The Hitchcock Project-William Link and Richard Levinson Part Five: Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale [9.6] and Wrapup

R.I.P. PATRICIA HITCHCOCK (1928-2021)

by Jack Seabrook

Imagine Rear Window set in Mayberry and you'll have a general idea of the events and tone of "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale," an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour with a teleplay by William Link and Richard Levinson that aired on CBS on Friday, November 8, 1963.

The show was adapted from a short story by Robert Twohy, titled "Out of This Nettle," that was published first in the January 1962 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. In the story, Police Chief Brandon of Lindenville receives a telephone call from Mrs. Grant, who asks him to come to her house because she suspects that something may have happened to her neighbor. When Brandon arrives at the house she is renting, he is surprised to find her a rather attractive, middle-aged woman, not the elderly spinster he imagined from her call.

Mrs. Grant leads him upstairs to her bedroom and shows him the view from her window of her neighbor, George Colfax, a man in his mid-fifties who sits in his yard, unkempt and drinking whiskey. She remarks that his wife has been gone for two weeks, along with her dog, and that last night, around eleven o'clock, Colfax began digging in his flowerbed. Chief Brandon explains that nothing ever happens in the quiet town of Lindenville, but he promises to investigate. He then looks into the disappearance of Mrs. Colfax and confirms that she has not been seen in two weeks. Mr. Colfax tells the chief that his wife is on vacation but he does not know how to reach her.

Gary Merrill as Harry Jarvis

That night, Chief Brandon and two policeman watch out of Mrs. Grant's bedroom window until they witness Colfax start digging in his flowerbed around eleven-thirty. The police enter his yard and begin to dig as Brandon questions Colfax. They uncover the corpse of his wife's dog, which Colfax admits to having killed in order to hurt his spouse. He tells Chief Brandon that he did not kill his wife, but he confesses that she did not go on vacation; she left him after thirty years of marriage.

The policemen find nothing else in the flowerbed and give up; the chief tells Mrs. Grant that he plans to let the matter drop. After Brandon and his men leave, Mrs. Grant meets Mr. Colfax in her back yard, where they uncover his wife's corpse. They bury it in his flowerbed and embrace passionately, relieved that their two-week ordeal is over.

Phyllis Thaxter as Mrs. Logan

For most of its length, "Out of This Nettle" seems like a suburban retelling of Rear Window, until its climax, which takes an unpredictable turn. The author comes close to cheating when he explains Mrs. Grant's state of mind and writes that she felt relieved after calling the police: "whatever the outcome, she had done what she felt was the right thing to do." The writer seems to give the reader insight into her thoughts, but it is misleading; her real reason for calling the police is to deflect their attention from what really happened. The character of Chief Brandon is well-drawn, and the quiet town of Lindenville is evocatively described as a place where a murder of the sort that Mrs. Grant suspects just doesn't happen. The story's title is explained in the final paragraphs:

    She gave a thin smile. "Out of this nettle, danger... what's the rest of it?"
    "Something about plucking this flower, safety."
    "That's what we've done," she said...

The source of the quotation is Shakespeare's history play, Henry IV, Part One. In Act Two, scene three, Hotspur explains that what seems like a dangerous situation will lead in the end to safety:

    "Out of this nettle, danger,
    we pluck this flower, safety."

"Out of This Nettle"
was first published here

A nettle is a plant that stings on contact and the title of the short story means that Mrs. Grant and Mr. Colfax have voluntarily put themselves in danger by involving the police, but that their plan will in the end lead to their being suspected of no wrongdoing.

The short story's author, Robert Twohy, wrote about 75 short stories that were published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine between 1957 and 1994. "Out of This Nettle" was his second published story, and it is his only work to be adapted for the screen. It has been collected in such volumes as To Be Read Before Midnight (1962), Best Detective Stories of the Year, 20th Annual Collection (1965), and 13 Ways to Dispose of a Body (1966).

Link and Levinson adapted the story for television and chose to adopt a semi-humorous tone; the small-town setting and the overall lighthearted approach to a dead body may recall Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry, and the original score for this episode by Bernard Herrmann has been compared to his score for that film, but the plot resembles that of Hitchcock's Rear Window even more and aspects of the setting and characters resemble those of The Andy Griffith Show, which had been running on CBS since 1960.

Fess Parker as Sheriff Wister

Unlike their scripts for "Captive Audience" and "Day of Reckoning," where Link and Levinson took full-length novels and compressed them to fit the hour-long TV show format, "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" required them to find ways to expand Twohy's short story, which runs ten pages in the original digest. They accomplish this by increasing the participation of the neighbor, renamed Harry Jarvis, by adding new characters, and by adding numerous scenes not found in the short story.

The first scene establishes Jarvis as a disheveled, lazy crank, who is rude to a boy who enters his yard looking for a lost cat. Mrs. Logan (as Mrs. Grant has been renamed) watches from her window and calls the police, but instead of Chief Brandon (rechristened Sheriff Ben Wister) answering the phone, it is picked up by his deputy, Charlie, who is asleep with his feet on the desk when the phone rings. Crime is so rare in Linvale (Lindenville in the short story) that he can't even find a pencil to write down the caller's "urgent" message.

George Furth as Deputy Charlie

Meanwhile, the sheriff is at the barbershop, admiring himself in a mirror, when Charlie bursts in to tell him about the phone call. Both the sheriff and the barber have Southern accents, making the scene a reflection of many on The Andy Griffith Show between Sheriff Andy Taylor and Floyd the barber. The sheriff proceeds to Mrs. Logan's house and the same boy who had been in Jarvis's yard asks the sheriff to find his lost cat; this shows the magnitude of problem that Sheriff Wister is used to facing.

Unlike the story, where the neighbor's wife has been gone for two weeks, Mrs. Jarvis has been missing for only three days, according to Mrs. Logan. Bernard Herrmann's score plays noticeably when she tells the sheriff that she thinks her neighbor wanted to kill his wife; the music underscores the importance of the dialogue and guides the viewer's thoughts. The sheriff begins investigating and there are bits of comedy business with Deputy Charlie, who resembles Deputy Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show, yet who is more intelligent and lacks a Southern accent.

