Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV Series) Summer Shade (1961) User Reviews

Spooky

[ctomvelu1 · 8/10 · 8 January 2013]

This one is a rare treat, in that we are presented with three very familiar and very good actors in the leads (Franciscus, Adams and Gordon), and the story is one of the few truly spooky plots used on the old half-hour Hitchcock show. A young family moves into an old house in Massachusetts, where the daughter 9, strikes up a friendship with an unseen playmate. The playmate, it turns out, has been dead and buried a long time and was the daughter. or some relative, of a woman who was hanged as a witch in the late 1600s. Adams as the wife begins to freak out over her daughter's behavior and is desperate to find her daughter a real, flesh and blood playmate. She eventually gets her wish, sort of. If this were done today, it would be a lot darker, in the vein of shows like GRIMM and SUPERNATURAL (in fact, there is a SUPERNATURAL episode set in an old inn with a reasonably similar plot). But I kind of like this more restrained telling. The truth is, dread is never far away, even on the sunniest of days. 1961's THE INNOCENTS, based on Henry James' novella, TURN OF THE SCREW, boasts its scariest scene in a brightly lit sunroom. A must-see.

Cute and enjoyable.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 15 April 2021]

This episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" stars James Franciscus and Julie Adams as parents who have decided to move to a quaint colonial home in New England. Soon after moving in, their daughter begins acting strangely...talking about her new friend 'Lettie". The problem is that Lettie is either not real OR the ghost of a long-dead little girl from the late 17th century! Either way, the parents are confused about what to do next.

While ghosts and Salem all sound very scary, this is a cute episode of the show....nice and not at all scary or forboding. And, it makes for a really nice change of pace. Clever and worth seeing.

Little Girl Lost

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 28 May 2021]

This is about the lineage of witchcraft that carries into modern times. A little girl moves to a new place but has no playmates. She begins to have an "imaginary" friend and it concerns her mother, and, to some extent her father. She is absolute in her belief in this little girl, Lettie, and the story winds up an interesting result. More spooky than many of the stories. Yes, that's Angela Cartwright from "The Sound of Music."

"Well, if you like it, we can always find a way to manage."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 19 January 2022]

I knew this would be a personal favorite Hitchcock episode as soon as I saw Susan Gordon in the role of young Kate. She also appeared in the Season Three Twilight Zone episode titled 'The Fugitive', which on any give day could be my favorite TZ story, along with 'To Serve Man'. Only here, Gordon's character has what her parents fear is an imaginary friend, as opposed to the alien shapeshifter in 'The Fugitive'. Because the story opens with a real estate 'For Sale' sign in Salem, Massachusetts, one already has their first clue as to where this one is going. When Kate relates her play time stories with Letty to her parents, they begin to suspect that her imagination is running away with her, to the point of bringing in a doctor for an examination. I thought the buzzard bone necklace was a nice touch to add to the story, and when the kindly Amelia Gastell (Charity Grace) brought the Davidson's over, it was Angela Cartwright who fit the bill as the Letty who died of small pox in 1694. You wouldn't know it, but Letty's mom in the story was actually the actress's older sister, Veronica Cartwright. Even though there was only three years between them, they made the part of mother and daughter look convincing enough.