Jeff#
Screenwriter
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2005
- Messages
- 1,942
We'll get more seasons for certain, but take some time to enjoy this one first! 
You got a good deal at Costco. Not being a member, I went to my usual stomping ground (Best Buy) and paid their usual discounted price for Universal TV disc sets: $33 plus tax or $36 total.
The early years of the series are sometimes hard to get into. That's partly because I've seen these all before years ago, but more importantly the era they're from works against it somewhat. They have a cheap, staged feel even with the occasional exterior filming. The music is bland and the Hitchcock shows too often presented stories that take place in the 19th centuty (the only ones I like in that genre are westerns, of which there were few on AHP). When even compared to far superior later seasons in the 1960s (particularly The Alfred Hitchcock Hour), these half-hour "playlets" (as Hitchcock himself called them) seem rather quaint. Even though the points were made as to how someone was killed or physically harmed, I never liked how most of the violence was kept offscreen. Or in the case of the pilot when Ralph Meeker beats a man to death with a wrench...we see it in shadows. Definitely not the way to tell a story! Hitchcock himself directed a famous episode a few years later "Lamb to the Slaughter" and did a slightly better job with that, although you don't really see Barbara Bel Geddes hitting her husband with a frozen leg of lamb. Just her face as she's doing it!
But there were still some entertaining tales that were different than anything else on TV during that era. The kind of stories that stand out and kept viewers coming back. With all the awards this show has won and the involvement of a great film director, plus his often funny dialog by James Allardice, Alfred Hitchcock Presents is still worth watching and collecting!
You got a good deal at Costco. Not being a member, I went to my usual stomping ground (Best Buy) and paid their usual discounted price for Universal TV disc sets: $33 plus tax or $36 total.
The early years of the series are sometimes hard to get into. That's partly because I've seen these all before years ago, but more importantly the era they're from works against it somewhat. They have a cheap, staged feel even with the occasional exterior filming. The music is bland and the Hitchcock shows too often presented stories that take place in the 19th centuty (the only ones I like in that genre are westerns, of which there were few on AHP). When even compared to far superior later seasons in the 1960s (particularly The Alfred Hitchcock Hour), these half-hour "playlets" (as Hitchcock himself called them) seem rather quaint. Even though the points were made as to how someone was killed or physically harmed, I never liked how most of the violence was kept offscreen. Or in the case of the pilot when Ralph Meeker beats a man to death with a wrench...we see it in shadows. Definitely not the way to tell a story! Hitchcock himself directed a famous episode a few years later "Lamb to the Slaughter" and did a slightly better job with that, although you don't really see Barbara Bel Geddes hitting her husband with a frozen leg of lamb. Just her face as she's doing it!
But there were still some entertaining tales that were different than anything else on TV during that era. The kind of stories that stand out and kept viewers coming back. With all the awards this show has won and the involvement of a great film director, plus his often funny dialog by James Allardice, Alfred Hitchcock Presents is still worth watching and collecting!