Robert P. Lieb as Dr. Wyatt

The show expands the investigation into the wife's disappearance as the sheriff goes to the hospital to speak with Jarvis's friend, Dr. Wyatt, who confirms that Harry has been worried for a few days but who surprises the sheriff with the news that Mrs. Jarvis is expected at the doctor's office that evening for a checkup. Hours later, at the doctor's office, Dr. Wyatt's pretty receptionist explains that Harry called to cancel his wife's appointment. The investigation continues as Sheriff Wister visits the home of Mrs. Bergen, a middle-aged woman who has not seen Mrs. Jarvis in days but who takes the opportunity to try to play matchmaker between the bachelor sheriff and a new schoolteacher.

Burt Mustin as Bell

Back at the station, Charlie reports on his canvass of the neighborhood and says that no one has seen the missing woman. The sheriff calls Mrs. Logan, who tells him that Jarvis was digging in his garden last night, and that evening the sheriff is back in her bedroom, looking out the window at a large hole in Jarvis's flowerbed. Mrs. Logan suggests that Jarvis is digging a grave to bury his wife and, as if on cue, the neighbor comes out and resumes shoveling dirt. Ominous woodwind music rises on the soundtrack to underscore Mrs. Logan's concern. Jarvis sees her looking at him through the window and comes to her front door to confront her as the sheriff listens in secret from an adjoining room. After Jarvis leaves, Sheriff Wister continues to insist to Mrs. Logan that there is no evidence of a murder having been committed.

Jan Arvan as Al

The sheriff goes next door, where Jarvis claims his wife took off to parts unknown with the dog. However, when Sheriff Wister goes out to the sidewalk, the boy tells him that he saw the dog in the window earlier that day. At the station, Mrs. Bergen tells the sheriff that she took it upon herself to participate in the investigation and tried to deliver a freshly-baked cake to Mrs. Jarvis, only to be rebuffed at the front door by her husband, who said that his wife was ill. Meanwhile, Charlie follows Jarvis to the local hardware store; after Jarvis leaves, the sheriff questions old man Bell, who reports that Harry bought grass seed and rat poison. The sheriff's doubts that anything strange is happening are shaken by this odd series of events, so he, Charlie, and another deputy named Al watch from Mrs. Logan's bedroom window that evening as Harry emerges from his house with a shovel. The policemen enter his yard and take over digging, at which point they uncover the corpse of Harry's dog.

Cathie Merchant as the receptionist

Inside his home, Jarvis tells Sheriff Wister that he killed the dog because it was sick and his wife was gone. Harry is astonished that the sheriff suspected him of murder; he admits that she left him. The sheriff, satisfied with this explanation, tells Mrs. Logan that he believes Harry and will drop the matter. She protests, prolonging her elaborate charade, but the sheriff and his deputies leave. Harry watches them go, then exits his house through the back door, climbs over the fence that separates his yard from that of Mrs. Logan and, carrying a shovel, sneaks into her home through the back door after peering through her first-floor window in a reversal of roles.

Sam Reese as Henry the barber

Jarvis approaches Mrs. Logan from behind, gripping the shovel, and it looks like he means to do her harm, but instead she stands up and they embrace. The moment is a complete surprise to the viewer, since Link and Levinson have taken the story's climax one step further by adding an element of menace to Harry's approach. He tells her that they have work to do and they go outside, where he digs up his wife's corpse from Mrs. Logan's flowerbed. The body is wrapped in canvas tied tightly with rope; suddenly, a seemingly farcical situation turns serious, and this scene is the most gruesome in the show as the duo drag the corpse across the yard and toss it over the fence.

Mrs. Logan, still in her dress and heels, gamely grabs the shovel to fill in the hole in her own yard, while Harry drags the body across his own yard and deposits it in the hole dug by the deputies. At this point, the TV show has gone beyond the story's conclusion, but there is one final twist to come. Harry is filling the hole when he hears his doorbell ring; the sheriff is back with Charlie, telling Harry that they have come for the dog, since there is a city ordinance against burying animals on residential property. They head out to the back yard to dig up the animal and Mrs. Logan, unaware of their arrival, calls from behind the fence: "'Darling! Here--you'll need this.'" She tosses the shovel over the fence and Harry looks shocked. The policemen's faces register surprise and the last thing we see is Mrs. Logan, looking over the fence, looking horrified as she realizes that their plan has come undone.

Robert Roter

With this addition to the end of the story, Link and Levinson turn the show from one where the murderers get away with their crime into one where they are caught unexpectedly--out of the nettle of danger they have found their way further into dangerous weeds. "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" benefits from a solid script, strong acting, evocative music, and firm direction; it is an enjoyable hour of mystery that is lighthearted for most of its length, turns briefly grim, and then ends in a surprising moment of discovery. The couple's elaborate farce depends on their keeping up the deception in private for the benefit of the viewer; never, even when they are alone, do Harry and Mrs. Logan let down their guard, so there is no reason to suspect their true motivations.

The idea of a person looking out of a window and suspecting their neighbor of murder goes back to Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story, "It Had to Be Murder." Hitchcock adapted the tale brilliantly for the 1954 film, Rear Window, which has been remade and parodied many times in the ensuing decades. The 2018 bestseller by A.J. Finn, The Woman in the Window, is a recent example of a mystery writer taking this idea in a new direction. "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" seems to assume that the TV viewer is familiar with the general idea of Rear Window and plays with our expectations, subverting them at the climax.

Martine Bartlett
as Mrs. Bergen

The show is directed by Herschel Daugherty (1910-1993), a prolific TV director from 1952 to 1975 who also directed a couple of movies. He directed 27 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in all, including "The Blessington Method," and he directed 16 episodes of Thriller. Perhaps the director had a hand in selecting some of the cast members for this episode, because four of the supporting players also appeared in "The Star Juror," another episode directed by Daugherty that took place in an even-more Southern setting.

Harry Jarvis is played by Gary Merrill (1915-1990), who was on film from 1943 to 1977 and on TV from 1953 to 1980, appearing in Otto Preminger's Where the Sidewalk Ends and the classic, All About Eve, both in 1950. He was on The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, and "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" was one of seven episodes of the Hitchcock TV show in which he was featured.

Phyllis Thaxter (1919-2012), who co-stars as Mrs. Logan, was born in Maine and acted on Broadway before making her film debut in 1944. She began acting on TV in 1953, appearing in six episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, including "The Long Silence," She also appeared on The Twilight Zone and Thriller. Later in her career, she played Ma Kent in Superman (1978), and she continued to appear on TV until 1992.

