["Alfred Hitchcock" theme music]
- Good evening.
How do you do, ladies, and
gentleman,
and peeping Tom's the world
over?
I think you deserve an
explanation
of my new, tall, slim look.
This is not entirely the
result of vertical stripes.
I had my face lifted and
neglected to say when.
Seriously, I innocently stepped
into
a pair of elevator shoes and
pressed the wrong button.
However, there is nothing to
worry about.
I shall simply take the
next pair going down.
This evening, in addition to our
sideshow,
we are bringing you a
bizarre little drama called,
"The Evil of Adelaide Winters."
It is about a woman with a
strange talent,
which she used to bring
happiness
to people, particularly,
herself.
I would tell you more about
the story but it might frighten
you off and then you would
miss all the commercials.
This little gem for example.
[dark dramatic music]
[intriguing music]
- Invasion of Europe,
this is a momentous day
to attempt to contact
someone k*lled in the w*r.
- Can you, can you really?
- Please, dear.
- Soon enough we shall know
if your son's spirit lives on.
Let us begin.
A bayonet, a helmet, and a g*n,
these have become the
objects of man's faith.
- What happened to him?
What happened?
- I'm sorry, I try to do
this as quickly as I can,
but contacting a departed
spirit is not easy.
- We know that.
We appreciate what you're doing.
- Nor is it guaranteed.
I guarantee nothing, only
my willingness to try.
I need your willingness to trust
me.
- We do, we wouldn't be here if
we didn't.
- Do I still sense some
hostility in you?
- Oh no, none, he wants
it too, don't you dear?
He believes in you.
- I cannot help anyone who
doesn't want to be helped.
Mrs. Thompson, on my right.
Mr. Thompson, on my left.
These are the objects of
invocation, the presence
of things common to last
moments of the deceased,
helps in contacting the departed
spirit.
We shall fill this room
with the kind of things
that surrounded your
son's last living moments.
[film rolls]
- Oh must you, must you?
- There is no easy way,
I'm sorry, we can stop.
- No, please, go ahead.
- In a moment you will
hear the sounds of battle.
They will come from a record
player.
There is no deception, no
magic, no fraudulent means.
These sounds are only recorded.
[g*nf*re]
We use the objects of
w*r, the sounds of w*r,
image of death in w*r,
to invoke the medium
of contact with Private Harry
Thompson.
How did he die?
He was missing in action.
He was gone suddenly from this
time,
and that place, nothing to
recall him.
[bombs explode]
Was it by knife?
Or, was it by this weapon?
[bombs explode]
There was a sudden pressure, a
light,
a light filled the eye,
and flooded the brain,
a sound, a terrible sound.
I feel the pain in my arms.
The moment was then and he will
speak.
He will speak.
I do not handle money, sir.
Mr. McBain.
- I am so grateful, it was my
son.
You found my son.
- Give it to my assistant.
- May we come again, please?
- Well please telephone
for an appointment.
I'll help you as I can,
but there's so many others.
You must wait your turn.
- Thank you.
- Look at that man, he
came in despising me
and he goes out like a clod.
I can't stand weak people.
I can't stand them.
- These people are different
from the ones
we used to work with, they
have the worst unhappiness.
- Did you get all the
newspapers?
- [McBain] Yeah, I got 'em all.
- Then read me the lists.
- For this week's casualties,
the w*r Department
announces the following
members of the Army
listed as dead, PFC Thomas H.
Donne.
- Only those missing in action.
- I still don't like using that
kind.
- It doesn't make much
difference if you like it or
not.
- Don't you treat me like a
servant.
- But you are.
- I taught you everything
about this racket.
- Profession, Robert.
- That's what you like to
pretend,
but it is a racket, a swindle,
a con game as any I ever did.
- I only obtained the more crude
aspects
of the profession from you.
- Everything, and I want you
to stop pushing me around.
- You taught me a series
of Halloween tricks,
carnival mumbo-jumbo, I made it
pay.
- There'll still carny tricks.
- They're science.
- And you took them from me.
- How could I possibly take from
you?
I have insight, you don't.
I know about people's
superstitions, desperation.
