The BEST episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour
Every episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour ever, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour!
A continuation of the dramatic anthology series hosted by the master of suspense and mystery. When the series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" was revived in 1962, the name was changed but the format stayed fairly true to the original. In each episode, viewers would be strung along with the story, never knowing which way the final twist would turn.
#1 - Power of Attorney
Season 3 - Episode 24 - Aired 4/5/1965
James Jarvis is a con man that is posing as a expert in the stock market. Things begin to look good for James when he gets in good with the wealthy Mary Crawford and her friend Agatha. He begins to control all of Mary's money and claims that he lost it all in bad investments. When she hears the news, Mary is shocked and commits suicide. Agatha, however, wants revenge. She conceals any evidence of suicide and invites James over. She gets James's figerprints on the suicide weapon and locks him in the room with Mary's body. She, then, calls the police and tells them that James killed Mary. When James's is killed in a shootout with police, Agatha gets her revenge.
#2 - Nothing Ever Happens in Linvale
Season 2 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/8/1963
Mrs. Logan calls Sheriff Ben Wister when she begins to believe that her neighbor Harry Jarvis killed his wife and buried her in his back yard. She notes that Harry has been acting strangely. He has been digging in the yard all night and has been drinkinf beer all day. She also notes that Mrs. Jarvis's annoying little dog has also gone missing. When the police interview him, Harry claims that his wife left him for another man. He also claims that his wife left her dog with him and that it died after an illness. The sheriff is unconvinced by Harry's explanation and gets a search warrant to dig up his back yard. When the police start digging they find a dead dog and believe Harry's story. Later, Harry visits Mrs. Logan who is in fact his secret lover. Harry did kill his wife and he and Mrs. Logan bury Mrs. Jarvis's body where the dog was once buried. They think that the police would never bother to check the dog's grave again. All goes according to plan until Sheriff Wister returns and te
#3 - Lonely Place
Season 3 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/16/1964
Stella is married to a cowardly peach-farmer named Emory and takes in a passing hobo named Jesse. She hires him to help her husband harvest the peach crop. Unfortunately, Jesse's strange behavior and fascination with a knife he carries begins to frightens her. Emory, however, refuses to believe her. Stella tries to run away, but is caught by Jesse. He threatens to stab her, but she fights him off. She escapes in her husbands truck and heads home. There she awaken Emory and tells him about Jesse. Emory, however, confesses that he heard her screams, but was too afraid to do anything. Stella angrily stabs her husband and kills him. She then calls the police and blames the murder on the fleeing Jesse.
#4 - Blood Bargain
Season 2 - Episode 5 - Aired 10/25/1963
Jim Derry is a hit man who is hired to kill a bookie named Eddie Breech. He begins to have second thoughts when he finds out that Eddie's wife Connie is confined to a wheelchair and is being cheated on by her husband. He talks to the Breechs and agrees to help the two fake Eddie's death so that Derry can get paid for the hit and the two can start over in Mexico. Derry goes to the morgue and aquires a body. He puts Eddies wallet and wedding ring on the corpse and starts it on fire after putting it in a car. Derry gets paid, but is arrested by the police. The police found the car and believe Eddie is dead. Derry tells the police that Eddie is in Mexico. The police then bring Connie into the room. She accuses Derry of shooting Eddie the night before. Derry has been set up. Connie killed her husband and set up Derry to take the fall.
#5 - See the Monkey Dance
Season 3 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/9/1964
While George is headed to see his girlfriend, he meets a mysterious limping stranger who makes George fear for his life. George learns that the stranger is his girlfriend's jealous husband and that his girlfriend arranged this meeting between them in hopes that her husband would kill George. The stranger tells George that she has done this sort of thing before and that he tried, but failed, to kill his wife's last lover. The stranger convinces George to plot revenge and tells him to tamper with the steering of his wife's car. George does as the stranger suggests and his girlfriend dies. George discovers to his dismay, however, that the limping stranger was really his girlfriend's former lover and that he used George to get his revenge on her.
#6 - The World's Oldest Motive
Season 3 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/12/1965
Alex Marrow wishes to get rid of his wife Angela so that he can marry a beautiful young model Fiona McNiece. Alex, however, does not want a divorce because he does not want his wife to get her hands on his valuable stamp collection. He hires a hitman named Richard Schustak to kill his wife. Richard sets up Angela to die in an accident in her home. Alex, however, has second thoughts. He tells Richard to call the whole thing off. Richard will only do so for more money. Alex hands over the cash and Richard skips town with Fiona who is actually his girlfriend. It was all a con and Alex was the patsy.
