None Are So Blind

Fairly suspenseful episode, until the really gimmicky upshot. Seymour is a slightly effete antiques dealer with a wealthy Aunt Muriel (Dunnock). Seems he's got pretensions of being too superior to go to work now that his shop is failing and auntie is tired of supporting it. Besides Muriel is beginning to treat him with disdain mainly because of his posturing airs. So being the egotist he is, guess what he contemplates.

Hatfield specialized in such fey parts beginning with The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). Here his smooth face and elegant manner are quite believable. Dunnock too registers as the gritty aunt. But the payoff to his rather pedestrian plan is little more than a quirky gimmick that should have been re-thought. In passing-- I can't help noting KT Stevens' rather inessential role as Seymour's sultry paramour. I suspect the role was tacked on by TV's Standards and Practices to assure audiences that the effete Seymour was not actually gay despite his fey manner. That's just my surmise. Nonetheless, TV was indeed that airbrushed during the culturally conservative 1950's.

You'll probably have to watch this one twice. Some may notice something is off during the episode. Some may not. Either way, once the ending is revealed you'll probably want to go back and watch it again.

I have no clue what the other poster is talking about with the drawer. It certainly is not empty when it is first opened.

The clues to Seymour's undoing despite his brilliant planing were there. It is an episode that must indeed be re-watched.

This is another episode with an inheritance at stake, and a wealthy ne'er do well (Hurd Hatfield) willing to kill to get it. Our pretentious protagonist narrates a good part of the tale. He imagines he should have lived during the Renaissance. He says things like "I never worry about age. I have the sort of bone structure that lasts."

Seymour (that's his symbol-laden name) tells us fairly early on about his plan to kill his aunt, so that's not where the suspense lies. Instead, it's about how the plan will inevitably fail (or will it succeed in the story, only to have Hitch tells us he was caught afterward?).

It's an interesting character. The ending is kind of silly - there's a dramatic ta-da! effect - but I don't mind that.

In the first season of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", Hurd Hatfield starred in an episode called "The Perfect Murder". In it, he and his brother are upset that their aunt inherits money that they feel is rightfully theirs....so they plan on murdering her (Mildred Natwick). Here in season two in "None Are So Blind", the plot is VERY similar and the aunt is played by a different Mildred...Mildred Dunnock.

When the episode begins, you learn that Seymour (Hatfield) did not inherit his father's estate and instead this aunt (Dunnock) did. The reason is that Seymour is very vain, lazy and irresponsible and he'd likely blow through the money in short order. Of course, he will likely inherit this upon the death of his aunt....and he then concocts a complicated plan to do away with her.

The twist at the end seemed,...well...kind of silly. I loved Hatfield's acting...but the twist just seemed poor...at best. This and the similarity of the two episodes (too much) are why I only score this one a 5.