Working our way through. Best introduction so far, hilarious moment when falling arc light narrowly misses Director!
Funnily enough, a couple of times I've thought Hitch has directed an episode but it turns out to have been Robert Stevens - or, somewhat confusingly - Robert Stevenson. Best episode so far though is one of the Master's, where Joseph Cotten finds he's immobilised following a car crash, and various people think he's dead ('Breakdown') - actually achieved by multiple frame printing so he looks completely motionless. Also Tom Ewell finding he has a doppleganger ('The Case of Mr Pelham').
Lots of good people, some from his own films: Peter Lawford and John Williams ('Long Shot'), Vera Miles (Hitch's own 'Revenge'), John Forsythe ('Premonition'), Everett Sloane ('Our Cook's a Treasure' and 'Place of Shadows'), Barry Fitzgerald (sweet tale 'Santa Claus and the Tenth Avenue Kid'), Patricia Collinge & Darren McGavin ('Mrs Cheney's Vase'), John Qualen ('A Bullet for Baldwin', 'Shopping for Death'), Claude Rains and Charles Bronson ('And so Died Riabouchinska'), Robert Newton ('The Derelicts'), Claire Trevor (in the clever mini-film 'Safe Conduct'), John Williams again, great to see him in different roles, in Hitch's own, crafty 'Back for Christmas', Mildred Natwick and Hurd Hatfield ('The Perfect Murder')
Also good early performance from John Cassavetes, terrorising Marisa Pavan in tale with beautiful twist 'You Got to Have Luck' - after which Hitch drily remarks, "Oh well, back to breaking rocks, Maybe he'll have more luck next time".
Series continues with John Williams again, in an amusing AMOLAD-themed 'Whodunit', Estelle Winwood, Charles Bronson and a rather good Norma Crane ('There Was an Old Woman'), and John Qualen again in 'Help Wanted'.
If you compare these to Roald Dahl's Tales of the Totally Expected there's a mile of difference - and these are only 23 minutes including Hitch's bookends - a great model in how to engage and entertain in such a short time span.
Also love that simple music that goes over the episode title.
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