I have just found in a well-known Toulouse megastore a real treasure: the full episodes that Alfred Hitchcock directed for his famous TV show, Alfred Hitchcock presents. It is a collection made in France that contains three videotapes, in the original version, subtitled in French, with seventeen episodes dating from 1955 to 1961. For those not familiar with this show, it is essential to know that it was an absolute success in those years on the CBS Network. In fact, the main attraction was Hitchcock himself, very popular in the mid-1950s, who, weekly, used to introduce and close each episode in a humorous way. He only directed a few episodes but, believe me, it is worth watching.
It is quite usual that some talented cinema directors start out on television, like Steven Spielberg, for instance, who signed some Columbo episodes. But it is not the case of Alfred Hitchcock: he began his career in the twenties in Great Britain and during the fifties he produced his best work. That is why it is significant that an expert director paid attention to a medium like TV that was considered a lesser relative of cinema. Hitchcock proved that it was possible in just 23 minutes to tell a suspense story keeping the same standards of quality that he was supposed to offer in his films.
Probably, one of the keys to his success was the choice of the stories and the scriptwriters involved. A screenplay by Roald Dahl means, of course, guaranteed quality, and the master of suspense collaborated with him in four episodes. Let me tell you a few words about my two favourite stories:
Lamb to the slaughter (1958)
A policeman’s pregnant wife kills her husband using a frozen leg of lamb after he had confessed his intention of leaving her. The crime committed, she puts the "weapon" into the oven and goes to the grocery. When she comes back, she pretends that somebody attacked her husband while she was out. The agents -all of them colleagues of the victim- look for the weapon unsuccessfully. At the end of the story, the murderer invites her husband’s companions to dinner, who unknowingly destroy the main evidence.Based on Roald Dahl’s The leg of the lamb and adapted to the small screen by himself, this episode is a brilliant example of black humour which shows a very peculiar sense of justice: providence has mercy and forgives the killer because the victim is even worse. The idea that a cheater deserves any kind of punishment is funny and pessimistic at the same time. Starred by Barbara Bel Geddes (who twenty years later would play ma’ Ewing in Dallas), Lamb to the slaughter is one of my preferred episodes.
Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat (1960)
A Colonel offers to his lover a mink coat as a rupture gift. In order to hide her infidelity, she pawns the coat for $50 and pretends having found a ticket. Her husband insists in redeem it himself as a Christmas gift. But the unfaithful wife will feel really disappointed when her husband gives her a stole while his secretary wears the Colonel’s coat.Although there is no murder in this tale, Dahl and Hitchcock tell us a story of deception and selfishness containing the same idea of justice and punishment and a similar paradoxical ending: “The one who laughs last, laughs longest.” The victim becomes an avenger and this twist -the unexpected ending- is always well accepted by both readers and the TV audience. The greatest storytellers, like Dahl and Hitchcock, know it well.
March 2000 (revised in March 2021).