Towering over the rest of the case as Sheriff Wister is Fess Parker (1924-2010), who stood 6'6" and who served in the Marines in WWII before going to college on the G.I. Bill to study drama. His appearances in 1954 and 1955 on The Magical World of Disney as Davy Crockett made the character a cultural phenomenon and he followed this up with six seasons on TV starring as Daniel Boone (1964-1970). When "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" aired, he had just finished a single season starring in a TV series called Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1962-1963) and his film and TV career overall spanned the years from 1950 to 1974. In later years, he ran a winery in California. This was the only episode of the Hitchcock TV show in which he appeared.

Born George Schweinfurth and trained at the Actors Studio, George Furth (1932-2008) adds sharp comedic timing as Deputy Charlie. On screen from 1962 to 1998, Furth appeared in three TV series: Broadside (1964-1965), Tammy (1965-1966), and The Dumplings (1976) and was a guest on such series as Batman, Night Gallery, and The Odd Couple. He had a role in Blazing Saddles (1974) and also made a mark as a writer of Broadway plays and musicals. He appeared in one other episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: "Beast in View."

In smaller roles:

• Robert P. Lieb (1914-2002) as Dr. Wyatt; on screen from 1946 to 1999, he was in three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour but is most familiar as Officer Flaherty in the Twilight Zone episode, "Night of the Meek."
• Burt Mustin (1884-1977) as Bell, the hardware store owner; he was a businessman and amateur actor whose screen career started late in life; he was on TV and film from 1951 to 1976. Mustin also appeared in "The Landlady" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and in "The Star Juror" on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour; he was a familiar face over the years in such shows as The Twilight Zone (including "Night of the Meek," with Robert P. Lieb), Thriller, The Outer Limits, and Batman.
• Jan Arvan as Al, the second deputy who helps Charlie dig up the grave and find the dog; born Jan Arvanitas, he was on screen from 1949 to 1979 and also appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, "The Case of Mr. Pelham." He played scores of bit parts in film and on TV, appeared on Batman, and also was featured on Old Time Radio from 1948 to 1955.
• Cathie Merchant (1945-2013) as Dr. Wyatt's receptionist; born Catherine Beacom, she was only 17 years old when this episode aired. In her short screen career, which lasted from 1961 to 1965, she appeared in four episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, including "The Star Juror," where she plays the young woman in the bathing suit who is murdered in the park.
  
• Sam Reese (1930-1985) as Henry, the barber who cuts the sheriff's hair; he was on screen from 1959 to 1970, appeared on The Outer Limits, and had parts in three episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, all of which were set in small, Southern towns: "The Star Juror," "The Jar," and "Return of Verge Likens."
• Robert Roter as the boy with the missing cat; he had a brief TV career from 1962 to 1966 and his older sister, Diane Roter, was a regular on The Virginian in the 1965-66 season.
• Martine Bartlett (1925-2006) as Mrs. Bergen; she attended the Actors Studio, was on screen from 1951 to 1983, and appeared on The Twilight Zone and--you guessed it--"The Star Juror."

Thanks to Peter Enfantino for providing a copy of the short story! Watch "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" here.

Sources:

DeMary, Tom. "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: An Introduction." The Bernard Herrmann Society, 1997, www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/misc-ahh/. 

The FICTIONMAGS Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm. 

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred HITCHCOCK Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001. 

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/. 

"Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 9, episode 6, CBS, 8 Nov. 1963. 

Stephensen-Payne, Phil. Galactic Central, philsp.com/. 

Twohy, Robert. "Out of This Nettle." Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Jan. 1962, pp. 121–130. 

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 Feb. 2021, www.wikipedia.org/. 

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William Link and Richard Levinson on Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: An Overview and Episode Guide

William Link and Richard Levinson contributed two teleplays to Alfred Hitchcock Presents in its final season, adapting two of their own short stories into the episodes titled "Services Rendered" and "Profit-Sharing Plan." Both teleplays improved on the short stories that were their sources. Link and Levinson then wrote or co-wrote (with James Bridges) five episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. In "Captive Audience," they reimagined a complex novel and made major changes to its structure. "Day of Reckoning" was a more straightforward adaptation of another novel, where they streamlined the events and followed the plot closely, but changed the ending.

"Dear Uncle George" is credited to the duo and James Bridges and I have not found any published story that served as its source; it is possible that Link and Levinson wrote a teleplay and then Bridges revised it. The result is an entertaining hour of television. The duo expanded another writer's short story for "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale," changing the tone and the ending yet again. Finally, they are credited with James Bridges for the strong episode called "Murder Case;" this episode also features major revisions to the short story from which it was adapted.

Link and Levinson began writing for TV in 1959 and their involvement with the Hitchcock show came in the years from 1962 to 1964; it was toward the start of their long career but it demonstrated promise that would be fulfilled in their many teleplays for Columbo and other mystery shows.

EPISODE GUIDE-WILLIAM LINK and RICHARD LEVINSON ON ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS and THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR

Episode title-"Services Rendered" [7.10]
Broadcast date-12 December 1961
Teleplay by-William Link and Richard Levinson
Based on "No Name, Address, Identity" by William Link and Richard Levinson

First print appearance-Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July 1961
Notes
Watch episode-here
Available on DVD?-no

Episode title-"Profit-Sharing Plan" [7.23]
Broadcast date-16 March 1962
Teleplay by-William Link and Richard Levinson
Based on "The End of an Era" by William Link and Richard Levinson

First print appearance-Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, January 1962
Notes
Watch episode-here
Available on DVD?-no

Episode title-"Captive Audience" [8.5]
Broadcast date-18 October 1962
Teleplay by-William Link and Richard Levinson
Based on Murder Off the Record by John Bingham

First print appearance-published in 1957 in the U.K. as Marion
Notes
Watch episode-here
Available on DVD?-no

Episode title-"Day of Reckoning" [8.10]
Broadcast date-22 November 1962
Teleplay by-William Link and Richard Levinson
Based on Day of Reckoning by John Garden

First print appearance-published in 1957 in the U.K. as Murder Isn't Private
Notes
Watch episode-here
Available on DVD?-no

Episode title-"Dear Uncle George" [8.30]
Broadcast date-10 May 1963
Teleplay by-William Link, Richard Levinson, and James Bridges
Based on an unpublished story by William Link and Richard Levinson

First print appearance-none
Notes
Watch episode-here
Available on DVD?-no

Episode title-"Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale" [9.6]
Broadcast date-8 November 1963
Teleplay by-William Link and Richard Levinson
Based on "Out of This Nettle" by Robert Twohy

First print appearance-Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, January 1962
Notes
Watch episode-here
Available on DVD?-no

Episode title-"Murder Case" [9.19]
Broadcast date-6 March 1964
Teleplay by-James Bridges, William Link, and Richard Levinson
Based on "Murder Case" by Max Marquis

First print appearance-London Mystery Magazine, September 1955
Notes
Watch episode-here
Available on DVD?-no

In two weeks: Our coverage of Joel Murcott begins with "Number Twenty-Two," starring Russell Collins and Rip Torn!

