Hitchcock in Prime Time: 20 Chilling Tales of Suspense from the Number One Mystery Show of Television's Golden Age

by Francis M. Nevins Jr. (Editor), Martin H. Greenberg (Editor), Henry Slesar (Introduction)

And So Died Riabouchinska by Ray Bradbury
The Orderly World of Mr. Appleby by Stanley Ellin
Momentum by Cornell Woolrich
The Better Bargain by Richard Deming
The Hands of Mr. Ottermole by Thomas Burke
The Dangerous People by Fredric Brown
Enough Rope for Two by Clark Howard
Suburban Tigress by Lawrence Treat
The Day of the Execution by Henry Slesar
The $2,000,000 Defense by Harold Q. Masur
The Dusty Drawer by Harry Muheim
Backward, Turn Backward by Dorothy Salisbury Davis
Hangover by John D. MacDonald
Hangover by Charles Runyon
A Home Away from Home by Robert Bloch
Terror Town by Ellery Queen
Anyone for Murder? by Jack Ritchie
One of the Family by James Yaffe
Death Scene by Helen Nielsen
Winter Run by Edward D. Hoch

Genres: Short Stories

352 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1985

About the author

Francis Michael Nevins, Jr. aka Francis M. Nevins, Jr.

Francis Nevins’ areas of expertise straddle the worlds of fact and fiction.

When he created the seminar on “Law, Lawyers and Justice in Popular Fiction and Film” in 1979, it was considered a novel idea. Today, similar seminars and courses commonly are offered in law schools throughout the United States and abroad. If there is a conference on law and film almost anywhere in the world, chances are good that Professor Nevins will be invited as a guest speaker. His paper, “When Celluloid Lawyers Started to Speak: Exploring Juriscinema’s First Golden Age,” presented in 2003 at a University College colloquium in London, is scheduled to appear in a book of essays on law and popular culture published by Oxford University Press.

An expert in estate and copyright law, Nevins was one of the first to explore in depth the legal problems that arise when an author dies. He coined the term “will bumping” to describe how, in certain circumstances, the Copyright Act can “turn an author’s will into a worthless piece of paper.” A famous writer to whom this happened was Laura Ingalls Wilder, author of the Little House on the Prairie books. Professor Nevins served as a consultant in a federal lawsuit aimed at “unbumping” her will.

Nevins has also written about the interface between copyright and matrimonial law and has argued that a little-known provision of the Copyright Act precludes state courts from treating copyrights as matrimonial or community property when an author divorces. “It’s interesting to see courts squirming all over the place to avoid the plain language of the Copyright Act,” he says. He is currently involved in a case that raises the issue of whether upon the divorce of a successor to an author, the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution precludes state courts from treating as matrimonial or community property the termination interest granted by the Copyright Act to authors’ successors.

In addition to his scholarly writing, Professor Nevins is an award-winning author of mystery fiction. His mentor in this field and “the closest thing to a grandfather I’ve ever had” was Frederic Dannay, whose pen name was Ellery Queen. Professor Nevins has published six novels, two collections of short stories and several books of non-fiction. He has edited more than 15 mystery anthologies and collections. His latest book of fiction is titled Leap Day and Other Stories (2003).

Professor Nevins graduated cum laude from New York University School of Law in 1967. He is a member of the New Jersey Bar, and worked as a staff attorney with the state’s Middlesex County Legal Services Corp. before joining the School of Law in 1971.

Reviews

[Judy Monchuk · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. As a kid I would often watch reruns of old television classics including Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. While I was too young to have seen most of Hitchcock's movies, I loved the TV episodes with the twist endings and his often droll wind-up comments. I was also a big fan of the monthly story collections in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.

So I knew exactly what I was in for with this selection of short stories that were made into episodes of Hitchcock’s shows between 1955 and 1965. After all, some of the most memorable episodes of the anthology show came from the best fiction writers of the 20th century, including Roahl Dahl (Lamb to the Slaughter). This collection includes stories by Ray Bradbury and Robert Bloch, whose novel Psycho spawned the most famous of Hitchcock's movies.

As a collection, this is a bit uneven — some stories are great, while others the reader might easily see the plot twist coming. A few are sadly dated, which is to be expected given that they were written between 1940 and 1964. But overall, this is an entertaining book and a slice of happy nostalgia.

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cornell Woolrich story--"Momentum"--masterpiece; also "Hangover" John D MacDonald--classic. The rest read like an anthology of O Henry twists (a collection of cheapos).