Don't Interrupt

"Don't Interrupt" did actually sound quite intriguing. Robert Stevens did do some very good and more episodes for 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents', there were disappointments such as "Toby", "Shopping for Death" and particularly "The Hidden Thing" as far as previous episodes. But they were far outweighed by excellence such as "Our Cook's a Treasure", "One for the Road", "The Glass Eye", "Heart of Gold" and "The Motive". Have also loved Cloris Leachman since her magnificent performance in 'The Last Picture Show'.

Unfortunately "Don't Interrupt" was a big disappointment in nearly every area. Very sad to see Season 4 go so quickly from one of its best episodes (and one of my favourite 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' episodes) "Poison" to a very strong contender for its worst in "Don't Interrupt". It is Stevens' worst along with "The Hidden Thing" (not entirely sure which is worse of the two), the worst 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' episode since "Sylvia" and one of my least favourite outings of the entire series.

There are a few good things. Leachman does valiant work in her role and does perform with the right amount of intensity. Hitchcock's bookending is typically droll and where the episode is easily at its most interesting.

It looks quite nice and moody in the photography and the theme music is classic.

However, so many things are poorly done. The pacing is very dull with no tautness at all, which made the episode feel very dragged out and flimsy. The very thin story badly suffers from a complete lack of suspense or any kind of atmosphere and even more so from next to nothing not making sense. The ending leaves more perplexed questions than answers, with a very anti-climactic feel too.

Stevens' heart to me was clearly not in it, even "The Hidden Thing" didn't have direction this leaden and going through the motions-like. The production values are on the whole cheap, while the rest of the cast overact to overwrought melodrama level. "Don't Interrupt's" very close second biggest failure, first being everything in the story, is the excessive unlikeability of all the very one dimensional characters that are absolutely impossible to root for. A big problem for a story where one is clearly supposed to. The boy agreed is especially true to this, truly irritating.

Overall, very weak. 3/10.

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.

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.

Seeing Mrs. Templeton makes me think of somebody blaming a dog for barking all the time. It's a dog, were you hoping the dog would be mute?

Anyway, our story involves a mother, father and son on a train. Tensions are high because the son had been kicked out of school. Here's the thing, I didn't look at the son and think he was a brat or a demon. Overall he seemed like a talkative kid. He might play an innocent trick here or there...he swapped out his mother's alcoholic drink for his glass of milk and his mother took a swig of milk instead of her own drink. It's stuff like that.

The father is somewhat better. He at least seems to care for his son but not so far as to stand up for him against a mother that clearly doesn't like her own kid.

Anyway, the family is on a train and are approached by Mr. Kilmer. Judging by the story he ends up telling the family, I'd say he also likes to talk. While our story is going on, there's talk of a mentally ill man escaping from a nearby facility and it's told the man isn't dangerous, he just needs help.

The son has been interrupting and the father says he'll give him a silver dollar if he can remain silent for a certain time period. Well, you can pretty much guess what happens. The train has stopped while Mr. Kilmer's telling his story but the son notices a man outside in the snow. He keeps trying to get attention but the son is caught between a rock and a hard place because everytime he tries to speak up to say there's a man outside in the freezing snow, he's shushed. Nobody wants to listen to the kid. The train starts up again and leaves the man behind to freeze in the snow. He tries to tell even after the train started moving that there was a man back there but he's still being disregarded. The son is given his silver dollar and he puts it on a loop on his pants? Of course the silver dollar falls out of the loop. It was such a strange move. The kid didn't strike me as being dumb so I wish they had him putting the silver dollar in his pocket and it falls out because he had a hole in his pocket and didn't notice. Some train employees are talking to the child before he goes off to bed and one of the employees sees the dollar fall and he picks it up for himself. The kid will get another dollar from his old man. What does a dollar mean to a kid anyway? Episode ends.

I thoroughly enjoyed the episode but I still say the real problem going on was the mother instead of the son.

***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!