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "The Legacy" here!

Listen to Annie and Kathryn discuss "Cheap is Cheap" here!

The Hitchcock Project-William Link and Richard Levinson Part Four: Day of Reckoning [8.10]

by Jack Seabrook

First U.S edition

Duke Farne, a wealthy Englishman approaching middle age, murders his wife Felicity by pushing her off the edge of a boat when none of the other passengers are looking. Once they realize she's gone, it's too late, and she drowns. The police are called to investigate Felicity's sudden disappearance but no one suspects foul play, not even Inspector Brayton, who knows the family. No one knows that Felicity had told Dyke that she was in love with another man and planned to leave her husband, who killed her rather than let her betray him.

Inspector Brayton investigates and Dyke slowly begins to confide in family members, telling his sister Caroline that Felicity was going to leave him. Family friend Frank Calvert lies to the inspector and says that Dyke was in sight all of the time while they were on the boat; when Felicity's doctor reveals that she had a weak heart and could have died at any moment, the inspector is satisfied that her death was an accident.

Dyke's conscience begins to nag him and he confesses the truth to Caroline, who refuses to believe it and is convinced that the shock of his wife's death has affected him. The rest of Dyke's family agrees with her and, the more Dyke tries to confess his crime, the more they insist that either he is mad or, if he is telling the truth, that the story must be suppressed to protect his family. Dyke visits Inspector Brayton and confesses, yet even the policeman refuses to believe him.

First U.K. edition

Privately, Frank tells Dyke that he was Felicity's secret lover and that he will maintain the lie about what happened on the boat because he knows Dyke's conscience will haunt him. Dyke continues to insist that he is a murderer, so his family has him examined by a doctor, who suggests an examination by a renowned specialist. By the time the second doctor arrives, Dyke has fled to the boat and ends up floating down the river alone in the dark. He lowers himself into the water, unseen, to join his dead wife.

The cover of Day of Reckoning, the 1951 novel by John Garden that was adapted by William Link and Richard Levinson into an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour with the same title, calls it "the story of a man who killed his wife because he loved her." The book is an examination of the effects of a sudden, passionate act of violence. Dyke does not plan to kill his wife; he simply pushes her off the boat at an opportune moment and then tells no one--at least, not at first. The novel examines his mental state as it deteriorates from guilt; at first, he feels relief when he confesses to murder, but later he is driven slowly mad when no one believes him. In the end, he is boxed into a corner--he cannot bring himself to lie and thus faces being ruled insane and being placed into a mental institution for telling the truth. The book is an indictment of British society, where the wealthy members of Dyke's family value their own status above the life of the poor, beautiful girl Dyke married and killed. Even the police inspector refuses to believe a confession, preferring to keep the case neatly closed.

Barry Sullivan as Paul Sampson

Day of Reckoning was first published in England in 1950 under the title, Murder Isn't Private, a phrase that the doctor says to Dyke near the end, adding that "'Even when it isn't found out, it isn't private. Everybody gets involved.'" Dyke agrees, remarking that "'Those who destroy others, destroy themselves.'" The idea that "murder will out" and be discovered is an old one in English literature, going back to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and such Shakespeare plays as Richard III and Macbeth. The author of Day of Reckoning followed a long tradition of examining how the conscience of a killer will not let him alone. Reviews in the British press quoted on the back of the book's dust jacket include one that notes its "warning of the absolute domination of guilt."

Claude Akins as Sheriff Jordan

John Garden, who is credited as the book's author, is a pseudonym for H.L.V. Fletcher (1902-1970?), an English writer, schoolteacher, and headmaster. He wrote 12 novels under his own name between 1942 and 1958, five mystery novels as John Garden between 1947 and 1967, eight novels under the name John Hereford from 1947 to 1957, and numerous books on travel and gardening between 1943 and 1975. He also wrote a film script, radio plays, short stories, and articles. He was the gardening editor for Home and Gardens magazine; perhaps the pen name of John Garden was a nod to his hobby involving horticulture. One film was based on a novel of his and "Day of Reckoning," which aired on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour on CBS on Thursday, November 22, 1962, was the only television show to be adapted from any of his works.

Katharine Bard as Caroline

Link and Levinson take a more straightforward approach to adapting this book for TV than they did with their prior effort, "Captive Audience." In the novel, the murder has already occurred when the book opens; in the TV version, the story plays out in sequence, without flashbacks. The main character, Dyke Farne, has been rechristened Paul Sampson, perhaps because of the crude connotations of the given name and the fact that it would be seen as unusual in the U.S., where the events now take place. His wife's name remains Felicity, as in the book, but the actress who plays her, Dee Hartford, was 34 years old (in the book, the character is nearly 40), making the age difference between her and Paul more significant. Paul is played by Barry Sullivan, who was 50 years old, comparable to Dyke in the novel.

Hugh Marlowe as Harold

Felicity's fall from the boat is well handled and looks like an accident, even though Paul subsequently takes no steps to prevent her drowning and thus is at least guilty of that. Instead of British Inspector Brayton the show features burly Claude Akins as Sheriff Jordan, in the usual sort of country sheriff outfit that Akins sported in countless roles. Paul's family and friends are similar to those in the book, with two big exceptions: Dyke's young adult son Michael is removed for the TV version and family friend Frank, whose youth and virility cause Felicity to turn to him as a lover in the novel, has been replaced by Judge David Wilcox, played by 53 year old Louis Hayward, who looks even older on screen.

Jeremy Slate as Trent

The plot of the TV show follows that of the novel faithfully; when the sheriff recreates the accident on the boat, director Jerry Hopper uses a tight closeup of Paul's face to demonstrate the beginning of his feelings of guilt. Trent, whom Paul first suspects of having been Felicity's lover, is played by handsome, 36 year old Jeremy Slate, making him just two years older than Dee Hartford as Felicity and thus a reasonable suspect. Framed photos of Paul's beautiful, dead wife abound in his house; there is one in his bedroom that he gazes at when he sees the police bring her corpse in from the lake.

