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 - 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.
#2 - Final Vow
Season 1 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/25/1962
Sister Pamela suffers a crisis of conscience just as she is about to take her final vows. Is her belief real or is she just hiding from the rest of the world? The sisters in the convent give her time to think everything over by letting her pick up a valuable statue from a reformed gangster. As she is returning, however, the statue is stolen by a young criminal named Jimmy Bresson. In order to get the statue back she leaves the convent and hunts Jimmy down. She arranges to have a date with him to get into his apartment. Unfortunately, she discovers that he has pawned the statue. She takes the pawn ticket and heads for the pawn shop. As she is about to get it back, Jimmy catches her. Jimmy and the dishonest pawn shop owner want to kill Pamela, but they want to have the statue appraised first. They call an appraiser, but it turns out to be the man who originally offered the statue to the convent. He tells them that the statue is worthless and convinces them to let Pamela go. Having confr
#3 - 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.
#4 - 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.
#5 - An Unlocked Window
Season 3 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/15/1965
Glendon Baker is an invalid who is being taken care of by a nurse named Stella Crosson. Stella is pleased when another nurse named Betty Ames arrives to assist her in the work. The only other people in the house are a house keeper named Maude and her handyman husband Sam. Stella becomes worried when she hears that a nurse killer is in the area. She grows more uneasy when the lights go out. When a patient's oxygen begins to run low, Stella sends the handyman out to get some. Growing paranoid, Stella locks all the windows in the house but neglects to lock the one in the basement. Later, Stella sees a man outside and panics when there is knocking at the door. She fails to notice that it is the handyman trying to get back in. She heads for the phone, but stops and heads into the lounge to help Nurse Ames who has been apparently attacked. Once in the lounge, however, Nurse Ames attacks her. Stella pulls at the Nurse's hair and reveals that Nurse Ames is really a man and a murderer who sees
#6 - Where the Woodbine Twineth
Season 3 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/11/1965
Nell Snyder has been taking care of her orphaned neice and has been growing more and more concerned over her neice's behavior. Her neice continually blames all the trouble she causes on an imaginary friend named Mr. Peppercorn. When the girl's grandfather Captain King Snyder gives her a Creole voodoo doll, Nell grows more and more worried. Her nieces says the doll came from Mr. Peppercorn. She names it Numa and treats as if it were a real person. Eventually, Nell becomes convinced that the doll is real and that it is trying to take her neice's soul. She follows her neice and Numa into the forest. There she frightens her away, not realizing that the switch has already occurred. She later sees the doll and discovers that it bears her neice's face.
#7 - 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.
#8 - 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.
#9 - 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.
#10 - 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.
#11 - The Gentleman Caller
Season 2 - Episode 24 - Aired 4/10/1964
Gerald and Milly Musgrove successfully steal $100,000 dollars, but run into the problem of where to hide the money. The couple befriend an elderly and somewhat senile woman named Emmy Rice. After a visit to her home, Gerald stashes the money in a stack of old magazines. Later, he convinces the old woman to name him in her will.
#12 - 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.
#13 - The Magic Shop
Season 2 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/10/1964
Tony Grainger is a young boy who gets fifteen dollars for his birthday. He asks his father Steven to take him to an out-of-the-way magic shop so that he can spend it. Mr. Dulong, the mysterious owner of the shop, takes an interest in the boy and agrees to teach him everything he knows about magic. Despite his father's protests Tony is invited to step into a cabinet by Mr. Dulong. Ignoring his father, Tony steps inside and promptly disappears. When Mr. Dulong, himself, disappears Steven is shocked. The next day Tony comes out of the cabinet and acts like nothing happened. Eventually the Grainger's realize that there son has become a master of black magic and that they are helpless in the face of his dark power.
#14 - How to Get Rid of Your Wife
Season 2 - Episode 11 - Aired 12/20/1963
Gerald Swiney, a henpecked husband, decides to get rid of his nagging wife, Edith, when she won't agree to a divorce. He intends to drive her away by making her think he's planning to kill her, but things don't go exactly as planned.
#15 - 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.
#16 - Death of a Cop
Season 1 - Episode 32 - Aired 5/24/1963
When policeman Philip Reardon is killed in drug bust, his police officer father feels responsible because his son joined the police force to follow in his father's footsteps. In order to set things right, Philip's father strives to brings his son's killers and their mob boss Herbie Lane to justice. The plan leads to his own death at the hands of the criminals, but in death he is able to fulfill his goal. Before the murder he had stationed a fellow officer nearby to witness the killing and bring the entire gang to justice.
#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 - Dear Uncle George
Season 1 - Episode 30 - Aired 5/10/1963
John Chambers writes an advice to the lovelorn column under the pseudonymn Uncle George. He learns that his wife is cheating on him when a neighbor named Mrs. Weatherby, not knowing that John and Uncle George are the same person, writes a letter to his column asking for advice. Chambers kills his wife and then pins the blame on her lover. When he fakes shock when the police reveal his wife's affair, he is accepted as innocent because he doesn't have a motive. Chambers almost gets away with murder until Mrs. Weatherby tells the police that she mailed the Uncle George column asking for advice about the situation.
#19 - Hangover
Season 1 - Episode 12 - Aired 12/6/1962
Hadley Purvis is an alcoholic advertising executive whose wife Sandra tells him that she will leave him if he takes another drink. Unfortunately, he drinks himself into a stupor. When he awakens he cannot remember anything that happened to him while he was drunk. He can't remember losing his job for being drunk during a presentation and he can't remember buying his wife a new scarf to prove that he had not been drinking. Ultimately, he discovers his wife's strangled body in his basement. Though he cannot remember, he realizes that, while he was drunk, he strangled her to death with the scarf he bought for her.
#20 - 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
#21 - 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.
#22 - 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.
#23 - 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
#24 - 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
#25 - 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.