#7 - The Ordeal of Mrs. Snow
Season 2 - Episode 25 - Aired 4/17/1964
Bruce Richmond is gambler who is worried about his cat-loving aunt Adelaide Snow telling everyone he is a check forger. He cooks up a scheme where where he will lock his aunt in the bank vault in her house before he goes on vacation. He hopse she will suffocate and that her death will be ruled an accident. He locks Adelaide in the vault with one of her cats. While on vacation, Bruce's wife Lorna gets worried when she calls Adelaide and recieves no answer. She demands that they return from their vacation. Lorna and Bruce arrive at Adelaide's home and finds nothing. Lorna assumes that Adelaide's must have left the house for the weekend. Bruce almost gets away with murder, until Lorna hears Adelaide's cat wailing inside the vault. Lorna opens the vault and Bruce realizes that he's been caught.
#8 - Night Caller
Season 2 - Episode 15 - Aired 1/31/1964
Marcia Fowler accuses a neighborhood boy named Roy Bullock of being a peeping Tom. Roy denies it and manages to ingratiate himself with Marcia's husband, Jack, and her lonely stepson. When Marcia gets an obscene phone call she tells Jack that it was Roy, but he denies it. Later, after Jack goes away on a business trip, Marcia confronts Roy after receiving another obscene phone call and becomes fearful that Roy is crazy when he tells her that his mother was just like her.
#9 - Behind the Locked Door
Season 2 - Episode 22 - Aired 3/27/1964
Newlyweds Dave and Bonnie Snowden visit the abandoned home of Bonnie's late father. In the home, Dave finds a locked door and comes to believe that there is something valuable inside. Later, Dave and Bonnie tell Bonnie's elderly mother Mrs. Daniels that they are married. Bonnie's mother is convinced that Dave is after her daughter inheritance. She tries to bribe Dave to annull the marriage. Dave refuses, but he is desperate for money. In an effort to convince Bonnie's mother of his good intentions. He convinces Bonnie to fake a suicide attempt by overdosing on sleeping pills. Dave hopes that Mrs. Daniels will see him caring for her and change her mind about him. Unfortunately, Bonnie is allergic to sleeping pills and accidently dies. After the funeral, Mrs. Daniels tells Dave that she has had a change of heart. She gives him the abandoned house. Dave heads to the home and again wonders what is behind the locked door. As he talks to himself, Dave accidently reveals to a secretly listeni
#10 - Body in the Barn
Season 2 - Episode 32 - Aired 7/3/1964
Bessie Carnby and her daughter Camilla have been feuding with their neighbors Henry and Samantha Wilkins. In order to patch things up Bessie invites them over for dinner. Samantha refuses to go, but Henry goes and tries to act friendly. Later, he disappears and Bessie sees Samantha digging a hole in her barn. Bessie accuses Samantha of murder and calls the police. The police dig up the hole and find a badly decomposing body. Samantha is executed for the crime, but later Henry returns claiming he went out to sea. He has inherited his wife's money and marries Camilla. Bessie realizes she has been tricked and, feeling guilty over having sent an innocent Samantha to her death, decides to bring Henry to justice by poisoning herself and making it look like he is responsible.
#11 - Wally the Beard
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 3/1/1965
Walter Mills is shocked when his fiancee dumps him. When she tells him he is too dull, Walter decides to change his image. He buys a wig and a beard and pretends to be Philip Marshall. As Philip he meets Noreen Kimberly. He promises to teach her how to sail. Noreen's boyfriend Curly, however, becomes angry and does some digging. He finds out that Philip is really Walter and he threatens to tell Noreen unless Walter hides some stolen jewels for him. Walter accepts and hides the jewels in sack inside his boat. Feeling guilty, Walter tells Noreen everything. She tells him that she really is in love with him. Noreen tells Walter to get rid of the jewels. As he heads to the boat the police arrive. They open the sack and find the remains of Noreen's husband. The police inform Walter that they were tipped off by Noreen and Curly. Walter realizes that it was all a set up as he is being taken away by the police.
#12 - The Evil of Adelaide Winters
Season 2 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/7/1964
Near the end of World War II, a phony medium named Adelaide Winters cheats grieving families of soldiers killed in battle by pretending to communicate with ghosts. When she meets a wealthy widower named Edward Porter and finds out that his son was killed in battle, she insists that he join her seance. Edward reluctantly joins and begins to believe in Adelaide powers. Eventually, he proposes marriage to her so that the two of them can be with his son. Adelaide accepts the proposal but the honeymoon doesn't go as planned.