I can read their weakness
and fortify their strength.
- Haven't we made enough?
All the people we've taken
already?
- [Adelaide] Helped.
- Taken, conned.
- We haven't taken or used
anyone.
We've helped them.
- Used to be wealthy old
dowagers
who were on their last legs
anyway, people with time
to waste, that was
different from this stuff--
- Bereaved and despairing,
we give them hope.
Widows and weeping mothers,
we bring them their loved ones
who've died on remote
battlefields.
We put their shattered bodies
together.
- I wish I understood you.
I wish I knew what you want.
- I want money.
I want happiness.
They're the same.
- You've got money.
- Not enough, the w*r
will be over one day.
This is our last chance to cash
in.
Now read me the list of
those missing in action.
- PFC Timothy Arlington,
- That's not a good
neighborhood.
- Wouldn't it be simpler
to go back to the relatives
of the men who've been k*lled,
wouldn't it be easier to work
them?
- I told you, no.
I am through being caught
up on so many details,
struggling to keep ahead of
idiots
who don't even know their own
desperate need to be helped.
- The w*r Department has
investigators.
- With a man missing
in action, who's to say
whether my information about
how he died is right or wrong?
Not even the w*r Department.
Not even the men who are
supposed to know.
Now go on with the list.
- First Lieutenant, John
Porter, 1438 Williamsburg Road.
- Which end of Williamsburg Road
is that?
- [Robert] I don't know.
- Find out.
[rotary dials]
[phone rings]
- Operator, would you
give me the phone number
of a Mr. Porter, 1438
Williamsburg Road?
Yes.
Brighton, 24599, thank you.
Brighton, that's the
north end above Sunset.
That's a rich section.
- Call him.
Call him, you know what to say.
[rotary dials]
[phone rings]
- [Porter] Hello.
- This is Mr. Porter?
- [Porter] Yes, this is Mr.
Porter.
- This is the father of
Lieutenant of John F. Porter?
- I am his father, what is it?
- This is the w*r Department.
- You found him?
Oh, I'd almost given up hope.
You found my son alive?
- I regret to inform you
sir that your son is dead.
[dark dramatic music]
[moody dramatic music]
- Ah, Ms. Winters, I'm sorry I
wasn't here
to receive you, but I was
detained.
I had some business to attend
to.
- I have more than business
to attend to, Mr. Porter.
I have other people's feelings.
- I said, I'm sorry, please sit
down.
- Thank you.
When I first called you I
thought you said, you would want
to talk and then make your
decision about going ahead.
- I wanted to.
- Well this is my third
visit to discuss it.
My third trip to help you decide
if you wish to contact your son.
- It takes time.
- Time to admit what I do is
legitimate and worth a try?
Or, time to admit you need my
help?
- To trust what you do, Ms.
Winters, requires faith.
I need time to have that.
- There's no reason to have
faith
in anything until it's proven
itself.
- I have never been to
one of those things.
- You said that the first
visit, and the second,
now this one, goodbye, Mr.
Porter.
- [Porter] Wait, please.
- You've lost your only son.
You've turned to friends,
work, to your money.
Have any of those things helped?
- [Porter] Nothing helped,
nothing.
- You wife is gone, many years.
You raised a son yourself.
You made a world for him he'll
never have.
You did all that, and this one
last hope
to ever know the sound of him,
the reality of him, you toss
aside.
Let me try to help you.
At least let me try to find
out how he died and where.
- Ms. Winters, I have been
a realist all my life.
- This is real.
- Maybe.
- What you mean is you hope so.
You hope it's true.
You hope it's real.
- You're a very compassionate
woman
and an honest human being.
- We'll start, now...
Here, here in this room,
with daylight flooding it,
where you can see everything I
do,
among the familiar objects of
his life,
the place in which he grew,
objects can be a medium.
In this room where the
sound of a child's laughter,
but of a father and son
playing in loving roughness.
From these sights and sounds of
the past,
we will, we must, we shall
invoke your son's spirit.
I hear a sound.
I can't, a distant sound, I
don't know.
It's not a familiar sound.
Your son flew a plane, b*mber?
