An upstart furniture designer colludes with his boss's wife to drive her husband mad.An upstart furniture designer colludes with his boss's wife to drive her husband mad.An upstart furniture designer colludes with his boss's wife to drive her husband mad.
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- Ellen
- (as Jean Owens)
- Visitor exiting gate
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaPer the title, John Brown's Body is an epic American poem written by Stephen Vincent Benet. Its title references the radical abolitionist John Brown, who raided Harper's Ferry in West Virginia in the fall of 1859.
- Quotes
[introduction]
Alfred Hitchcock: [sitting on a giant scale as two foreign gentlemen in turbans fill the other scale with bags of money to weigh him] Good evening and welcome to "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
[gets off the scale and thanks the men who salute him by touching their hands to their foreheads]
Alfred Hitchcock: Thank you. See you next year.
[to the audience]
Alfred Hitchcock: We thought you'd like to see this. So many of you have expressed an interest in knowing how I was paid. Now I can afford to go back to my diet. Tonight's play is about a body. Not mine. However, the title is "John Brown's Body."
- SoundtracksYankee Doodle
Traditional
Despite being quite intrigued by the premise conceptually, "John Brown's Body" is really not one of Stevens' best 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' outings (in the lesser end to me). As far as Season 2 goes, it's in the lesser end too and most of the previous episodes of the season ranged between average and good (with "Conversation with a Corpse" being the only great one and was very pleasantly surprised by "Jonathan"). "John Brown's Body" isn't a terrible, or even bad, episode, it is though rather disappointing and could have done better with its premise.
Am going to mention the good first. The three leads are all very committed and do more than enough to get as much mileage out of the material as possible. Harold and Vera are two very twisted characters, the extent of how twisted they and their relationship are being the most believable the episode gets, and Hugh Marlowe and Leora Dana have strong chemistry together. The ending is the one surprise and also the one part that wasn't hard to swallow.
Hitchcock's bookending is amusing and typically dry-humoured. The episode starts off quite well, the production values have some nice atmosphere and the main theme is haunting.
On the other hand, "John Brown's Body" could have been a lot better. The story is one of the most ridiculous (in execution that is) of the season and the ridiculousness is fever pitch level by the latter stages, the whole forgetting even smallest things wore thin and became increasingly more hard to swallow. It could have had a good deal more tension and didn't feel that suspenseful. It is also rather safe and predictable and a lot more could have been done with the more psychological aspect, intriguing but half-baked.
Stevens' direction is competent but also undistinguished. The script could have been tauter and not felt as over-heated. It would have benefitted from being longer, 30 minutes is not long enough for a story like this, which is why the pace felt erratic. Some parts are slow and hurt by the lack of suspense but 10-15 minutes longer would have fleshed things out more.
In summary, watchable but underwhelming. 5/10.
- TheLittleSongbird
- May 24, 2022
- Permalink
Details
- Runtime30 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1