![]() ![]() “ Good Eve-ven-ing! I hope you’ll excuse me if I appear a trifle excited, but I’ve just come into possession of a cure for insomnia. (We open with Hitchcock seated at a desk.) Sample this typical Hitchcock introduction, taken from the episode: “A Bullet for Baldwin”. But Alfred Hitchcock really puts them “over the top” with the innovative ways he leads into and out of the stories – and introduces commercial messages. The “plays” themselves are fun to watch, and deliver the best suspense the era had to offer. The latter did Hitchcock to a “T”, right through the coda that leaves one with the impression that Brickrock actually got away with murder. Hanna-Barbera Productions created not one but TWO Hitchcock parody characters: Alfy Gator, an alligator sophisticate and gourmet out to ingest little duck Yakky Doodle, and the memorable one-shot “Alvin Brickrock” on The Flintstones. So much a staple of our popular culture did this program – and its host – become that it was often lovingly parodied in the media of its time. Hitchcock employs top-notch actors, writers and directors for his television “plays” (as he calls them) and sometimes directs certain choice episodes himself. Renowned director Alfred Hitchcock both introduces and offers a coda to each of his weekly tales of mystery, suspense, and usually murder – the grizzly detail of which often seems to surpass the perceived norms of 1950s TV. AHP continues to demonstrate its brilliance through the courtesy of DVD, the first such collection is the subject of this review. It is ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, one of those underappreciated television gems that has become more a part of our culture than most folks realize. ![]() The camera pans over to our host, who greets us with a simultaneously familiar and chilling: “ Good Eve-ven-ing!” A dark silhouette, fitting the outlined profile, slowly walks into frame, matching it contour for contour. The classical piece “Funeral March of a Marionette” plays, as the drawn outline of a rotund man fades into view. It boasts one of the most famous openings in television history. Another Looong DVD Review by Joe Torcivia ![]()
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