The Cuckoo Clock

Everybodys favorite horror writer Robert Bloch, who wrote 10 episodes for Hitch, including PSYCHO, penned this claustrophobic tale o' tales.

Two dynamic actresses make the case. Beatrice Straight plays a widow who returns to a secluded cabin, her home away from home, just to get away from it all. Little does she realize -- her surprise guest (played by Fay Spain) -- may be a maniac on the loose. But there's a bit more to the story as you will see, which puts it over the top. Love the complications.

Camp dialogue between the two is priceless, spending lots of time together... More over, the story is very similar to a previous episode featuring Robert H. Harris, stuck in an empty train station with another man, both suspecting the other of being an escaped lunactic. Sound familiar?

Veteran film and radio actor Donald Buka plays the stranger at the door, turning in an excellent performance. Pat Hitchcock has a bit role as Straight's daughter, a very good actress in her own right.

Robert Bloch definitely at his creative best, who at the time was also writing material for Boris Karloff's tv show, THRILLER.

...Be sure to check the back door... SEASON 5 EPISODE 27 remastered Universal dvd box set. 5 discs, worth adding to your collection.

To start with, we have a woman, alone, after being told there is an escaped mental patient, a violent one. She is careless and soon a young woman is in her house. We have the classic double switch that's been done a million times in various films and TV shows. There is a lot of overacting in this, particularly by the young woman who claims to be escaping from the murderer. This is a bit more violent than most of these episodes. The cuckoo clock is an interesting metaphor. First of all, there are a couple cuckoos around and then there is a story told by the young woman about a bird that has been decapitated. But it's just too formula overall.

When a series runs for 7 years -- even when it's the superb Alfred Hitchcock Presents -- we'll find a few duds along the way. I guess we shouldn't be surprised if a series starts recycling old material, either. This week's tale of an isolated housewife facing the prospect of an escaped asylum inmate retreads episodes like Fog Closing In and The Dangerous People. Not to mention, it relies on the outdated, potboiler cliché of mentally ill people as monsters to fear, icky psychos lurking in the shadows.

The cabin setting, and the uncertainty over an at-large villain's identity, echo the episode A Little Sleep as well. The distraught young Madeleine Hall has barged into housewife Ida Blythe's cabin, and is she or isn't she the escapee, whose gender is (awkwardly) kept secret? I can avoid spoiling that, and still say the ambiguity of the women's encounter would be more compelling if the episode didn't stack the deck against Hall. Fay Spain's acting isn't the problem. Last seen as the domineering screenwriter in The Last Dark Step, she's equally good here, but Hall is written as having an absurd penchant for disturbing rhetoric, and condemning doctors and others who don't understand it.

Perhaps a serious consideration of the mentally ill is too much to expect from this premise, although the series can do great drama. But this episode has no point other than cruelty and ugly violence, which it takes great pains to produce. It doesn't help that its characters often behave implausibly.

It's also one of the series' worst-made. The general store scene is like a rehearsal on stage. The actors shout their lines at each other -- when they don't outright forget them.

A cheapie, unworthy of its brilliant hosting scenes: surreal comedy in which Hitchcock takes the lid off some literally canned laughter (as well as screams).

Do you review these for the times or using today's criteria which will, of course, be obsolete in the future?

Reviewing it for the times, it is well done, especially considering the short episode time frame. The acting is good, the plot well written and the ending twist good, if predictable (most Hitchcock twists are predictable, but still enjoyable).

Personally, I would have liked a more complete ending, a denouement or even Hitchcockian epilogue with the resolution, but perhaps that is just my hope that it didn't turn out as obviously as it was left.

Reviewing it for the current times, 2018, the acting is a bit much, not very subtle. The mentally ill is especially over the top. The writing is average and the plot is politically incorrect and not socially acceptable. It would never be written today, nor produced. The ending twist is still decent.

I find it arrogant to review it for the current times, the current sensibilities will soon be forgotten and replaced by smug, superior, self-righteous ideals (sarcasm intended). Productions should be reviewed relative to the times when they were produced. Many productions that are looked down on now were quite progressive in their own time, and certainly were part of the progression that lead to what we have today.