Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season #5

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

💲💲Episode #1: Arthur💲💲 – Arthur Williams is a chicken farmer who is also a confirmed bachelor. He wants to be rid of his gold-digging girlfriend. He strangles and kills her. The police suspect Arthur but cannot find the body. Later, Arthur offers them a gift for their troubles: Chickens. The chickens are quite fat from a special feed that was made up, in part from his girlfriend’s body. A chicken farmer kills his ex-fiancee, but the police can’t find the body. Arthur Williams is a reclusive chicken farmer. His fiancée Helen comes to him one evening and informs him that she is leaving him – to marry his friend. Cold and contempt towards him, Helen tells him that she detests the farm and would much rather travel and dine and enjoy life. Arthur releases he from her obligation to marry him but warns her that her new man is no good. He decides to settle into life as a confirmed bachelor, cynical towards marriage, enjoying ordered life on his self-contained chicken farm. A year later, Helen returns, having been jaded by her good-for-nothing husband who kicked her out without so much as a penny. Arthur finds her incessant chatter and habits madly annoying. When Helen declares that she’d “rather be dead” than face the humiliation of him not helping her, he strangles her. The police suspect Arthur but cannot find the body though they thoroughly search the farm. Later, Arthur offers them a gift for their troubles: Chickens. The chickens are quite fat from a special feed that was made up, in part, from his former girlfriend’s body. When his pretty ex-fiancee returns from another failed relationship, a chicken farmer not wanting anything to do with her, decides to eliminate her. When his fiancée Helen leaves chicken farmer Arthur for another man, he accepts her decision by conveniently enjoying the life of a bachelor. A year passes and Helen pays him a return visit, asking for forgiveness. It seems her love interest didn’t work out and she wants to rekindle an old flame, against Arthur’s wish to remain a bachelor. Accustomed to strangling chickens for a living, Arthur angrily applies the same method to Helen, then hides her body. The police suspect him of murder but can do nothing for lack of evidence. Arthur is a successful New Zealand chicken farmer. One evening, his fiancée Helen Braithwaite tells him that she is to marry someone else. Arthur releases her from her promise but also warns that that the man she plans to marry is no good and she will live to regret her choice. A year goes by and Arthur continues to improve on his yield of chickens. He now mixes his own feed ad his goal is to become entirely self-sufficient in terms of running the farm. One evening, Helen reappears to tell him that she had made a terrible mistake and was leaving her husband to move in with him. Arthur now realizes that he has grown quite accustomed to the solitude of his farm and has only one option open to him.

Alfred Hitchcock is in a hen house. We learn he’s gone into the egg business and needs fresh ideas. One of them is a 3-D polygon shaped egg that doesn’t roll in the refrigerator so saves on packaging. He shows the hens the plastic model egg, but the hens do not understand. Act 1 opens with Arthur Williams at a large chicken brooder. He says he has a large farm run by himself. He holds a large chicken and after explaining his operation, he strangles the poor chicken he was holding. He says he’s a murderer. In the next scene, Arthur pulls out a roast chicken from the oven and it looks wonderful, but it’s tragic after what we have observed. He’s having a nice dinner by himself and says Helen Brathwaite his pretty fiancée, was only out for herself. He recounts their story of being in debt when Helen comes over to tell him that she’s leaving. She’s found a new boyfriend, a man named Stanley, a financer whom Arthur introduced. Sometime later Arthur’s friend, Sgt. John Farrell, comes over and Arthur shows him around the chicken farm with modern machinery to make his own nutritious chicken feed and be able to process the chickens when they are ready. It’s a remarkable one-man farm operation. Farrell asks about his friend’s social life and getting married, but it turns out Arthur is now a confirmed bachelor. When Farrell leaves, Arthur goes back into his house ad is surprised to see Helen is sitting in a chair. She says, “I’m b-a-a-ck.” Arthur doesn’t look too pleased. She ends up preparing dinner for him. Arthur isn’t the type to stand up to her and tell her that it’s too late for them and to get out. We find out Helen isn’t much of a housekeeper and it bothers Arthur. Helen notices Arthur isn’t his usual mild self and thinks he’s angry with her. Helen realizes that the last time she was there that she was leaving him. Arthur explains that it is final with him and Helen says where she will go if leaves her. Arthur finds out Stanley has divorced her and didn’t give her any money to live on. Arthur asks what if I threw you out, she replies that she rather be dead. “A very wise decision, my dear,” quickly retorts Arthur. He goes over and grabs Helen’s neck like a chicken and she quickly succumbs to Arthur’s strong hands .There’s a look of pleasure and satisfaction in Arthur’s eyes as he does his dastardly deed.

