Alfred Hitchcock and a world of black and white

 January 2025, the last days of democracy in America. So of course I’ve been bingeing ancient episodes of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents.” It is a way to pass the bleak winter evenings when one has decided to unfollow the bleak winter news.


About the show: I’m not kidding when I say ancient. It started in 1955 and ran for seven years, meaning most of these stories are about as old as I am. Like me, some of them have not aged all that well. 

But some old things can seem better just by virtue of their age, can’t they? And ’50s TV shows have the rare distinction of looking better now than when they were new. That’s because of high resolution, big-screen TVs. When I saw my first episode of “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (a rerun even then, of course) it was probably on a blurry 19-inch RCA. These days you can spot flaws in the sets and makeup that would have been invisible to viewers in the ’50s.

Right now I’m on Season 3. Almost 200 episodes still to go! That’s another thing: Back then, TV series had real seasons, each with about 39 episodes. Compare that to the six or eight or 10 you get with modern shows. While it’s possible to bitch about the quality of some AHP episodes, you sure can’t quibble about the quantity. 

That demanding schedule sometimes shows. There are times at the closing fade when my wife and I will look at each other and go, “What? That’s it?”

But I keep coming back for more. I like the cars, the gleaming Mercuries and Packards and big-finned DeSotos. I like the endless cigarettes and boxy suits and ridiculous loungewear. I like seeing now-dead actors early in their careers – last night it was Jessica Tandy. I like Hitchcock’s insistence that justice prevail in each episode, even if he had to explain it in the closing segment.

The only thing I don’t like is that ponderous theme music, Gounod’s “Funeral March of a Marionette.” It wasn’t bad when it was once a week, but when you’re bingeing two or three episodes a night it gets old fast. And now it’s stuck in my head in a permanent loop. 

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