Triggers in Leash

I enjoyed seeing such great actors. Gene Barry is one of my all-time favorites. Bat Masterson and Burke's Law were awesome shows. I'm a big fan of The War of the Worlds. Darrin McGavin and Ellen Corby are wonderful too.

The plot is a little thin here, but I still enjoyed it. Maybe not the best of the shows, but I still had fun watching it.

Lots of Alfred Hitchcock episodes are on YouTube. Peacock has all episodes from Season One, Episode One of Alfred Hitchcock Presents to the last episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. I've decided to start and the beginning and watch them all. I hope you enjoy the shows as much as I do.

This well-crafted drama is one of the best of the early episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", and it is a fine example of the anthology show format. It has a compact but interesting story, with interesting characters who are well-defined, and a strong cast to portray them. The writing is tight and resourceful, getting much more out of a simple situation than you would have expected.

Ellen Corby, Gene Barry, and Darren McGavin are the stars, with Casey McGregor playing the only other on-screen character. Corby's character runs an out-of-the-way lunch counter, in which the characters played by Barry and McGavin confront each other with deadly intentions. Corby's character tries everything she can think of to cool off the two hotheads, even getting them to eat something while keeping one hand ready to draw at all times.

Although Hitchcock neither wrote nor directed the episode personally, it's well worthy of him, with a memorable situation, some very good dramatic touches, plus some psychology added in. Director Don Medford did a fine job of building up the tension, and the cast members are all in very good form. It's all resolved in a clever way that also would be worthy of Hitchcock's dry sense of humor.

Practically all of the episodes in the series were at least interesting, and many of them were memorable in one way or another. This one, though, is a particularly good example of an ideal usage of the half-hour format, and among the early episodes, it is very possibly the most efficient and effective.

I dont know what to say. I found this episode less interesting. It lack of purpose. Its just two man who want to kill each other. A fight that is not really interesting because we know the two men. And what they are. We just asking when they will act and stop talking and i found it pretty annoying. No other storytelling and its just non sense talk but we still want to know how it will end. But i didnt find the episode really interesting to be honest. Even if the woman was pretty smart but not a good cook.

Watching this episode, I got a strong feeling that Sergio Leone must have seen it sometime and it made an impression on him. Almost the entire episode is guys waiting to draw on each other while tension builds, just like the ending of The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. There are some similar shots -- a low shot from behind a hand over a holster, and close-ups of the men's eyes (something very rarely done in film before Sergio started doing it).

Also, since the men were supposed to draw when a cuckoo clock chimed, I was reminded of For A Few Dollars More, when a gunfight was supposed to start when a musical watch stopped its song.

Anyway, I can't know for sure, but I feel almost certain that the maestro must have caught this episode and liked it, and found things he wanted to use. Watch the climactic duel from The Good The Bad and the Ugly, and then watch this episode. I think you'll see what I mean.

A cook tries everything she can think of to end a dispute between two gunmen who have sworn to kill each other.

I appreciate this episode for the young Darren McGavin, who looks remarkably different than he did in the 1970s. I understand 20 years will do that to a guy, but it makes me wonder what he was doing for most of that time. Was he a big name before "Kolchak"? I am not aware of it, but then I wasn't really alive at the time.

After the first two episodes, this one is a bit of a disappointment. Not great, not terrible, just a very simple story. Maybe if I was a bigger fan of westerns I would like it more, but it just seemed like it could have used a little something more.