- Yes, he did.
- I hear, I don't know.
I'm sorry, it's gone, it's lost.
- And now?
- I've failed, it won't come
back now.
- Will you try again?
- Whenever you wish.
- I want you to, just one more
time.
- But at my home, this
is a place of the past,
distant past, it doesn't
let in the present.
- All right, your home.
[planes roar]
- We invoke the sounds, the
objects of a lost spirit,
a young man, lost, lost where?
Where?
[plane buzzes]
[g*n fire]
I don't understand.
I don't.
- What is it?
What is wrong?
- It's so close, an
imminent thing so close,
so near, I sense it, but, but
beyond me,
just out of my reach.
- You're not going to give up?
- Perhaps someone else can help
you more.
- No, but I've tried three
times.
- And each time, closer.
- To what?
- To...
To my son, yes, closer to my
son.
- Not if I can't break through.
- [Porter] You must try again
and again.
- And if I fail?
- [Porter] Then again, until you
succeed.
[plane buzzes]
[bombs explode]
- The image is vague, it's not
clear.
The things of his death, they
are wrong.
No, no it was not in the sky or
the earth.
I hear a voice.
It comes from the seas, from the
water,
from the deepest waters of the
oceans.
I call you, I beg you, I beseech
you,
through love of your
father to ease his pain,
to end his anguish, give a
sign of love to your father,
that you love him, show you love
him.
[plane explodes]
- [John] The way I died, I was
afraid.
- Who, who is it?
John, is it you?
Who is it?
- [John] Afraid of dying,
but now it is beautiful,
the water, the peaceful
water, we sailed you and I.
The sea, the quietest
sea, below the quiet sea
there is rest and beauty,
death is not terrible.
- Oh, thank God.
- [John] Do not lose me, father.
Do not lose me.
[plane hums]
- Stay, please stay.
- [John] Do not lose me.
- Oh my son, my dear son.
[dramatic music]
Ms. Winters?
Ms. Winters?
Ms. Winters?
- We did, we reached him.
- Yes, thank you, thank you.
[dramatic music]
- He's out there again.
- Really, for who long?
- About half an hour, maybe.
He wasn't there when I
let our last client in.
- His appointment is next.
- No it isn't, he's a couple
hours early.
I don't like it.
- Well, he has nothing else to
do.
- Yeah, but this has been
going on for over a week.
- Only because this is where's
he found a greater happiness.
[doorbell rings]
- Think that's Porter?
- You'll let him in.
- You've sort of taking on a
personal
feeling for him, aren't you?
- Answer the door.
- You're gonna take him before
his regular appointment?
- Will you answer the door?
[doorbell rings]
- I'm early, again.
- Come in, come in.
I'm flattered that you've come
so early.
- Well, to see you as well.
- That's most gracious.
We've been having wonderful
success, haven't we?
And I'm always delighted when
the gift I have is successful.
It's a good feeling.
- You're a fine person.
- Well, I try to be.
Sometimes I'm not.
Sometimes I fail myself.
And that's when astral
communication is impossible,
when I concentrate only on
myself.
- You're a rare human being.
- Why, thank you.
- I recognize them.
- How?
- They're truly aware
of other people's needs.
- I try to be of help to
everyone.
- Maybe too many.
- Why too many?
How could I possibly help too
many?
- Well, never mind, let's begin.
- You're acting unusual today,
Mr. Porter.
Is something wrong?
- I said begin, no talk, just
begin.
- We'll see here, I offer
my services but that doesn't
give license to you or anyone
else to--
- Yes, you're right, I have
no special prerogatives.
- Well, even you, considering
the number
of sessions we've had, it
doesn't even give you that
right.
Did you hear me?
Mr. Porter?
- I can't stand you spending
so much time with others.
- [Adelaide] But it's my work.
- I have offered your money,
double you fee for extra time.
- My work is very exhausting.
I can just manage so many hours
a day,
just so many and no more.
- I want all your time.
- Impossible.
- Why?
- Well, just the expense alone.
- I can afford it.
- I've never worked that way.
- Any fee you name.
- I don't know if it can be
done.
- Triple your fee.
