Series of unrelated short stories covering elements of crime, horror, drama, and comedy about people of different backgrounds committing murders, suicides, thefts, and other sorts of crime caused by certain motivations, perceived or not.
Season 1 features actors like Joseph Cotten, Joanne Woodward, John Forsythe, Cloris Leachman, and Claude Rains (as well as a struggling young thespian named Aaron Spelling), but the man in the silhouette steals the show.
Hitchcock, the master of suspense, brought a brilliantly acted, neatly directed drama to the TV screens for the first in his series, that had everything except an ending.
But the real gem is Breakdown (1955), a minimalist tour de force starring (and narrated by) Joseph Cotten as a businessman paralyzed in a car wreck; it belongs among Hitchcock's neglected masterpieces.
Hitchcock rarely directed, confining himself to inane introductions. But many of the suspense stories-written by such masters as Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch-are quirky, tight masterpieces.
Breakdown, with Joseph Cotten is a well-nigh Beckettian vision of doom, shot in grotesque close-ups and with a desperate inner monologue that anticipates the chilling voice at the end of Psycho.
