"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" The Perfect Crime (1957)

User Rating:

7.8/10   

Director:

Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

Stirling Silliphant (teleplay)
Ben Ray Redman (story)

TV Series:

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1955)

Original Air Date:

20 October 1957 (Season 3, Episode 3)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

An arrogant detective, Charles Courtney, prides himself on never having committed a single mistake in his long and distinguished career...

Plot Keywords:

Alfred Hitchcock | Famous Opening Theme | Murder | Looking At Camera | Performer Name In Title

Cast

Alfred Hitchcock	...	Himself - Host
Vincent Price	...	Charles Courtney
James Gregory	...	John Gregory
Gavin Gordon	...	Ernest West
Marianne Stewart	...	Alice West
Mark Dana	...	Harrington
Charles Webster
John Zaremba	...	Photographer
Nick Nicholson
Therese Lyon	...	West's Housekeeper

Runtime:

25 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Filming Locations:

Republic Studios - 4024 Radford Avenue, North Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Shamley Productions

The Only Time Vincent Price was Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This is one of the twenty or so episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents that Hitch himself directed. It is not as well regarded as some of the others (and one can see why after watching it for awhile), but it is historically interesting. Hitchcock directed many fine actors in his career, and such excellent heavies as George Sanders, Joseph Cotten, Robert Walker, Anthony Perkins, Raymond Burr, and Claude Rains. But this half hour television shot was the one time he handled Vincent Price.

Price is Courtney, a "Sherlock Holmes" style Edwardian detective who is used by the New York City police in tricky cases. Price, with his classical handsome bearing, his polished (if nasal) voice, and his self-assurance, is perfect in this role. One can see him effortlessly solving cases (just as in other films he'd be committing crimes). Given the set up the viewer is lulled into believing that in this case Price is a good guy.

But he is Vincent Price, and Hitchcock has fun with him.

Courtney has recently helped convict one Harrington (Mark Dana) of the murder of a millionaire named West (Gavin Gordon) at a hunting lodge West used on Long Island. West and Harrington were rivals on Wall Street, so the motive seemed to be greed. Threads and tire tracks and footprints were used by Price to build a first rate circumstantial case against Harrington, culminating (once the police got a search warrant) finding the small caliber pistol used by the killer in Harrington's wall safe. Denying his guilt to the end, Harrington has just been sent to the electric chair.

Courtney, on the day after the electrocution, is visited by John Gregory (James Gregory) who was a lawyer for Harrington and for Mrs. West (Marianne Stewart) who was having marriage troubles. Gregory seems to be visiting Courtney just to hear how the great detective reached his conclusions. But after the self-satisfied Courtney finishes, Gregory starts surprising him. He has never been in a position to see the gun, but describes some flaws in it perfectly. Soon he is explaining some points regarding the relationship of the Wests and Harrington, pointing out that the husband and wife were splitting up in a messy way, and that Harrington was the cause. But having said that Gregory points out that Courtney did not do some of his homework properly: he thought Mrs. West was in Europe (where she was found after the investigation began). Actually she had just come from Montreal, and was at the scene of the murder - in fact, she killed her husband. Harrington played the sap and protected her...too far. She did not reciprocate when Harrington was in peril.

The result is that Courtney, in his "brilliant" work, sent an innocent man to his doom. The detective indignantly refuses to admit this, but Gregory is just as indignant, pointing out all the overlooked evidence of Mrs. West's sojourn to Montreal and return to New York. Gregory is a lawyer, and he is determined this is the last time that Courtney can do this ever - and he tells him he expects the detective to retire. But Courtney has other ideas.

It is well acted and directed, certainly, with the two main protagonists evenly matched. James Gregory is best recalled as Senator John Iselin, the "McCarthy" type senator in the original THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. If not that then as Inspector Luger on BARNEY MILLER. But here he is an indignant seeker for justice, hoping to stop this dangerous egotist from doing more damage. And Price has an opportunity of showing the ego and misplaced pride that leads to great evil in his actions.

Then, if I like the episode, why do I limit this to only a "7" out of "10"? It's because of one defect in the way the episode was written (the screenplay is by Sterling Silliphant oddly enough, so it should be better). It's too talky! The typical detective story is so involved with analyzing clues and activities and exposition that the reader (after awhile) gets an ability to rapidly read the "solution". But to hear it in dialog, first from one actor than from another actor, it begins to be more boring than one can imagine. Some scenes are shown in flashback, but for some reason the voices of the other principle players are never heard. It is somewhat reminiscent of dream sequences in some Hitchcock films (like SPELLBOUND) where the dialog of the people in the dream is reported and not heard spoken. But those are short segments. This is several critical moments in the episode where normal dialog is ignored in explaining what actually happened.

I keep thinking, given the set-up of the story, that Hitchcock's weird sense of humor was involved here. He probably like the perfect thinking machine type proved to have feet of clay. And fortunately his performers did do well with the material as it were. But still one wishes it was less talky.