The Jar: The Case Of An Alfred Hitchcock Hour Episode Mistaken For The Twilight Zone

I have always enjoyed TV anthology shows, which offer new stories and characters each week. 

I love short stories and anthology programs are perfect for adapting well-written and interesting short stories.   

Joseph Wambaugh, the former LAPD sergeant and best-selling author of police novels whose own anthology program, Police Story, ran successfully for several years on TV, once told me that most TV viewers prefer regular, recognizable characters in TV series. 

True, but TV has offered some classic anthology TV programs.        

Back in the late 1950 and early 1960s, when I was a kid and aspiring crime writer, I was a huge fan of two TV anthology series in particular. 

Both TV series featured an interesting and notable host and narrator and a catchy theme song. 

Alfred Hitchcock Presents offered the famed film director (seen in the above photo) as host and narrator. Hitchcock’s balding head, rotund figure, and British accent was unforgettable, as were his amusing and often clever introductions to stories of crime and mayhem. 

I later also became a hug fan of Rod Serling’s The Twilight Zone. Serling (seen in the above photo), a famed TV writer, was also a memorable host and narrator with his rich voice and serious demeanor.

Serling mostly presented tales of horror, fantasy and science fiction, but he also offered a good share of crime stories. 

Both classic TV shows can be watched today on MeTV at MeTV – America's #1 Classic Television Network, 

Both anthology series have developed a new generation of fans. 

Debopriyaa Dutta at Slashfilm.com offers an interesting piece on an episode based on a Ray Bradbury short story that appeared on Alfred Hitchcock’s program, but was so eerie that many people still believe the episode appeared on The Twilight Zone:    

As memorable as title cards for television shows go, the opening of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" stuck with people for many reasons. Charles Gounod's "Funeral March of a Marionette" blaring the background, director Alfred Hitchcock himself would dole out introductions, right after his silhouette briefly appeared on the screen. As the show was structured as an anthology of macabre stories directed by a bunch of established and emerging talents, Hitchcock would offer a teaser right before every episode, touching upon the kind of horrors that were going to play out on the small screen. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" premiered on CBS in the year 1955 — a time when television had not achieved the boom it would in the later years — but the show endured, thanks to Hitchcock's gravitas and the quality of the half-hour tales that were presented.

In 1959, writer Rod Serling sowed the seeds for his anthology series, "The Twilight Zone," which expanded upon the vignettes of horror by incorporating stories tinted with absurdism, suspense, black comedy, and dystopian narratives. While Serling and Hitchcock's shows were intrinsically different in tone and treatment, it was fairly easy to mistake one show's episode for the other, as both had undergone the anthology treatment and told stories of dynamic variety. Hitchcock's series obviously predated Serling's, and helmed ideas that served as inspiration for countless creatives down the line — however, the overlap of the two shows lies in their explosive popularity, and how they both carved a niche in the genre in a way that is solid and timeless.

Keeping this in mind, it is not surprising that one of the episodes from "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" — a continuation of Hitchcock's parent anthology series, that ran from 1962 to 1965 — was mistaken for a "Twilight Zone" episode. How and why did this mix-up happen?

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

The Case Of An Alfred Hitchcock Hour Episode Mistaken For The Twilight Zone (slashfilm.com)

You also watch The Jar episode via the below link:

The JAR (Alfred Hitchcock Hour) - video Dailymotion 

On This Day In History Film Director Alfred Hitchcock Was Born

As History.com notes, Alfred Hitchcock, the director of such classic suspense films as Psycho, Notorious, North By Northwest and To Catch a Thief, was born on this day in 1899.

Alfred Hitchcock, the macabre master of moviemaking, is born in London on August 13, 1899. His innovative directing techniques and mastery of suspense made him one of the most popular and influential filmmakers of the 20th century.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitchcock-born?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2017-0813-08132017&om_rid=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa&om_mid=225070343&kx_EmailCampaignID=14193&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2017-0813-08132017&kx_EmailRecipientID=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa

Note: I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock on TV. You can watch a video clip of him as the host of Alfred Hitchcock Presents via the below link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ2TebS4DIU

Happy Birthday To The Master of Suspense, Film Director Alfred Hitchcock

As History.com notes, the late, great film director Alfred Hitchcock was born on this day in 1899.

I've enjoyed his classic suspense films and as a teenager in the 1960s I watched and enjoyed his TV crime series.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents is currently being aired on MeTV.

