In a small Massachusetts town, precocious young Hildegarde Fell learns a secret about crusty old John Anderson, who has just moved there.In a small Massachusetts town, precocious young Hildegarde Fell learns a secret about crusty old John Anderson, who has just moved there.In a small Massachusetts town, precocious young Hildegarde Fell learns a secret about crusty old John Anderson, who has just moved there.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaHildegard Fell is reading from The Spiritualist magazine when she is helping Aggie Whiteford with her séance skills.
- Quotes
[introduction]
Alfred Hitchcock: [Hitchcock is standing at rest with a sword in front of a sword rack with a very large covered wicker basket next to him. He salutes with the sword] Good evening.
[tucks his sword under his arm, claps his hands twice and lifts up the basket cover. A page boy walks in and climbs into the basket. Hitchcock closes the top, looks at the audience, and thrusts his sword into the basket like a magician. He takes three more swords from the rack, one at a time, and with a flourish, thrusts them one by one into the basket. He stops, and claps his hands twice. When the page boy doesn't emerge, he looks at the audience, then claps his hands twice again before lifting the cover. He peers into the basket and then closes the cover again in shock]
Alfred Hitchcock: Good heavens. He looks like a toothpick holder on an hors d'oeuvre table.
[shrugs his shoulders]
Alfred Hitchcock: Oh, I guess I'll just have to practice some more. So much for the sideshow. Now, turn your attention to the center ring where you will find our main attraction.
[bows slightly]
- SoundtracksFuneral March of a Marionette
Written by Charles Gounod
Just wish that the execution was better and lived up to this idea. As far as Season 2 goes, "A Man Greatly Beloved" is not one of the best ("One More Mile to Go", "Conversation over a Corpse", "The Manacled") but also not one of the worst ("Wet Saturday", "Nightmare in 4D", "Mr Blanchard's Secret"). After being so impressed by the previous 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' episode "The Hands of Mr Ottermole", another one of the season's best, it was disappointing to see an episode with the potential it had be one of the season's lesser outings.
By all means, "A Man Greatly Beloved" has things that are good. The best thing about it is Hardwicke, who is excellent. Without him actually, the episode would have been close to a series low point. Hitchcock's bookending is deliciously ironic as usual.
There is some nice atmospheric filming and lighting and the theme music is as inspired and haunting as ever.
"A Man Greatly Beloved" has a lot of things that let it down. For me Evelyn Rudie was hard to take due to her badly overdoing her character's precociousness, to the point where the character becomes irritating. With so much of her as well that alone brought down the episode quite significantly. The narration is overused and has a really annoying tendency to over explain and tell too much rather than showing, this would have benefitted without any narrating.
Plot wise, there is nothing noteworthy. The story is very slight and over-stretched to the point where the episodes drags badly at points. What there is is predictable, especially the can be seen from miles off ending, is suspense-free. The dialogue is too talky and the flow is not always natural.
Concluding, very mixed feelings here. One of Neilson's weaker episodes. 5/10.
- TheLittleSongbird
- Jul 27, 2022
Details
- Runtime30 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1