Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS 1985


ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS 1985.

In 1985 there was a new color edition of Alfred Hitchcock Presents which used Hitchcock's original introductions -- colorized -- for remakes of some classic episodes, although not always the episode they were originally used for. Later on the program featured some all-new material. The most memorable episodes were do-overs of "An Unlocked Window" [with Annette O'Toole and an excellent Bruce Davison]; "Final Escape" [starring Season Hubley in a lead role sex-switch]; Cornell Woolrich's "4 O'clock"; "Man on the Ledge" with Mark Hammill; and "Pen Pal" with a fine Jean Simmons in the role originally played by Katherine Squire. Many of the new episodes were pretty bad, but there were a few exceptions: "Twist," which had a lot of them in a tale of adultery and murder; "Kadinsky's Vault" with Eli Wallach as a book store owner with a secret; and the diabolical "Final Twist" with Martin Landau as the nasty boss of a fed-up special effects crew. I'm not certain if "The Impatient Patient" [with E. G. Marshall as a dying patient in a war with an overbearing hospital employee]; "Murder Party" [with David McCallum] or "Tragedy Tonight" [a woman's sister has acting exercises that lead to tragedy] were remakes or new material, but all of them were interesting. Some of the remakes were vastly inferior to the originals, such as "The Creeper;" and the all-time worst new episode featured a hapless Patrick Wayne in a dreadful spoof of North by Northwest.

Verdict: Too many unmemorable episodes to make this a classic, but not without interest. **1/2.

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