MovieChat Forums > The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) Discussion > Crimson Witness

Crimson Witness

posted 13 days ago by roger1 (4046)
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I've been sampling the Alfred Hitchcock Hours on streaming.

Of the ten-year run of the Alfred Hitchcock series, only the final three were hour longs. But seasons were so long back then its almost like six years of material.

The Hours started in 1962 -- two years after Psycho upped the ante bigtime on "the 60s"(sex and violence wise) and,while not nearly as graphic as Psycho, they are decidedly more "hip" than the half hour shows that were rather bound in the fifties(even as those episodes, too, were more lurid and rough than most 50's TV.

The Hours ran in 1962 through 1965. Those were "the Rat Pack years" in America, and saw the meteoric rise of Hugh Hefner and the impact of the sexual murderous James Bond.

Hitchcock's Hours, much like his half hours, often dealt with wives murdering husbands and husbands murdering wives -- I can picture unhappy couples watching these episodes in quiet satisfaction.

But Crimson Witness rather heaped on the business and sexual competition in a different, pretty damn adult way. I was frankly rather astonished with what it got away with.

The math is pretty simple: suave, handsome Peter Lawford -- an original member of the Rat Pack who had been drummed out of it by a furious Sinatra(Lawford's brother in law JFK backed out of a deal to stay at Sinatra's house, Lawford had to break the news) -- is juggling a beautiful wife(Martha Hyer) with a beautiful secretary-mistress(Julie London, at the time a sultry singer as well as a dabbling actress.) London's in it for the cash that Lawford is embazzling from his engineering firm. Life is good for Lawford.

And then, various booms come down , simultaneously:

Lawford's boss passes him up for promotion, demotes him and give the job to -- Lawford's BROTHER(whom Lawford had been putting up in his own house.)
Lawford's wife rather immediately drops Lawford FOR his brother.
Lawford's mistress decides that the brother is "exciting" and looks to move her mistress act to the more successful brother.

As Lawford tells somebody: "I lost my job, my wife, and my GIRL -- all in the same day."

But then comes the kicker: the brother to whom the Lawford's suave Cary Grant-lite loses said job, wife and girl to is...not handsome, rather paunchy, with a decidedly creepy and overdone handlebar moustached(greasily oiled and curled upwards at the end.)

The brother is played by Roger C. Carmel, famous as Mudd on Star Trek and Col Pimm(a lesser Batman villain in an episdoe featuring the Green Hornet) and a sit com called The Mothers In Law.

But Crimson Witness makes the point(sexist? realist?) that even a paunchy un-handsome man can steal a job AND women away from a handsome one if he "generates personal power and ruthlessness." Lawford's boss sees this(thus taking Lawford's job away) and Lawford's women see this(thus switching to the brother for money in exchange no doubt, for sex.) Also when Lawford tries to fight Carmel, Carmel -- a much bigger, taller man -- defeats him with a judo flip(stunt men enter the frame.)

But wait, the episode gives Lawford a second -- or rather THIRD -- chance.

There's ANOTHER secretary in his firm -- played by Joanna Moore -- a very sexy Southern accented blonde babe of the 60s -- and she's just FINE with this handsome man who has lost a wife and a job(well, a BIGGER job.) Its 1965 and a man is a catch. Moore accepts the offer of a date and goes on it with Lawford.

One realizes, watching this epsiode of "censored" 1965 TV that Hitchcock's clout as a producer is allowing for a tale in which:

Lawford is boffing wife Martha Hyer.
Lawford is boffing mistress Julie London.

Lawford's BROTHER is boffing Martha Hyer.
Lawford's BROTHER is on deck to soon boff Julie London

and...

Joanna Moore is most interested in boffing Lawford. (She offers to take him home from their first date for drinks...capiche?)

One can picture Hitchcock(a self-confessed celibate for most of his later life) enjoying no end this tale of modern day Americans boffing and betraying each other right and left. Nothing is shown, but the folks at home(many likely already engaged in 60s boffing themselves) must have enjoyed this.

In the Hitchcock manner, Crimson Witness eventually goes to murder and Hitchcock doesn't have to come on at the end and tell us" the killer was later arrested." The sexuallly competitive brothers(brothers makes this VERY painful to watch) and the venal women all pretty much fail at the their schemes.

Pretty amazing, I thought. ALL that boffing, none of it shown.

And a VERY "un-hip" view of the women as pretty much , golddiggers out to double cross the man's wife and use sex to get what they want."

The comments in one internet article about Crimson Witness note that an American TV critic(in Chicago, maybe) viewed Crimson Witness on TV in 1965 and was pretty much disgusted by the whole thing. "All the characters are amoral He was a long married Catholic man with 8 kids (plenty of boffing there.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 13 days ago

You can see his point: the characters in Crimson Witness are ALL(as he wrote) "amoral." And too easily moved to murder in one case.

But hey...that's why Hitchcock's show lasted so long.

"At the movies," in heavily censored 1951, Hitchcock STILL got away with having the estranged wife in Strangers on a Train (1) cheat on her husband and (2) go on a date with TWO guys while (3) carrying ANOTHER man's baby(not her husband's) and (4) allowing herself to be picked up ON that date by a handsome stranger. That was some sinning for 1951 but Hitchocck solved it by having the handsome stranger strangle the cheatin' wife to death...along with her unborn child.

A producer-director who could "sex up" Strangers on a Train at the movies in 1951 could certainly "sex up" network television in 1965. He just made sure(we can surmise) that the script steered clear of actual sex or even confirmed sex (And the murder was not terribly graphic at all for the man who made Psycho -- even with another director at the helm.)

Evidently, a LOT of the Alfred Hitchcock Hours of the 60s touched on amoral people and sex(unseen) and cheating. (Hey Perry Mason got away with a ton of that in the 50s and early 60s' too.)

Still..Crimson Witness did this a LOT. And I think this was key: all three women who were after BOTH Lawford and his more homely brother were hot, hot, hot. A fantasy for male viewers, with, I suppose, Peter Lawford himself as catnip for the ladies watching.

[–] roger1 (4046) 13 days ago

i should add here that -- as a deficit -- the writing of "Crimson Witness" -- a bit too typically for 1965 TV series writing -- is way too broad and simplistic to have risen to the level of the usual well-written Hitchcock MOVIE. He was more demanding for the often classic films he produced and directed.

For instance, Lawford's brother Roger C. Carmel is presented to us as "living as a guest in his brother's house" -- perhaps temporarily unemployed, who has already impressed Lawford's boss enough to land the job intended for Lawford, and to IMMEDIATELY get Lawford's wife("I'm leaving you...right now") and to IMMEDIATELY attract Julie London. It all happens too fast, with no in-depth characterization and little "connective tissue" of plot. "Good enough for 1965 TV."

Moreover, the ensuing murder plot is pretty perfunctory and flimsy in execution, the though the episode's final incriminating clue reminded me of those clues that Columbo always used to nail his suspect.