The Gentleman from America

What happens when you set a guy up properly to expect a ghost? Or set him up to suspect that the people with whom he has bet a great deal of money will try to scare him away. Two men, badly in need of money, hanging around a fancy men's club, trick a rich American into betting with them. They bet a thousand pounds he cannot spend the night in a haunted mansion. They give him a gun, a candle, and one match. They also leave a book with a scary story of two sisters in it. One thing leads to another and the man is led to hysteria. What happens next is the true issue in this story. How does he handle being scared out of his wits. This is during war time and the forces at work don't meet again for five years. See this. it's a good psychological study, although it is a bit predictable.

Francis Cockrell was a master at telling a good story. Cockrell wrote many episodes for Hitch, known for a few film classics, like INFERNO, starring Robert Ryan.

Old reliable tough guy Biff McGuire plays a wealthy American, and the perfect fool for a couple of cons who meet up with him at a club in England. They need a fast buck, so why not challenge him to spend a night in a genuine haunted house? An old challenge ... but still very interesting material.

McGuire has a gun -- and a book of ghost stories? Not really a spooker, rather a psychological tale, a la Hitchcock in the dark. The walking ghost scene is campy stuff, reminiscent of all those low, low budget movies we grew up on. If you're thinking Ed Wood, that too. Hitch may have designed it that way. You be the judge.

I agree with the last reviewer, there's a unique ending to the story; you actually get to see what happened to the main character. True, there could have been a few other suitable endings, but worth watching for McGuire's reactions. And he reacts.

Hitch's opening is creative acting 101, and yes, with a few screams tossed in for good cheer.

SEASON 1 EPISODE 31 Universal remastered dvd box set. The deadpan cover photo is the best. Why we love Hitch.

This first season Hitchcock half-hour is fairly typical of the earlier episodes of this long running suspense series, as to its cast, ambiance and darker than usual tone of the story it tells. It starts out as a seemingly light tory about an American abroad, a young man, not terribly intelligent, though wealthy all the same (typical Hitch take on Yanks) who has been gambling up a storm in the England of 1940, when the world war was still "phoney", to the English speaking world anyway. Two English gentlemen of medium sophistication, and low on funds, propose a wager to the young man that he cannot spend a night in a bedroom of Hurstwood manor. He is told that he must remain in the room overnight, and is given only a candle, one match, a pistol and, if he pleases, a book that tells the "terrible story" that caused the manor to become haunted. If the Yank stays in the room all night he will win a thousand pounds. Unwisely, the American takes the wager, then proceeds upstairs with surprisingly little fuss or bother.

There is also a bit of information mentioned earlier about a nearby lunatic asylum, and I don't see this as a spoiler, as, while there is some foreshadowing of what shall happen later on in the tale, it's near impossible for a first time viewer to guess the signifacence of it. The prospect, in this story, of gambling, an early wartime setting, a young American abroad, and out of his element, a ghost, and madness, is a tantalizing one even as the first half of the episode is otherwise somewhat prosaic and unremarkable. Things turn, literally, darker, in the second half, yet there's also some confusion for even a seasoned Hitchcock show viewer, as the "set-up", or introduction (as it were) is quite complicated as to the terms of the wager, and how or whether a ghost would react to being shot at. Nor is it made wholly clear who is going to be staying in this large manor house to ensure that the American will stick to his part of the bargain, and if he doesn't, how they can know. The episode pays off in the end, though it could have been a whole lot better with some different players and a better script. Michael Arlen's short story was a good one, yet the epsode, while above average in most respects, feels a bit second tier for this particular television series.

This is not one of the examples of the series. In fact, the failure of this episode probably highlights how thin is, in this kind of story, the difference between a pleasant awkward episode, and just a cheesy goofy nonsense.

What i do notice as a dominant fact to much of the episodes is that we are always allowed to define the degree of human manipulation or super natural unexplained events that take place (or that is revealed to us). So, in this case, we suspect the American is being manipulated, but we also wonder whether we are being manipulated as well. The plot is predictable, but it leaves some shadows, which might be enough for us to wonder enough to feel in doubt. Is there a real ghost? Would the manipulators fall in their own trap and be caught in the middle of something they didn't understand? Would the American over top his deceivers and come out with something more clever? Well, apparently they chose the dullest solution. The American does exactly what is intended by the money chasers, everything is according to the book (not the one he reads, i wish it was according to that). We have a minor twist, of finding out what happened to the American after the night in the mansion, but instead of fun irony, they moralize. Bad choice, to me.

So it fails in the plot, and to me it fails in the building of the tension in the ghost house. That has to do with direction, but also probably due to the ghost itself, which is laughable by today's production standards, so it is badly dated.

My opinion: 1/5

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When the episode begins, it's 1940 and an American, Mr. Latimer, is in Britain on vacation. It seems that he has incredibly good luck and is rich....and one of the locals is irritated by this. So, he makes Latimer a bet that he cannot stay the entire night in a supposedly haunted room for one night. I could give you more details, but this might give away the twist...such as it is.

To me, this episode seemed inferior for a variety of reasons...the biggest of which is the weakness of the script. The twist didn't seem at all believable and the episode seemed more silly than anything else.