The coroner's inquest is expanded for the TV show and consists mostly of medium closeups of characters talking; unfortunately, Lyn Murray's score is uninspired and sounds like stock music cues that don't always fit the action. More evidence of Felicity is seen in Paul's living room; after the inquest, he stares at another framed photo of his late wife. Her memory is everywhere Paul goes and probably helps influence him to confess murder to his sister Caroline.

K.T. Stevens as Alice

The uncertainty of the scene where Felicity falls overboard makes Paul's guilt even more interesting than it is in the novel; in the TV show, it's possible that he did not do what he insists he did and is instead driven mad by guilt. Link and Levinson successfully condense events from the novel without removing much at all. Paul's brother Harold drives Paul into town and suggests he see a doctor, leading Paul to evade him by entering a drugstore an slipping out through the back door; he then visits the sheriff, as he does in the book.

Paul and Sheriff Jordan visit the home of Judge Wilcox, who maintains his earlier lie and, after the sheriff leaves, reveals that he was Felicity's lover. He takes the place of Frank from the novel, making the other man in Felicity's life older rather than younger than Paul. The irony is increased: in the book, Felicity explained that her attraction to Frank was physical, while in the TV version, Wilcox explains: "'You think I'd be too old for her? Felicity didn't think so.'" Strong acting by Louis Hayward and Barry Sullivan make this the most effective scene in the show. There is a particularly good shot by director Jerry Hopper toward the end of this scene, with Paul in the foreground, his guilt-ridden face dominating the screen, and Wilcox in the distance, smaller, positioned like a devil on Paul's shoulder.

The story's conclusion diverges from the end of the novel: Dyke's flight to the boat and eventual nighttime suicide are replaced by a scene in his home, where his family has brought a psychiatrist to take him to a mental hospital. Two men in white coats arrive and take Paul away as the episode comes to an end. The writers thus avoid the taboo subject of suicide by choosing an alternate ending, showing what probably would have happened to Dyke in the novel had he not chosen to take his own life.

Louis Hayward as Judge Wilcox

"Day of Reckoning" is directed by Jerry Hopper (1907-1988) in his only effort for the Hitchcock TV series. Born Harold Hankins Hopper, he was a film editor who served in WWII as a combat photographer; he returned to Hollywood after the war and directed shorts from 1946 to 1951 before embarking on a career as a director of features, mainly from 1952 to 1961, and TV shows, mainly from 1957 to 1972.

Starring as Paul Sampson is Barry Sullivan (1912-1994), who was born Patrick Barry Sullivan and who appeared on radio starting in the 1930s and on Broadway from 1936 to 1956. He was in films from 1936 to 1987 and on TV from 1953 to 1981. Sullivan was a regular on several TV series: The Man Called X (1956-57), Harbormaster (1957-58), The Tall Man (1960-62), and The Road West (1966-67). He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (one for movies and the other for TV). Sullivan appeared on Night Gallery twice and was also in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "The $2,000,000 Defense."

Les Tremayne as Dr. Ryder

Claude Akins (1926-1994) plays Sheriff Jordan. Akins served in the Army in WWII and acted on screen from 1953 to 1994, appearing in such films as Rio Bravo (1959) and on TV in shows including The Twilight Zone and The Night Stalker. He was also on two episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, including "Place of Shadows," but he was best-known as Sheriff Lobo in the TV series B.J. and the Bear (1978-79) and The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo (1979-81).

Paul's sister Caroline is played by Katharine Bard (1916-1983), who was on screen from 1951 to 1978 and who also appeared in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Hugh Marlowe (1911-1982) plays Paul's brother, Harold. Born Hugh Herbert Hipple, he started onstage in the 1930s and also appeared on radio. He played Ellery Queen on radio and television and appeared in movies beginning in 1936. He had a role in All About Eve (1950) and began appearing in TV shows that year. He was seen in six episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "John Brown's Body." Later in life, he was a regular on the soap opera, Another World, from 1969 to 1982.

Robert Cornthwaite as the District Attorney

Trent Parker, whom Paul thinks was his wife's lover, is played by Jeremy Slate (1926-2006). Born Robert Perham, he landed at Normandy on D-Day and later went on to a career in movies and on TV from the late 1950s to the early 1990s. He appeared in five episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "One Grave Too Many." In an interview, he admitted that he acted from 1960 to 1970 and then tuned in, turned on, and dropped out, spending the next ten years traveling around the USA in a motor home.

K.T. Stevens (1919-1994), who was married to Hugh Marlowe at the time, plays Alice, Harold's wife. Born Gloria Wood, she was the daughter of silent film director Sam Wood. She appeared in films as a child in 1921 and then returned to the screen as an adult, appearing in films and on TV from 1940 to 1994. She was on Thriller twice and she also appeared in "None Are So Blind" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Making the most of his time on screen in this episode is Louis Hayward (1909-1985) as Judge Wilcox. Born in South Africa, he appeared on stage and screen in England starting in 1932 and came to the U.S. in 1935, where he was in films and on TV until 1974. Among his films were And Then There Were None (1945) and Fritz Lang's House By the River (1950); he also starred in a TV series called The Lone Wolf (1954-55) and was seen on Night Gallery. Hayward served with the Marines in WWII and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In smaller roles:

• Les Tremayne as Dr. Ryder; born in England, Tremayne started out in vaudeville and became a busy and popular radio actor in the 1930s and 1940s. He was on screen from 1949 to 1993 and he was in four episodes of the Hitchcock show, including "Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel's Coat." He also has a small part in Hitchcock's North By Northwest (1959). Tremayne was a regular on The Further Adventures of Ellery Queen (1958-1959) and Shazam! (1974-1976), appeared on Thriller, and did a great deal of voice acting in his later years.
• Robert Cornthwaite (1917-2006) as the district attorney; he served in the Air Force in WWII and later had a long career on screen, from 1950 to 2005, appearing in films such as The Thing from Another World (1951) and The War of the Worlds (1953) and on TV shows such as The Twilight Zone, Thriller, Batman, and The Night Stalker. He was in one other episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: "Three Wives too Many."
• James Flavin (1906-1976) as the coroner; he had character parts in nearly 400 movies and 100 TV episodes from 1932 to 1976 and he was in four episodes of the Hitchcock series, including "Touche." He also played a sailor in King Kong (1933).
• Buck Taylor (1938- ) as Frazier, the policeman who has to jump off the boat in the reenactment of the drowning; he has been on TV since 1961 and is still acting. He had a role on Gunsmoke from 1967 to 1975 and was in one other episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, "Death Scene," as Dancer, who dances acrobatically for John Carradine and nearly falls to his death.

