Suspicion The Black Curtain (1962–1965) watch online HD

Another great episode of that fascinating TV series "The Hitchcock Hour", which surprised us every time with a different kind of story, a different kind of atmosphere... Now, in this case, the story was written by Cornell Woolrich, probably one of the 'big four' of the 'hard boiled' school of crime writers together with Hammett, Cain and Chandler: he used to invent gritty and unusual tales about life in the big city - so we might well expect that this one is something like a 'TV Noir'. And it is.

The plot isn't exactly new: a man, after being hit on the head in a dark alley by some thugs, comes to and, helped by some friendly strangers like a cab driver and a drugstore owner, slowly starts to realize that he can't remember the past three years of his life! And of course, that's not enough: there's an unsolved murder involved, too...

Wonderful entertainment especially for Noir fans; a whole 'Film Noir' packed into 45 minutes of TV show length - which makes the plot all the more dense and suspenseful!

It's a complicated jigsaw as amnesiac Basehart tries to piece together a former life he's forgotten. Whatever that former identity, someone's now out to kill him. With help from others, maybe he can figure things out before the next bullet connects. So it's a race against time. Good thing the producers got the highly skilled Richard Basehart for the lead, since the role's very demanding. Fortunately, Basehart measures up. It's interesting to watch a guy play observer to his own life instead of agent. As might be expected from a Cornell Woolrich story, gloom hangs heavy over events like some noirish cloud. Also good to see that Lola Albright has a life after Peter Gunn—but she's not her usual glamour-puss, having to dress down to fit in. It's the visuals and acting that carry this entry. Frankly, I agree with reviewer Sol: the narrative's much too complex. It's like they're trying to cram 200-pages of story into an hour's runtime and leave nothing out. A tighter screenplay could have added up to a noirish gem, instead of a regrettably flawed entry.

"The Black Curtain" is an intriguing Cornell Woolrich adaptation featuring Richard Basehart as the victim of an attempted mugging who comes to believing himself to be Phil Townsend, a bridegroom on his way to his wedding, at 1:00 in the morning. A helpful cab driver (Harold J. Stone) helps him track down his fiancée (Gail Kobe), who reveals that she has been married for three years to the same private detective she'd hired to find him. Phil now must piece together the events of the past three years, discovering the one person who knows his new identity, Ruth (Lola Albright), who tells him he is David Webber, a bodyguard for her wealthy uncle, and murder suspect in a woman's death. Richard Basehart was best remembered for his starring role on Irwin Allen's television series based on his own 1961 feature, "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." James Farentino plays a blackmailing thug, Frank Sully a drunk, and Celia Lovsky a landlady.

***SPOILERS*** Being jumped from behind and bashed over the head by two neighborhood muggers Phillip Townsend's, Richard Basehart, brains are so scrambled that he forgot what he did for the last three years! In fact Townsend thinks it's three years earlier and he's on his way to city hall to meet his sweetheart Virgnia, Gail Kobe, in order to get married! That's at 1:00 AM in the morning! Rescued from getting robbed by a friendly taxi driver Maury Epstein, Harold J.Stone, who offers to give him a ride home Townsend has no idea where he lives! And later that evening after tracking down his fiancée Virginia Townsend finds out that she's been married for the last three years and has a two year old son with her husband and ex-private detective, whom she hired to find him three years ago Frank Carlin,Lee Phillips!

It's when Townsned runs into the two muggers Bernie & Chuck, James Farenino & Neil Nephew, who bopped him over the head and tried to rob him everything becomes crystal clear to what's been happening to him over the last 24 hours. The fact comes out from and old newspaper clipping in his wallet that he Phillip Townsend is really David Webber a fugitive from the law! Webber is on the lamb for the brutal murder of this woman found on the Burke Estate where he was living at! As we and Townsend/Webber soon find out he was Burke's bodyguard and was possibly having an affair with the woman that was murdered!

***SPOILERS*** With surprise after surprise hitting him over the head the biggest surprise of them all is that Webber was having a hot and heavy affair with Burke's daughter Ruth, Lola Albright, at the time of the murder which complicates things even more then they already are! And on top of all that Webber or better yet Townsend's former lover Virginia's husband Frank Carlin is out to kill him! Not because he was in love with Carlin's wife three years ago but in order to keep the truth of who in fact did killed the woman that Townsend is suspected in murdering!

One of the most confusing Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes I've ever seen with so many sub-plots and characters connected to them that I ended up getting a severe migraine headache in trying to follow it! Not to be be left out of the story Bernie & Chuck, after their debut appearance, smelling big money also got back into the act in trying to blackmail Webber in paying them off, with the $87.00 and change he had on him, to keep them from turning him over to the police! The ending if you survived, by watching the episode, long enough to see it made things all right for all involved. In that it finally put to an end to who murdered the woman found on the Burke Estate, in Webber's room no less, in order to give it an happy ending!