Into Thin Air

'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' was a bit of a mixed bag up to this early stages. The first two episodes to me were great, but the next two were disappointing. The biggest interest point of "Into Thin Air" is that it stars Hitchcock's own daughter Patricia in the first of ten appearances in the series in the lead role. The story, while not novel which is acknowledged by Hitchcock himself in the bookending, was a very good idea and very Hitchcockian, even though not directed by Hitchcock.

"Into Thin Air" is neither one of the best or worst episodes of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents', certainly better than the rating here implies (somehow managing to be rated worse than the previous episode "Don't Come Back Alive"). More of somewhere in the middle, that does a good deal right but it could have been fresher and runs out of gas at the end (which is a shame). Very neat set up, with a clear 'The Lady Vanishes' and 'So Long at the Fair' influence, with generally solid albeit not amazing execution.

Many things in "Into Thin Air" are good. The production values are solid, some stylish shots and a nice atmosphere created. The music is suitably ominous without being over-emphasised, and cannot get enough of the theme tune for reasons that have been pointed out in my reviews for the previous 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' episodes. The intro is wonderfully dry and acerbic and Don Medford directs in a way that is not static or routine, even if he is not in complete control in the latter stages.

Enough of the script intrigues and there is some nice suspense. Patricia Hitchcock does a good sympathetic job in the lead roles, one of her better performances of the series. The rest of the cast support her well. Alan Napier was always great value, always liked him in 'Batman' for instance.

However, "Into Thin Air" is another episode of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' that tries to cram in too much in too short a duration. It feels very rushed, sprawling in structure and needed a much longer length, this is a story that would have leant itself much better as feature length. The suspense also could have been more consistent, it's there but just not enough.

Really do agree that a lot of suspension of disbelief is needed, though it is not as much as "Don't Come Back Alive" and even more so that the very abrupt and anti-climactic ending is a let down. Giving the sense that the writers didn't know how to end it so tacked one on.

Concluding, acceptable if not great. 6/10.

When I watched "Into Thin Air", I felt annoyed. First, a similar sort of plot was used in "The Midnight Warning" back in 1932 and "The Lady Vanishes" (a Hitchcock movie) in 1938. But, as I watched, I noticed that "Into Thin Air" wasn't just a reworking of these old films but an actual remake of the 1950 movie "So Long at the Fair"! This is weird...why only five episodes into "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" would they forego making an original story and just did a retread of a 1950 film! I felt rather annoyed by this....though you might not if you haven't seen these movie.

Two British women arrive in Paris from India in order to see and experience the 1889 World's Exposition....the same international expo that debuted the Eiffel Tower. Soon after checking in to the hotel, the mother begins feeling sick. A doctor arrives and sends the daughter to get medicine. When she returns with the medicine, the hotel employees behave a if they've never seen her and they say that a her mother NEVER was in the hotel. And, the more the woman digs, the more it appears that either the daughter is insane OR there's some conspiracy afoot. What's really going on here?

As I mentioned above, this is based on a good story...it's just that if you've seen the movie, then none of this will be worth seeing. If you haven't, by all means see it...it's very interesting and the basic story is quite sound. So, a 4 if you've seen the film and an 8 if you haven't. I'll just split the difference and give this one a 6 overall.

By the way, I also really love Alfred Hitchcock's comment at the end...considering the leading lady in the episode is his daughter, Patricia.

When a young woman leaves her ill mother in a Paris hotel room and comes back later, she finds her mother is missing, and all the hotel's employees deny she and her mother were booked in.

Patricia Hitchcock is quite endearing as a daughter who finds her mother missing. You can feel her desperation. The story is a reworking of 'So long at the Fair' and the Lady Vanishes. It's quite impressive how the plot and good characterisation can be efficiently condensed into 25 mins. It's a watchable thriller with a satisfying twist.

No, you're not the only person who noticed similarities between "Into Thin Air" (Season 1, Episode 5) and Hitchcock's own 'The Lady Vanishes (1938).' Indeed, Hitch himself openly acknowledges the mutual source for both works, humbly referring to the director of the latter in the third person. This episode, directed by Don Medford, is certainly inferior to its cinematic counterpart, but it effectively creates a sense of paranoid mystery from a familiar story. Daughter Patricia Hitchcock, who had previously appeared in small roles in 'Stage Fright (1950)' and 'Strangers on a Train (1951),' is given the lead role – she does a fair job, but certainly wasn't the next Ingrid Bergman or Grace Kelly. Pat Hitchcock has a slightly-whiny voice that she shows off when asked to sound panicked, the sort of hysterical performance that wasn't uncommon among actresses in the 1940s. Her father, of course, seems rather proud of the effort, and mischievously remarks "incidentally, I thought the little leading lady was rather good, didn't you?"

When Diana Winthrop (Hitchcock) books herself and her sick mother (Mary Forbes) into a Paris hotel, she doesn't give a second thought to her own mental health. However, after being sent away to collect some medicine for her mother, Diana returns to find that her mother is missing, and, worse still, nobody in the hotel claims to remember her. Beginning to doubt her sanity, she seeks help from the British embassy, but they have a hard time taking her word over that of half a dozen hotel employees and a sign-in register from which the name Winthrop has disappeared. The story fits snugly into the half-hour time-slot, though the conclusion is not as satisfying as it might have been. "Into Thin Air,' just like 'The Lady Vanishes,' toys with the intriguing question of how one can maintain confidence in their own sanity if everybody is scheming against them. After all, as Orwell put it, perhaps a lunatic is simply a minority of one.

The ending to this episode was a huge tease. The acting was great, don't get me wrong. But to have such a buildup then in the last minute have such a trivial ending was extremely disappointing.