Next Phase Is This
When you look at “The Cheney Vase,” you are getting a beautifully dark masterclass in how pride and greed can completely blind a person. The story kicks off with Lyle Endicott, getting fired from his museum gig. Instead of taking the loss and moving on, he decides to orchestrate a grift against Martha Cheney, a…
Stepping away from the usual macabre murder plots, Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid gives us a poignant, streetwise holiday story anchored by Harold Stretch Sears, a cynical ex con who lands a seasonal gig as a department store Santa. Played with a brilliant, gruff charm by Barry Fitzgerald, Stretch despises the repetitive holiday…
Looking back at the eleventh episode of the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, titled Guilty Witness, we get a masterclass in how proximity and assumptions can blindside you. The setup feels so ordinary: you have a regular grocer named Stanley Crane and his wife Dorothy, who just cannot ignore the screaming matches happening in…
Look, we have all had that fleeting, creepy thought that maybe someone out there is living a double life as us, but this episode elevates that paranoia into an absolute art form. In The Case of Mr. Pelham, Tom Ewell plays Albert Pelham, a completely predictable, routine obsessed investment broker who finds his comfortable world…
When you look at Alfred Hitchcock Presents season one episode nine, The Long Shot, you are looking at a masterclass in how desperation blinds a man to his own doom. Peter Lawford plays Charlie Raymond, a slick but totally broke gambler who answers a newspaper ad to chauffeur an eccentric Englishman named Walter Hendricks, played…
The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode Our Cook’s A Treasure is a beautiful case study in how to manipulate an audience. The breakdown of the story focuses on Ralph Montgomery, a successful real estate guy who is totally doting on his younger wife, Ethel. To make her life easier, he hires a new cook named Mrs….
The Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode “Breakdown” is an absolute masterclass in psychological tension and a perfect example of what made early television anthology series so brilliant. Our main character, William Callew, is a textbook case of a ruthless, emotionally detached businessman who treats human feelings like line items on a spreadsheet. He is entirely cold…
Salvage is an episode that perfectly captures that cynical, pitch black tone the series became famous for. It kicks off with a classic noir setup: Dan Varrel, a gangster played with fantastic low key menace by Gene Barry, gets out of prison looking for blood. He is hunting Lois Williams, a nightclub singer who turned…
If you have ever felt like the world was gaslighting you, the 1955 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode Into Thin Air is the ultimate mid century anxieties trip. Starring Hitchcock’s own daughter, Pat Hitchcock, as Diana Winthrop, the story kicks off with a simple and relatable premise. Diana and her mother arrive in Paris for the…
Frank and Mildred are a penniless middle aged couple facing severe financial ruin. Instead of taking the honest route, they cook up a wild insurance scheme where Mildred disappears for seven years until she can be legally declared dead. Frank stays behind to play the grieving, suspected husband, enduring years of harassment from a relentless…