Triumph

I did not expect to be so bewitched by this episode- at the beginning. I'm not one for this sort of Amazonlike setting wrought with missionaries. However the insecurites , secrets and twisted pysches of the characters made this episode one of the best. The acting was excellent and quite convincing. It goes to show you you never know how these things will turn out in the end.

An interesting study of human nature in a savage land, where Begley presents the survival of the fittest while visiting missionary egghead married to sexy Lucy is more of an idealist, unable to accept that the natives or his hosts could be anything but good-hearted.

Begleyis a doctor and Lucy helps him in operations on the ailing native patients. Jeanette Nolan is terrific as Nolan's strong-willed and jealous wife. Dramatic secrets are kept hidden but inevitably will come out. Fitting the theme of missionaries, the dialogue is quie flowery and philosophical, but easy to take in context.

It adds up to a suspenseful, dramatic tale of people under pressure (in this case fighting a cholera outbreak in the area, quite well acted.

Alfred Hitchcock's macabre version of a soap opera.

I agree with the last reviewer, one of the best acted episodes in the hour long series. Hats off to veterans Ed Begley and Jeanette Nolan. Jeanette was a staple in tv westerns, usually cast as a widow or a victim of circumstances, and she could play an even wider range of roles to perfection, terrific with wigs and makeup. Begley was your all purpose burly good guy/bad guy who chewed up the scenery. At the time of this episode he appeared in THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN.

Here, the versatile duo play husband and wife missionaries who have much work to do in India. However, their private life is more interesting. Begley seems to be attracted to a much younger woman -- and jealousy naturally rears its ugly head. Begley and Nolan compliment each other in this spicey drama. And wait for some surprises.

Exceptionally written by Arthur A. Ross, perhaps his best script for Hitch.

SEASON 3 EPISODE 9 CBS dvd box set. All three season sets, according to Amazon, were produced in Europe and may not play on American made dvd players. Best to check with the seller.

Ed Begley has several scenes here as an impassioned lover type at heart. He actually handles this pretty well despite severe miscasting. The Jungle atmosphere is well done and especially well photographed. There is a long early sequence on a boat at night that is beautiful to look at.

But it's true the twists don't really hold up once you know what is going on and the final fade out is almost totally baffling despite some repeated shots and off camera lines to try to help it. It's kind of a mess this episode really, starting with the title that seems to have nothing to do with the show, and a lot of it is slow melodrama. It doesn't feel like a Hitchcock episode, to its credit it feels like a feature, but one that doesn't add up. The sum is less than the total of the parts.

Often, I have noticed that many of the one hour episodes of Alfred Hitchcock's show simply didn't have enough story to justify the 60 minute time slot. As a result, a few of the episodes really drag. "Triumph", however, is quite the opposite...an episode which might have worked as a 90 or even 120 minute program but didn't work at 60 minutes because so much of the story seemed missing. As a result, some of the story just didn't make sense...as if important parts were edited out of the story.

The Fitzgibbons (Ed Begley and Jeanette Nolan) are medical missionaries to some far off country (it seems like India but they never mentioned the place by name)....much like the famous Dr. Albert Schweitzer. However, unlike Schweitzer, Mr. Fitzgibbons is an incompetent doctor and his wife often works to hide this. This part of the story is completely unnecessary and really confuses the story.

The Spragues are missionaries who have come to visit the Fitzgibbons family. However, Mrs. Fitzgibbons is an angry, strange woman who thinks the Spragues are there to 'steal' their mission for themselves. This is confusing, since Mrs. Fitzgibbons is very possessive of the mission...yet she seems to hate her husband and even the work they do.

Where does all this go? Well, to very strange places indeed. I'd like to say it made a lot of sense...but it didn't. What was really confusing was Begley's actions late in the show...as well as Mrs. Sprague's. Overall, a very confusing episode that left me feeling a bit unsatisfied because the story simply didn't work and seemed to need a big re-write.