The Cuckoo Clock story
Ida Blythe is staying alone at her cottage while a patient has recently escaped from a nearby mental institution. A woman named Madeleine sneaks into Ida's cottage, claiming that she was followed by the patient. Madeleine's rambling scares Ida, and when a man knocks on the door to tell her about the female runaway patient, Ida opens the door. However, the man is the real patient. Directed by: John Brahm. Story by: Frank Mace, Robert Bloch.
10 total · 1 choice · 3 major · 6 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| fear | choice | The story explored Ida's being in fear of an escaped mental patient who was reported to be on the loose in the vicinity of her remote cottage. |
| facing a home invader | major | Ida became increasingly concerned that Madeleine, who'd barged into her cottage, was an escaped mental patient. In the end, the real escaped mental patient entered Ida's cottage and went on to terrorize her. |
| mental illness | major | Madeleine spoke about mental illness with some assumed authority. We then saw a supposedly insane man. |
| the desire to get away from it all | major | Ida and Madeleine spoke about their respective impulses to get away from society. |
| coping with the death of a parent | minor | Dorothy spoke of her late father. |
| coping with the death of a spouse | minor | Ida spoke of her late husband. |
| fear of being alone | minor | Madeleine gave Ida a good scare and Ida then begged her to stay because Ida was afraid to be alone. |
| hatred | minor | Madeleine spoke of how being sick made you hate and want to hurt. |
| mother and daughter | minor | Ida Blythe's daughter Dorothy dropped her off at the cottage. |
| murder | minor | In his closing monologue, Alfred Hitchcock made it clear in the end that Ida was murdered by the mental hospital escapee. |