resolution are great fun. The conclusion is just a bit too simplistic, but it is well worth the setup.

Not quite perfect

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 24 August 2022]

There were three main reasons for wanting to see "The Perfect Crime". One was that it was part of the inconsistent but extremely interesting 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' series. Hitchcock is one of my all time favourites and has been ever seeing 'Rebecca' and 'North by Northwest' for the first time. Vincent Price has also been a major favourite actor of mine and has been since his incredible voice work in 'The Great Mouse Detective' (not his best role but man wasn't he perfectly cast as the iconic villain in that).

While it may not be my definite definition of perfect, "The Perfect Crime" is still very, very good and a great representation of the master of suspense and of Price. It may not be a 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' classic, as amazing as "Breakdown" as far as Hitchcock directed episodes for the series goes or one of Price's best roles. But absolutely none of them are disgraced in any role at all, far from it. Although it may not be as good as the previous two episodes, "The Perfect Crime" is a long way from being one of the worst episodes of the series.

It isn't perfect. It is a little too talky, especially early on.

Did feel also that Hitchcock's epilogue was somewhat too tacked on and over explanatory.

However, "The Perfect Crime" is particularly worth seeing for the acting. Price is especially worth seeing, with a perfect mix of menace, intrigue and ham which he always did excel in throughout his entire career. James Gregory is also very good and in full command of his role, it is though hard to be on the same level of Price in one episode and while Gregory is not quite as great he is very nearly. Hitchcock also directs impeccably and generally his work is typically droll.

The script is thoughtful, entertaining and suitably taut on the whole, while the story absorbs hugely with some great levels of suspense and plausible and not too many twists. The production values are slick and atmospheric and can't say anything bad about the main theme "Funeral March of a Marionette", which is likely to be known to even anybody not familiar to classical music if familiar with adverts and cartoons that use it.

Concluding, very good. 8/10.

A Perfect Half Hour

[ColDax · 10/10 · 4 May 2019]

Alfred Hitchcock + Vincent Price + Stirling Siiliphant = The Perfect Crime Story.

Yeah, It's a 10

[darbski · 10/10 · 21 July 2017]

Yuuuup. absolutely a 10. Why, you ask? the best reason of all. Terrific acting from two of the best. Price and Gregory spar all the way through this show, and it's a pleasure to watch. After seeing Gregory dissect Price's conviction and the execution of an innocent man, Gregory says he'll play the information bombshell in court. In the case that they should oppose each other in court; that is. See this episode for real entertainment.

"Now if it's to be murder, it must be the purest kind."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 2 September 2021]

After watching Vincent Price in this episode of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents', I had to wonder why the director never used him in any of his feature length movies. Price would have been a natural for the Master of Suspense, having appeared in scads of horror and suspense films. In this outing, Price portrays a famous but arrogant detective who by his own admission is never wrong. His comeuppance arrives however when a noted attorney (James Gregory) appears at his home to reveal the details of a case that sent an innocent man to the electric chair. Charles Courtney (Price) refuses to hear the man out until John Gregory (Gregory) refutes his objections with facts that the detective overlooked in his investigation of the murder of a man named Harrington. When it becomes plainly apparent that Courtney made a huge mistake, he decides to take matters into his own hands spontaneously, which seemed out of character for a man who's passion was searching for a person who could commit the perfect crime. Once again though, Hitchcock comes along to spoil things with his epilogue, explaining how Courtney's guilt was discovered as a result of a broken vase. If that doesn't make sense, you'll just have to watch the story.

A simple story told between two good actors.

[jasonbourneagain · 8/10 · 24 October 2018]

Alfred Hitchcock directed this episode because of having Vincent Price on his show with James Gregory. There isn't much to the story as one night a defense attorney John Gregory (James Gregory) visits famed detective Charles Courtney (Vincent Price) late at night. Courtney is knowledgeable about some of Gregory's cases. They share a brandy and Gregory asks about the Harrington case since Courtney was the detective who investigated it. He was called in because the murder was that of a well to do and famous man. The acting of Courtney as an arrogant detective who prides himself too much of his work is marvelous by Price. Gregory lets him talk because he knows the murderer in the case, but doesn't let on. At the end he explains that he has proof and that an innocent man was led to execution. It would be the first mistake in Courtney's illustrious career. Gregory knows Courtney is punctilious and boastful about his work so proceeds to blackmail him with the information should their paths ever cross again in the future. The backstory explains what happened and Courtney is flabbergasted to find out and takes matters into his own hands once Gregory lets him know what he is after. Hitchcock knows how to keep it simple and let the actors explain. He does his own bit of acting to explain what happened by coming on the set in the end.

The Only Time Vincent Price was Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

[theowinthrop · 7/10 · 22 December 2008]

This is one of the twenty or so episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that Hitch himself directed. It is not as well regarded as some of the others (and one can see why after watching it for awhile), but it is historically interesting. Hitchcock directed many fine actors in his career, and such excellent heavies as George Sanders, Joseph Cotten, Robert Walker, Anthony Perkins, Raymond Burr, and Claude Rains. But this half hour television shot was the one time he handled Vincent Price.