#13 - Day of Reckoning
Season 1 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/22/1962
Paul Sampson murders his wife Caroline and is relieved when the police rule her death and accident. His conscience gets the best of him, however, and he decides to confess the murder to his family and friends. Unfortunately, no one believes him. They think the stress of his wife's death has gotten to him. Later he tells another friend, who also happens to be a judge. The judge, however, knew all along. He was Caroline's lover. Knowing that Paul's conscience is killing him, the judge chooses to remain silent. When Paul continues in his attempts to confess, he is eventually committed by his family to a mental hospital.
#14 - Three Wives Too Many
Season 2 - Episode 12 - Aired 1/3/1964
Brown is a chronic gambler and bigamist who starts to run out of money when his wealthy wives start turning up dead. The police suspect that he is responsible for murder, but when no evidence turns up they are forced to conclude that each death was a suicide. The real murderer is one of Brown's wives who jealously wants to keep her husband all to herself. She tells him that if he strays again she will commit suicide and she will arrange for him to be charged for her murder and the murders of his other wives.
#15 - Final Escape
Season 2 - Episode 18 - Aired 2/21/1964
A convicted bank robber John Perry is sentenced to 15 years hard labor in a state prison lumber camp. Determined to get out, James befriend an alcoholic inmate named Doc. Doc is in charge of the prison infirmary as well as burials for the dead. Doc makes an offer to John: if John will fincance an operation for Doc's granddaughter, he will get him out of prison. Doc's plan is to hide Perry inside the coffin of the next inmate who dies. The coffin will then be buried and dug up after the gravediggers and guards leave. Perry will then make his escape. All goes according to plan, until Doc fails to dig Perry up. Perry then learns why when the shroud slips from the face of the corpse sharing the coffin with him. Its Doc who died of a heart attack the night before.
#16 - Water's Edge
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/19/1964
Rusty Connors is a con man that has just been released from prison. He looks up the wife of his dead former cellmate, a robber and murderer, named Miles Krause. Before he was imprisoned, Krause stole a significant amount of money and killed his partner. The money and the body, however, never turned up. Connors talks to Krause's wife Helen and hopes that she knows where the money is. She, however, does not have a clue. Eventually, however, they are able to figure out that the money is stored in an abandoned boathouse that is now infested with rats. In the boathouse, they find the money and the dead and half-eaten body of Krause's partner. When Connors sees the money he is overcome with greed and tries to murder Helen. She manages to knock him out. When Connors awakens, he finds himself bound and gagged and being taunted by Helen. She gets up to leave with the money, but is tripped by Connors and is impaled on a hook. As she dies, the scent of her blood attracts the rats. Since Connors i
#17 - Run for Doom
Season 1 - Episode 31 - Aired 5/17/1963
Dr. Don Reed falls in love with a nightclub singer named Niki Carroll despite the warnings of his seriously ill father and her ex-boyfriend who both tell him she is not good for him. Niki accepts his marriage proposal, but Don's father dies when he hears the news. The newlyweds take an exotic honeymoon cruise with the inheritance money. During the cruise, Don becomes enraged when he sees Niki kissing another man and he accidently pushes him overboard. Niki convinces Don to keep his mouth shut and since no one saw the incident he gets away with murder. Niki eventually grows tired of him. She tells him that she is going to leave him. She also wants all his money or else she will tell the police about the murder. Niki also dumps her band leader boyfriend, but instead of accepting this he strangles her. The police call Don to the scene. He examines his wife's body in the bedroom and discovers that she is still alive. Believing that the band leader is going to take the rap for murder, Don f
#18 - Consider Her Ways
Season 3 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/28/1964
Dr. Jane Waterleigh participates in an experiment in projected perception when she takes an experimental drug. She envision a futuristic society run by women. In this society all men have gone extinct because of a genetic accident caused by her associate Dr. Hillyer. After regaining consciousness, Dr. Waterleigh attempts to alter the future by killing Dr. Hillyer before he can progress further in his dangerous experiments. Her efforts prove futile, however, when Dr. Hillyer's son becomes determined to carry out his father's work.
#19 - Isabel
Season 2 - Episode 31 - Aired 6/5/1964
Howard Clements is wrongfully accused of assaulting a woman named Isabel Smith. He is convicted of the crime and is sent to prison for two years. When he gets out of prison he steals $13,000 which is the exact amount he would have earned if he had not been in prison. He then opens a record store in his hometown. He meets Isabel a few times and manages to get a date with her. Eventually the two become engaged. On their honeymoon, Howard sabotages the fuel line of the boat they rented and convinces Isabel to take a ride on it solo. Later, Howard gets hiw revenge when he hears an explosion in the distance. As he returns home, he is stopped by the police who know about his theft and also suspect him of murder.
