ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS - "The Jar" (1986)

Probably anybody who reads this blog will not be surprised by this week's Saturday Night Special.

One of the interesting things about "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" from the 80's is that it's assbackwards from the way most things were. What's usually the case is that the 1950's or 1960's version would be thirty minutes long, and then in the 80's or later when they remade a show it would be an hour long. "The Twilight Zone" is a good example. "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" from the 60's was an hour long, and the 80's versions were on only 30 minutes.

 

So, like it or not, you can't blame Alfred, because he had already been dead for six years when this show came out. This version of "The Jar" was episode number 19 from the first season of the 'new' "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." It's still based on the same Ray Bradbury story, but now our hero is an artist instead of a country bumpkin, but for the most part, the basic story is very similar.

Griffin Dunne plays the lackey in this version, a struggling artist named Knoll. I've always liked Griffin Dunne for his paranoid character in the 1985 film "After Hours," and of course, the unforgettable "American Werewolf In London."

I have in the past, and I will in the future, watch almost any damn thing that Paul Bartel is in. Here he's a pompous art critic.

Tim Burton directed this version of "The Jar" in between "Pee-wee's Big Adventure," and "Beetlejuice."

Instead of Billy Barty, the little man who sells the dupe "The Jar" this time is Peter (Grizzel) Risch as junkyard proprietor Happy Kaufman. Peter was only 2'2" tall. He passed away a couple of years after this at the age of 42.

This time the mysterious jar was found inside an old wrecked car.

Knoll decides to make "The Jar" the star of his newest exhibition, and makes a nice stand for it.

As weird as this one is, the black and white version of the contents of "The Jar" were a lot creepier!

In fact, this version of "The Jar" is kind of pretty by comparison.

Just like in the other version, his wife likes her boyfriend better than "The Jar."

They might be high society muckety-mucks, but they are as just as transfixed and enamored by "The Jar" as the country folks were.

The gallery crowd is completely captivated!

Mesmerized, stupefied, and bewitched. Nobody knows what to make of it!

 

Another high point of this version is lovely and hilarious at the same time, Laraine (104 episodes of SNL) Newman, in a rather small part as gallery owner Periwinkle.

Knoll is now on the top of the art world with his latest exhibition "The Jar, Part Deux."

 

Who cares that his wife has permanently left him? His newfound success is much more important, and besides, she was a two-timing bitch anyway!