I'm back in a Hitchcock cycle again, kind of like the way my orbit takes me around to Dylan, Gershwin and Poe (and a more mixed bunch you never saw!). I'm once again watching all the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes from the 1950s, in glorious black and white, and the even-better Alfred Hitchcock Hour, in which there is a whole hour to develop story lines and characters.
The half-hour ones are kind of like The Twilight Zone, a short fiction format where you have to get in there fast, do your damage, and then get out (my own formula for writing short stories). I am also re-watching The Outer Limits series which I'm able to stream and binge-watch in its entirety. Some are absurdly hokey, but there are others with a definite film noir feeling to them, not to mention hints of German expressionism, a Metropolis atmosphere of paranoia and lurking danger. We never quite understand what is going on, something is always held back - kind of like life.
One of the most macabre episodes, The Architects of Fear, had Robert Culp slowly morph into a hideous alien creature, and what I noticed most of all was how much David Cronenberg's Brundlefly was modelled on the monster. The basic body structure, the head, the way it clomped around on two legs but still retained a ghastly humanness. . . yes. These geniuses are all affected by each other, notice each other. It may not even have been a conscious choice, but I think he absorbed it.
And in all these old TV shows, we see character actors or even big stars that would go on to be very familiar indeed. Nearly every episode of the Hitchcock series has "oh, THAT guy!" in it - or that woman - the one who has been in so many episodes of so many shows, but whose names we can't recall. And then people like Sir Cedric Hardwicke show up, along with Shatner and Nimoy and those who would go on to be massive stars. In fact, I did a video on this and should post it.
It's interesting to see the difference between Hitchcock's 1950s series (and by the way, he DIDN'T direct these, just introduced them) and the later hour-long format. For one thing, I have vague memories of it, and did a whole long riff on the eerie episode Consider her Ways, based on a John Wyndham story. This led me to read a whole lot of John Wyndham, leaving me with an aftertaste. The man did not feel good about the future. I watched The Outer Limits - some of it - the ones I could stand - through my splayed fingers, terrified even by that unforgettable opening: "There is nothing wrong with your television set." It was enough to give me night terrors. So when I watch them now, there are little jolts here and there that represent the stirring of deep memories.
Hitchcock would have approved.
