User Reviews

The Alfred Hithcock Presents entry "Beta Delta Gamma" is basically one of the host's "public service" messages to his audience on the dangers of binge drinking and mindless practical jokes that can turn deadly. A young Burt Brinckerhoff plays a college senior who's had more than a few too many drinks at his beach fraternity house. He's egged on by one of his frat brothers (played by Duke Howard) to swill another pitcher of beer, which he does before completely passing out. The other fraternity members at this alcoholic bash/party decide to play a mean-spirited trick on unconscious Burt. They convince Howard to take a shot of a heavy sedative and "play dead" to fool his pal. Then they put a fireplace poker in Burt's hand to make it look like he killed him. After the ladies (including Barbara Steele and Barbara Harris) smear Howard's forehead with some red mascara to make it look like he bled to death, everyone leaves the house with the exception of the two knocked out fraternity brothers. When Burt awakens some time later, he's unable to revive Duke (the sedative gives him virtually no pulse) and panics. He really believes that in a drunken stupor he killed one of his best friends. Since this is an Alfred Hitchcock episode, the worst possible scenario happens next: Burt tries to dispose of "the body." "Beta Delta Gamma" is in reality a cautionary tale of what happens if practical jokes take the wrong turn, especially when massive amounts of alcohol consumption are involved. This warning is just as timely for today's audiences as it was when this was filmed (1961). The episode was directed by the very capable Hitchcock veteran Alan Crosland, Jr. Burt Brinckerhoff left acting early and became a prolific television director himself. Barbara Harris, almost unrecognizable here, became a major Broadway star and was also active in some notable films and TV shows. Barbara Steele is best remembered for her work in horror films during the 1960s. She plays a sexy flirt in this episode and looks better than ever. As for the host's final comments, they lack his usual levity and it's obvious that Hitchcock wanted his audience to take the "message" he presented seriously.

In keeping with the irony of so many Hitchcock episodes, this one could have gone either of two ways. The way it DID end was one solution, and one you could see coming after panicked college student Alan (Burt Brinckerhoff) felt he had to find a way to deal with the unfortunate 'accident' of killing his friend Mark (Duke Howard). But the other way would have been to turn the tables on the whole gang after Mark revived from the injection of that mythical phenoboride that Robert (Joel Crothers) came up with. Then both of them could have pulled the same burial stunt that freaked everyone out. However, that wouldn't have allowed Hitchcock his usual closing remark about how the perpetrators didn't get away with their vicious prank. Probably the best thing about this story is catching future horror queen actress Barbara Steele in a somewhat more sedate role. Oddly, in her very next movie appearance, she portrayed the wife of "The Horrible Dr. Hichcock"!

Warning do not read unless seen episode.

This one is my seventh favorite tale and to me one of the last really good one's for the final season. On a sidenote really like the fact actress Barbra Steele is in this one since she's one of my favorite horror actresses and I remember as a kid having a bit of a crush on her. In a way some would say this is a bit of a cautionary tale on the deadly results of alcoholism and haizing. It sort of is but at least it's done in a suttle sense.

I do like the premise which I think is plausible. You really feel kinda bad for the protagonist as his fellow frat friends are letting him going on thinking he killed someone. Which is an awful feeling, being lead on into thinking you've may have inavertantly killed someone. Let alone not knowing the truth of what transpired in that lost amount of time, because the protagonist was completely wasted.

You really feel disgust at his friends just taking sick joy in a really cruel prank, it's almost the equivalent of bullying. Your hoping that throughout this the protagonist will smell something stinks and it's not just the booze or that his friends will know when the joke is over.

But it doesn't stop as his friends take the joke too far and in the end as the old saying goes, the joke's on them.

Rating: 4 stars

These are incredibly cruel characters. The practical joke they plan is simply to put down the best student among them. When the death occurs, their lives are pretty much ruined. I think it would have been wonderful if there was a reversal of fortune. If the kid who died was alive and "came back to life." It would have showed up the whole bunch of these jerks.

The scene is a college fraternity where 7 people are celebrating the end of the semester at a beach house. Forget Animal House, this frat party has just 7 people lounging around, most of them acting bored out of their skulls. It appears to be 4 members of the fraternity and 3 girlfriends, but don't get any notions about any hint of sexual activity because nothing in the area of romance happens here.

One young man is interested in drinking. He is challenged by another, Mark, that if the first man, Alan, will drink a whole pitcher of beer-without stopping even once, that he will do so too. Alan does so but Mark backs off, saying he concedes, that Alan wins. Alan now feels he's being played as a fool and tries to fight Mark, but after one missed punch, Alan staggers toward the fireplace and passes out, unharmed.

Within a couple of minutes of the others talking, they decide it would be a fun prank to scare Alan when he comes to, by getting him to believe he killed Mark with the fireplace poker before passing out. They have Mark lie down, smear something on his forehead to look like blood, and with help from one person's father's kit, inject him with a drug that really slows down his heart rate to make it hard to even feel a pulse.

Having heard about people using such a drug for recreation with disastrous results, I thought we were headed toward Mark being killed by this drug-but that was a blind alley-the drug had no ill effects on him-as far as we saw. The gang all heads for someone's apartment-the beach house next door. Boy, the lifestyle of these California college kids, eh? They plan to tell Alan how they all left when the two were fighting and pretend to have no knowledge of anything else that may have happened.

Spurred by a phone call-just to have the phone ring and wake him up, Alan comes to and after staggering around, discovers his buddy apparently dead. He staggers next door, talks with the gang briefly, then says he's going back to the frat to sleep it off-without telling them anything about what he believes happened to Mark.

Since I revealed earlier that one possible ending did not happen, that leaves, I think, two ways this could go. I was thinking of Alan discovering that Mark is actually alive and the two of them hatching a scheme of revenge, on Alan's behalf, against the others. I was wrong. I'll let you guess the other ending, which was rather abrupt, without much of anything revealed as it ended.

This episode was somewhat-interesting throughout, but we didn't have any humor or any characters to like for any reason, so I didn't really care too much about what happened to these people. If anything, this was meant as a message against the dangers of drinking too much. Most of the preliminary scenes were of no interest, and the finish was disappointing, so I cannot justify a score higher than 5.