Mr. Hitchcock loved John Williams: he was in ten episodes of ...Presents, more than anyone else, and appeared in Dial M For Murder and To Catch A Thief. We open to the sound of digging, and quickly realize the hole is perfectly proportioned to receive a body, that of our hero's wife. Herbert Carpenter told his wife Hermione he's digging for a wine cellar, though she can't quite understand why he insists on doing the work himself. After all, he's not a young man anymore, and they have a nice house, and that's why you hire people.
The unhappy couple are about to leave town for several months, so Herbert can work his metallurgical job for an aeronautics company in California. At the goodbye party, Hermione reassures all their friends that they'll definitely be back for Christmas. Herbert isn't sure -- he enjoyed his previous trip and might want to stay longer. After the friends leave, and the final pieces are tidied up, Herbert lures Hermione down to the cellar and uses the hole for its intended purpose.
The original short story this is based on is much more graphic: Herbert is a doctor, and we see this:
He crossed the hall, sprang the latch of the front door, went upstairs, and taking his instruments from the washbasin, finished what he had to do. He came down again, clad in his bath gown, carrying parcel after parcel of towelling or newspaper neatly secured with safety pins. These he packed carefully into the narrow, deep hole he had made in the corner of the cellar, shovelled in the soil, spread coal dust over all, satisfied himself that everything was in order, and went upstairs again. He then thoroughly cleansed the bath, and himself, and the bath again, dressed, and took his wife's clothing and his bath gown to the incinerator.
This is a dark, comically nasty little story, much more in the vein of this series than our previous episode. However, apart from the title, there is only one piece of the story about Christmas: Hermione wanted them back specifically for Christmas not because she was the domineering, power-hungry shrew Herbert thought, but because she'd hired builders to excavate the basement and build Herbert his wine cellar.
As an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, I rate this 8/10. It's mean and funny and suspenseful, and the twist at the end is just right.
As a Christmas show, I rate this 1/10. You hear the word "Christmas" a lot here, but apart from that twist, the holiday is meaningless.
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