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Alfred Hitchcock Presents is versatile in tone and subject matter, but its most common theme is how rotten seemingly respectable people can be. As Hitchcock explained when welcoming viewers back to the show one autumn, “When crime is occasionally dealt with [on this show], it will be crime as practiced by ordinary people, like the fellow next door. I think that, by spring, a large number of you will be thinking of moving.”
Many episodes are like
Breaking Bad in 30 minutes or less, in which sudden greed or wounded pride can lead someone to bump off a spouse, best friend, or random stranger. Sometimes, characters try to rationalize their actions: “Man has the right to help nature along. I mean, if it gets stubborn,” says a wastrel who tries to kill his spinster aunt, by putting ground glass in her food, in “A Perfect Murder.” Other times, they just revel in their villainy: “I consider you and your