WE ALWAYS FELL IN LOVE WITH OUR CHARACTERS,
THAT’S WHY WE KILLED THEM

HITCHCOCK:
Frankly, I feel that television commercials are ideally suited to this type of program. This next one for example: it’s deadly!

TITLE:
PAPA EDDIE SOLVES A CRIME

[husband:]
Oh! This coffee is criminal!

[wife:]
Honey, you killed the petunias!

[husband:]
Then you admit it: your coffee really is murder!

[back at the supermarket]

[wife:]
Papa Eddie, my coffee! It’s murder!

HITCHCOCK:
You see, crime does not pay! You must have a sponsor!

[Papa Eddie:]
Try Folgers. Mountain grown FOR richer flavor.

[wife:]
Well, alright.

[back at home]

[husband:]
You know it’s a crime...

STORY:
‘Maybe we loved cinema so much we annihilated it,’ I ventured. ‘It’s possible,’ he concurred.

TITLE:
MOUNTAIN GROWN FOR RICHER FLAVOR

STORY:
We always fell in love with our characters, that’s why we killed them.

We lingered for a while on the pleasures of murder. I argued that dying was an act of love, of complete surrender. We always played our crimes as though they were love scenes.
— ‘Intimate and domestic’, he murmured in agreement. ‘Television brought murder into the American home, where it always belonged.’

‘So, tell me, how would you like to die?’

‘Come now,’ he mocked me. ‘We have imagined every type of murder, shooting, strangulation, stabbing, being hurled to death from a national monument, marriage ... Oh, yes, marriage. Marriage can be very deadly. Some of our most exquisite murders have been conjugal, ... performed in all tenderness with the aid of a kitchen appliance.

— ‘Personally, I like poison. It can only be administered to those who trust their killer – their family, spouses, lovers. Murder is a gift, like love.

‘So, tell me... how would you like to die?’