You can read about Alfred Hitchcock's life and work via the below link:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitchcock-born?cmpid=email-hist-tdih-2016-0813-08132016&om_rid=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa&om_mid=79544744&kx_EmailCampaignID=6590&kx_EmailCampaignName=email-hist-tdih-2016-0813-08132016&kx_EmailRecipientID=de5e4076c942a595dbda53f758321d197499484f6d117f61b6ac5c08e0d6f0aa

Happy Birthday To The Master Of Suspense, Film Director Alfred Hitchcock

Happy birthday the late, great film director, Alfred Hitchcock. He was born on this date in 1899.

You can read about Hitchcock via the below link to history.com:

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hitchcock-born?et_cid=79230154&et_rid=1227406676&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.history.com%2fthis-day-in-history%2fhitchcock-born

'Hitchcock' By Michael Wood Is A Beautifully Turned Survey

John Timpane, my editor at the Philadelphia Inquirer, offers a good review of Michael Wood's book on the late great film director Alfred Hitchcock.

It's a rare pleasure for a book to carry you from cover to cover with wit, verve, and profit. That's what happens with this new overview by Michael Wood.

Wood is emeritus professor of comparative literature at Princeton. Erudition is not what he wants to show you - it's Alfred Hitchcock's life and movies. In this quick tour, there's much to cover in little space, much written in countless books. But in Wood's hands, it all seems unrushed, easy, and fresh.

There is Hitchcock's middle-class family, the beginnings of what would become "a frightened man who got his fears to work for him on film." There is his Jesuit schooling, his early days in the just-starting English film industry, and his crucial, life-making union with Alma Reville, wife and collaborator of a lifetime. Of her, Woods writes: "He would have been something without her, no doubt, but he would not have been the director we know as Hitchcock."

... Thanks to his command of suspense, his knack of anticipating audience reactions, Hitchcock became famous, beyond his films, for mastery of human psychology. His work probed friendship, guilt, patriotism, love, obsession, the communal mania that attends war - and the communal shell-shock that follows.

 

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

http://www.philly.com/philly/entertainment/literature/20150322__Hitchcock__by_Michael_Wood_is_a_beautifully_turned_survey.html

Happy Birthday To Film Director Alfred Hitchcock

Happy birthday to the late great Alfred Hitchcock. He was born on this day in 1899.

You can read about the director of Psycho, Vertigo, Notorious and other great films and watch a video of his life and work on the Biography Channel's web site via the below link:

http://www.biography.com/people/alfred-hitchcock-9340006

Note: I'm not only a fan of Hitchcock's crime and spy films, I also grew up watching his TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The TV show offered great crime stories and clever and amusing openings and closings by Hitchcock. I watch reruns of the old show on cable TV occasionally and I find the programs hold up nicely.

Revealed: The Secret Telegram That Shows Ian Fleming Wanted Alfred Hitchcock To Direct The First James Bond Film

Imagine a James Bond film directed by Alfred Hitchcock with Cary Grant portraying James Bond.

Graham Smith at the British newspaper the Daily Mail reports on a telegram Ian Fleming sent his friend and fellow thriller writer Eric Ambler about the first James Bond film.

James Bond creator wanted Alfred Hitchock to direct the first 007 movie, it has emerged.

A telegram sent in 1959 has revealed one of the biggest "what ifs" in British cinema history and will James Bond fans shaken and stirred. Fleming sent the communique in which he asked Hitchcock to take the helm of the first Bond film through a mutual friend.

You can read the rest of the story via the below link:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2144638/Revealed-The-secret-telegram-shows-Ian-Fleming-wanted-Alfred-Hitchcock-direct-Bond-film.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Note: Although not mentioned in the story, both Fleming and film producer Albert "Cubby" Broccoli thought Hitchcock favorite Cary Grant would make a fine James Bond. Grant, who was Broccoli's best man at his wedding, agreed to portray Bond in one film only. As the producers hoped to produce a series of Bond films, they opted to hire Sean Connery to portray Bond and Terence Young to serve as the director. And the rest is cinema history.

The above photo shows the James Bond film team: From left to right is producer Cubby Broccoli, actor Sean Connery, writer Ian Fleming and producer Harry Saltzman.

Letters Of Note: A Bitter Note From Crime Novelist Raymond Chandler To Film Director Alfred Hitchcock Regarding the Film 'Strangers On A Train'

Jason Boog at MediaBistro.com offers a look at a note Raymond Chandler wrote to Alfred Hitchcock, blasting him about the script for the film Strangers on a Train.

The excellent Letters of Note site has posted a bitter note that private detective novelist Raymond Chandler mailed to Alfred Hitchcock, an angry sermon punctuated with this zippy line: “if you wanted something written in skim milk, why on earth did you bother to come to me in the first place?”

You can read the rest of the piece an watch a trailer from Strangers on a Train via the below link:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/raymond-chandler-blasts-alfred-hitchcock_b45139