Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1961) Diana Dors Stars

Source: Recap Retro-Brandon De Wilde & Diana Dors.

Source:The Daily Review

If you’re familiar with the movie Berserk from 1967, The Sorcerer Apprentice should look at least somewhat familiar to you. Diana Dors, is in both films. In Berserk, she plays an assistant to a magician at a circus. In The Sorcerer Apprentice she plays an assistant to a magician at a carnival. In Berserk, she thinks she knows who the killer is. In The Sorcerer, she puts the killer up to killing her husband. In neither film is Diana an angel, she just looks like one in both films. As well as anything else she’s ever done, but that is one of the reasons why she was a great actress. Because she could fool people with her hot baby-face looks and play the killer, or a killer angel as well as it can be played. If you’re familiar with the movie The Unholy Wife, where she tries to frame her husband for killing his best friend, you should have an idea what I’m talking about here.

The Sorcerer Apprentice, looks very entertaining to me, but I’m not sure it is very believable. You have a sick kid (I guess) who should be back in the institution that he escaped from (no joke) who gets picked up off the street by a magician. Who picks him up in real-life and is no trick, (ha hah) who I think can tell this kid is not completely there and is told by the kid that he’s escaped from his home. And decides to take him in anyway instead of reporting him to the proper authorities. (Damn! That sounds corny.) Again Diana, is no angel, she just looks like one and can tell Hugo (the kid) likes her and is attractive to her and she’s cheating on her magical husband (lets say) the magician and wants to move on from him. And tries to put the kid up to killing her husband. The kid is at least 4-5 beers short of s six-pack and thinks this would be fun or something.

You would think this couple having seen this kid and figuring out that he’s not completely there and needs close supervision (to put it mildly) and are less qualified to take care of kids than the guy who freaks out when he finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant with his baby and ditches her, that they could give him a bite to eat, find out where he came from, if not turn him in and move on. But instead they keep him around even though they are too busy to take care of him and probably don’t want to either. But no! That could be too boring for the great Alfred Hitchcock. Instead of making it a boring everyday story, they make a killer out of this gorgeous baby-face wife whose cheating on her husband with a high-wire artist (whose probably scared of heights) and this unfortunate boy. Who perhaps nobody wants to take care of him and has really no one who loves him. Just one example of why Alfred Hitchcock was such a great director.
Source:Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Run For Doom (1963) Starring Diana Dors

Source:IMDB- English Muffin Diana Dors on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1963.

Source:The New Democrat  

"A young doctor continues to date a beautiful showgirl in spite of warnings that her three previous marriages ended badly for her past husbands." 

From IMDB

"Dr. Don Reed falls in love with a nightclub singer named Niki Carroll despite the warnings of his seriously ill father and her ex-boyfriend who both tell him she is not good for him. Niki accepts his marriage proposal, but Don's father dies when he hears the news. The newlyweds take an exotic honeymoon cruise with the inheritance money. During the cruise, Don becomes enraged when he sees Niki kissing another man and he accidently pushes him overboard. Niki convinces Don to keep his mouth shut and since no one saw the incident he gets away with murder. Niki eventually grows tired of him. She tells him that she is going to leave him. She also wants all his money or else she will tell the police about the murder. Niki also dumps her band leader boyfriend, but instead of accepting this he strangles her. The police call Don to the scene. He examines his wife's body in the bedroom and discovers that she is still alive. Believing that the band leader is going to take the rap for murder, Don finishes her off. When he rejoins the police he is shocked to learn that the police knew that Niki was still alive. They had told the bandleader she was dead in order to calm him down. The police then inform Don that they like to finish questioning her. (TV.com)" 

Source:Amazon- Alfred Hitchcock's TV baby.

From The Hitchcock Zone 

"Diana Dors - How Long Has This Been Going On" 

Source:Ramon Batista- English Muffin Diana Dors on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1963.

From Ramon Batista 

"Diana Dors - Just One Of Those Things (The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, 1963)" 

Source:Mark Moyer- English Muffin Diana Dors on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, in 1963.

From Marc Moyer 

"Diana Dors: Just One of Those Things" 

Source:ENCORE- English Muffin Diana Dors starring on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1963.

I think Run For Doom is Alfred Hitchcock at his best because you see the full-scale of what he wanted to give his audience. A suspense/thriller involving people who were not saints or angels and not devils either, but real people who tend to be somewhere in between. With clever writing and a lot of humor and the female lead being a goddess. A gorgeous ,sexy woman who is also very adorable and yet very clever and witty. Which is Diane Dors at her best, Jayne Mansfield who was also on this series and several other women who appeared on this series.

