A Double Dose of Hitchcock's TV Series

Director Alfred Hitchcock was a familiar face to television viewers during the 1950s and 1960s. He hosted the long-running anthology series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, which ran from 1955-1965. Until 1962, the series presented half-hour tales of suspense featuring both original stories and adaptations of classic mystery tales. Starting in the 1962 television season, the show expanded to an hour in length, and was renamed The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Like The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Thriller, both versions of the show featured a host of talented actors including Sally Kellerman, Jessica Tandy, Charles Bronson, Bill Mumy, Joseph Cotten, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tony Randall, and Vincent Price. I thought I’d shine the light on a couple of watch-worthy entries from the series, to provide you a sort of “Hitchcock TV double feature.” First up, “The Case of Mr. Pelham,” the tenth episode from the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Tom Ewell

The episode stars Tom Ewell (from The Seven Year Itch) as Albert Pelham, a man who suspects that he has a double who has been impersonating him. The mysterious doppelganger has been showing up at Pelham’s apartment, his job and even his private club. No one is able to tell the difference between the double and the real Pelham. As Pelham relates the story in flashback to a doctor played by Raymond Bailey (best known for his role as Mr. Drysdale on The Beverly Hillbillies) he admits he’s begun to doubt his own sanity. The doctor assures Pelham that there is obviously a logical explanation for these events, but just what does the double want from Pelham? Does he intend to take over his life?

“The Case of Mr. Pelham” is one of the seventeen segments of the series that were directed by Hitchcock, and it’s a crisply paced episode with an intriguing concept. Ewell is outstanding as the troubled Pelham and his sinister double, and the climactic scene, where the two versions of Pelham share the screen, is excellent. Francis Cockrell wrote the teleplay for the episode, which was based on Anthony Armstrong’s story The Strange Case of Mr. Pelham. The tale was also the inspiration for the eerie Roger Moore film The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970). There are many excellent entries throughout the run of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but “The Case of Mr. Pelham” is one of the best, and an especially good starting point if you’re new to the series.

Another fine segment of the series is “Captive Audience,” the fifth episode from The Alfred Hitchcock Hour’s first season. This episode was penned by the celebrated team of Richard Levinson and William Link, best known for creating (and writing episodes for) classic television series such as Columbo, Mannix, Ellery Queen and Murder, She Wrote. The story concerns a mystery writer named Warren Barrow, who sends tapes of his plot ideas to his publisher, Victor Hartman. The latest series of tapes he sends along to Hartman seem to be about a murder that Barrow is actually planning to commit, rather than just an idea for his new novel. The “story” is about a mystery writer’s volatile relationship with a married woman whom he calls Janet West.

Angie Dickinson & James Mason

The writer meets Janet and her husband Ivar, when he and his wife Helen are on vacation. There is an instant attraction between Warren and Janet, but neither of the two acts on it at the time. Warren’s wife dies in a tragic accident the same night. Some time later, he runs into Janet at a nightclub, and the two begin an affair. Janet cajoles a reluctant Warren into coming up with the perfect way to murder Ivar, so they can be together forever. Barrow outlines his plan on the audiotapes he sends to his publisher, detailing how they plan to kill Janet’s husband. But something happens when the plan is set in motion, and Barrow re-thinks his plan. Hartman brings in his friend Tom Keller to listen to the tapes, to see what he thinks of them. Is Barrow really planning a murder? And who is the victim? Is there time to stop him?

“Captive Audience” is a tense, noir-esque tale with some terrific performances. James Mason is marvelous as Warren Barrow, the mystery writer with both love and murder on his mind. Angie Dickinson is very good as the beautiful and seductive Janet, who may be manipulating Barrow for her own ends. The episode also features Arnold Moss as Hartman and Ed Nelson as Keller, both of whom will be familiar faces to fans of 1960s and 1970s television series. Levinson and Link’s fine teleplay is based on the novel Murder Off The Record by John Bingham. The well-known writing team later wrote a television film entitled Rehearsal for Murder (1982), a twisty tale of murder that has some echoes of this episode. In the movie, Robert Preston portrays a playwright whose actress lover apparently committed suicide. His new play provides a different explanation for her killing, and he plans on using the rehearsals for the play as a way to catch her killer.

Both “The Case of Mr. Pelham” and “Captive Audience” as well as other episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, are available on the Amazon Prime and Peacock streaming services. There have been video releases of both series, though some of those discs are currently out of print. Both versions of the series featured some fantastic episodes throughout their runs, and even the lesser entries are enjoyable, especially for Hitchcock’s often amusing introductions and end of episode comments. I highly recommend checking out “The Case of Mr. Pelham” and “Captive Audience,” and sampling some other episodes of the series, in both the half hour and hour formats. As The Master of Suspense himself would say, "Good evening."