Guest commentary by:

JForris Day, Jr. @forrisday
William Dickerson @WDFilmmaker
John P. Hess @FilmmakerIQ

 

Sponsored by:

Glidecam Industries

 

NOTES:

 

This webisode examines "One More Mile to Go," the seventh episode of television directed by Hitchcock.  It bears similarities to his later movie "Psycho" and the previous episode "Back for Christmas" in that the protagonist is attempting to cover up a murder.

 

• Understatement - Hitchcock focuses the attention of the story onto a small, trivial item, rather than the body in the trunk.

• The Chase - Turning the classic chase on its head, Hitchcock's policeman has no idea about the murder.  The chase becomes a minimalistic dance over fixing a broken tail light.

• Voyeurism - The episode begins by watching events through a window, without sound.  The audience projects their own ideas onto the scene to fill in the missing information, and actively becomes involved in the storytelling process.

• Sam Suspense Model - To generate suspense in the audience, Hitchcock

  1. Withholds information briefly from the viewer to pique interest.

  2. Protagonist does wrong - the audience is shocked by witnessing a crime that is secret within the story world.

  3. Cover up - the protagonist spends a lot of screen time covering up the crime.  The audience is lured in by the sequencial logic of hiding evidence.

  4. Getting caught - suspense is then heightened by various comedic chances for the protagonist to get caught.

• Visual Sentence - Hitchcock uses a POV shot sequence to demonstrate the thought process of the protagonist without dialogue.  He cuts from face to burlap sack to face to body to face.  This creates a logical sentence of visual ideas: He will put the body into the burlap sack.

• Detail - Tension is heightened by focusing on extra detail, lingering on the procedure of the attendant replacing the light bulb, the cop takes a drink from a water fountain.

• Close-ups on faces generate tension.

• Whip pans - panning from one face to another without cutting holds on to screen tension.

 

The full episode of "One More Mile to Go" (1957) can be found on DVD, Hulu, and IMDB.