Run For Doom is about a nightclub singer with a bad history of marriages and relationships where the men in her life do not survive the relationship. And she walks away with a lot of money from the experiences.

Diana Dors plays Nikki Carroll the nightclub singer and she’s performing one night and is introduced to a young doctor. Dr. Don Reed played by John Gavin and they naturally hit it off. Reed being a doctor is probably Nikki’s main interest him, but he’s a young doctor who doesn’t have a lot of money yet.

Dr. Reed has an ailing very wealthy father and his relationship with Nikki goes well enough for him to want to marry Nikki. Reed has gotten several warnings about Nikki’s history with men and her dead husbands and is warned not to pursue her. But I guess he’s blinded by his love for a woman who doesn’t love him and decided to propose and marry her anyway.

Reed’s father dies after finding out that his son is going to marry Nikki and now Reed is a very wealthy man. And naturally Nikki looses personal interest in Reed and looks to get out of the marriage.

Nikki has something that she can blackmail her husband on: Dr. Reed accidentally killed someone on their honeymoon by pushing a man over the cruise boat that they were on. And they didn’t bother to report the incident. Nikki tells the doctor to give her his money or she’ll report the killing to the police.

Nikki also has a long-term on and off again boyfriend who wants her back. And knows what she is up to with her husband and decides to step in to get a piece of the action. And they have a physical struggle that leads to him strangling her and thinking he killed her.

To be honest with you: Diana Dors was the main reason why I’m so interested in this show. But it is a very entertaining and at times a pretty funny show as well. With Diana playing a woman that is so cunning personally and bright and yet she looks too sweet and cute to hurt, let alone kill anyone. And yet she has a history of dead boyfriends and husbands. But in this marriage she is the one who doesn’t survive the affair.

The Alfred Hitchcock Hour: Hangover (1962) Starring Tony Randall & Jayne Mansfield

Source:Alfred Hitchcock- Tony & Jayne, on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Source:The New Democrat

“Jayne is sooooo good in this. If you every get to see it, (It’s about a hour long and VERY HARD TO FIND) you’ll know that Jayne was a very good actress. To bad she didn’t do more roles like this. I LOVE the short hair.”

From The Alfred Hitchcock Hour

“Remembering nothing of what happened the day before, a talented, alcoholic ad man painfully reconstructs the events of what proves to have been a very bad day indeed.”

Source:IMDB- Tony Randall and Jayne Mansfield, on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1962.

From IMDB

“Hangover.” An episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (Season 1, Episode 12). First air date: 6 December 1962. Tony Randall, Jayne Mansfield, Robert Lieb, Myron Healey, Tyler McVey, June Levant, William Phipps, Dody Heath. Teleplay: Lou Rambeau. Based on two short stories by John D. MacDonald and Charles Runyon. Director: Bernard Girard.

JAYNE MANSFIELD Hitchcock Hour Hangover

Hadley Purvis (Tony Randall) has a major drinking problem, one bad enough to prompt his wife to threaten divorce if he doesn’t quit. One morning he wakes up to find his wife gone; in her place, however, is another woman named Marion (Jayne Mansfield).

Now, we can all agree that worse things can happen to a man than to wake up to a woman like Marion, but Had’s problem is he doesn’t remember a thing from the day before. It’s only in little fragments that he gradually reconstructs what actually happened � and the final revelation will prove devastating …

Source:Mystery File- Baby Jayne Mansfield on The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1962.

From Mystery File

A chance to see Jayne Mansfield with short hair. Don’t worry, she’s still baby-face adorable and hot with short hair. Tony Randall plays a talented, but alcoholic advertiser who’s drinking has gone too far to the point that it costs him his job, which is a very good job and his wife. And as well as his memory where he doesn’t remember the night before. Where he gets kicked out of a bar, screws up his presentation at work for one of his clients and wife walks out on him. He also forgets about an affair he had with Marion played by Jayne Mansfield.

He actually shows up at work the next morning thinking everything is normal and that nothing incredible happened the night before. He doesn’t even remember being fired and is wondering what Marion is doing at his home the next morning. He shows up to work locked out of his office where they tell him again that he was fired. And essentially spends the rest of the day trying to figure out what happened the day before.