💋💋Episode #2: The Crystal Trench💋💋- When Stella Ballister’s husband dies in a mountain-climbing accident, he falls into a crevasse and is frozen within a glacier. Stella waits for the glacier to move so that she can see the frozen and perfectly preserved body of her husband. When it finally does so, she is shocked to discover that her husband’s corpse is wearing a locket that contains a picture of another woman. An obsessed young woman waits decades for her husband’s body to emerge from the ice after he fall from a mountain. Stella Ballister is still in “honeymoon mode” with her husband of six months, holidaying in the Austrian Alps. She stays in the hotel while he goes mountain climbing and several hours later receives the tragic news that her husband ha died of exposure and exhaustion and his remains may or may not be recovered (due to the danger) until the next day. While securing ropes to the body, it accidentally slips out of the grasps of the recovery team and Mr. Ballister slides hundreds of yards down into the glacier crevasse, seemingly never to be seen again. Mark Cavendish, the fellow British hotel guest who had to break the terrible news to her (and has now fallen in love with her) must accept that Stella (who has consulted a Glaciologist) is so devoted to her dead husband that not only does she reject Marks’ marriage proposal, but intends to wait the forty years for her husbands’ body to hopefully resurface. He stays a close friend and the day finally arrives and they return to Austria. – Stella’s heart swells with joy, as indeed her beloved husband is found beneath a thin layer of ice, the handsome young man she has so adored for so long – but her joy is short lived… While staying at a hotel in the Swiss Alps, Mark Cavendish is asked to break some bad news to the only other British guest, Mrs. Stella Ballister; her husband of six months has perished on the mountain top, dying from exposure and exhaustion. Unfortunately, an attempt to recover his remains fails when his body falls into a deep crevasse. Over the following years Mark very much falls in love with Stella but she will not marry him. She is waiting for the day when her husband’s body will reappear, pushed down the mountain by the moving glacier. Forty years later, she finally recovers his body, but also gets a surprise that affects her deeply. A woman refuses to remarry after her husband was killed. When Stella Ballister’s husband dies in a mountain-climbing accident, he falls into a crevasse and is frozen within a glacier. An expert climber named Mark is chosen to break the news to Stella and soon pursues her as a love interest. However, Stella informs him that she and her husband had a perfect marriage and that she can not marry another. After consulting a professor of science who is an expert on the movement of glaciers, Stella discovers that within forty years she will be able to recover the body of her late husband. All that time, she waits for him while Mark waits for Stella. Finally, the day arrives. Stella’s late husband is perfectly preserved in ice – eyes wide open staring back at her. Mark recovers a locket from the corpse and as he looks at it, is shocked to discover that it contains a picture of another woman.

💋💋Episode #3: Appointment at Eleven💋💋 – David Logan lives at home with his mother and he’s still upset that his father left him many years before. He is haunted by an event when he was twelve years old and he came home to find his father with a blue-eyed blonde. He tells his mother he has an appointment at 11:00 so he skips dinner and heads to a bar. There he meets a girl and repeats several times that something big is going to happen at 11:00. He gets into a fight with a sailor in the bar and tells him the same and then again with a patron in an Irish pub, now saying someone is going to die at the prescribed hour. When the 11 o’clock news comes on the air, you learn the full story. Davy Logan leaves his house against the pleas of his mother. He goes to a bar and meets a woman. He tells her that his father abandoned him when he was young after being caught with another woman. He says he hates his father and grows angry. He grows so angry that he must be restrained is kicked out of the bar. He goes to another bar. His father used to play piano there. He picks a fight with the current piano player. He again is restrained. He yells that someone is going to die in “two minutes.” A few minutes later, a news broadcast reveals that Davy’s father was executed for murder. Davy breaks down and sobs. A teenager grows violent as it gets closer to eleven o’clock at night. A seventeen-year-old named Davy Logan leaves his apartment, against the frantic pleas of his mother. He goes to a bar and meets a woman, whom he tells that he despises for being blonde. He tells her that his father abandoned him when he was young after being caught with another woman and that he hates blondes because the woman with whom he saw his father was a blue-eyed blonde. He grows angrier by the moment, but talks excitedly about eleven o’clock, when he’ll be reborn again. In his hysteria, he picks a fight with a sailor in the bar and the sailor takes him outside. Instead of fighting him, the sailor takes him for a sandwich and tries to calm him. However, Davy can’t be quieted and talks of killing the man he hates. The sailor finally abandons Davy in awe and fright. Davy then heads to O’Dooley’s Bar, where his father was a piano player. A man sitting in the corner takes him under his wing and gets him served. Davy soon picks a fight with the piano player, whom he mistakes for his dad. He is restrained. He yells that someone is going to die in “two minutes.” A few minutes later, a news broadcast reveals that Davy’s father was executed for murder as a serial killer of blondes just that night. Davy breaks down and weeps like a baby on the bar.