- I mean, I don't even know
if it would count for much.
- I must be with my son more, I
must.
- Oh, but we'd be pestered
all day long by other clients.
They'd keep coming here
demanding that I give them time.
It's just as important to them
as it is to you, Mr. Porter.
- I know, I realize that.
So you must come and stay at my
home.
- But McBain, my assistant.
- Well, why do you want him?
- Because he's always been with
me.
- Bring him, the both of
you, come, live in my home.
It's a huge house.
Since my wife died years
ago, since she died,
and now my son, I need your
help.
You can bring my son to
me, you can, you can.
Please, please, I need you.
[dramatic music]
- Of course, of course.
[suspenseful music]
- There can be serious
disadvantages to being 10 feet
tall.
For one thing I just dropped
a quarter on the sidewalk.
We shall continue our story
after how local stations
advise you who is bringing you
our show.
[moody dramatic music]
- I put everything in your
rooms.
- [Adelaide] Thank You.
- [Porter] Did they show
you to your quarters?
- Yes.
- Are they satisfactory?
- And if they're not?
- Well, we can always change
the.
- Oh no, no, no, it's okay.
It's just that I've never had
rooms over a garage before.
- Oh, it is magnificent.
- Yes, you will be happy here.
- I know.
- I'd like to show you your
suite.
- A suite?
- Yes, I remodeled two rooms for
you.
- Well, you're the most
thoughtful man I've ever known.
[dark dramatic music]
Is it all set up?
- Nope, I checked every
electric circuit I could find.
Our speaker system doesn't
fit into any of them.
- Well, if you need more time,
I'll get him out of the house.
- There are servants, remember?
- All right, and servants too.
- And it still won't work.
- We'll think of something.
- Oh, what for?
- So we can get what we want.
- So you can get what you want.
- All right, if you choose.
- Well, it's true isn't it?
- I don't owe you anything.
We stopped being more than
business
associates a long time ago.
- You did, I didn't.
- And I still like you, you know
that.
- Yeah, but not enough, huh?
- Help me get what I want and
you'll see.
We'll be comfortable for
the rest of our lives.
- Together?
- Maybe.
- For good?
- For a while, at least for a
while.
- I can get a portable
sending-receiving radio.
- Couldn't anyone pick it up on
its set?
- No, no it's a wireless
intercom system.
I can fix it so it fixes to
only broadcasts about 100 feet.
We could put one anywhere in the
house.
- What if you get several units?
- Well what for?
We only need one for
sending, one for receiving.
- Not if you put one in the
living room,
one in the garden, and one in
the study.
- Yeah, that's a good
move, if he can take it.
- It's what he wants.
- I still say, only if he can
take it.
- I'll take care of him, you
take care of the radio sets.
- [Porter] The servants
are in their quarters.
- Well, that wasn't necessary,
Edward.
I don't mind if they're about.
- Oh, but I do.
This is an experience meant just
for the two of us, and for my
son.
- The three of us.
- None for you?
- No, not now.
To this place, John, this
place, your father's house
that you knew so well,
and lived in with love.
I bring you to this
house of loving memory.
Can you hear us?
We invoke no objects of
w*r, but to forget w*r,
to destroy death, we
call you to the living.
- [John] To my father's house?
- This is a place you
return to for your father.
- [John] For my father, for you.
- These rooms, to share with
you,
to share the place and
time in which we move.
- [John] To share.
- [Adelaide] And to share
that place with you.
- [John] This place, to share,
with me.
- [Adelaide] For this
moment, to be remembered,
is your new world, as peaceful,
as peaceful and contented.
- [John] More peaceful,
more than the world I left.
More than the world.
[dramatic music]
- As if he were alive?
- He is.
- In that dress?
- And this one.
- I was so right to bring you
here to stay, to stay always.
- As long as I can.
- As long as I need you?
- Yes.
- Each day my life becomes more
wonderful
because you make it possible,
and more beautiful because
you bring us together again.
- Because this is a home of
love.
There is nothing hostile,
nothing antagonistic
to send him from us.
- Nor to keep us from him.
[dramatic music]
- Or to keep us from him.