Buck Taylor

• Dee Hartford (1928-2018) as Felicity; born Donna Higgins, she was a model in the late 1940s and she was in a few films between 1952 and 1976. She was married to director Howard Hawks from 1953 to 1959 and then appeared on TV from 1962 to 1969, popping up in shows including The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Batman.

Dee Hartford

"Day of Reckoning" may be viewed online here.

Sources:

"Day of Reckoning." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 1, episode 10, CBS, 22 November 1962.

The FictionMags Index, www.philsp.com/homeville/FMI/0start.htm.

Garden, John. Day of Reckoning. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1951.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.

"H(arry) L(utf) V(erne) Fletcher." Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, Gale, 2002. Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1000032441/CA?u=lawr69060&sid=bookmark-CA&xid=b7a3c7e7. Accessed 16 July 2021.

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: Our coverage of Richard Levinson and William Link concludes with "Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale," starring Gary Merrill and Phyllis Thaxter!

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "The Legacy" here!

Listen to Annie and Kathryn discuss "The Little Man Who Was There" here!

The Hitchcock Project-William Link and Richard Levinson Part Three: Captive Audience [8.5]

by Jack Seabrook

William Link and Richard Levinson adapted two of their own short stories during the final season of Alfred Hitchcock Presents and the TV shows that resulted were not very different from the stories on which they were based. For their first teleplay for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, however, they were assigned the task of adapting a novel by another author, and their teleplay is so different from its source that the onscreen credit might better have read "inspired by the novel" rather than "based on the novel." "Captive Audience" was the fifth hour-long episode to air, on October 18, 1962, and the novel that inspired it was called Murder off the Record in the U.S., where it was published in 1957, though its original U.K. title had been Marion; it was published in England in either 1957 or 1958.

The novel's author was John Bingham (1908-1988), who led a fascinating life. He became a baron by succession in 1960, but prior to that he fought in the Second World War and was a spy in MI5 for decades. He was admired by his younger colleague John LeCarre, who admitted that Bingham was one of two men on whom he based his character, George Smiley. Bingham encouraged LeCarre to begin writing and Bingham himself wrote 17 novels and one non-fiction book between 1952 and 1982. Murder off the Record was his fifth novel and the version done for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was one of seven times his books were adapted for the screen: five times on television (including two for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour) and twice on film. His biography is titled, The Man Who Was George Smiley (2013).

First U.S. edition

Murder off the Record is narrated by David Shepton, a reporter, who begins by explaining that his own life intersected with that of a man named Ronald Parker, a/k/a Leslie Braithwaite, who strangled a woman named Edith Grant. The story is set in London, England, and begins on a September evening, when Braithwaite kills Grant around the same time that Shepton visits a colleague named Ann Picton. The narrator relates that he met his wife, Marion, at Ann's after the end of the Second World War. Ann had remained single after receiving a letter telling her that Braithwaite, her lover, had died after the war. She shows David a snapshot of Leslie.

Just as David returns home to Marion, he is called out to cover the story of Edith Grant, who was strangled at her home in Ann's building. She is the second strangulation victim in the district in two weeks. David meets Detective Inspector Fosser of Scotland Yard. At Ann's apartment, he pockets the photo of Braithwaite that she had torn in half. Back home with Marion, David recalls his boyhood friends, including Basil Roper, a grocer's son, and suspects that Braithwaite had a connection with Barkston Bay, where David spent school holidays. He also recalls the night Marion had accepted his marriage proposal after they visited a ruined garden that he had loved as a child. Later that evening, David and Marion encountered Basil Roper and his date, Sheila Todd; the foursome had drinks and went for a moonlight drive that ended with a terrible accident and the death of a policeman. David claimed to have been driving and Marion said she did not recall the accident.

David was put on trial and recalls that the courtroom was where he had seen Braithwaite before, watching the testimony. Braithwaite had entered the bar earlier that evening with Roper and thus was not dead, despite what Ann had been told. David wonders why Braithwaite had seen to it that Ann was told he was dead. David spent six months in prison and wed Marion after his release; he eventually learned that she was serially unfaithful. Like Braithwaite, Marion was a liar, and the two had a connection: David recognizes Marion's handwriting in the letter to Ann reporting Braithwaite's alleged death.

1960 Dell paperback edition;
cover by Robert Maguire

He confronts Marion with the truth of her infidelity and visits Roper, accusing him of being Marion's lover. David finds the engagement ring he gave Marion sitting on Roper's table; the resentful grocer's son mocks David's ignorance of his wife's infidelity and reveals that she only pretended to have lost her memory after the car accident. Basil reveals that he once gave a job to Ronald Parker, another of Marion's ex-lovers; David does not yet realize that Parker and Braithwaite are the same man. When David goes home, he finds that Marion has gone and left only a note. That night, David is attacked in his home by an intruder. They fight and the man escapes; David later realized that the intruder was Braithwaite.

The next morning, two policemen question David, who lies about the time he got home in order to avoid embarrassment over Marion's departure. A day later, D.I. Fosser and Sgt. Briggs arrive and pick apart David's story, revealing that Roper was found strangled at his flat. Suddenly, David is a suspect in the murders of Basil Roper and Edith Grant. Eventually, he finds a letter from Ann, who has been summoned to Cowton by Braithwaite's parents, who claim they want to clear the air about their son. David realizes that the letter was written by Braithwaite, who is luring Ann to her death. After some more questioning at Scotland Yard, David pieces together the relationships between Ann, Marion, Basil, and Braithwaite and suspects that Braithwaite is a serial strangler whose mania is getting worse.

David steals a car and drives to Cowton, where he finds Ann and convinces her to stay in her hotel room with the door locked. Later that night, David discovers Braithwaite lurking outside the hotel. Another fight ensues and, though Braithwaite escapes, the police catch him the next day. David's name is cleared and Braithwaite is tried and hanged for murder. David divorces Marion and marries Ann, finally letting go of his anger toward his unfaithful wife when he takes Ann to the walled garden, which has been restored to its former beauty.

