This Hitchcock story, The Silk Petticoat, offers the viewer an intelligent set-up for a mystery that it takes the entire length of the episode to resolve; and the payoff, such as it can be called, is one of the most unexpected and shocking of the entire series even as,--and I suppose this is a spoiler of sorts--there is no actual gore.
On the surface the story is a kind of awkward romance set in pre-Victorian early 19th century England. with handsome, middle aged Michael Rennie seeking the lovely and much younger Antionette Bower's hand in marriage. One can sense a dark side to Rennie's character quite early on; and yet there's no reason for the viewer to see him as any more than a somewhat more formal, lighter seeming hero of the sort familiar to readers of Gothic romance novels.
Yet as the plot thickens, and we learn of the tragic loss of his first wife, many years earlier, and of the odd secrets Rennie seems intent on keeping to himself. He reveals aspects of himself that are morbid and unpleasant even as his actual behavior remains that of (literally) a gentleman and a scholar.
These contrasts in Rennie's character. between the perfect gentleman and the man with many secrets, suggest that he is not only not the sort of man he appears to be but that he holds the dark undercurrents in his soul in check, and that in the long run he shall be consumed by them. There's some strong stuff in this episode. It is not for the faint of heart.
On the surface the story is a kind of awkward romance set in pre-Victorian early 19th century England. with handsome, middle aged Michael Rennie seeking the lovely and much younger Antionette Bower's hand in marriage. One can sense a dark side to Rennie's character quite early on; and yet there's no reason for the viewer to see him as any more than a somewhat more formal, lighter seeming hero of the sort familiar to readers of Gothic romance novels.
Yet as the plot thickens, and we learn of the tragic loss of his first wife, many years earlier, and of the odd secrets Rennie seems intent on keeping to himself. He reveals aspects of himself that are morbid and unpleasant even as his actual behavior remains that of (literally) a gentleman and a scholar.
These contrasts in Rennie's character. between the perfect gentleman and the man with many secrets, suggest that he is not only not the sort of man he appears to be but that he holds the dark undercurrents in his soul in check, and that in the long run he shall be consumed by them. There's some strong stuff in this episode. It is not for the faint of heart.