💋💋Episode #4: Coyote Moon💋💋 – Three hitchhikers rob a man of his belongings. John Piltkin picks up three hitchhikers who rob him. After he spots them in a diner, he enacts his revenge. He steals a car and picks the hitchhikers up. Concealing his face in shadows, he then pretends the car has stalled and walks off to get help. The hitchhikers are then arrested in the stolen car. A goodhearted man picks up an old guy, his adult son and daughter hitchhiking, but they steal from him every chance they get. A good Samaritan’s driving to take a new teaching post, stops at a gas station. He agrees to give a ride to a hitchhiker. He then learns that her father and brother are also coming along on the trip and are con artists.

💋💋Episode #5: No Pain💋💋 – A woman reveals to her rich, invalid husband dependent on a respirator, that she’s planning to painlessly murder him, but he may have a surprise for her. Dave Rainey was once a healthy, successful individual. He now finds himself struck down in the prime of his life and confined to an iron lung. He has a full-time nurse and his pretty wife is attentive, but he is concerned at her friendship with Arnold Barrett. One evening, she gives their full-time nurse the evening off and Dave concludes this must be the evening that she will finish him off. He confronts her and she admits that she had been planning this for some time but in the end, she is unable to complete the task. Little does she know that Dave has is own plans for her. Dave Rainey must breathe using an iron lung. He worries that his wife Cindy will leave him for another man, or worse yet, kill him. Cindy becomes interested in a man named Arnold Barrett. She unplugs Dave’s iron lung but quickly plugs it back in. She tells him the doctor doesn’t want Dave to become dependent on the machine. Later, Arnold kills Cindy. Arnold was a hitman who was hired to protect Dave from Cindy. A man with Polio is sure that his wife wants to kill him.

💋💋Episode #6: Anniversary Gift💋💋 – Myra Jenkins has quite a menagerie in her home: Birds, a turtle, a monkey, a chameleon and on and on. She is quite devoted to them, usually at the expense of her husband Hermie. Their neighbor, George Bay, is always telling Hermie how much he misses his late wife and that since she’s died, all he ever does is travel, go fishing and drink beer. All of this sounds pretty good to Hermie who hatches a plan to get his wife a new pet that may not be very cuddly and lovable but may give him the way out that he desires. Little does Hermie realize the predicament he is getting himself into. An animal lover receives a poisonous snake for a gift. Hermie Jenkins wants to kill his wife Myra. She is an animal lover and so he buys her a poisonous snake from a snake collector for her anniversary. Myra opens her gift and at the suggest of his wife, Hermie leaves for a beer. When he returns, he finds that his wife is not dead. She complains to him about the aggressiveness of the snake. She gives it to Hermie and it bites him. He drops dead. Later, the snake collector reveals that he sold Hermie a King snake which looks very much like the coral snake but is harmless. Hermie did not die of poison; he died of a heart attack.

💋💋Episode #7: Dry Run💋💋 – A crime boss gives a new employee an assignment to kill another man, but the intended victim tempts him with another offer. The head of a business tells his young employee he’s being considered for a more important job. To see how well he does in the field, the young man’s given a special job for him first. A gangster is sent by his boss to eliminate a seasonal criminal. Art wants to impress his boss Mr. Barbossa. Mr. Barbossa wants him to pay off and kill a man named Moran. Moran, however, is a seasoned gangster. When Art confronts him, he easily takes the gun away from him. He forces Art to give him the money and then tells him that he shouldn’t be with Barbossa. He proposes that Art join with him. He offers him money to kill Barbossa. Art accepts. Unfortunately, Moran reveals that he works for Barbossa. It was all a test of loyalty. Since Art failed, he is shot.