Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) What Frightened You, Fred? (1962) User Reviews

Yawn

[ctomvelu1 · 5/10 · 13 January 2013]

Disappointing episode about a petty criminal (Armstrong) who just can't seem to stay out of prison. When the tale begins, he is being released, but in less than a day, he is back in again. The warden (Asner) and a state shrink try to fathom why. The shrink correctly assumes something traumatic must have happened on the outside. Little does he know. We eventually get to see what happened via a flashback. The episode falls heavily on Armstrong's shoulders, and he's fine. But the episode is overly talky, and the conclusion is a something of a letdown. You can't win all of them, I guess, not even Hitchcock. By the way, this was Asner's second appearance on the show. He also played the gruff, abusive dad of a psychotic, homicidal child in an episode that rings loudly today after all the mass murders around the nation, one of the most recent taking place in my home state of Connecticut and not too far from where I live.

Frequent Guest of the State

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 5 June 2021]

A man leaves prison on parole after four years inside. Within two days, he's back in prison. He worked for a good man, played by pre Mary Tyler Moore's Ed Asner. There is a psychologist there trying to figure out what caused him to be back. It's not a very enticing piece of work. Too many possibilities are overlooked.

Boring

[coltras35 · 3/10 · 14 May 2022]

Not a very enticing episode where an ex-convict leaves prison after four years inside and ends up inside within two days for drinking and debauchery. His warden is perplexed why he has thrown his freedom away again and a psychologist tries to figure out why he turned to crime. There's a reason, but you only learn it at the end. And it's not very interesting. Apart from the dialogue about how difficult it is for ex-cons to adjust to civilian life, it's a rather drab and boring tale that is really humdrum: there's no punch or anything that grabs you.