This is one of the best episodes of the first Hitchcock series I've seen. Adapted from a story by Henry Slesar it tells the story of a newly sprung and very young parolee and his visiting with the mother and brother of a friend of his from prison. At first apprehensive, when they hear his name they treat him like a member of the family; and they offer him lodging even after he stated that he was planning to live in a rented room.
The young man gets a job as a mechanic, is visited by his parole officer, gets angry when it appears that the P.O. is keeping tabs on him (that's his job), and he comes across as an angry young man with a chip on a shoulder who got involved in a major robbery by driving the getaway car. He claimed that he knew nothing of the crime itself and the still yet to be discovered stolen money, well over 100K.
Yet this fellow sends out mixed signals, and this is where director Robert Stevens, excels: the young man is at twenty barely a man, appears to be hiding something; and he comes across as far more knowing and sophisticated than the put upon youth he presents himself as, especially when the topic of money comes up, or when he simply has his hands on some money. He doesn't actually steal anything, not on camera anyway, and yet he seems easily tempted.
Things to begin to heat up after he confronted by some thugs, who demand that he tells them where the stolen money is. When he insists that he knows nothing about this they beat him up. He returns home, and his by now seemingly surrogate mother takes care of him. Her son is not so kind, and what transpires afterwards is quite a surprise for even an experienced viewer.
This is a dark, compact and subtly filmed tale, and it doesn't feel much like an entry in a Hitchcock series The acting is superb, from Darryl Hickman's air of sullen indignity to Mildred Dunnock's at times seeming channeling of Beulah Bondi in her empathetic playing of the woman who becomes his landlady. As her much older and hard drinking son, Nehemiah Persoff feels like a force of nature, mixing bonhomie with threats of violence every times he appears on screen.