Her impeccable taste blended well with Hitchcock's sensibility. Harrison probably handled all the producing chores on the TV show and reported to Hitchcock only for approvals. In 1943 she moved up to producing on Universal's Phantom Lady. She also became a screenwriter on Rebecca, Foreign Correspondent, Suspicion, and Ride the Pink Horse. An almost invisible presence in Hitchcock's career, Harrison had worked for the director since 1933, suggesting properties and editing scripts. That was the job of his long-time collaborator Joan Harrison, the wife of author Eric Ambler. at the time, he obviously didn't personally run the show. Stevens, Mildred Dunnock, Hurd Hatfield, Robert Middleton, Corey Allen, Russell Collins, Hugh Marlowe, Robert Emhardt, Biff McGuire, Barbara Baxley, Gary Merrill, Royal Dano, Inger Stevens, Phillip Coolidge, Edith Barrett, James Gleason, Louise Platt, Pat Hitchcock, Anthony Dawson, David Wayne, Dick York, George Mcready, Judith Evelyn, Robert Culp, Edmund Gwenn and Albert Salmi, and those are only the names that caught Savant's eye.Īs Hitchcock was orking at Paramount and Warner Bros. Vic Morrow and Rip Torn are mentioned on the box, but we've also got Phyllis Thaxter, Ralph Meeker, Patricia Collinge, Robert Hutton, Henry Jones, Cedric Hardwicke, George Grizzard, K.T. Individual names often make more than one appearance, suggesting two-show contracts. We also see many actors with minor roles in his earlier pictures. Plenty of Hitchcock friends and favorites show up, like Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn and John Williams. Seeing an entire season at once lets one appreciate the incredible array of interesting actors. Some episodes are limited to just two or three people in a room, yet the show also made frequent ventures into elaborate second-unit work, and the occasional story with a larger than normal cast. Some say they are too much like radio shows, but few of these shows would work if the characters weren't visible. Episodes vary but most come off as miniature playlets and exercises in minimalism with fat parts for actors. The show has now settled into its winning formula. The classic season is still the first, as it had more experimental episodes. The show also gave Hitchcock a proving ground for his big screen ideas, an audition platform for new faces, and perhaps a way of rewarding old friends and helpers. The industry admired Hitchcock's television show as a marketing gimmick almost as effective as Walt Disney's - his name became synonymous with mystery, murder and intrigue. so perhaps Hitchcock was induced to forego them. Maybe that practice came later? Note: 10.27.06: Reader Michael Adams informs me that the sponsor jokes are in season 1. What we don't get in Season two are monologues in which Hitchcock makes fun of the sponsor. In one Hitchcock appears as his own Cockney stand-in, and he's so good, we can imagine "Alfie" being a successful minor comedy actor, dead-panning his way through stories of the East End markets. In another he stands amid a line of bathing beauties, too shy to use his measuring tape. In this second season Hitch can be seen holding his own head under his arm, trapped in a box and holding a large switch to electrocute channel-changers (what did the FCC say to that?). By 1959 Hitchcock's screen persona was so well established that he carried it over to the trailers for his major feature films.Įvery Hitchcock intro is different. They were a perfect kind of 'product branding' that made him easily the most visible film director working in Hollywood. Hitch's funny on-screen intros made one reach to 'get' his brand of humor. The music brought our heads up out of our homework for a chance to see Hitchcock in person, a stout man with a vacant expression and a controlled English voice. According to an online source about the TV show, Hitchcock liked the tune when he heard it in 1927's Sunrise. Each of the 39 episodes in Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season Two begins with a musical piece that became Hitchock's personal signature tune, Funeral March of a Marionette by Charles Gounod.
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