I've been watching Universal Studios' Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season Two on DVD in glorious black and white. Near the end of the 1957 season is an episode called A Little Sleep with Barbara Cook and Vic Morrow. We all know Vic Morrow from Blackboard Jungle (1955), his first movie, King Creole (1958), which was covered here, Portrait of a Mobster (1961), the television show Combat! (1962-1967), tons of television appearances, and his accidental death while filming Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). He was also the father of actress Jennifer Jason Leigh. Anyway, we all know Vic. But I didn't know Barbara Cook. And she is the dynamite doll of the episode. Singer-actress Barbara Nell Cook is best remembered for her work on Broadway. She won a 1958 Tony Award for The Music Man and a Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Barbara Cook Sings Mostly Sondheim. In fact, she is still around. In A Little Sleep, she plays Barbie Hallem, a flirtatious party girl who drinks, smokes, dances on tables, drives a T-bird convertible, and twists men around her little finger. Sometimes the stuff that Alfred Hitchcock Presents got past the television censors is quite amazing. Here are some screen captures of the episode. This is just a teaser, so I won't give away the ending. If this gets you at all curious, buy or rent the DVD. It's certainly worth it.