As Alfred Hitchcock said on this show himself, this was about showing people the dangers of alcoholism, which I’m even surprised that term was even around in the early 1960s. And would assume that people who were alcoholics were considered to be mentally weak and not people with disease that needed serious treatment. But alcoholism causes Hadley Purvis (played by Tony Randall) his job and his wife and he loses his temper and takes it out on Marion.

Movie Clips: Vertigo (1958) Kim Novak & Jimmy Stewart Star

Source:Movie Clips-

Source:The New Democrat 

I wouldn't say that Vertigo is a great movie, especially not a great Alfred Hitchcock film. There are at least three others and probably more Hitchcock movies that are better. North by Northwest my favorite, Rear Window and To Catch a Thief and I'm sure others are definitely better than Vertigo. Vertigo is not Kim Novak's best movie either. But Kim Novak and Jimmy Stewart made Vertigo a very good and entertaining movie almost by themselves by how they worked together and the chemistry they had.

Vertigo does have a very good plot. Jimmy Stewart plays a former San Francisco police detective who is now in semi-retirement. His old buddy from I believe college gets a hold of him with a job for him, but now as a private detective. His old friend who hasn't seen a long time is a very wealthy San Francisco businessman who has a gorgeous baby-face goddess of a wife in Kim Novak. He wants Stewart to believe that his wife is going crazy and wants her to tail her to see what she does during the day.

What Stewart's character isn't aware of is that this couple is using him and is in on a murder plot. They want Scottie played by Stewart to think that Madeline played by Kim Novak  is dead. When the fact is she is alive and well and comes back in the movie playing another character that just happens to meet Scottie. And Scottie is blown away by her because of the incredible resemblance and falls in lover with the same women again. A very interesting and good movie, but certainly not the best Hitchcock movie. 
Source:Movie Clips

Movie Clips Trailer Vault: North by Northwest (1959) Starring Cary Grant & Eva Marie Saint

Source:Movie Clips Classic Trailer Vault- Cary Grant & Eva Marie Saint.

Source:The New Democrat 

North by Northwest is my favorite movie of all time.  Cary Grant is my favorite actor of all time and Alfred Hitchcock is probably my favorite director of all time.  I have a couple versions of this movie on DVD, saw it on Turner Classic Movies a couple of nights ago and again on  DVD last might.  I decided to write a blog about it today because I've been thinking about it a lot. This movie is Cary Grant, perhaps the best comedic actor of all time, at his best.

North by Northwest has all the ingredients of a great Hitchcock movie. A great plot, great writing, great cast,  Hitchcock's sense of humor, that Cary Grant shares, and James Mason. The very sexy and beautiful Eva Marie Saint (On the Waterfront, The Russians are Coming) has a big role in the movie. According to my father, she's smarter, sexier, and more beautiful than Grace Kelly or Marilyn Monroe.  She reminds him of my mother.

Then, there's Jessie Royce Landis who plays Roger Thornhill's (Cary Grant) mother, a great smart ass,  even though she's only four years older. 

The movie is a Cold War thriller about a man, Van Damme (James Mason), who exports American weapons and national security secrets.  Thornhill gets caught up in it, accidentally, and you have a great movie.

Thornhill is a charming playboy New York advertising man who's just living his life as a very successful businessman.  He's kidnapped by Van Damme's henchmen at a New York bar.  They believe he has inside information about Van Damme's organization.

The Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill but he gets away.  He tries to get back in touch with Van Damme and instead connects with Lester Townsend, someone Van Damme had pretended to be.  The Van Damme crew, trying to murder Thornhill, instead murder Townsend.  They believe he also knows something about their organization that they want kept secret.  Thornhill is now not only on the run from Van Damme and company but also fron the NYC PD, the New York State PD, and  the Feds.

Thornhill once again escapes and is now on the run from everyone because of the murder he didn't commit.  This time, he escapes by train where he meets Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who just happens to be an undercover Federal agent pretending to work for Philipp Van Damme.  She's actually working to bring down Van Damme's and his organization.  She has Thornhill believing she's on his side and helping him to escape.  She's actually just using him.

This movie starts in New York, moves to Chicago and then Indiana where the Van Damme crew tries to murder Thornhill and Thornhill is trying to meet the real George Kaplan to find out what this whole thing is about. The problem is that George Kaplan doesn't exist.  Back to Chicago Thornhill gets arrested again, thinking that he would be safer with the police than on the run. The Feds grab him instead and use him to help bering down Van Damme and company in Rapid City where Philipp Van Damme has a home.

This is one of the best action suspense comedies you'll ever see.
Source:Movie Clips Trailer Vault