User Reviews

This episode has more viewer reviews than any other HItchcock episode I've come across so far as I watch this series in order. I think that's because there's so many ways to interpret the story as you'll see if you read a handful of them. The idea that Chill Wills' character is the escaped mental patient is one of them, except when he tells his story, you see the hands of someone clawing away on the outside of the train window during a snowstorm. Kilmer (Wills) repeatedly refers to his experience as a cowboy many years earlier when he almost froze to death while herding sheep on the range, and mentions how he feels like he's reliving his past. The ambiguity seems to be intended, because one might consider the 'person' outside the train as a manifestation of Kilmer's youth somehow becoming corporeal and trying to get into the warmth of the train. The appearance of the apparition reminded me of the gremlin episode of the Twilight Zone, the one where William Shatner literally went crazy believing he saw some kind of creature on the wing of an airplane in flight.

There is also of course, the matter of the disruptive young boy Johnny (Peter Lazer). His parents (Biff McGuire, Cloris Leachman) have different views on how to discipline him; in the father's case, he really doesn't discipline him at all. He wrongfully, as the mother insists, decides to reward the boy with a silver dollar for remaining quiet and well behaved, which he should be doing on his own anyway. Not only that, but Johnny is given a couple of free passes when he does disrupt the story by Kilmer. And in typical fashion, the undisciplined lad slips his 'reward' under his belt where it quickly slips out, only to be filched by the train porter. I think it bothered me more that Scatman Crothers was the one to take the coin than for the boy to lose it, as he's always been one of my favorite character actors, and I always considered him a good guy.

So ultimately, I think the episode leaves more questions than answers with it's ambiguous conclusion. The case of the escaped mental patient is never resolved entirely, leaving a couple of possibilities. And Johnny is certainly going to continue his disruptive behavior, which before it became clinically diagnosed, displayed all the symptoms of attention deficit disorder. I think out of all the Hitchcock episodes I've seen so far, this is the one that will stay with me the longest.

In the 1958 entry "Don't Interrupt," a young couple (Cloris Leachman and Biff McGuire) with their son are traveling on a train through the southwest during a violent blizzard. The rambunctious boy, little Johnny (Peter Lazer), is causing all sorts of problems for them. He won't shut up for one thing, and is running around wildly with his toy gun and cowboy outfit. Finally a strange old man (Chill Wills) meets them all in one of the train's lounge compartments and immediately gets the full attention of Johnny. He's got a million stories to tell them about his own days as a real cowboy out in the cold weather, on the range, in the middle of a blizzard etc. While old Chill is entrancing them with his yarns, the radio blares out some information about an escaped mental patient from a nearby hospital who is lost in the blizzard somewhere. Meanwhile, the boy's father offers his son a silver dollar to keep his mouth shut for at least ten minutes to keep him from interrupting Chill's fantastic and riveting account of the old days. Johnny accepts the offer but is soon faced with a do or die dilemma. He notices that a man is outside the train trying to climb on-board somehow and scratching on one of the windows to get noticed. It's the escaped mental patient for sure--but Johnny is the only one who sees him. Should he open his big mouth and tell everyone or should he just collect the silver dollar and listen to Chill's tall tale? Not exactly much of a choice there, but Johnny's a greedy kid and that silver dollar will look awfully nice in his pocket. The final result is that the poor mental patient falls by the wayside and most likely dies in the snow...while Johnny somewhat reluctantly accepts the money for sitting through Mr. Wills' story. Wills is happy and Johnny's parents are happy. The waiter serving them in the train car (Scatman Crothers, of all people) is even happier. That's because Johnny unknowingly drops the silver dollar on the floor and Crothers is able to confiscate it as everyone files out to go to bed. What's the moral of this disjointed tale? There really is none. Maybe later, Johnny will realize that he allowed a man to die a shivering death just so he could collect some money that he lost five minutes later.

The story-line of this episode is puzzling, to say the least. It ends on a very ambiguous note and doesn't seem to have a satisfactory resolution. Give it an "A" for realism and a "D" for content. Peter Lazer, who played little Johnny, is probably best known for his role as the young married fellow in "Hombre" who isn't able to shoot down Richard Boone at the end of the movie and inadvertently causes Paul Newman's demise. Academy Award winner Cloris Leachman is still a working actress today and remains one of the most recognizable faces in movie and television history. Alfred Hitchcock made it a point to employ black actors as much as he could and Scatman Crothers has a key role in this episode. He's still best known for his appearance in Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining."

This review contains spoilers, but not of this program.