Murder off the Record is an outstanding short novel, filled with suspense and a complicated plot told in one long flashback that includes a series of additional flashbacks. One wonders if the narrator is reliable, since he reveals the guilty party in chapter one, but eventually the truth emerges and the narrator survives, the killer is punished, and the faithless wife is left to continue living on her own terms. There are several murders but none is witnessed or described in detail. The police are misguided at first, but the narrator, a newspaper reporter, succeeds in putting them on the right track. The serial strangler, a key character, barely speaks, though he is central to the action. The setting is mostly in mid-century London, with a frantic drive to the country near the end of the novel, and the locations help set the mood of the story. Marion's mania for men is compared with Braithwaite's mania for killing; neither is explained and both are accepted as fact.

James Mason as Warren Barrow

Link and Levinson were faced with challenges in adapting this novel to fill a one-hour television time slot. Should they update it from the late 1940s and mid-1950s to the early 1960s? Should they move the setting from England to the U.S.? How should they handle the narrative structure and the use of flashbacks, not to mention the first person narration? Should they present events in chronological order? Most important, what characters and events can be cut while still preserving the central themes?

The teleplay for "Captive Audience" is a surprise to anyone who has read Murder off the Record. The writers invent a new framing device and change virtually everything about the novel, while preserving certain events and making significant changes to the main characters. The show begins with an establishing shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, which shows that the story's setting has been moved from London to San Francisco. The camera then moves inside a high rise building to the offices of Medallion Press, a publishing company. In the office, publisher Victor Hartman listens to a reel to reel tape that contains a story narrated by mystery writer Warren Barrow.

Angie Dickinson as Janet West

Link and Levinson choose to use the reel to reel tape to mirror the novel's first person narration, allowing Barrow to relate the story to his publisher and, by extension, to the viewer. Victor has been publishing Barrow's mystery novels for three years and works closely with him; perhaps Link and Levinson were giving a sly nod to the book's author, John Bingham, whose British publisher was Victor Gollancz. On the tape, Barrow says that he is planning to kill someone, and it becomes evident that Link and Levinson have merged aspects of the novel's characters of David Shepton and Leslie Braithwaite into a single person. A writer named Tom Keller arrives, having been summoned by Hartman, and he listens to the tape with the publisher. Barrow calls Victor a "'captive audience'" (hence the show's title) and admits that Warren Barrow is not his real name. He says that Victor will never know if the story he tells is true or not and begins to narrate a compressed version of the flashback from the book where David proposed to Marion.

Arnold Moss as Victor Hartman

There is a dissolve and the events being narrated are shown on screen, no longer told as a story but instead depicted as they occurred. Barrow married a woman named Helen and honeymooned in the south of France, where they met a couple named Ivar and Janet West. Barrow and Janet go to a casino to gamble while Ivar and Helen have drinks; Janet makes a risky bet and loses all her money; this is a quick way to telegraph the careless side of her personality. Barrow takes her for a drive and is attracted to her but resists temptation. He returns to his hotel room and, when his wife returns, he is jealous and insists they leave right away. While driving at night, they reconcile and kiss, which causes a horrible accident in which Helen is killed. The first act of the TV show ends here, with the car accident in the book transformed into one where the narrator's wife is killed.

Back in the publisher's office, Victor and Tom listen to the tape as Barrow explains that he woke up in a hospital and refused recommended brain surgery. This will later serve to explain his bizarre behavior. Victor then plays a second tape from Barrow, who explains that, after the accident, he took a new name and began leading a new life as a writer of mystery novels. At a club, he met Janet once again. She accompanied him back to his house and an affair began. Eventually, she started to complain about her husband and asked Warren how he would kill Ivar if he were planning a mystery novel. Barrow played along and they planned Ivar's murder and how to dispose of his body. Soon it becomes clear that Barrow's harmless fantasy was Janet's dangerous reality; she took the first steps to carry out the plan and played on Warren's guilt over Helen's death to overcome his resistance to killing Ivar.

Ed Nelson as Tom Keller

At this point in the TV show, the teleplay has diverged completely from Bingham's novel. Barrow has echoes of both David and Leslie, mixed with the author, John Bingham, while Janet has aspects of Marion and Leslie as well. The third act begins back in Victor's office, where he and Tom discuss the story they've heard on the tapes and Tom suggests that Barrow is unbalanced because the auto accident damaged his brain. Victor comments that Tom (like Bingham) writes psychological thrillers and that is why the publisher asked him to listen to the tapes. They argue about whether the story Barrow tells is fact or fiction and realize that Barrow has told them that the names he is using are not real.

Just then, a third tape arrives by messenger and the two men anxiously listen to it. Barrow explains that Janet left his home in order to establish an alibi for herself. Ivar arrived and confronted Barrow, just as in the novel David went to visit Basil and confronted him about Marion. In the TV version, Barrow pulls a gun and tries to shoot Ivar, but the safety catch jams and he cuts his hand. Ivar (like Basil) tells Barrow that he is not Janet's first lover and Barrow loses his temper, yet he finds himself unable to go through with killing Ivar. Barrow goes for a long drive and returns home to find two detectives waiting for him; the scene is similar to the one in the novel where the detectives question David after he returns from seeing Basil. Barrow realizes that Janet wanted the police to find him there with Ivar's body and arrest him.

Roland Winters as Ivar West

Back at Victor's office, he and Tom hear Barrow on the tape say that he will kill Janet. Tom says that they must find Janet and warn her; this parallels David's efforts in the book to find Ann and warn her about Braithwaite's intention to kill her. Unexpectedly, Barrow arrives at the office, finally bringing the two strands of the story together. In the final act, Barrow insists that the story on the tapes is a work of fiction, but Tom goads him and Warren slips and refers to Janet by her real surname of Waverly. Tom notices a cut on Barrow's finger and is sure that the story about trying to shoot Ivar was true. By extension, Barrow's claim on the tapes that he plans to kill Janet must also be true. After Barrow leaves, Victor and Tom find Janet's telephone number in the phone book and try to call her but get no answer. Tom heads for her house while Victor takes the tapes to the police.

