Alfred Hitchcock's A Baker's Dozen of Suspense Stories

by Alfred Hitchcock (Introduction), Samuel Blas, Ray Bradbury

Vintage paperback

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1963

About the author

Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (13 August 1899 - 29 April 1980) was an iconic and highly influential film director and producer, who pioneered many techniques in the suspense and thriller genres.

Following a very substantial career in his native Britain in both silent films and talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood and became an American citizen with dual nationality in 1956, thus he also remained a British subject.

Hitchcock directed more than fifty feature films in a career which spanned six decades, from the silent film era, through the invention of sound films, and far into the era of colour films. For a complete list of his films, see Alfred Hitchcock filmography.

Hitchcock was among the most consistently recognizable directors to the general public, and was one of the most successful film directors during his lifetime. He continues to be one of the best known and most popular filmmakers of all time.

Reviews

[Phillip Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book with stories selected from the best suspense writers of the last century including Graham Greene and John Steinbeck. Some of the choices did not age well but overall it was a good book. I am keeping my review short as to not spoil other readers enjoyment with a synopsis of every tale.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a review of the 1963 Dell paperback edition, which you can currently find at the Internet Archive. This book was originally published in 1949. Almost all of these stories were first published before or during WWII.

I've read about a baker's dozen of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series, and this is one of the worst ones. The stories aren't that scary, or suspenseful or much of anything. There were only about two I liked, not including a story I'd already read. There were a bunch of outdated details, and an over-reliance on tropes like homicidal maniacs that escaped from a nearby asylum.

Selections:

* "Introduction: Long Live Suspense" by Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock's intros are always a highlight of any book.
* "The Mask" by F. Tennyson Jeffe. Rather happier, and less sexier, version of Lady Chatterley's Lover.
* "Accident" by Agatha Christie. Had to root for the murderer in this one. Makes me want to investigate "arsenic eaters", though.
* "A Day Saved" by Graham Greene. Um ... what?
* "Roman Holiday" by Robert Lewis. It's 1941 in Italy. Not the best place for an American on an Italian fencing team, even if America has yet to enter WWII. Most of this is about fencing, which made it a drag.
* "Revenge" by Samuel Blas. An updated version of this 1947 sobering chiller was made into an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents in the 1985 reboot series. I remember that episode because it began with a black horse galloping along a beach -- a detail not in this story.
* "The Snake" by John Steinbeck. Yes -- that John Steinbeck. Set in Monteray's Cannery Row, a biologist keen on dissection gets a visitor who wants to buy one of his rattlesnakes. Unsettling story that means anything you want it to mean. WARNING: Cat killed with gas.
* "Long Shadow On the Lawn" by Mary Deasy. Sadly, there's no ending to this. It just ends. Very unsatisfying.
* "The Night" by Ray Bradbury. Best known for his sci-fi stories, Bradbury also wrote suspense stories because (at the time) they paid better. Set in 1927, this story well captures the feeling a child has when they first experience dread. Not just fear -- but dread.
* "The Rocking-horse Winner" by D. H. Lawrence. I've read dozens of horse-themed anthologies, and this novella appears in most of them. It's very good, but I'm sick of seeing it. So, imagine my surprise when I open this Alfred Hitchcock Presents anthology and find this story once again staring back at me.
* "The Warden" by Georges Carousso. A hunter not used to the woods gets lost in a blizzard, but a local trying to find him ALSO gets lost. Not much going on here.
* "Leviathan" by Ellis St. Joseph. About a really, really fat cuckolded husband trying to kill his wife's lover. Predictable, dull stuff, filled with mixed metaphors and outdated habits.
* "Breakdown" by Luis Pollock. Creepy and kinda gruesome horror tale of a man paralyzed in a car accident mistaken for a corpse.
* "The Fool's Heart" by Eugene Manlove Rhodes. And we end with ... a Western. A young cowboy looking for a job finds a kindly old man at a mostly deserted ranch ... and gets into deadly trouble. WARNING: At least four horses are shot.

[Thomas McDade · Rating 5 out of 5]

Agatha Christie
Ray Bradbury
John Steinbeck
D. H. Lawrence
Graham Greene
And others