'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' was such a success, they tried doubling the length - and that was a success too. They didn't double the depth, but they didn't need to. Nobody was expecting an Oscar-winning Hitchcock classic. Just an hour well spent, along with the familiar line-sketch of that unmistakeable profile and a few jokey words of wisdom from the great man himself.
This episode is particularly strong on emotion, but weaker on logic. Brian Keith was always more versatile than he looked - outwardly just the big square-built guy with the friendly smile, but in fact capable of great subtlety, both in facial expression and in speech, often displaying special tenderness in paternal roles, as played here.
His adopted daughter is at a critical stage in her school-work, and Keith is at pains to shelter her from the truth about her real father, who has killed her mother and then himself. A blackmailing duo has somehow learned of this, guessing correctly that it's his tender spot, and wants rather a large payout (for a humble forest ranger) delivered at once. We can't reveal the rest, and most of it is not very surprising anyway. What stands out is the emotional charge between the characters, and the audience too.
One of the villains (Philip Coolidge) has gained entry to the house by wearing a clerical dog-collar, and it's not only Keith who wants to slaughter him; we all do. No face ever provoked such contempt and loathing, except possibly his partner in crime, an infuriating drunk (Mike Kellin) who unsurprisingly falls out with him. All three human types are sharply dramatised, perhaps because the original story was by that undeservedly neglected novelist Andrew Garve.
The daughter looks rather adult for the part, though she was only fourteen at the time. The night-action in the forest is a little too obscure to make out. And the title 'Night of the Owl' seems rather unoriginal, as do the audio-effects of an owl hooting to order, and not even very realistically. Or do the owls hoot differently in California?
This episode is particularly strong on emotion, but weaker on logic. Brian Keith was always more versatile than he looked - outwardly just the big square-built guy with the friendly smile, but in fact capable of great subtlety, both in facial expression and in speech, often displaying special tenderness in paternal roles, as played here.
His adopted daughter is at a critical stage in her school-work, and Keith is at pains to shelter her from the truth about her real father, who has killed her mother and then himself. A blackmailing duo has somehow learned of this, guessing correctly that it's his tender spot, and wants rather a large payout (for a humble forest ranger) delivered at once. We can't reveal the rest, and most of it is not very surprising anyway. What stands out is the emotional charge between the characters, and the audience too.
One of the villains (Philip Coolidge) has gained entry to the house by wearing a clerical dog-collar, and it's not only Keith who wants to slaughter him; we all do. No face ever provoked such contempt and loathing, except possibly his partner in crime, an infuriating drunk (Mike Kellin) who unsurprisingly falls out with him. All three human types are sharply dramatised, perhaps because the original story was by that undeservedly neglected novelist Andrew Garve.
The daughter looks rather adult for the part, though she was only fourteen at the time. The night-action in the forest is a little too obscure to make out. And the title 'Night of the Owl' seems rather unoriginal, as do the audio-effects of an owl hooting to order, and not even very realistically. Or do the owls hoot differently in California?