![]() Hitchcock's direct involvement in the series was very limited. ![]() A silhouette of the robust director appears, accompanied by a selection from composer Charles Gounod’s 1872 instrumental “Funeral March of a Marionette.” Hitchcock then steps into his side profile portrait, which dissolves into the introduction. The title sequence of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was an exercise in simplicity. Why would sponsors put up with his barbs? Alfred Hitchcock Presents drew consistently high ratings, delivering plenty of eyeballs to their products. (In one segment leading into a story involving medicine, he braces the audience to prepare for an ad break, a “one-minute anesthetic.”) For international audiences who couldn’t see American product advertising, however, Hitchcock instead used alternate footage that eliminated the sponsorship jabs and instead poked fun at Americans. In these dryly witty sequences written by Hitchcock collaborator James Allardice, Hitchcock helps set up the episode’s premise and often addresses the audience directly, regularly making derogatory comments about the need to cut to commercials. Alfred Hitchcock shot different host segments for American and international audiences.Īlthough Alfred Hitchcock Presents was an anthology series with a rotating cast, it maintained continuity for the audience by keeping the director front and center for introductory segments. While you build your library, check out some intriguing facts about the series, including its little-known connection with The Twilight Zone and why one episode was deemed too intense to air on 1960s network television. Some seasons were only released on home video overseas. You can find the first four seasons on Hulu or the first seven in syndication on the MeTV channel, but a complete collection may require some DVD hunting and a region-free player. Prior to the series, Hitchcock estimated that he received a dozen fan letters every week. While Hitchcock directed only a handful of episodes, he introduced each one: Those morbidly amusing host segments helped the filmmaker behind Psycho and The Birds become an iconic figure in pop culture. ![]() The 10-season anthology series debuted in 1955 on CBS and featured sharp crime tales culled from short mystery and suspense fiction. Before Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone presented cautionary tales of arrogant people behaving badly and getting their comeuppance, there was Alfred Hitchcock Presents. (For other time-efficient nostalgia trips, nearly every pre-1990s Disney movie clocks in under 80 minutes, including Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, and The Jungle Book.Good evening. Even so, in just 64 minutes we get flying elephants, a valuable lesson in an interspecies mouse-elephant friendship, and what was, for at least one 5-year-old watching it on video, the astounding experience of seeing an adult have to explain why Dumbo was drunk. Dumboĭisney’s fourth animated movie was conceived as a model of simplicity and efficiency, made to recoup the losses of Fantasia. The below movies are listed by length, starting with the shortest. Whatever your motivation, here are more than 50 (relatively) brief films worth your limited time. After all, you’re a busy person, with many responsibilities! Maybe you’ve only got a short window, or maybe you’re just trying to sneak in one more movie in a late-night marathon. But sometimes you just want a good story, capably told, that gets in and out in less than 90 minutes. Sure, it’s great to turn off your mind and immerse yourself in a three-hour-long orgy of cinematic excess. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos: A24, Daiei Film, Getty Archive Photos / Hulton / LMPC / Sunset Boulevard, The Weinstein Company
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