Alfred Hitchcock Presents, S1E35, "The Legacy"

The series shifts gears with “The Legacy,” an episode that eschews suspense for a surprisingly gentle romantic melodrama that feels like a condensed version of a classic Hollywood women’s picture. It’s not trying to check off the standard AHP boxes. Even on its own terms, it doesn’t quite gel, but I find it more enjoyable than not.

The episode plays its genre close to the chest, at least early on. The setup feels straight out of a Golden Age mystery, with author Randolph Burnside (Ralph Clanton, last seen on “The Gentleman from America”)–our viewpoint character and entry point–being introduced to the tangled, bright, and busy social circle surrounding his would-be book subject, Prince Burnham (Jacques Bergerac, last seen on “Safe Conduct”).¹

The social circle is actually a little too busy for the story “The Legacy” is really telling, which adds to the genre sleight-of-hand–it does seem like we’re setting up a whodunit–but isn’t really necessary for the review because, to be blunt, the superfluous characters aren’t all that engaging. (This is where the story suffers in comparison to the Golden Age mysteries it briefly impersonates: the best of them excel at vivid character sketches.) In this case, the only people we really need to know, besides Burnside and Burnham, are the Coles, married couple Howard and Irene (Alan Hewitt and Leora Dana, both of whom we’ll see again). The others mostly exist to deliver exposition: in particular, clarifying that both Coles have their own independent fortune.

Irene is meek and self-effacing, damping down any natural beauty with a wallflower-like disclaimer of any talents and an immediate acquiescence to her husband’s many open affairs and flirtations. She is, one would think, the least likely person to catch Prince Burnham’s eye, but catch it she does.

The story acknowledges that it would be easy to be cynical about this unusual passion, bringing up the notion that Burnham only sets his sights on her as a kind of novelty and that if she gave in, he’d quickly tire of her … and that’s a notion Irene can accept. It’s far more world-shattering to believe he does see her as some kind of goddess, so she resists it at every opportunity. She doesn’t want to ascend to any new heights only to immediately come crashing down–and, despite everything she tolerates in her marriage, and every way she’s voluntarily abased herself into being a second-class citizen in it, she does love her husband.

The relationships here aren’t especially complicated, but they feel human, and it’s all written with a real empathy for Irene, in particular. (Maybe it’s no surprise that this is based on a story by a woman, Gina Kaus, and that Kaus returned to co-write the episode.) Leora Dana should have had a longer career–she was only 60 when she died–but she at least had a substantial filmography of TV work, in particular, as well as parts in films like 3:10 to Yuma; she has a good, likable gawky shyness here, and she pulls off a necessary transformation near the end, making it noticeable yet subtle enough to be believable. Her chemistry with Bergerac is spotty–since this is the second AHP flirtation he’s anchored that I’ve found a bit flat, I think he maybe just doesn’t work for me as a romantic lead–but her relationships with her husband and with Burnside, who becomes a kind of ally as well as an observer, feel more real. Considering where the episode goes, there’s a possible reason for that.

In any case, the Burnham-Irene affair becomes D.O.A. literally as well as figuratively, as Burnham dies in a car crash soon after another one of her rejections. It’s so unlikely an accident that it’s obvious to everyone that it can only have been suicide, which means that Irene’s gone from “mousiest woman in her social circle” to “woman a prince died of love for.”

That’s the kind of character transformation–a kind of glow-up in significance–that you could easily spend a movie on, but “The Legacy” packs it into thirty minutes, plus an understated and even slightly moving final twist, and it works. It has elements that feel a little too extraneous or tacked on, and Bergerac is miscast, but Irene and her journey are a good, affecting centerpiece, and while I certainly love the classic, definitive AHP approaches, this many episodes in, I’ve also come to appreciate when the show breaks form and gives us a story that isn’t really suspense at all, even if it’s superficially similar in structure.

The Twist: Not only did Burnham not kill himself out of love for Irene, he was only (or mostly) pursuing her in the hopes of securing some of her fortune to pay off his massive debts. His death was a careless accident that only happened because he took his car out without realizing the mechanic had disconnected the brakes for some maintenance. When Burnside (I don’t know why you would put a Burnham and a Burnside in the same story, unless it was to mess with me specifically) finds this out, he thinks he should tell Irene she needn’t bear any guilt over his death, but then he discovers that the glamour and tragedy of it all have significantly improved Irene’s life. Her husband took care of her after the prince’s death, and the two of them bonded more closely; he’s besotted with her now. She’s luminous. Realizing that telling her the truth could damage the couple’s newfound happiness by effectively rewriting her as a victim rather than a romantic lead, Burnside keeps it to himself.

It’s a surprisingly involved twofold reveal for an episode that isn’t especially plotty, but I like it, and it plays much more simply and directly in execution than it feels like it would when I have to spell it all out. It’s a bit Liberty Valance, but more upliftingly so–so a bit “Lisa the Iconoclast,” I guess? Sometimes it doesn’t do any good to deflate the legend, even if you have the best of intentions in doing so, not if it turns out people have built something good on those foundations in the meantime. Irene and Howard now have a perfectly cromulent marriage, and I like that Burnside makes the decision to leave well enough alone.

It also gels nicely with the genre framing early on: while we don’t have a murder here, we do have a kind of mystery, but the subversion lies in that it’s explicitly best for it to go unsolved and unrevealed. A lover’s tragedy can give a lot more meaning than a fortune hunter’s accident. It’s a story that acknowledges that all the cynical interpretations of the “passion” were ultimately true but finds a way out of cynicism anyway, and that’s an unexpected and pleasant beat for the show.

Directed by: James Neilson

Written by: Gina Kaus (story), Gina Kaus & Andrew Solt (teleplay)

Up Next: “Mink”

1.  Burnham is apparently from India, but since–thank goodness–no effort is made to convince us that Bergerac is Indian himself, he was apparently there, and princely, in some colonial capacity; however, he seems marked as “foreign” to our other English characters and so isn’t English himself. Maybe he’s a prince from a fictional country who had holdings in India until recently? I suspect we’re not meant to think about any of this too much: he’s a Harlequin Romance playboy prince, essentially. Still, having the subliminal racism and political implications –what was Burnham doing in India? Why did Indians riot against him, forcing him to flee?–present but largely disregarded by both the other characters and the narrative does add to the Christie-esque feel here.
   
   EDIT: Well, I thought there was no brownface here, hence the “thank goodness” above, but I’m bad enough at spotting makeup jobs, especially in black and white, that I fully trust Simon’s judgment on this over mine, so it looks like regrettable effort was made to convince us Burnham is Indian. That’s unfortunate, and it certainly leaves a sour taste in my mouth. It would have been so easy to avoid doing this, too!
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