Sunday, July 29, 2018

Classic TV: Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955)

Acclaimed filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock transitioned to television when Universal convinced him to develop an anthology series for their television division, then known as Revue Studios. It can be argued that Alfred Hitchcock Presents may be far more known to fans of the man than movies like "The Birds" or "Psycho".

Alfred Hitchcock Presents spent its first five seasons on CBS before shifting over to NBC. There are a number of iconic pieces to the anthology. The self-portrait of Hitchcock which appears on the screen before the man himself steps in front of it. Bernard Herrmann's "Funeral March For a Marionette", the show's theme song. And, of course, Hitchcock, whose left of center gallows humor cemented his own icon status.

The series was enough of a success to the point where it was parodied on ABC's The Flintstones (in the episode, "Alvin Brickrock Presents"), and likely also in Mad Magazine. After seven seasons, the series expanded to an hour, forcing a title change to The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, which continued for three seasons (1962-5).

Reruns began airing on the fledgling Nick at Nite division of Nickelodeon in the 80's, and that led to NBC reviving the series, back on its original night, Sundays, but at an earlier hour (coupled with Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories), in 1985. Unfortunately, the audience wasn't there, and NBC handed the revived Hitchcock off to USA Network for three more seasons (1986-9).

Curiously, 1961's "The Sorcerer's Apprentice", written by "Psycho" author Robert Bloch, never aired on network television. Apparently, the sponsors had some issues with content. Diana Dors and Brandon DeWilde star.



I'd seen some of the reruns back in the day, and also sampled the 1985 series, which included colorized versions of Hitchcock's legendary opening bits. At least Universal had the good sense not to try again after the revival ended, unlike CBS, which allowed Twilight Zone to be exhumed one final time in the early '00's for UPN.

Rating: A-.

4 comments:

Mike Doran said...

" … Revue/Universal hadn't learned its lesson from the expansion of Wagon Train …"

Of course they hadn't …
… because the Wagon Train expansion didn't happen until 1963 - the year after the Hitchcock expansion.
And the Hitchcock expansion was somewhat of a success, lasting three full seasons …
… and the Hitchcock series only came to an end when Alfred Hitchcock himself decided to end it in 1965.

#lookthingsup#

hobbyfan said...

D'oh! Thanks, Mike.

Mike Doran said...

Sorry, but I just noticed this …

"Funeral March For a Marionette" was composed by a French classical composer named Charles Gounod.
The arrangement that was heard for years on Alfred Hitchcock Presents was the work of Revue's music supervisor, Dave Kahn (who also composed the theme of Leave It To Beaver, by the way).
Over the years, many contract composers took a crack at rearranging the Gounod music for the Hitchcock shows; in the last two seasons of the Hitchcock Hour, Bernard Herrmann came up with the all-bassoons arrangement that many of us remember.


hobbyfan said...

When NBC revived the series in 1985, they called on Sylvester Levay, musical director for "Airwolf", to create a new version. I'll just have to check to see if Kahn was properly credited.