And So Died Riabouchinska

At last!
After releasing only selected episodes in volumes (4 episodes in 1 DVD), it is good to see that Universal Home Entertainment is finally releasing this show in season box sets (and hope that they continue to release the remaining seasons in the future).

Premiered on October 1st, 1955, this wonderful series ran for seven seasons, and afterwards for another 3 seasons as "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour". This set contains the first 39 episodes of Season 1, told by the `Master of Suspense', Alfred Hitchcock. The episodes include:

01. Revenge

02. Premonition

03. Triggers in Leash

04. Don't Come Back Alive

05. Into Thin Air (aka The Vanishing Lady)

06. Salvage

07. Breakdown

08. Our Cook's a Treasure

09. The Long Shot

10. The Case of Mr. Pelham

11. Guilty Witness

12. Santa Claus and the 10th Avenue Kid

13. The Cheney Vase

14. A Bullet...

Good Evening, Mr. Hitchcock!
I haven't seen "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" since it was last shown on TV Land quite a few years back. This show is one of the best anthology series ever and deserves to be shown and enjoyed. Thankfully Universal has seen fit to release season one on DVD. All 39 episodes (yes, 39!) of this incredible show.

The one constant element throughout the series is the presence of Alfred Hitchcock with his dry, macabre sense of humor. This show made the well-respected film director a huge TV personality of the 50s and 60s. It was part of his deal with CBS that he would direct many of the episodes but as it turned out he directed only 17 segments during the series entire run.

Many well-known actors from film and television made appearances on the show during it's run. In this season one set you can expect to see Aunt Bea (Frances Bavier), John Forsythe, Cloris Leachman, Joseph Cotten, Peter Lawford, Barry Fitzgerald, Carolyn Jones, John Cassavetes, Charles Bronson, Claude...

Beware! Some episodes are edited
It's very hard for me to type this, because I thought this was going to be a stellar set -- but alas some episodes are indeed edited.

Example: "Salvage" ends with Gene Barry shooting Nancy Gates. After he pulls the trigger, the next scene on the DVD is Hitchcock saying (after the usual comedy), "We'll be back next week." Then the end credits roll. I knew something was missing, so I went back to my 10-year-old VHS recording (syndicated TV version) of this episode and played it. There, Hitch does indeed come back BETWEEN the end of the show and the farewell till next week outro. It's about 30 seconds of footage with Hitch explaining, "He would have gotten away with murder, but ..." This is CRUCIAL footage! And since it's included in the syndicated TV version, Universal can't say it isn't included on the DVD because the footage is "lost."

Sigh. Why can't Universal get it right? Double-sided discs are one thing; releasing edited shows is another. What,...

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