Everyone who’s seen this one-of-a-kind, atypical faux-fantasy Hitchcock Hour – the one in which a bunch of backwoods types sit mesmerized around a mysterious canning jar fetched back from the county fair, one which may or may not contain a human head or something worse – remembers it, even decades later.
But it’s worth enumerating all the reasons why it’s perfect: the sly, leisurely adaptation by James Bridges, which only slightly pads Ray Bradbury’s gem of a short story; the rogues gallery of cracker character actors, led by Collin Wilcox, cast very much against type as a sexy child-bride, and an unusually subdued Pat Buttram; the haunting Bernard Herrmann compositions; and the jar itself, a brilliant prop that sustains multiple extended closeups without ever surrendering its aura of creepiness. Oh, and producer-director Norman Lloyd’s clever staging emphasizes a droll allegory: that glass jar in Buttram’s shack isn’t really too different from the glass box in your living room, is it?
But it’s worth enumerating all the reasons why it’s perfect: the sly, leisurely adaptation by James Bridges, which only slightly pads Ray Bradbury’s gem of a short story; the rogues gallery of cracker character actors, led by Collin Wilcox, cast very much against type as a sexy child-bride, and an unusually subdued Pat Buttram; the haunting Bernard Herrmann compositions; and the jar itself, a brilliant prop that sustains multiple extended closeups without ever surrendering its aura of creepiness. Oh, and producer-director Norman Lloyd’s clever staging emphasizes a droll allegory: that glass jar in Buttram’s shack isn’t really too different from the glass box in your living room, is it?
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