Revenge (Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This article is about the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. For other uses, see Revenge (disambiguation).
Revenge was the title of the first episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This pilot stared Vera Mills and Ralph Meeker. It is available on Disk One of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season One DVD collection. The episode originally aired on October 2, 1955 and is based on a short story by Samuel Blas, which appeared in the January 11, 1947 issue of Colliers. It is also one of the few to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock himself.
[edit] Plot
After a witty introduction by Mr. Hitchcock, the pilot moves onto the real story. The story stars Vera Mills as Elsa Spann and Ralph Meeker as Carl Spann. Carl and Elsa have moved into a trailer park after Elsa suffered from a nervous breakdown, caused by an unmentioned incident. She has changed for the better since the move, and is adjusting to the Suburban lifestyle. She is training to become a ballerina.
One day, Carl comes home from work and finds Elsa on the floor, and her cake burning in the oven. She is shocked and in post-traumatic stress after a man in a grey suit attacked her. Carl calls the police.
The police (as usual in a Hitchcock film) are more trouble than help, and tell Carl to move on and forget what happened that day. Carl loses his temper, and promises his wife that, if she ever sees the man again, he will kill him.
One day, while they're in town, they drive along a street. Elsa suddenly points to a man on the street, who is going into a hotel. "That's him," she says, "that's the man who hurt me!" Carl asks if she is sure, but she tells him that she is positive. Carl makes good on his promise, and kills the man in the grey suit with a tire iron after following the man into the hotel.
Once Carl has done his "good deed", he gets back into the car, puts the tire iron under his seat, and begins to drive off. Half way down the street, Elsa points to another man in a grey suit, saying, "That's him, that's the man who hurt me!"
