Join the legendary “Master of Suspense” with 7 groundbreaking seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents… featuring guests stars Steve McQueen, Vincent Price, Jessica Tandy, William Shatner, Roger Moore, Walther Matthau, Burt Reynolds, Dick Van Dyke, Charles Bronson, Diana Dors, Sydney Pollock, Leslie Neilsen, Bette Davis and Robert Redford.
“Good Evening…”
Between 1955 and 1965, Hitchcock used these simple words to introduce his timeless episodes of horror, mystery and intrigue. The CBS and NBC show received three Emmy awards as well as a Golden Globe for Television Achievement, set the gold standard for all TV mystery series to come and in the words of Alfred Hitchcock himself, “brought murder back into the home – where it belongs”.
There were 268 episodes –the most famous perhaps being Roald Dahl’s “Man from the South” starring Steve McQueen, in which a man bets his finger that he can start his lighter ten times in a row. Also included is the 1962 episode “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” which was not broadcast by NBC because they felt the ending, involving the “sawing a woman in half” trick was too gruesome.
Hitchcock was a multiple nominee and winner of a number of prestigious awards, receiving two Golden Globes, eight Laurel Awards, and five lifetime achievement awards including the first BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award, as well as being five times nominated for, albeit never winning, an Academy Award as Best Director.
After refusing a CBE in 1962, Hitchcock received a knighthood in 1980. Asked by a reporter why it had taken the Queen so long, Hitchcock quipped, “I suppose it was a matter of carelessness”.
Walt Disney was not a fan though. He refused to allow Alfred Hitchcock to film at Disneyland for Alfred Hitchcock Presents because Hitchcock had made “that disgusting movie Psycho.”
Hitchcock was infamous with cast and crew for his practical/warped jokes. While some were harmless such as colouring all the food at a lavish dinner party with blue food dye, others were more macabre. Actress Elsie Randolph revealed her fear of fire to Hitchcock, which led him to getting an electrician to pump smoke in to a telephone box after she had been locked inside. It’s common knowledge Hitchcock tortured Tippi Hedren during the filming of The Birds but he also extended this sadistic humour to her 6 year old daughter Melanie Griffith whom he sent a wax figure of her mother in a coffin, dressed up in the same costume she wore in The Birds. Unsurprisingly Melanie Griffiths has said about Hitchcock “He was a mother******, and you can quote me.”
Despite this reputation many stars still worked with Hitchcock.
Guest stars include:
Season One: Joanne Woodward (The Three Faces of Eve), Vera Miles (Psycho)
Season Two: Jessica Tandy (Cocoon, Fried Green Tomatoes), Hume Cronyn (Cocoon), Rip Torn (Men in Black), Vic Morrow (King Creole).
Season Three: William Shatner (Star Trek), Jessica Tandy (Cocoon, Fried Green Tomatoes), Jack Klugman (The Odd Couple, 12 Angry Men), Vincent Price (House of Wax), Peter Lorre (The Man Who New Too Much, M), Joseph Cotton (Citizen Cane, Shadow of a Doubt), Fay Wray (King Kong), Hume Cronyn (Cocoon)
Season Four: Steve McQueen (Bullitt), Bette Davis (All About Eve), Claude Rains (Casablanca), Cloris Leachman (Young Frankenstein), Roger Moore (The Spy Who Loved Me), Walter Matthau (The Odd Couple), Brian Keith (Family Affair), Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched), Art Carney (Harry and Tonto), Mary Astor (The Maltese Falcon), Barbara Bel Geddes (Dallas), Denholm Elliot (Raiders of the Lost Ark), Dick York (Bewitched), Leslie Nielsen (Aeroplane!)
Season Five: including Walter Matthau (The Odd Couple), Steve McQueen (Bullitt), Peter Lorre (The Man Who New Too Much, M), Dick Van Dyke (Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang), William Shatner (Star Trek) and Burt Reynolds (Smokey and the Bandit)
Season Six: Gena Rowlands (Peyton Place), Sydney Pollack (Tootsie), Ricardo Montalban (Star Trek II-The Wrath of Khan), Barbara Bel Geddes (Dallas), Rip Torn (Men in Black 2), Claude Rains (CasaBlanca), Peter Falk (Columbo), Leslie Neilsen (The Naked Gun)
Season Seven: Walter Matthau (The Odd Couple), Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men), Claude Rains (The Invisible Man), Charles Bronson (The Dirty Dozen, The Great Escape), Anne Francis (Forbidden Planet), Robert Duvall (The Godfather), Dick York (Bewitched), Ed Asner (Elf), Wayne Rogers (M*A*S*H*), Cloris Leachman (Malcolm in the Middle), Diana Dors (Blonde Sinner), Cecil Parker (The Ladykillers), Michael Rennie (The Day the Earth Stood Still), Henry Jones (Vertigo), Billy Mumy (Lost in Space).
To be in with a chance of winning one of two copies of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents… boxset on DVD, just answer the question below.
The competition closes at 23.59 (GMT) on Friday 20th November 2015.
*You can enter once per day to increase your chances of winning but please note, only one entry per day will be counted*
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