Lamb to the Slaughter

I love the Lamb to the Slaughter one too, but honestly every episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was just great!

I love b/w TV and movies as well. I love all the Twilight zone episodes too, ahhhh back then they made great TV. Too bad TV is not like that now, now you see guts everywhere, blood splattering, rape you name it; back then the censors forced TV and movies to use a lot of imagination and cool techniques to create feelings of horror or eeriness and sexuality. there was so much more creativity back then!

Yup, Roald Dahl's short story was much more engaging. The build-up before the husband arrival was really important to set up the atmosphere and it seems it has been underestimated at the time of the choices for the adaptation into a half-hour TV episode.

Maybe it's because it's television and nobody cared too much about making it a tremendous rendition of the original material. Let alone improve on it.

Maybe it's because Roald Dahl was miscast to adapt his own story and he had no idea what he needed or could bring along into the teleplay.

Maybe Hitchcock was not very good with stories requiring more "full performances" from his cast. This drama would definitely have required the directorial skills of Elia Kazan for instance. Lamb to the slaughter is more about putting us into the wife's mind than about the immanent suspense. Don't get me wrong: Barbara Bel Geddes is wonderful as the main character but the story deserved something more than this down-to-earth rendition.

I recall having this episode described to me when I was quite young. It is probably the most famous of all the Alfred Hitchcock Presents stories. It involves another cad of a husband, a police officer, who comes home late and announces to his loving wife that he has had enough of her and is going to demand a divorce. He is a complete ass in doing this, showing no sympathy toward her, despite the fact that she adores him. She takes a leg of lamb out of the freezer in the garage, and when his back is turned, smashes in his skull. The remainder of the episode involves her covering up her crime as the police comb the house looking for the murder weapon. Before leaving the house to provide an alibi, she puts the lamb in the oven, frozen, and allows it to slow bake. Barbara Bel Geddes is excellent as the somewhat vacuous woman who holds in her emotions. At times it looks as if she will explode. She stays at the scene as the coroner and the crime scene guys work everything over. The last five minutes are really choice. Bel Geddes dominates every moment.

One of the most talked-about of all the Hitchcock half-hours. I'm not sure why since there's none of the suspense, mystery, atmosphere or other qualities that made the series such an enduring hit. There is, however, a rather delicious irony (no pun intended) that comes to a humorous climax in a slow forward dollying shot ending with a big close-up of Bel Geddes. Hitchcock himself directed the show and that same dollying technique is repeated to great effect in the final shot of Tony Perkins in Psycho.

Anyway, my favorite part is where Allan (Rocky) Lane tells wife Bel Geddes that he's leaving her. Her face suddenly registers a complete blank as she goes into denial that this could be happening. It's a rather inspired little moment and a tribute to Bel Geddes's acting skill. Notable also for presence of hawk-nosed Harold J. Stone as a senior cop and ex-cowboy star Lane as the faithless husband. Otherwise, it's a routine episode, at best.

I have seen every episode more then once. This is the best IMO.