Alfred Hitchcock Presents was first broadcast on CBS in 1955 and ran until 1962, in total 270 episodes, each 25 minutes long. They were dark stories with a twist at the end, and that twist was often the point of them. They were not necessarily suspenseful, although some are very much so, and sometimes they were like macabre jokes, so it is no surprise that some were based on short stories by Roald Dahl, or even written directly by him. Although they're all very much stamped by Hitchcock he personally directed only a handful. (Two were directed by Robert Altman.)
Here are some of my favourites:
One of the later ones, Bang! You're Dead, directed by Hitchcock:
Man From the South is one of the more famous, starring Steve McQueen and Peter Lorre:
But the best is possibly The Case of Mr Pelham, also directed by Hitchcock himself:
After 1962 the format changed, and as a consequence the name, into The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. Maybe I'll post something about that later.
