Then there’s the ending which so many people hate because it’s not the ending they wanted. You find yourself wondering, if Dana does remember that licence plate, will it actually help him? Should we forget the past? Or should we pay any price to avenge a wrong? So it’s a story about the past and about how it’s sometimes a very good thing that we don’t remember things. Of course there’s a price to be paid - remembering that vital detail will require Dana to relive the accident and see Laura die again. ![]() He tells Dana that he has a technique for total recall that will allow Dana to remember that licence plate number. Then John Hurley shows up on his doorstep. But the one thing he cannot remember is the one thing that matters - the licence number of the car that hit Laura. Without his evidence the police have no chance of catching the killer. Crossing the street to the car she is run down and killed by a hit-and-run driver. Laura leaves her bag in the car and goes back to get it. It all starts with Dana Edwards' and his fiancée Laura stopping to get a hamburger. Of course I’m not going to give any hints as to what that ending is. Almost everybody seems to hate the ending. The Hidden Thing is a somewhat controversial episode. Is he going to go after Miss Ellie? And of course there’s the suspense provided by the fact that Clint is still being hunted. The suspense comes from our uncertainty as to exactly what Clint is likely to do. ![]() He broods about this a lot, and decides he should do something about it. Clint really doesn’t understand what he’s done or what the consequences will be and the more he thinks about things the more he figures that it wasn’t just Walt Norton who was to blame, it was Ellie as well. Mostly the episode is taken up by Clint’s inner thoughts (conveyed to us in a voiceover narration). The big question is, how long can he hold out in such a tiny cramped hiding place and will anyone ever thinking of looking in such an unlikely place? It’s a very clever ideas in some ways, but in other ways maybe it's not quite so clever. He hides in the bell tower of the town’s one-room schoolhouse. Clint isn’t smart but he does come up with a rather unusual idea for a hiding place. The rest of the episode is the manhunt for Clint Ringle. So that’s the end of Miss Ellie’s fiancé and her marriage plans. Poor Clint really flips out when he hears this piece of news and unfortunately he happens to be holding an axe at the time. In fact she’s just become engaged to Walt Norton. Ellie does not have the slightest interest in marrying him. The problem is that Clint is a bit unstable and he’s not too bright and he’s living in a dream world. Clint Ringle (Jack Mullaney) can’t wait to show Ellie Marsh (played by Hitchcock’s daughter Pat) the house he is building for them, for when they get married. ![]() It all takes place in a one-horse country town. The Belfry is a bit of a misfire although it’s certainly different and it’s always nice to see a TV episode that takes a few risks. The series is an object lesson in how to pack just enough plot into a half-hour format. She could be relied upon to make sure that the series would have a thoroughly Hitchcockian flavour. She knew his methods, she knew how his mind worked and she knew the kinds of stories he liked. She had worked with Hitch for many years. While Hitchcock seems to have exercised some vague oversight of the program the producing duties were left to Joan Harrison. And the episodes that do work (and that’s the majority of them) are some of the best television ever made. Yes, like any anthology series it’s uneven but even the stores that don’t quite make it are usually interesting failures. I finally got around to watching the last few episodes of the first season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (originally screened in 1955-56), possibly my all-time favourite anthology series.
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