Price is Courtney, a "Sherlock Holmes" style Edwardian detective who is used by the New York City police in tricky cases. Price, with his classical handsome bearing, his polished (if nasal) voice, and his self-assurance, is perfect in this role. One can see him effortlessly solving cases (just as in other films he'd be committing crimes). Given the set up the viewer is lulled into believing that in this case Price is a good guy.

But he is Vincent Price, and Hitchcock has fun with him.

Courtney has recently helped convict one Harrington (Mark Dana) of the murder of a millionaire named West (Gavin Gordon) at a hunting lodge West used on Long Island. West and Harrington were rivals on Wall Street, so the motive seemed to be greed. Threads and tire tracks and footprints were used by Price to build a first rate circumstantial case against Harrington, culminating (once the police got a search warrant) finding the small caliber pistol used by the killer in Harrington's wall safe. Denying his guilt to the end, Harrington has just been sent to the electric chair.

Courtney, on the day after the electrocution, is visited by John Gregory (James Gregory) who was a lawyer for Harrington and for Mrs. West (Marianne Stewart) who was having marriage troubles. Gregory seems to be visiting Courtney just to hear how the great detective reached his conclusions. But after the self-satisfied Courtney finishes, Gregory starts surprising him. He has never been in a position to see the gun, but describes some flaws in it perfectly. Soon he is explaining some points regarding the relationship of the Wests and Harrington, pointing out that the husband and wife were splitting up in a messy way, and that Harrington was the cause. But having said that Gregory points out that Courtney did not do some of his homework properly: he thought Mrs. West was in Europe (where she was found after the investigation began). Actually she had just come from Montreal, and was at the scene of the murder - in fact, she killed her husband. Harrington played the sap and protected her...too far. She did not reciprocate when Harrington was in peril.

The result is that Courtney, in his "brilliant" work, sent an innocent man to his doom. The detective indignantly refuses to admit this, but Gregory is just as indignant, pointing out all the overlooked evidence of Mrs. West's sojourn to Montreal and return to New York. Gregory is a lawyer, and he is determined this is the last time that Courtney can do this ever - and he tells him he expects the detective to retire. But Courtney has other ideas.

It is well acted and directed, certainly, with the two main protagonists evenly matched. James Gregory is best recalled as Senator John Iselin, the "McCarthy" type senator in the original THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. If not that then as Inspector Luger on BARNEY MILLER. But here he is an indignant seeker for justice, hoping to stop this dangerous egotist from doing more damage. And Price has an opportunity of showing the ego and misplaced pride that leads to great evil in his actions.

Then, if I like the episode, why do I limit this to only a "7" out of "10"? It's because of one defect in the way the episode was written (the screenplay is by Sterling Silliphant oddly enough, so it should be better). It's too talky! The typical detective story is so involved with analyzing clues and activities and exposition that the reader (after awhile) gets an ability to rapidly read the "solution". But to hear it in dialog, first from one actor than from another actor, it begins to be more boring than one can imagine. Some scenes are shown in flashback, but for some reason the voices of the other principle players are never heard. It is somewhat reminiscent of dream sequences in some Hitchcock films (like SPELLBOUND) where the dialog of the people in the dream is reported and not heard spoken. But those are short segments. This is several critical moments in the episode where normal dialog is ignored in explaining what actually happened.

I keep thinking, given the set-up of the story, that Hitchcock's weird sense of humor was involved here. He probably like the perfect thinking machine type proved to have feet of clay. And fortunately his performers did do well with the material as it were. But still one wishes it was less talky.

Not so perfect crime

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 14 May 2022]

Vincent Price plays a character who prides himself - and is rather smug about it - for solving many crimes, but then James Gregory arrives, dropping a bombshell that can prove that Price wasn't right about a particular case.

Mildly interesting episode with some decent exposition about solving crimes, but that can be a problem - it's a little bit too talky, threatening to make one snore. However, great performances from the lead stars is like a solid net, containing just enough drama and suspense.

Another "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" where the episode was damaged by the needless epilogue.

[planktonrules · 4/10 · 8 March 2021]

"The Perfect Crime" is an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" where John sits down with Charles (James Gregory and Vincent Price) and Charles regales him with the story of a murdered he helped send to his Maker. However, it turns out Charles is NOT the genius private detective he fancies himself to be, as John knows that the man in question was, in fact, innocent! Needless to say, Charles does not handle this information well!

There are two problems with this episode, though the acting is quite good. First, it is VERY talky and Charles and John talk and talk and talk through most of the episode. This is a minor issue. But the big problem is the network or sponsors' insistence that evil MUST be punished, so after presenting a seemingly perfect crime, Hitchcock does an epilogue where he explains how the man WAS captured and prosecuted...though there is zero indication of this in the episode itself. It really is frustrating to watch. Although I usually love Hitchcock's little intros and epilogues, in cases of murderers, he would often explain that the audience didn't see it in the story, but the killer was caught and punished...which is REALLY annoying and essentially ruins the episode. Without this stupid ending, I might have scored this one a 7...it really ruins an otherwise decent episode.