John Meredyth Lucas showed a lot of promise with his first of only three 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' episodes as director, the very underrated "Jonathan". With his three episodes as director he showed good potential and two of the three episodes were very good though not quite outstanding, don't think he got enough of a chance as the two very good episodes were better than a lot of the episodes from the more prolific directors.
"Crackpot", the second of the three, was a disappointment. It has one truly great performance and a fascinating character, but is wrecked by how weakly done the story is. A case of a performance to be much better than the episode itself, another example of this from the series being "The Better Bargain". Personally do not agree with it being rated higher than "Jonathan", it is the only one of Lucas' episodes to not do much for me and it's a lesser entry for Season 2.
The best thing about "Crackpot" is the excellent performance of Robert Emhardt, he has such a riveting presence whether benevolent or dangerous. And he is helped by that his character is psychologically fascinating and the only one to have any development or growth. There are moments of tension in the latter stages, largely down to Emhardt's performance.
It's slickly made with some nice atmospheric shots. The audio is suitably ominous and will never stop raving about the haunting use of "Funeral March of a Marionette" for the series' main theme. Hitchcock's bookending is typically droll in writing and delivery.
However, there are too many drawbacks. The biggest problem is the story, which is truly preposterous and on the most part suspense free, especially when things become not what they seem. Lucas proved with "Jonathan" that he could do creepy atmosphere well, but here he seemed at sea with the material and there is nothing distinguished here.
Did think it took a little too long to get going and that the scripting could have been a good deal tighter. Biff McGuire (series regular and always reliable) and Mary Scott do what they can with what they have but their characters are nowhere near as interesting, actually found Scott's bland and close to neurotic and the limited material stopped them from giving much meat to them.
Concluding, rather mixed on this episode. 5/10.
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