The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: The Photographer and the Undertaker (1965)

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, an anthology drama/crime/mystery series shown for 3 seasons on American TV between 1962 and 1965, was essentially season 8 – 10 of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  The idea remained the same, only the show was retitled and expanded from a 30-minute to a 60-minute show.  The series aired on CBS and NBC for various years of its run.  Season 3 of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour was aired by NBC.  Hitchcock directed 17 of the 268 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, but he only directed 1 episode (the first one) of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.  

Jocelyn guest-starred in one of the third season episodes called The Photographer and the Undertaker (Season 3, Episode 11), which originally aired on March 15, 1965.  It was shot in late January or early February of 1965 (Variety noting that Jack Cassidy had been cast in the episode in the January 27, 1965 edition).  

In this episode, Jack Cassidy plays a photographer, Arthur Mannix, who doubles as a contract killer.  However, after being hired to kill an undertaker (played by Harry Townes), Mannix learns that both men work for the same “company” and have been hired to kill each other as a contest to see which one will survive a down-sizing.  The running “humor” throughout the episode is how all of the company contract-killing business is treated just as any other company fighting to survive in the corporate world.  Jocelyn plays the role of Sylvia, a young girl engaged to marry Mannix (and whose father ends up being involved with the “company”).

The more that I think about it, the more I believe that this episode was a complete mess.  I can’t speak for the rest of the series, though, because I have not watched any other episodes.  First, Jocelyn was miscast for this part.  She was much too old and her beauty much too worldly to play this part.  The part appears to represent a young girl, around 19 or so, who is not very worldly and is still a daddy’s girl.  That’s certainly not the vibe that Jocelyn exuded at age 27 when this episode was filmed.  That’s no knock on Jocelyn, or her effort on this project.  Somebody else (with a screen persona more like Sandra Dee) would have been a better fit.  At least in this role she was able to speak in unaccented English, not being required to play the part of a “foreign” girl, although she does not really have a lot of screen time.

To make matters worse, Jack Cassidy does not fit the part of the photographer.  I can’t say that I have ever seen him in any role that I liked, but he just doesn’t seem rugged enough, cunning enough, or handsome enough for this role.  Sylvia looks way out of this photographer’s league.  All in all, Jocelyn fans will want to check her out in this series, but other than seeing her work, there is not much that I can recommend about this episode.  Hitchcock does opening and closing monologues, in which he rambles on about football, and that’s not worth the effort, either.

 

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour has been released on DVD in Europe (Germany) and in Australia.  It has been shown through the years in syndication on U.S. television, including at some point on TV Land and currently on MeTV.  The version that I watched was a youtube posting that somebody had recorded from TV Land.

Here are 1965 press photos for this episode, featuring Jocelyn:

Here is the front and back of a 1994 Funfax trading card showing Cassidy and Jocelyn.

Here is a publicity photo that appears to be of Jocelyn in the bathing suit for this episode:

Apparently Frank Bez was the photographer for the swimsuit photos promoting this episode.  Here is a slide showing another of the photos: