Night Fever is a last season episode of the Alfred Hitchcock hour, manages to be highly dramatic as well as suspenseful, as plain jane spinster nurse Colleen Dewhurst is given the assignment of looking after a severely wounded and rather handsome criminal who was involved in a robbery in which a young police officer was killed. The bedridden criminal turns on the charm, and nurse Dewhurst, circumspect at first, eventually falls for it. She is warned by the plainclothesman in charge of the case that she is dealing with a dangerous character. Before long, as his health gradually improves, the young man is trying to get his nurse to help him escape, making all sorts of promises of romance and adventure as part of the deal. You see, he's fallen in love with her. Or so he says.
This entry in the Hitchcock series is a kind of chamber piece, set in a drab city hospital and featuring a small cast. There's an air of desolation and abandonment to the place, as the viewer gets a strong sense that this is where society's insulted and injured go. Also, the dangerous. The story unfolds slowly but surely, as its central character is drawn into the escape plan of a man she has been warned about by the police. As the story shifts into high gear near the end it takes on the feeling of a dream, with scenes of driving around the city in a pouring rain. The resolution is satisfactory and there's no need to spoil it here. Miss Dewhurst dominates the episode, ably assisted by Tom Simcox as her shifty patient and, especially, Joe De Santis, sans his usual mustache, and quite forceful here as a policeman who knows his job, the criminal mentality and human nature in equal measure.
This entry in the Hitchcock series is a kind of chamber piece, set in a drab city hospital and featuring a small cast. There's an air of desolation and abandonment to the place, as the viewer gets a strong sense that this is where society's insulted and injured go. Also, the dangerous. The story unfolds slowly but surely, as its central character is drawn into the escape plan of a man she has been warned about by the police. As the story shifts into high gear near the end it takes on the feeling of a dream, with scenes of driving around the city in a pouring rain. The resolution is satisfactory and there's no need to spoil it here. Miss Dewhurst dominates the episode, ably assisted by Tom Simcox as her shifty patient and, especially, Joe De Santis, sans his usual mustache, and quite forceful here as a policeman who knows his job, the criminal mentality and human nature in equal measure.