- I picked up the mail.
- The servants do that.
- Yeah, well I've been doing
it for the past few weeks.
There's a letter for you.
It's addressed to Porter, but
it's really
meant for you, from the w*r
Department.
I heard they were sending
letters to relatives
of servicemen k*lled in action.
So, I've been watching for it.
- What did it say?
- Warning against people like
us,
who contact the parents of
casualty.
- Who could've told them?
- Nobody had to, it's routine.
[birds chirp]
- There's nothing to worry
about.
- He's given enough, or
shall I say taken enough.
I can see it in his eyes
when you walk past him.
- You're jealous.
- You know, he sits up most of
the night.
I've looked in and watched.
He sits downstairs and
he looks up at your room,
and sometimes he even takes a
chair,
and sits next to your door.
- What of it?
- He talks about you and his
son,
like the three of you were a
family.
- Your jealousy is dangerous.
- I'm telling you it's
the time to lay off.
It's time to clear out.
- You would like me to
run, to leave all this?
Well, I won't and you'll have
to wait for me longer than
you thought, much longer.
- Oh, I can wait, I've
waited a long time already.
- I'm going to marry him.
- But, I've helped you.
I've worked for you.
I've risked everything for you.
- [Adelaide] You've been repaid.
- I'd have made that kind of
money working my on pitch.
I love you.
I stayed with you because I
loved you.
- You can still stay around.
- Oh no, no, no, not now I
won't.
- Getting brave again, huh?
This is a comfortable life.
You'd throw it over for love?
I'm not marrying for love.
Why should you throw
all this away for love?
- Did he ask you to marry him?
- Speak up, Robert, I can't hear
you.
- Did he ask you to marry him?
- No, but he will.
- You're so awful sure of
everything, aren't you?
- Because I read people's needs.
I read his needs and supplied
them, supply and demand.
Now he must hold on to me,
because I'm the only person
who can bring his son to
him every day, like a clock.
[sinister music]
[moody dramatic music]
[door knocks]
What, who is it?
- It's Edward, may I come in,
please?
[uneasy dramatic music]
I'm sorry, Adelaide,
I know it's the middle
of the night but I had to talk
to you.
- Oh please come in, don't
apologize.
- Thank you.
- [Edward] Do you always lock
your door?
- Well yes, usually.
- Nothing could harm you in
this house as long as I'm here.
- Then I shan't lock it again.
- I couldn't sleep because I
kept thinking
about this wonderful
month that we have spent.
- It has been wonderful.
- Thinking how happy my son
sounds.
- He is in a world more
peaceful than any he's known.
- Yes, that's it, happier
than I've ever heard him,
even more than--
- What are you thinking?
- That I feel like a younger man
since we've begun our life
together.
- Time turns back when
we're with our loved ones.
Time turns back.
- And we become more hopeful.
- To share your life with
someone.
- I have been sharing my life
with you.
- We've only worked together.
- More than that.
- Because I wanted to help.
- Adelaide, do you
remember what my son said?
- Why, yes.
- He seems to know so much about
you.
- Well, in astral telepathy
there
is communication beyond words.
- My son is becoming very
fond of you, I know it.
I can tell by the sound of his
voice.
- You speak as if he were alive,
like us.
- Isn't he?
- Well, yes of course he's like
us.
We're all as one, but we have a
life
in this world to live before the
other,
so much to live for.
- Can it compare to his
world beyond the grave?
- Well, no, but we must wait our
time.
We cannot ignore this life,
we're in it.
We must live as best we can.
- I've tried, with all my money,
my time, my position, I have
tried.
It doesn't mean anything.
It can't compare to his
happiness.
- Well, but he would want
you to enjoy all of this.
He was cheated of it.
He was cheated and you
must enjoy it for him.
- All this was for my son.
- But you haven't lost him,
through me you've regained him.
- That's why all of
this belongs to you now.
- I'm only a kind of employee.
- Don't say that!
- I'm paid a salary.
- You're like a member of the
family.
- Like, but not actually.
There's a great difference.
- You are the family,
you, and John, and I.
- John is a spirit now.
