Two facts conspired to precipitate my alleged role in the doom of Metamorphosis Briggs. One was that the final examination was compulsory and had to be sat by every student regardless of prevailing circumstances: the other that whereas his subject required a certain precision and skill, the overall basis of it was not terribly difficult.
Nevertheless, on the day of the exam, Metamorphosis placed me in the fartherest extremity of the room and clustered the others toward the front, as if he feared that somehow I might contaminate my fellows with my antigeometrical disease.
Needless to say, the highlight of every episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents was the introduction to the story by the man himself, who would wander on to fill out his own caricature, and then proceed to fool about with some gimmick that would only marginally have something to do with the drama. Hitchcock was, most of all, a showman and his lame comedy was hilarious, especially because he was actually there to warm you up for a horror story.
As time passed, his antics grew sillier but his wonderful ability to fail to take himself seriously and then shudder with horror at the thought of what the audience was about to see remains unequalled.
Hitchcock had little to do with the show otherwise - directing only a few episodes himself, but he maintained firm control over the content and it was usually very high.
Most commonly, they were murder dramas from the point of view of the killer, trying desperately (and always failing) to avoid that one fatal flaw that leads to their downfall. The Hitchcock touch was always there in the form of a nifty plot twist that would unravel the dastardly plan. The best actors around queued up to play these unsavoury characters.
The show was half-hour for the first few series, and then expanded out to an hour, which took away much of its sharpness, but still produced some stunners. The most famous, of course, was never aired, and re-shot as the movie Psycho.
