Alfred Hitchcock Presents - Definition and Overview

Alfred Hitchcock Presents was a half-hour anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured both mysteries and melo-dramas. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades.

Each episode would start with Hitchcock's infamous silhouette profile filling in with black. The camera pans to Hitchcock, who introduces the story with witty remarks. These famous satires and puns have become synonymous with the image, voice, and personality of Hitchcock. Each opening took place on a set from that evening's short film, or spoofed a recent popular commercial.

Then Hitchcock would poke fun at the sponsor, leading into the commercial.

Hitchcock would then close the show in much the same way as it was opened, but now to tie up loose ends rather than joke. He told TV Guide that his reassurances that the criminal had been apprehended were "a necessary gesture to morality..."

The opening remarks were also filmed with Hitchcock speaking in French and German for the show's international presentations.

The episodes were characterized by their suspense and surprise endings. A list of notable shows and actors follows this article.

Despite what the title may lead one to believe, Hitchcock only directed seventeen of the hundreds of episodes shared by this program and the later The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Robert Altman directed a great number of episodes, giving his career a vital boost to his future credit as a director.

The last new episode aired on June 26, 1962, but the series continued to be popular in syndication for decades.

In 1985, the National Broadcasting Company aired a new TV-movie based upon the series, combining newly-filmed stories with colorized footage of Hitchcock from the original series introducing each segment. The movie was a huge ratings success, and sparked a brief revival of the anthology series genre that included a new version of The Twilight Zone amongst others. A new Alfred Hitchcock Presents series debuted in the fall of 1985 and retained the same format as the movie - newly filmed stories (a mixture of original works and updated remakes of original series episodes) with colorized introductions by Hitchcock. The new series lasted only two seasons before NBC cancelled it, but it was then produced for two more years by USA Network.

Notable guest stars

• Alfred himself would occasionally put in a cameo appearance, although not as often as he did in his movies.
• Barbara Baxley, six appearances
• Barbara Bel Geddes, four appearances
• Pat Collinge, six appearances
• Mildred Dunnock, four appearances
• Robert H. Harris, eight appearances
• Paul Hartman, five appearances
• Robert Horton, five appearances
• Henry Jones, four appearances
• Brian Keith, five appearances
• Cloris Leachman ("Premonition", October 9, 1955)
• Hugh Marlowe, four appearances

Episode Listing

The Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV series aired weekly at 9:30 on CBS on Sunday nights from 1955 to 1960, and then at 8:30 on NBC on Tuesday nights from 1960 to 1963. The show's runtime was 30 minutes, until the last two seasons when it was extended to 60 minutes and renamed "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". Of the 268 episodes that were made, two were nominated for Emmys, ("The Case of Mr. Pelham", 1955, and "Lamb to the Slaughter", 1958), and one was not aired, ("The Sorcerer's Apprentice", 1963 -- see footnote).

• NBC did not broadcast this episode because the FCC felt that the ending was too gruesome. A magician saws a woman in half, unaware that a real woman is in the case. (The episode has since been shown in syndication.)

External links

• Alfred Hitchcock Presents: imdb.com (http://imdb.com/title/tt0047708/)