Don't Interrupt

This is certainly a weak episode. The characters are so unlikeable that everything they do is annoying. Start with the snotty little kid in the 1950's cowboy outfit. He pretends to shoot old ladies and sneaks into people's compartments. He has apparently been thrown out of a private school because he won't stop talking. The parents are a couple gems. The mother, played by a very young Cloris Leachman, is so intolerant and unkind. The father is a feckless dinglejolly who sounds so weak when he tries to handle his son. Along comes Chill Wills, who has played a cowboy or two in his time. He fascinates the boy and gets him to listen. The question the kid asks are quite natural, but the mother wants to sit in her fox wrap and file her nail, only piping in to keep the kid quiet. Throw into this the announced threat of an escaped mental patient that occupies the kid's mind and you have the whole thing. The problem is, the kid has been given a silver dollar that he can keep if he doesn't talk. Well, of course, he knows something, but the problem is he can't say a word. It could have been OK but is just so dull.

A Facebook friend, Janie, recommended this particular episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and so I decided to try watching it. I haven't seen any of the episodes in decades...so we'll see what I think of the series.

When "Don't Interrupt Me" begins, you see a mother (Cloris Leachman), a father and a boy on a train trip. The child clearly is a little brat and he sure has a lot of energy. But the mother is a joyless thing who only seems to make the problem worse. Both needed to be sent to bed without their supper or put in time out! As for the dad, he has his hands full trying to make everyone happy.

In the midst of the family imploding, a stranger named Kilmer (Chill Wills) introduces himself and they sit and have drinks together. During the course of talking, he decides to tell them a story about the coldest night he endured...inspired by the raging snowstorm outside the train. And soon, the train comes to a halt...and they receive word that an escaped mental patient has escaped from a nearby hospital.

You can only assume really bad things will happen next...and, for the most part, they don't! I kept waiting for the payoff...and waiting...and waiting. Now I am not saying the show was bad...but it was a bit disappointing and the episode left me feeling just okay about it...nothing special. But I'll watch a few other episodes and see what I think, as no anthology show hits a homerun every episode. Heck, even "The Twilight Zone" had a few duds.

By the way, the very best thing about this episode, and in a few others, is Hitchcock's funny introduction and epilogue. It's worth seeing for that alone.

This episode was a different angle for the series and addressed the effects of Reward Based Parenting, a lack of respect for a child and the lack of enthusiasm to parent, on a young boy. It addresses the importance of structuring a child's morality code as well as addressing how necessary it is for parents to understand children and their "phases". And overall explains how "it takes a village to raise a child", while presenting all the characters as different features of adults raised in different ways. It utilizes money to explain how a value code is formed in the individual, and ultimately by different people collectively. It is an important message for all generations and socioeconomic statuses.

***SPOILERS*** Very weak Alfred Hitchcock episode involving this escaped lunatic from a mental asylum that takes place during a blinding show-storm that in watching it the story has nothing at all to do with what your watching!

We do have this very annoying youngster Johnny Tempelton, Peter Lazar,who's always interrupting everyone by not letting them finish a sentence. This all takes place on a train with Johnny's parents Larry & Mary Templeton,Biff Mcguire & Carol Leachman, and this mysterious stranger Mr. Kilmer, Chill Wills, who seemed to have materialize out of thin air!

Johnny who's just nuts about the old Wild West gets hooked on Klimer's stories about his past as a sheep and cow header back in the turn of the century. Told by his dad that if he can keep his big mouth shut for only ten minutes as Klimer recalls a near death experience he experience back in 1905 that he'll end up getting a silver dollar for his Herculean effort. Johnny for his part does his very best to zip his yap but that seems to be asking far too much of him. That in Johnny trying to keep quite he suddenly notices this person outside the train window trying to get out of the blizzard or else end up freezing to death! It's now up to Johnny to decide if the silver dollar is worth keeping his mouth shut and thus leaving the stranger outside the train to parish in the snow.

***SPOILERS*** In the end there's no winners in this crazy story about life and death and a boy, Johnny Tempelton, who has the power by either opening or closing his mouth in manipulating both! For his part in him shutting up, even though he really didn't, for some 10 minutes Johnny did win the sliver dollar. As well as letting the somewhat nutty Mr. Kilmer finally be able to finish his boring hair brained and mindless story that no one, but Johnny, seemed to be really interested in.

***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT*** But the kicker to all this entire mishugus, craziness in Yiddish, was that the absent minded Johnny lost the silver dollar by him brainlessly sticking it into his open belt buckle instead of his pants pocket! I guess he got so caught up and blinded with Mr. Kilmer's story about his near death experience in the snow that he himself lost his ability to think clearly!

Horrible episode with no sense of suspense. The whole premise is disjointed. He must've been busy with his movies that week and threw this debacle together in about 10 minutes. He is so much better than that. I'm surprise he or the network let that air.