#20 - Death Scene
Season 3 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/8/1965
Leo Manfred is an ambitious car mechanic who is fixing the limousine of a once famous movie director named Gavin Revere. Leo ingratiates himself to Gavin's daughter Nicky and the two are soon engaged to be married. Gavin is suspicious of Leo. He insists that he take out a life insurance policy naming Nicky as the beneficiary. Leo does so, and the two prepare to gte married. On the eve of the wedding, Leo insults Gavin by panning his famous silent film Death Scene. Gavin threatens to cancel the wedding. Leo responds by planning murder. He manipulates Gavin and Nicky to the edge of a cliff. Nicky, however, turns the tables and tosses Leo over the edge. Nicky removes her make-up and reveas herself to be Gavin's actress wife. She and Gavin manipulated Leo so that the couple could get their hands on his insurance money.
#21 - Change of Address
Season 3 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/12/1964
Over the protests of his wife Elsa, Keith Hollin rents a beach house. Elsa dislikes the house and is disturbed by her husband's digging of a gravelike hole in the basement. She is further disturbed when she finds out that Keith is seeing a local girl named Rachel. When Keith tells Elsa that he wants to buy the house, she decides to foil his plan by contacting the wife of the current owner to tell her to not to sell. Keith, however, grows angry and kills Elsa. He buries her body in the basement, but is surprised when the police arrive. The police carry shovels and want to dig up the basement. The police tell Keith that Elsa discovered the wife of the house's owner was missing. She tipped off the police and they began an investigation. They called the house's owner in for questioning and he confessed to murdering his wife. He told them that he buried his wife in the basement of the beach house. The police are at the beach house to dig up the basement so they can find the body.
#22 - The Jar
Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/14/1964
At a carnival sideshow, a farmer named Charlie Hill buys a strange jar, which brings him notoriety and respect in the community because people travel for miles to gather in his parlor and look at the jar and it's obscure content. But his young wife, Thedy Sue, is frightened of it and insists that he throw it out.
#23 - The Long Silence
Season 1 - Episode 25 - Aired 3/22/1963
In an elaborate con, Ralph Mason marries a rich woman named Nora Cory for her money. Unfortunately his schemes goes awry when he murders one of her sons from a former marriage. As he attempts to make the death look like a suicide, he is caught by Nora as he is writing a fake suicide note. Nora collapses and falls into a paralyzed, yet conscious, state. She is bedridden and worried that her husband will try to kill her. She is also unable to speak and cannot tell anyone about her dangerous husband. When her nurse Jean Dekker allows her husband to adminster her medicine, she grows fearful that he will try to poison her. Fortunately, the nurse figures out a way to communicate with Nora. Nora squeezes her hand in response to yes or no questions. Jean discovers the truth about Ralph, but when Ralph finds out he tries to kill both Nora and Jean . Fortunately, Nora comes out of her paralysis in time to scream. She alerts her second son who manages to subdue Ralph before he can kill again.
#24 - The Life Work of Juan Diaz
Season 3 - Episode 4 - Aired 10/26/1964
Juan Diaz is dying and penniless. His last wish is that he can provide financial security for his family. About a year later, a gravedigger named Alejandro exhumes Juan's corpse to make room in the cemetery. He has it mummified and sotries it in a crypt with a number of other mummies. Juan wife, Maria, discovers Alejandro plan and steals Juan's body. She hangs it in the house and tells tourists that it is a authentic Mexican mummy. Money from the tourists pays for food and clothing for Maria and her three children. Eventually, however, Maria is overcome by the ghoulishness of what she has done. She begs for forgiveness, but a gleam in the eye of the corpses body reveals that Juan approves of what she has done.
#25 - Misadventure
Season 3 - Episode 8 - Aired 12/7/1964
Eva is the wife of a miserly businessman named Henry. Eva, who has been cheating on Henry, is tricked into planning a murder him by a mysterious stranger named George who gets into their house by pretending to be a gas man. The two plan the perfect crime, until the last possible moment when George decides to murder Eva and makes it look like her husband is responsible. George is really Colin the long lost brother of Henry. He framed his brother because, years ago, Henry wouldn't loan him money for his wife's expensive surgery. She died and he has been waiting for his revenge ever since.