How to Neuter a Novel: "Annabel," The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, 1962

Home in New Hope by 9:30 PM--still missed 1/2 the Hitchcock show....Hitchcock did a rather good job of This Sweet Sickness, according to Pat [Schartle].  But quite some exaggerating.

--entry in Patricia Highsmith diary, 1 November 1962

The above was Patricia Highsmith's entire comment about "Annabel," the 1962 adaptation of her novel The Sweet Sickness as an hour-long episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (formerly Alfred Hitchcock Presents), the famed anthology series.  I judge she was just happy with the money and the publicity.  After all, even if Hitch Almighty did not direct the episode, it was still "his" show.  But, really, the episode leaves a lot to be desired, I think.

David (Dean Stockwell) persists

Frankly as an adaptation of the novel it's something of a travesty.  To recap very briefly, the novel, which I reviewed recently here, is about the growing obsession of a man, David Kelsey (who also leads a double weekend life as Robert Neumeister), for a woman named Annabel, his former girlfriend, who is now married to another man.

To be sure, there are a lot of little changes in the television version.

For example, altering the character's name from Annabelle to Annabel, presumably to heighten the connection with Edgar Allan Poe's haunting, melancholy poem Annabel Lee, and having David supposedly spending every weekend out-of-town with his father, rather than his mother, this evidently to discourage immediate comparisons with Psycho, Hitchcock's epochal 1961 film about a polite, mother-obsessed young man.  

Both the novel Psycho and the Annabel television episode were scripted by Robert Bloch, and Bloch probably did not want to have viewers of the episode immediately "go there"--though ultimately the episode does indeed go there.  If I'm being too cryptic, watch the episode for yourself and see.

Also Neumeister is altered to "Newmaster," evidently in order not to confuse people with German.  (Highsmith's father--Highsmith was her stepfather--was of German ancestry and she loved throwing German words around.)

Annabel (Susan Oliver) gets another phone call

But these minor changes aren't the problem.  The problem, as I see it, is the adaptation ends up owing a lot more to Robert Bloch and Psycho than it does to Highsmith and her novel. 

The novel, as I discussed in my last blog post, is about an obsessed man's mental disintegration and it's filled with pathos.  In the adaptation, the man, David Kelsey/Robert Neumeister, is completely nuts to start with and is in no way sympathetic.  

David, as scripted and played by a young Dean Stockwell, who was coming off his film performance as a neurotic murderer in Compulsion, is just a creepy, scary guy, and nothing more.

One of the notable things about Highsmith as a crime writer is how she draws readers in to empathize with her troubled protagonists.  In the book, which is told from David's point of view, Annabelle's husband Gerald is not remotely appealing and Annabelle herself seems a very passive figure, not all that "into" Gerald herself, even though she is committed to the marriage, mostly on account of their new baby, it would seem.

I thought it might have been Highsmith on the phone
to complain about the script

On TV Annabel's husband, played by Hank Brandt, is a big hunky guy and Annabel, played by Susan Oliver, is very much in love with him.  

Dean Stockwell's David of course is quite an attractive man, but boyishly fey and very definitely creepy as mentioned above, begging comparison with Psycho's Norman Bates, as indelibly portrayed by Anthony Perkins in his iconic performance.  

In many ways, this could be Psycho all over again, without all the superb shuddery touches.  Everything in Annabel is so new and bright I found it hard to get very frightened.  All in all, it's an okay 48 minutes if you want to watch a quickie TV shocker, but as an adaptation of Highsmith's novel, it really rather reeks.  

Creepy stalker Linda/Effie, played by Kathleen Nolan
who somehow becomes the heroine in this version

The performance that was actually closest to the book was that of Kathleen Nolan (who bears an astonishing resemblance to actress Amy Adams) as Linda Brennan (Effie Brennan in the book).  In my view Linda Brennan is every bit as much a creepy stalker as her quarry, David himself.  Her stalking is well-captured in the TV version (in fact it is amplified), though disappointingly Linda is allowed the escape the consequences of her behavior.  The ending bears no resemblance whatsoever to the book. 

"Quite some exaggerating" as Highsmith put it is letting the episode off lightly.  But I'm sure she enjoyed the check!  After all Highsmith was underappreciated in the U. S. for a long time, hardly even reprinted in paperback in the U. S. for decades, as amazing as this seems now.  But that's a story for another blog post.

Now that I've spent all this time criticizing Annabel, you can check it out here.  But please read the book first!  Of, if not first, just read it!