Janet arrives home and is surprised to find Barrow inside, waiting for her. The phone rings and she speaks to Victor, who is calling from the police station. This scene recalls the one in the novel when David first tries to call Ann and then rushes to her side. Victor has a policeman speak to Janet and tell her to lock her door, but Barrow hangs up the phone. From this point on, the TV show takes its most unexpected turn away from the novel. Barrow starts a game of chess with Janet and comes up behind her with a gun. Tom pulls up outside and rushes in, but Barrow shoots and kills Janet before Tom arrives. Tom finds Janet dead and speaks to Barrow, who seems to have lost touch with reality. Tom flatters his fellow author and praises his book, taking the gun from his hand. In the show's final scene, Barrow sits at the police station, narrating the last part of his story into a tape recorder and concluding by repeating the sentence: "'That's always the problem, finding the right ending,'" three times.

Sarah Shane as Helen Barrow

In adapting Murder off the Record into "Captive Audience," Link and Levinson took characters from the novel and mixed up their actions and motivations. They identified key scenes from the book and used variations on them to build their own story. They used the device of the author narrating his story into a tape recorder to present the story in a series of flashbacks and changed the happy ending to a more downbeat one. Most surprisingly, they took the serial killer from the novel and eliminated him entirely! The result is not so much an adaptation as a reimagining.

The show is directed by Alf Kjellin (1920-1988), who uses various dissolves to move from scene to scene and to flash backward and forward in time. I counted at least eight dissolves, along with two left to right wipes, a bottom to top dissolve, a wipe where the picture flips from top to bottom, and what I can only describe as a spiral dissolve. The overall feeling of all of the dissolves and wipes recalls a film from the classic Hollywood period. Kjellin was born in Sweden and started out in the movies in 1937 as an actor. He began acting on TV in 1952 and continued until 1979. He started directing films in 1955 and worked as a director on American television from 1961 to 1985, concurrent with his work as an actor. As an actor, he appeared in the 1966 film adaptation of Jack Finney's Assault on a Queen and in one episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. As a director, he was at the helm for one episode of the half-hour Hitchcock series ("Coming Home") and eleven episodes of the hour series.

Bart Burns as Lt. Summersby

Starring in "Captive Audience" as Warren Barrow is James Mason (1909-1984), one of the greatest twentieth-century film actors. Born in England, he made his stage debut in 1931 and was on screen from 1935 to 1984. He became a star in the 1940s and moved to Hollywood in 1949; he was featured in films such as 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), A Star is Born (1954), North by Northwest (1959), Lolita (1962), and Heaven Can Wait (1978). He wrote an autobiography called Before I Forget (1981). This was his only appearance on the Hitchcock TV show.

Co-starring as Janet West is Angie Dickinson (1931- ). Born Angeline Brown, she acted in film and on TV from 1954 to 2009 and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. This is one of two Alfred Hitchcock Hours in which she appeared. She was featured in Howard Hawks's Rio Bravo (1959) and starred in the TV series Police Woman from 1974 to 1978.

Geraldine Wall
as Mrs. Hurley

Playing Victor Hartman is Arnold Moss (1910-1989). Moss was born in Brooklyn, New York, and was mostly a stage actor, specializing in Shakespeare. His well-trained voice made him a good fit for radio shows; he appeared in movies and on TV as well, including twice on the Hitchcock series and once on Star Trek.

Ed Nelson (1928-2014) plays Tom Keller; on screen from 1952 to 2003, he started out as a stuntman in various Roger Corman films in the late 1950s and is best known for his role on Peyton Place from 1964 to 1969. He was on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour twice and also appeared in episodes of Thriller, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Night Gallery.

Born Roland Winternitz, Roland Winters (1904-1989) plays Ivar West. He starred as Charlie Chan in six films (1947-1949) and was on screen from 1941 to 1982. This was his only role on the Hitchcock TV series.

In smaller roles:

• Sarah Shane (1928- ) as Helen Barrow, who is killed in the car accident; born Elaine Hollingsworth, she was on screen from 1948 to 1964 and appeared in one other episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
• Bart Burns (1918-2007) as Lt. Summersby, whom Victor puts on the phone to warn Janet near the end; born George Joseph Burns, his father was a New York City police inspector. Burns served in WWII as a Marine and fought at Iwo Jima; he was on screen from 1953 to 1988 and also appeared in "The Night the World Ended" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. He played Pat Chambers on TV's Mike Hammer (1958-1959).
• Geraldine Wall (1907-1970) plays Mrs. Hurley, who is sitting at the table at the club with Janet. She was on Broadway from age 15 and on screen from 1943 to 1970.
• Renee Godfrey (1919-1964) as Miss Sherman, Victor's secretary; born Renee Vera Haal, she was on screen from 1940 to 1964.

Renee Godfrey

• Don Matheson as Pierson, the police detective who questions Barrow after he spares Ivar West. Matheson fought in Korea and served in the Detroit Police Department before becoming an actor; this episode is his first credit in a career that lasted until 1999. His biggest role was as co-star of the series, Land of the Giants (1968-1970).

Don Matheson

• Cosmo Sardo (1909-1989) as the croupier at the casino in the south of France; he had bit parts in countless films and TV shows from 1939 to 1982, usually uncredited. He also owned a barber shop in Los Angeles. He was seen briefly in "Dip in the Pool" on Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

Cosmo Sardo

• Barbara Dane (1927- ) as the folk singer who performs in the club when Barrow reunites with Janet; born Barbara Jean Spillman, she appeared in two TV shows in 1962 but is mainly known as a folk, blues, and jazz singer.

Barbara Dane

For fans of obscure props, the book Night of Horror that appears every so often on the Hitchcock TV show, either under that title or another one (but with the same cover picture), may be glimpsed briefly among the books in Barrow's office.

Night of Horror

"Captive Audience" is not available on U.S. DVD but may be viewed here on Peacock.

Sources:

Bingham, John. Murder off the Record. Roslyn, NY: The Detective Book Club, 1958 [?].

"Captive Audience." The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, season 8, episode 5, CBS, 18 October 1962.

Grams, Martin, and Patrik Wikstrom. The Alfred Hitchcock Presents Companion. OTR Pub., 2001.

IMDb, IMDb.com, www.imdb.com.

Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, www.wikipedia.org/.

In two weeks: Our coverage of Richard Levinson and William Link continues with "Day of Reckoning," starring Barry Sullivan and Claude Akins!

Listen to Al Sjoerdsma discuss "The Hidden Thing" here!

Listen to Annie and Kathryn discuss "What Frightened You, Fred?" here!