Alfred Hitchcock Presents

While the films of Alfred Hitchcock are still widely celebrated decades after the legendary director himself has been gone, many people often gloss over his work in television, which is a really big mistake. When this show hit the scene in the 1950s, tv was new, and everybody seemed to like the idea of Alfred's engaging, crime related dramas being condensed into a more easy to understand format. Each episode of this show is like its own, small Hitchcock movie, some good and some not so good. This is the price you pay for Hitchcock Presents being an anthology show, meaning the storylines for the episodes are all disconnected and have nothing to do with one another. This allowed the show to gather a truly impressive range of guest stars, some of them being among the all time best classic Hollywood had to offer, such as Bette Davis, Clint Eastwood, Cedric Hardwicke, Steve McQueen, Robert Duvall, Charles Bronson, Burt Reynolds, Vera Miles, John Cassavetes and Peter Lorre just to name a few. Before The Twilight Zone pushed the boundaries of fantastic stories that often couldn't be explained by anyone, this series was basically doing the same, minus some of the fantasy elements. Basically all the episodes of this show are grounded in reality and deal with events that can possibly take place, but they will usually contain strange coincidences or Hitchcock's signature use of suspense to keep the viewers guessing (not to mention interested). Just like any other show like this, people love to discuss their favorites and point out everything the series has to offer in great detail. Among the literal hundreds of episodes Hitchcock's female companion Joan Harrison produced (along with Norman Lloyd), I will never forget how creepy the one involving the car accident is. If you've seen it already, you'll know what I'm talking about, and Hitchcock is one of the few people to make an audience feel real fear through a tv screen. Not by using cheap jumpscares that you can't predict, but by taking advantage of the fact that everyone is afraid of being paralyzed. The only thing worse than an impossibly bad situation is not even being able to remove yourself from it. That being said, there are definitely way too many other great episodes of this show to mention here, and many of them are complicated, so you'll need to see them yourself to get the full effect. Overall, I would say that Alfred Hitchcock Presents is a classic show that still entertains decades later because it takes back the talent of telling interesting, crime related stories: something that is often left by the wayside in tv now.

You can catch this on 'Chiller' channel in many areas....via satellite. This classic series from 1955-1965 features the most varied suspense, horror and curious human behavior, as Hitchcock was so adept at portraying.

Better than some of the Twilight Zone stories as there is less science fiction, more study of human behavior, psychology and murder. A few of the more intriguing vignettes come to mind. One episode involves a murderer and his wife Jocelyn, who believed to be dead, mysteriously returns to the scene of the crime, a seaside village. Another episode is with Margaret Natwick and Hurd Hatfield ("The Picture of Dorian Gray" lead). He plays a scheming nephew attempting to gain his inheritance through murder of his elderly aunt. There is a twist.

As only Hitchcock can, there is suspense to the end of the story, keeping the audience guessing. Hitchcock once said the element of horror is not the actual blood and gore, but the suspense and mystery leading up to it. The finest director we have seen, and this series is a do not miss. Highly recommended. 10/10.

1950's television was pretty bland by almost any yardstick. That's not to say that certain series, such as the early Gunsmoke, were not daring and edgy in their own way. Or that the early I Love Lucy did not have its hilarious moments. However the governing concepts were unadventurous at best, or just plain dull, at worst. After all, no matter how good some of the episodes, bringing law and order to the Old West or following the humorous escapades of a zany housewife were not exactly novel concepts in TV programming.

Two series, however, did come along to challenge convention. The Twilight Zone, at decade's end, attacked frontally with huge doses of imagination and exotic story-lines that often overwhelmed viewers, thereby opening American living-rooms to the expanding world of unthought-of possibilities. It was, and remains, a classic appreciated by young and old alike. However, the other ground-breaking series did not attack frontally. Instead, in true stealthy fashion, it snuck past the guardians of Good Taste and Morality, otherwise known as the department of Standards and Practices. That's probably because each episode was introduced by a funny-looking fat guy with a British accent, who came out to crack a few bad jokes and abuse the sponsors. Who could suspect that what followed such a slow-talking Humpty-Dumpty would subtly undermine some of TV's most entrenched conventions.

