Альфред Хичкок представляет On the Nose (1955–1962) Online

This is a story of addiction. It's about a young housewife who has apparently been diagnosed with a gambling addiction. To the point where her husband has given her an ultimatum, stop the gambling or our marriage is over. She needs 25 dollars to pay off a bookie who will betray her to her husband. She ends up literally begging on the street. The fare for a bus trip is 15 cents and she pretends to have forgotten her purse. People oblige her but it is a slow process. Along comes Carl Betz who impersonates a police officer and takes her a way. He is, of course, after something else. He propositions her, offering her the 20 dollars she needs. They have an accident which she has caused, and while he is unconscious she races from the scene. The young woman is pathetic and certainly believable in most respects. She is an addict. It's interesting that in 1958 it was already referred to as a disease. The conclusion is pretty easy to figure out if you've watched enough of these. Still, it's nicely paced and keeps our interest to the very end.

A pony-playing housewife (Jan Sterling), in the hole for $25, has one afternoon to pony up before bookies dun her husband who warned her they'd be through if she ever gambled again. The suspense factor is high as the lady pretty much panhandles before being reduced to shoplifting, eventually getting "arrested" by a fake cop who tries to rape her and even survives a car crash before obtaining the money in the nick of time. That night, her husband has to go to the nation's capitol on business and she immediately calls her bookie to put two dollars on "Washington Flyer" -on the nose, of course!

Back in the Fab 50s, the nightmare of addiction was often a joke but it's no laughing matter and this thought-provoking aspect gives the tale an unintended dark side. Destructively compulsive behavior reared it's ugly head again in the premiere episode of THE ALFRED HITCHCOCK HOUR entitled A PIECE OF THE ACTION (airdate 9/20/62) but this time the disease was dealt with in a somber manner. A professional cardsharp (Gig Young) posing as an investment counselor and married to a wealthy débutante (Martha Hyer) uses a deadly dangerous deception to dissuade his kid brother (Robert Redford) from following in his footsteps. HANGOVER (airdate 12/6/62), a later, more PC episode of the series, was a black riff on Frank Tashlin's WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? that saw a manic Madison Avenue wunderkind's (Tony Randall) life spin out of control in an alcoholic haze as he loses his job, meets a fantasy dream-girl (a va-va-voom Jayne Mansfield) in a bar, and can't remember how or why his wife (Dody Heath) went missing. "Hitch" dispensed with his customarily droll closing wrap-up to say a few words about Alcoholics Anonymous. The obscure, demure Dody Heath would compete with flamboyant sex symbol Jayne Mansfield one more time in the noir-like European proto-giallo, DOG EAT DOG (1965). Disturbing.