Probably the biggest film star that Hitchcock had hired up to this point for his TV series, Joseph Cotten has to make his character appear to be dead to others around after his car accident, yet somehow convincingly be alive to the audience. The use of primitive freeze frame is a weak way to achieve that effect, and when found by a prison work crew is easily victimized, and later discovered by a medical crew who can't determine if he's still living.
It's basically a psychological thriller exploring the possibilities of everything someone is thinking as the mind survives as the body slowly dies. Obviously reading his script because it's not something that needed to be memorized, Cotten expresses a different kind of fear, and it's chilling. If he is dead, he'll soon be mindless, but if he's not, he'll die from another cause. Rather depressing and very morbid.
It's basically a psychological thriller exploring the possibilities of everything someone is thinking as the mind survives as the body slowly dies. Obviously reading his script because it's not something that needed to be memorized, Cotten expresses a different kind of fear, and it's chilling. If he is dead, he'll soon be mindless, but if he's not, he'll die from another cause. Rather depressing and very morbid.