Yet that's exactly what the Hitchcock half-hours did. Perhaps the most subversive change lay in the series's really sneaky treatment of wrong-doers. To that point, convention insisted that culprits be apprehended on screen, the better to teach the audience that Crime Doesn't Pay. And while that may have conveyed a comforting societal message, it also made for a very predictable and boring climax to even the best stories. What the Hitchcock show did that was slyly revolutionary was to transpose the comeuppance from the story to Hitchcock's often humorous epilogue. There the audience would learn that the culprit was duly punished and that justice had once again prevailed, apparently enough to keep the censors of the day at bay. So the story-line might end on screen with a grotesque murder, while only later would the audience be told by Hitchcock that justice had indeed caught up. Maybe that seems like just a minor change. But in fact, it was highly significant. For now the audience could follow plot developments, without knowing how the story itself would end, while the deadening element of predictability was transferred to the easily ignored epilogue. It was a truly ground-breaking event in the evolution of TV.

All in all, that element of uncertainty made for the kind of programming that continues to entertain, even into today's super-charged era of technicolor and relaxed censorship. It also accounts largely for why Hitchcock Presents remains one of the few series from that long-ago time to still be re-run. There were other sly subversive wrinkles such as the black humor that sometimes accompanied the most heinous crimes. Or the subtle insistence that murder often begins at home. In fact, the series as a whole managed to mirror much of Hitchcock's movie-making personality, which suggests the producers (Norman Lloyd and Joan Harrison) were very protective of what the Hitchcock brand name implied. Anyway, like any other series, some episodes were better than others, but only rarely did one really disappoint. In fact, the high quality remained surprisingly steady throughout the half-hour run, before dropping off noticeably during the over-stretched hour-long version.

Some of my favorites: "Mr. Pelham" (good semi sc-fi); "The Creeper" (suspense & fine acting); "The Glass Eye" ( well-done horror); "Back for Christmas" (typical Hitchcock irony); "Poison" (you'll sweat a bucket load); "Design for Loving" (off-beat premise well executed); "Human Interest Story" (Hitchcock meets the Twilight Zone); "Special Delivery" (truly spooky); "Specialty of the House" (It ain't Mc Donalds); "Breakdown" (Why don't they hear me?), and anything with the deliciously repulsive Robert Emhardt.

I'm sure there are many others not so fresh in my memory. Anyway, in my book, a big thanks is due Alfred Hitchcock for doing something no other movie heavy-weight of the time was willing to do. He risked his big league reputation by squeezing into millions of little black boxes once a week for seven years to bring the audience outstanding entertainment. His snooty peers may have sneered, but generations of grateful viewers have since proved him right.

For those who like classic television, it doesn't come any better than "Alfred Hitchcock Presents". Although he did not direct every episode by himself, his stamp is on every program. Almost every episode is of high quality, with clever and creative stories combined with writing and acting that ranges from good to outstanding. There is also terrific variety - you never know whether a given episode will be serious or light-hearted, whether there will be a happy ending or a tragic one. Each show keeps you guessing, and most have a twist at the end, many of them quite memorable. There are also a lot of big stars who appear in one or more episodes, as well as some young actors who would become stars, and the ones that don't have anyone famous generally have a pretty good set of character actors. If all that weren't enough, you have Hitchcock himself introducing each episode with some hilarious remarks - often making fun of TV commercials - and often in humorous settings that have a connection to the upcoming episode.

Episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" are well worth the trouble to find, whether you are fortunate enough to find broadcasts of them or whether you need to track down some videos of selected episodes.

I was introduced to Hitchcock as a kid at 11 in 1985 for the short-live colorized version back on NBC, five years after his passing. But I am kind of an old-fashioned person myself. And love it being in black & white. Even though the show was way ahead of its time and the scripts were good and the acting was superb. It made Alfred Hitchcock a star as he climbed from behind the scenes to center stage. He was the main reason for the show's success! Thanks to his jokes and puns. Hitchcock's wit and charm carried the show. And proved he wasn't just being "serious!" Hope that Nick At Night or TV Land will unleash this baby one day. In Black & White because I love the original. The original is the original.