Episode 1.10: The Case of Mr. Pelham.

Starring: Tom Ewell, Raymond Bailey
Written by: Francis M. Cockerell (teleplay), based on a story by Anthony Armstrong
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
First aired December 4, 1955

Episode Grade: B

Hello again, hello my friends, sorry about my absence. I took a small break. I am BACK! Each season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents has roughly fourteen billion episodes, so I like to take a little break after long stretches. No, really, there are almost forty episodes in a season. That’s a lot of episodes.

Let’s get to it, shall we?

This is the first of the rather Twilight Zone-esque episodes. Most of the AHP episodes are about murder, sometimes about embezzlement, always about crime. There are a few, like this one, which are other-worldly and just sort of spooky. It’s not about crime at all. By the by, The Twilight Zone would not premiere until 1959.

Hitch’s Intro:

This is the first episode in which the most famous title card is presented. Gone are the solid black serif letters. Now we have–and will see until the end of the series–the large, blocky, white letters in outline.

I wonder who thought to change it? It’s very good, very iconic. Well done, Person Who Decided to Change the Title Card Design! It was most likely Hitchcock himself, I bet. I wouldn’t be surprised.

We see Hitch standing alone–looking kind of slim, actually, for Hitch. He is grabbing his lapels. He bows, still clutching his lapels. He apologizes that tonight’s play doesn’t have any murder or crime. He tells us that he finds this story absolutely frightening–not because of torture or violence, but the “insidious little devices that can drive a man out of his mind.”