Hitchcock often had a moral to his stories. The most famous episode was probably A Lamb To the Slaughter in which Barbara Bel Geddes bashes her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, thereby causing his demise. The police investigating the crime unwittingly eat the murder weapon which has thawed out and been cooked and served to them as they try to solve the case. The show ends with Barbara chuckling at having gotten away with her dastardly deed. However, in the epilogue, Hitchcock takes the trouble to tell us that Barbara remarried and tried to get rid of her second husband the same way. Unfortunately, he was an absent minded sort and had forgotten to plug in the freezer. The leg of lamb "was as soft as mutton".

The porter in the present episode represents Justice. The kid does not profit from his crime.

Yes, the characters drive you up the wall, yet what I see is the ghost of the escaped mental patient telling the story inside as he dies outside.

I've been watching AH t.v. episodes for 60 years and this is by far the worst of the lot. If you want to waste a half hour of your life then watch this episode, 'Don't Interrupt!' The only thing it looks like this episode is trying to prove is how low a black man will go to get a dollar! The black waiter player by Scatman Cruthers is able to snag a silver dollar from a little white boy who doesn't know he dropped it, and that's what we're left to ponder at the end of the episode. REALLY?!?! They woudn't allow garbage like this on today's t.v.! And that's saying a lot when you think about the garbage that IS shown on t.v. night after night here in the year 2018!!

The episode itself is not bad. What bothers me is the portrayal of the black guy as a thief. He, of course is the one who steals the boy's coin. Shame on Scatman Crothers for accepting that role...Shame! Shame!! Shame!!!

It's a shame that this episode is confusing to so many people because it is actually very profound. First of all, there is a reason why the entire first half of the episode is spent showing us how horrible a child Johnny is - as well as how inept his parents are. Reviewers have complained that they want to slap this child or even more his parents. To be fair - that is the reaction they are hoping for. Meanwhile we get the information about the escaped mental patient. The second half of the story is that of Chill Wills and the challenge to Johnny not to interrupt his story. When the mental patient appears, crying for help out in the storm, Johnny wants to say something, but he wants the silver dollar more. When the story is over he tries to tell them about the man, but he is soon distracted by the silver dollar and completely forgets about him. The final moment is important. Scatman Crothers steals the coin and asks the question "How much could a dollar be worth to a little boy?" Well, we've just been shown how much it was worth to Johnny. It was worth another person's life. Little Johnny is now a murderer. We are surprised. But should we be? Children come into the world not as angels but as "little savages," and greatly need parenting. But these parents have done nothing but verbally correct him with no consequences. And so Johnny is thoroughly self-centered and incapable of having much concern for others. Neglectful parents are a good way to wind up with a criminal. You feel like slapping some sense into these parents? Good. You just got the point of the story.

The problem with this episode is that it tells three stories (not just two), which don't mesh. The first is the parent's inability to control their child. The second is the question of whether Chill Wills is the escaped lunatic. The third is the attitude of the black waiters towards while people.

This is shown when the silver dollar slips out of the kid's belt, and one of the waiters steps on it, so the kid can't find it. He remarks that if his father could give him one, he can give him another.

I'd like to add (for those interested in Western lore) that cowboys commonly put silver coins in their canteens to keep the water fresh (especially important when people drinking from the same canteen unavoidably "swap spit" ). Silver is a natural bactericide, and is used in some water-purification systems. When a cowboy raises his canteen to drink, you should hear it rattle. I've never seen this in any TV show or motion picture.

I liked this episode. I liked it because.. well.. what a nice thing to do.. take a trip on a train. And the warmth of the train when it was so cold outside. How cozy. And the little kid with the cowboy get up on. That is something kids don't have these days. And i don't see it as a wrong thing in its time. I mean, it wouldn't be wrong now either.. but we live in a different time. I liked the suspense.. not knowing what would happen.. whether they would help the man outside or not. The parents were obviously not wise, but that was a part of the plot and the story would not have worked with them being wise.

I don't know.. i just liked the whole story. I liked the old man cowboy telling the story and talking to the family.. and the boy.

I liked the episode.

Sorry this is not a more interesting review.. but i just wanted to say that i liked it.

Actually, this story contains TWO acts of immorality involving silence.

The first is, of course, the little boy's failure to announce the presence of the figure struggling in the snow outside the window.

This is the first silent act of avarice.

The second is the waiter's failure to tell the boy that the silver dollar has fallen to the floor.

His silence is also motivated by avarice.

He knows that the dollar belongs to the little boy, but he fails to speak out so that he can confiscate the money, to the evident disgust of his bar-tending colleague.

The waiter is an adult; he should be less dazzled by the dollar, but he uses his adult reasoning powers to rationalize his act.

(Furthermore, if he were a bit foxier, he might have returned the money in hope of getting a tip from the boy's parents, thereby getting money and moral kudos, too.)