(He has just been down to turn the water back on at the main.) In the story the moment is suspenseful enough, and is artfully protracted by the Wallingfords’ dialogue about whether they should shout out to attract attention or tactfully come back later – dialogue which the TV program reproduces almost verbatim. I’d like to comment on one particular passage – namely, the moment after the murder when the Wallingfords come calling and Herbert is trapped, a trembling jelly, under the staircase with the sound of water running in the bath upstairs. Long-shots and close-ups are both also thoughtfully applied. There’s an exemplary alternation of these relatively immobile set pieces and fast, fluid camera movement linking them (or tightening the shot as a scene gets under way). I’ll mention in a moment instances of where he has built up scenes for his actors. Generally, Hitchcock has stuck fairly closely to Collier’s story. A marvellous close-up of him hunched under the ceiling beside the gaping hole says everything needful, especially when we follow his slow eye movement in a subjective shot measuring Hermione for fit. (The touch of hearing him digging before we see him may be inspired by a moment in Hitchcock’s Stage Fright where we hear Marlene Dietrich’s voice asking dramatically, “Say that you love me”, an instant before we first see her.) And just who will shortly occupy the excavated space is made clear when Herbert summons Hermione downstairs to give her opinion of his handiwork. That Herbert in Hitchcock’s program has sinister business in the cellar is made apparent at the outset when we first hear the tell-tale sound of digging and then the camera pans to show the long rectangular excavation Herbert is finishing – ostensibly for the purpose of laying down bottles of wine. These he packed carefully into the narrow, deep hole he had made in the corner of the cellar… He came down again, clad in his bath-gown, carrying parcel after parcel of towelling or newspaper neatly secured with safety-pins. He crossed the hall, sprang the latch of the front door, went upstairs, and taking his instruments from the wash-basin, finished what he had to do. Thus we are spared reference to him dismembering poor Hermione – it simply doesn’t happen – or such a passage as this (which I quote to give a flavour of what Collier offers, and a sample of his writerly skill): But for his TV production, Hitchcock chose to de-emphasise the more gruesome aspects of the story, for example, by changing the occupation of Herbert from doctor to metallurgist. You can also detect the influence of the Crippen and Mahon cases (again as in Rear Window). The story of “Back for Christmas”, like Hitchcock’s feature Rear Window (1954), owes something to the real-life case of henpecked Major Armstrong from the picturesque town of Hay-on-Wye in Wales. “Back for Christmas” was originally published in the New Yorker in 1939 (2). Alfred Hitchcock must have appreciated the stories too, for he personally directed both “Back for Christmas” and “Wet Saturday” (both starring John Williams) for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Herbert heads for California…Įnglish poet and author, John Collier (1901-80), wrote occasional screenplays such as Sylvia Scarlett (1935), but is best known for his outrageous and macabre stories much admired by fellow practitioner Roald Dahl. But eventually they depart, suspecting nothing. While he is thus engaged, the Wallingfords arrive in the front hallway. (The Wallingfords, though, can’t make it.) Once the guests have left, Herbert kills his wife and buries her in the cellar. On the afternoon of their intended departure they entertain a group of friends at home. Partial synopsis: An English couple, Herbert and Hermione Carpenter, are about to visit America for an indefinite period, though the domineering Hermione is determined to be “back for Christmas”. Source: ACMI/NLA Prod Co: Shamley Productions Filmed at: Revue Studios Prod: Joan Harrison Dir: Alfred Hitchcock Scr: Francis Cockrell, from story by John Collier Phot: John L. Back for Christmas (episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents) (1956 USA 25 mins)
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