- You, John, and I, one family
again.
- You speak as if I were your
wife.
I'm not, Edward, I'm not at all.
- You will be my wife.
My dear, my wonderful wife.
- Kind, sweet, Edward.
[ominous music]
What's wrong?
- I sensed something, just now,
odd.
Someone with us.
- [Adelaide] There's no one with
us.
- Not as if we were in this room
at all.
- But we're here, here in
this room, look about you,
the table, the chairs, you know
them.
We've never left this room.
- We were with my son.
For the first time we were with
my son.
- No Edward, no, it's not--
- As if he wanted us to be with
him,
to share our happiness.
[sinister music]
- I tell you, he's dangerous.
- Oh, I've seen many like this
before.
It's the shock of belief, the
shock
of faith and then it subsides.
- Will you stop talking
like we're a religion.
We're racketeers, honey,
we're con artists.
- You are.
- He doesn't know what's real,
or not.
- Look, you're jealous.
- [Edward] He is dangerous.
- How?
- I don't know how, exactly.
- Would he turn me over to the
police?
- More, there's something more.
- Maybe he'll demand his money
back?
- He's losing his reason.
It's like he can't hear
anything else, like--
- Don't generalize, be specific.
For once in your life be exact.
- I don't know, I told you, I'm
no doctor.
- And you're frightened?
- Those are the ones who stay
alive,
the ones who know when to get
scared.
- It's incredible that I once
thought you were not only
smarter but much braver than I
was.
- If you're as smart as you
think you are,
you should get scared enough to
run.
- Not until I have all this.
- We could walk out that front
door now.
- Don't you understand?
I have to stay until I get
what I worked for, just until
them.
- You are scared.
- I'm going to marry him.
[laughs]
- You're really frightened.
You're putting on an act!
- Nothing's gonna make me leave.
[laughs]
- You know I'm right!
- Coward.
[slapping]
Coward.
[dark suspenseful music]
[wind gusts]
[unnerving music]
[door handle twists]
[suspenseful music]
- Adelaide?
- [Adelaide] I'm not a sleep.
- I've been thinking about you
for hours.
- I've been thinking about
you too, I couldn't sleep.
- Adelaide, what does
all this mean to you?
- Our marriage?
- This house?
- Nothing without you.
- My money?
- Only something to share,
together.
- [Edward] Nothing more?
- You're my life.
- You are my life, you and John.
- Why do you keep saying it,
that way?
- Because it's true.
- John is dead, he's waiting,
but he's not with us, not
really.
- What is John to you?
- A son, your son, and mine.
- You love him as I do?
- I've told you that I--
- Why must we wait?
- Wait?
- Why must we keep him waiting?
- [Adelaide] You can't be
serious?
- But you said, you said, this
world,
this material world
meant nothing without me.
- No, no, Edward, no, this is
our world.
- What is there to wait for?
This place of evil, of
corruption, you've said so.
You've shown me that.
- Look, Under strain and
upset, things get distorted.
- You have shown me the
beautiful world
that lies beyond the grave.
- No, I didn't, I didn't.
- You taught me faith, you
taught me about the life beyond.
Don't lose that faith.
Don't be afraid of losing this
world.
John is waiting for us.
[suspenseful music]
- Oh, this is the only
world, the only one.
There is no astral world beyond.
None, it was a lie.
- John's voice, a lie, my own
son's voice?
I would know his voice
in a crowd, in eternity.
- I'll show you, I'll
show you it was a lie.
Robert McBain, in his room,
come, come to his room.
- Don't leave.
Adelaide, wait.
[suspenseful music]
[intense harrowing music]
- Robert, Robert you've got to!
[Adelaide whimpers]
[footsteps approach]
- It was a lie, it was a lie.
[g*nsh*t fires]
[dark dramatic music]
- There's nothing to be afraid
of anymore.
[g*n shot fires]
[dark dramatic music]
- I finally had to come down.
I became tired telling people
how the weather was up there.
Next week I shall remain
the proper height.
Scenes of next week's
commercials
will be shown in a moment,
a small segment of our
next story follow that.
[lively mystery theme music]
[captivating theme music]
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