From: revenge23x@gmail.com   
      
   Written by David Juhl   
   Alfred Hitchcock Presents premiere episode, “Revenge,” reviewed here   
   David Juhl David Juhl   
   4 years ago   
      
   Season 1 Episode 1—aired 10/2/55   
      
   “Revenge” ***½   
      
   Teleplay by Francis Cockrell • Story by Samuel Blas   
   Directed by Alfred Hitchcock   
   Ralph Meeker as Carl Spann   
   Vera Miles as Elsa Spann   
   Frances Bavier as Mrs. Fergusen   
   Ray Montgomery as Man in Grey Suit   
   John Gallaudet as Doctor   
   Ray Teal as Police Lieutenant   
   Norman Wills as Cop   
   John Day as Cop   
   Lillian O’Malley as Hotel Maid   
   Herbert Lyton as Police Lieutenant   
      
   A terrific opening episode to Alfred Hitchcock Presents, directed by the   
   Master of Suspense himself, this story is set in an oceanside trailer park   
   where young married couple Carl and Elsa Span (Ralph Meeker and Vera Miles)   
   have just moved in the hope of    
   making a fresh start in the aftermath of Elsa’s apparent nervous breakdown   
   when she was a ballerina.   
      
   Carl’s an engineer and was able to transfer his job. On his first day of   
   work, he makes breakfast and wakes his sleeping wife with a kiss and in the   
   first of several overtly sexual moments for 1955 television, she kisses him   
   back passionately with    
   intentions of doing more. He has to cut things off by saying “look, baby, I   
   need to go to work.”   
      
   As they have breakfast, he expresses his concern about leaving her in the   
   trailer alone all day. She gives him what he feels is a naïve, Pollyannaish   
   view of the people around there an about people in general.   
      
   As he begins to drive off to work, he encounters friendly/busybody neighbor   
   Mrs. Fergusen (Frances Bavier, Aunt Bee in the Andy Griffith Show a beginning   
   a few years after this). She offers to look in on Elsa while he’s gone.   
      
   When she does drop by to visit Elsa, we get another sexy scene as Elsa is   
   wearing a man’s shirt (presumably Carl’s), showing a great amount of leg.   
      
   Following her nervous breakdown, her doctor prescribed sea and sun and sea. To   
   that end, Elsa steps out of the trailer and removes the shirt, revealing she   
   is wearing a bathing suit underneath and sits in a low chair to begin to   
   sunbathe. We then get a    
   curious point of view shot of Mrs. Fergusen checking out Elsa’s body,   
   lingering on her legs. Her face betrays a mixture of possible desire and   
   concern over Elsa perhaps showing too much skin publicly.   
      
   Carl returns late afternoon with groceries, waves to Mrs. Fergusen. When he   
   opens the trailer door the cake is burning. He finds Elsa in the bedroom,   
   unconscious, holding a carnation blossom in her hand. Then she comes back into   
   semi consciousness saying    
   “he killed me” to Carl. “I came in to see the cake, then I turned around   
   and he was standing there. He said he was a salesman, then when he asked me   
   for money I refused him then he grabbed me then I screamed then he choked me,   
   then he killed me. He    
   killed me.”   
      
   Later, the police and a doctor arrive on the scene. The doctor says she’s   
   been through a very emotional shock and recommends that Carl remove Elsa from   
   the trailer park, to take her to a hotel. It’s not clear what happened,   
   although sexual assault is    
   certainly something that comes to mind.   
      
   The only lead the police have is from one trailer park resident who saw a man   
   come into the park from the beach, six feet tall, grey suit and dark hair.   
      
   Understandably frustrated that the police don’t have enough to go on to   
   pinch the guy, Carl is later smoking at Elsa’s bedside, contemplative. “If   
   I ever find him, I’ll kill him,” he says. Elsa replies “yes.” He asks   
   if she thinks she would    
   know the guy if she saw him again, she says “yes, oh yes.” Miles is really   
   good here and in the remainder of the episode– the empty, vacant look in her   
   eyes, the monotone voice, the drooping mouth. Hitchcock clearly was fond of   
   her in this; he    
   would cast her the next year co-starring alongside Henry Fonda in The Wrong   
   Man the a few years later as the sister of Janet Leigh’s character in Psycho.   
      
   They decide to drive around before going to the hotel. Here is where   
   Hitchcock’s expertise as a director truly pays dividends and the episode   
   really shifts into overdrive.  There is great pacing between close ups, two   
   shots, and travel shots along the    
   street. Elsa sees a man from behind in a grey suit walking on the sidewalk and   
   she says “that’s him.” Carl pulls over, grabs a wrench from under the   
   seat he left there for just this eventuality. He follows the man into a hotel,   
   then into an    
   elevator and gets off on the same floor. The man goes into his room. Carl   
   walks past him, doubles back to the man’s room, opens the door and goes in.   
      
   In a brilliantly shot single take, we see Carl, filmed from behind, from his   
   back down, enter the man’s room. We see his face as he crosses the room in a   
   mirror’s reflection, then we see his shadow as he violently whacks the   
   unseen man several times    
   then backs out, all in one shot. Absolutely great stuff. If you want to see a   
   tremendous example of how to direct such a scene, watch this one.   
      
   Carl walks out of the hotel and gets back in the car. They drive off and Elsa   
   still has a vacant look to her. As they drive through another town, she looks   
   over at some pedestrians and says “there he is, that’s him.” She’s   
   totally out of it. We    
   cut to Carl. We begin to hear sirens and his face begins to fall as he   
   realizes that his world is about to come to an end.   
      
   An auspicious series debut, Hitchcock did well to take the directorial reins   
   himself for the first time out. My only quibbles are nagging questions over   
   what exactly did happen, if anything, to Elsa, given her emotionally unstable   
   mindset and whether or    
   not suspicion cast upon Mrs. Ferguson was warranted or simply a red herring.   
      
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   Written by David Juhl   
      
   https://davidjuhl.wordpress.com/2016/03/28/alfred-hitchcock-pres   
   nts-premiere-episode-revenge-reviewed-here/amp/   
      
      
   On Monday, February 26, 2018 at 8:39:08 PM UTC-6, 23x wrote:   
   > How Parents Turn Their Children Into Criminal Psychopaths   
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