User Reviews

***SPOILERS*** Caught red handed embezzling their company Eddie Turtin, Richard Anderson, is going to have his partner and life long friend Charlie Osgood, Steven Hill,reported to the police and made to stand trial for his crimes. This could land Charlie behind bars for at least 20 years if convicted.

Talking things over with his girlfriend Danielle, Joanna Moore, Charlie concocts this plan to fake doing himself in and then check out with Danielle to South America with the remaining $60,000.00 he still has stashed away in his office. Having been a demolition expert in the US Navy in WWII Charlie plans to use a dummy and deep sixing it at the local marina attached with a dozen sticks of TNT to fake his own death. Now free from arrest and prosecution, in that he's been declared dead by the courts, all Charlie has to do now is get the cash and together with Danielle, in buying two plane tickets to Brazil, check out of the country and live happily ever after. Or so Charlie thinks.

***MAJOR SPOILERS*** As we soon learn Danielle is not as dumb as she makes herself out to be. In fact she's not even a dumb blond in her hair being actually dark with a blond wig covering it up. Going along with Charlie's plan Danielle is actually Eddie Turtin's secret lover and together they fooled Charlie into thinking that he got away with both his crime in stealing the$60,000.00 and scheme in faking his own death! Celebrating his perfect crime Charlie gulps down a shot of Eddies's finest prized bourbon only to end up, with it being spiked, back were he started at the end of a pier at the marina. But this time around when he did drop down into the bay with both Eddie and Danielle's help he stayed there permanently!

"WHO NEEDS AN ENEMY" is one of the better "tongue-in-cheek" presentations in the Alfred Hitchcock Hour series. Embezzler Steven Hill has been stealing from his business partner (a very disillusioned Richard Anderson) for years and is finally caught in the act. Threatened with a long prison term, Hill decides to fake his own suicide with the help of his new girlfriend, Joanna Moore. Naturally, Hill has put aside a substantial amount of stolen money to coax Ms. Moore into the ruse. What he doesn't know is that Moore is really in league with Anderson to retrieve the loot. After a botched police investigation, Hill finally makes a run for the money, only to be caught red-handed once again. This time his "suicide" is the real thing. Deftly directed with comic touches by old-time actor Harry Morgan of M*A*S*H* TV fame, "Who Needs An Enemy" is well-done and a highly amusing entry in the series. Anderson's farewell funeral elegy for his devious partner is a highlight as is the performance of Joanna Moore. In her early thirties at the time of the filming, the late Ms. Moore looks nearly a double now for her daughter, Tatum O'Neal. Hitchcock's wry commentary during the final curtain call was also one of his best. Naturally, old Alfred had to inform his audience that the killers weren't allowed to get away with their dastardly crime (the censors wouldn't allow it). Not only were they found guilty of blowing Hill up into little pieces, they were also fined for "littering."

The use of irony by Alfred Hitchcock always enhanced everything he did and this television episode is no exception.

I didn't trust the blond, Julianne Moore, from the beginning and pretty much guess who she had secretly hooked up with.

After being threatened by his partner and friend, Richard Anderson, for embezzling money from their business, Charlie feigns his suicide death so that he can flee with his supposed fiancé with the money.

It's just ironic how Charlie ended up- in the same way that he had first pretended to.

Some of the scenes are almost comical, especially the funeral scene where Anderson gives a eulogy ripe with passion, but with anger for what Charlie had done.

This episode has a serio-comic feel throughout the program, supported by the unending banter of Charlie Osgood (Steven Hill) to defend his theft of sixty thousand dollars from business partner Eddie Turtin (Richard Anderson) and their jointly owned company. When it looks like Eddie will inform the police, Charlie's first thought is to murder his best friend, only to have that scheme go awry when he loses control of his own vehicle which he had rigged to make it look like an accident. Charlie's fiancée (Joanna Moore) has a ditzy relationship with the scheming chiseler, but when you get right down to it, her oft repeated requests for where he's got the sixty grand hidden gives her away as a calculating gold digger in her own right. Which paves the way for her to switch alliances, and join Eddie in exposing Charlie and discovering how he hid the money in plain sight at his own office at the company. Unlike a number or reviewers here, I don't believe Danielle (Moore) began her relationship with Eddie while still involved with Charlie, but saw it as an opportune moment to finally get what she was after while putting up with Charlie's endless delays. The story's finale would have worked as a clever do-over of Charlie's original fake suicide attempt, but in usual fashion, series moderator Alfred Hitchcock informs us viewers that Eddie and Danielle didn't get away with it, which if left to our own devices, would have figured as much in the long run.