One More Mile to Go

This is neither superior Hitchcock nor is it inferior-- it is , however, vintage Hitchcock. There's the usual sly fascination with murder in the home, the workman-like concern with what to do with the body, and the story-telling ability to take a slender premise and make it suspenseful. At the same time, of course, the audience is manipulated into siding with the culprit-- all Hitchcock hallmarks. An episode like this presents some challenges since there's little dialog, no character development and not much action. A lot thus depends on getting the most out of the material, which director Hitchcock does by cleverly working the erratic tail- light gimmick that keeps us on pins and needles. We keep wondering when that trunk lid is suddenly going to be popped open. He also recognizes that the role of the culprit calls for unusual acting skills since the actor will have to convey a gamut of convincing emotions. Stage actor and Oscar winner David Wayne is a perfect choice for the harried part. Watch his impressive array of stricken reactions to each new threat. Nonetheless, the material lacks the sort of cachet that would make the entry really memorable. Understandably, this slender 30- minutes demonstrates Hitchcock's skills as a consummate craftsman, but not as a world- class artist. Still and all, it's an entertaining half-hour.

After recommending this episode to numerous friends, boasting Hitchcock's tremendous directing work in it, I finally realized I hadn't even checked whether Hitchcock was truly the director of this episode. So I checked. And thank God he was the director.

You think you just know it when you see such excellent directing work. The director must take most of the credits, because technically the first line didn't come up until about 10 min into the show. It's all image. The plot is so simple and the tension all comes from the director's work.

You listen to the language of film.

The mise-en-scène, oh, how can I praise it enough? Sixty years later, it's still the best artwork in film making. How can anyone forget the shot where the police officer talks to the leading character and turns and sits on the engine cover casually dancing his revolver at his waist into the guilty man's eye sight? God, my Hitchcock!

My days especially enjoying such "line-less" scenes goes way back to middle school when I read Takehiko Inoue's masterpiece comic book SLAM DUNK. The last book of the series was the last part of the toughest basketball game they had. When it was so intense, in that book, there were not many lines. All actions and emotions were delivered through pictures, but what I felt was much stronger than any words can express.

That's also why I'm such a big fan of the Pang brothers. In their first feature film Bangkok Dangerous (1999), they created a deaf-mute protagonist, so they didn't have to focus much on verbal language. They chose the impactful language that has no barriers between different cultures, the language of images.

And here, in One More Mile to Go, I see one of the best poems written in this language.

Not a surprise since it was directed by Hitchcock himself.

It has many of the features we associate with the best of Hitchcock: extensive and suspenseful use of silence; the use of a trivial object (in this case, an automobile tail light) to heighten the terror, horror or suspense; monologue voice-over of the criminal's thoughts (we'll see this again but in an expanded form --many voices-- when Janet Leigh is escaping in 'Psycho' in 1960); the use of camera shots outside windows looking in; the list could go on and on. While watching this we are right away dropping our jaw exclaiming, "This is pure Hitchcock!"

David Wayne, in an outstanding performance, kills his wife, puts her in the trunk of his car and drives off to bury her. Steve Brodie, who appears in a total of four AHP episodes, is the motorcycle policeman pursuing him to tell him that his back tail light is out.

Watch and see what happens. You'll start sweating the way David Wayne does. As others have noted, Hitchcock makes us feel sympathetic to the murderer! So I'll give this an 8. Easily the best episode of Season Two, which was from September 30, 1956 to June 23, 1957! Other top episodes of the second season were: "My Brother Richard" (Jan 20, 1957) with Harry Townes and Inger Stevens; "Bottle of Wine" (Feb 3, 1957) with the wonderful Herbert Marshall and an appropriately spineless Robert Horton; and "Number Twenty-Two" (Feb 17, 1957) with an amazing performance by Rip Torn as a 'juvenile delinquent'.

The story is unusual because the first third of the show has no audible dialog...none. Instead, you see what happens through a house's window and the voices are muffled. A husband and wife are arguing. Eventually she slaps him and then he responds by beating her to death with a fireplace poker! He then wraps her body up and dumps her in his car's trunk. He then goes for a long drive. Eventually, he's pulled over by a policeman. It seems one of his rear lights is broken and the cop insists that it be fixed IMMEDIATELY...not tomorrow or even later that night...NOW. Considering the wife is in the trunk, this is a problem. What's next? See the show.

I think the basic idea in this episode is flawed. After all, I cannot imagine any policeman being THAT insistent that you fix a tail light immediately. Standard procedure is that they give you a warning ticket and if you get the problem fixed in a few days, there is no fine. About the only way they'd insist you had to have a problem fixed immediately was if it was potentially life threatening...such as sparks shooting out of your car or a wheel falling off the car! Despite this flaw, the episode is interesting and tense.

By the way, had BOTH tail lights gone out, then the story would have made a lot more sense!

I agree with those who say this is one of the best episodes. Hitchcock himself directs, and begins with us spying on a couple from outside. They argue, he grabs a poker from the fire and bludgeons her to death. Now he has to dispose of the body. It's more than 10 minutes in before we hear anything other than the soundtrack (first a siren, then a voice).

The whole episode is an exercise in tension. It's hard not to find ourselves rooting for the protagonist (the killer, played by David Wayne), we've been with him from the start.

There are only two other characters, the police officer and a garage mechanic (still working at night). The ending is understated, as was often the case in the series.