The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Don't Look Behind You (1962)

In 1962, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour premiered, expanding on the popular half-hour thriller series Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Like its predecessor, each episode opened with an introduction from the Master of Suspense himself Mr. Hitchcock, who teased his audience about the story to follow. 

"Don't Look Behind You" was only the second episode in this new hour-long format and, unfortunately, it played out like a half-hour episode stretched to fit the new timeslot. 

The episode, based on a novel by Samuel Rogers, was about a crazed killer who stalked the woods at night murdering young women in the college town of Woodside. One evening, Daphne (Vera Miles) decides to take a chance and crosses the woods as a shortcut to get to a dinner party - she makes it out alive but knows for certain that someone was following her close behind. At the party, arriving shortly later, is her fiancé Harold (Jeffrey Hunter), a psychology professor who looks a bit bedraggled. Also arriving late is Dave (Dick Sargaent) a science teacher who has a crush on Daphne. Another admirer of hers is Edwin (Alf Kjellin), a pianist who has a bent towards the morbid. 

Harold comes up with the brilliant idea of using Daphne as bait so he can catch the killer himself and throughout the episode we are supposed to wonder whether the lunatic is Harold himself, Dave, or Edwin, all of whom happen to be in the woods the same night Daphne is walking through it. All three men look crazy but Harold seems to be the most dangerous and one cannot help but wonder how Daphne can be so blind as to not realize it. 

"Pain is only a secret name for pleasure, my darling"

The wonderful director John Brahm (The Lodger, Hangover Square) directed "Don't Look Behind You" and, while the scenes through the woods are atmospheric, the episode as a whole is a letdown. This could have been a tense thriller with nail-biting "who can the killer be?" ending, but instead it is so obvious that most of the episode fails to build any tension. Jeffrey Hunter's character of Harold should have been a sympathetic intelligent man whom Daphne relies on, this would have given her plausible reason for staying in Woodside with a killer on the loose and would have made the ending have more of that Hitchcockian-twist. 

"Don't Look Behind You" features one of the best introductions of any of the Alfred Hitchcock episodes with Vera Miles walking in a flowing white dress down a secluded dark wooded shortcut, but overall, it just fails to stir up the shivers like any decent Alfred Hitchcock episode should. Nevertheless, Vera Miles gives a wonderful performance as the innocent victim and there is a cast of familiar faces including Abraham Sofaer (Elephant Walk), Madge Kennedy, and Ralph Roberts (Bells are Ringing).

From the Archives: Gun for a Coward ( 1956 )

Janice Rule is clinging to her newly-found boyfriend Jeffrey Hunter in this publicity photo for "Gun for a Coward" ( 1956 ), an entertaining western from Universal Pictures. Fred MacMurray was the star of the film but this handsome young couple provided all of the romantic interest. 

From the Archives is our latest series of posts where we share photos from the Silverbanks Pictures collection. Some of these may have been sold in the past, and others may still be available for purchase at our eBay store : http://stores.ebay.com/Silverbanks-Pictures

The Great Locomotive Chase ( 1956 )

Over at Wide Screen World, Rich is hosting the fantastic Cinemascope Blogathon along with Becky from ClassicBecky's Brain Food. It will be running between March 13-16th, so if you enjoy reading this post then head on over to their sites and check out all the wonderful articles about Cinemascope films. 

Cinemascope was the first widescreen filming process which through the use of a simple lens attached to a regular 35mm film camera was able to capture panoramic scenes not previously possible. The final result was an image that was two-and-a-half times as wide as it was high and resulted in an aspect ratio closely resembling that of human eyesight. The first film to utilize this sumptuous technique was The Robe in 1953. It was a grand and beautiful new way of seeing a film and, within a year, others were being shot using the widescreen lens and theatres across America were being converted to accommodate the new process with a wider, slightly curved projection screen. 

Of all the hundreds of wonderful Cinemascope films released between 1953 and 1967, we chose The Great Locomotive Chase for our post because of its great use of location settings which were really emphasized by the wide-camera lens and, of course, because it is a Disney film...only the second Disney production to use the new process. 

Fess Parker was making a hit with younger audiences in his role of Davy Crockett on television and in the live-action film Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier ( 1955 ), so Walt Disney decided to cast him as the lead in his latest project about the Andrews Raiders and their daring theft of the locomotive, The General, during the Civil War. 

James J. Andrews was a Union spy who, along with a regiment of volunteer soldiers, was ordered to penetrate the South. Pretending to be Kentucky civilians on their way to join the Confederate army, they were to board a train, abscond with it and, then, chugging along on the track northward, burn all the bridges behind them. It was an excellent plan and, had it succeeded, would have made fools of the Confederates and have thrown a major wrench in the war, for the South was receiving supplies from this one main railroad line. 

However, Andrews did not reckon with the dogged persistence of a young conductor, William A. Fuller ( portrayed by Jeffrey Hunter ), who certainly was not happy to find his train stolen from under his very nose! 

Buster Keaton had filmed a humorous version of this famous event in his 1926 silent classic The General, but Walt wanted this version to be more serious and to bring the history and adventure of the circumstances alive to his viewers. The production team accomplished this quite admirably and The Great Locomotive Chase brims with excitement, especially throughout the chase sequences. 

Selecting Cinemascope for this production was a wise choice because it allowed the camera to capture much more of the beautiful scenery of Northern Georgia during the autumn months, and the striking scenes of the vintage locomotives passing along the entire length of the picture. Oddly enough, the best background sceneries were not filmed at all, but were drawn by that talented matte artist Peter Ellenshaw. 

Walt Disney was busy with the construction of Disneyland during the making of The Great Locomotive Chase and so he did not have an opportunity to oversee the production as much as he hoped. However, he left the film in good hands under the capable eye of screenwriter Lawrence Edward Watkin. This would be his first, and only, outing as a producer. Watkin wrote the story for this film and went on to write the screenplays for several other great Disney productions including Darby O'Gill and the Little People ( 1959 ). 

Walt was a great train enthusiast and, for this film, he went to great lengths to obtain authentic railroad cars used during the Civil War. These were eventually acquired through the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Museum and the credits acknowledge their "generous cooperation". 

In addition to Fess Parker and Jeffrey Hunter, the cast includes Jeff York as a hot-headed Union soldier who is more trouble than help, John Lupton as William Pittenger, a level-headed schoolteacher and the narrator of the story, and a supporting cast which included Kenneth Tobey, Claude Jarman Jr, Slim Pickens, Harry Carey Jr, Eddie Firestone and a young uncredited Dick Sargeant. 

When The Great Locomotive Chase was released in theatres on June 20, 1956, critics praised it and audiences loved it. Because of its success,Walt Disney continued to procure stories of historical significance for use in his upcoming live-action films, and Fess Parker went on to star in other productions of a similar vein. 

To read more about the Cinemascope process, check out the Widescreen Museum's reproduction of a 1953 article which explains this simple technique: The Cinemascope Process.