The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV Series) Bed of Roses (1964) User Reviews

typical but solid episode, good hour long episode

[HEFILM · 8/10 · 2 July 2013]

A smoothly done formula episode of the series. And when the formula works this well why complain? The opening 15 minutes seem very routine and the lead character is unsympathetic and all the characters seem clichéd but this is all part of the plan in James Bridges good screenplay. I've not read the story it's from so don't know where all the twists and ideas come from but they work.

Wicked and clever are the words here to describe the appeal. The show is well produced and well tracked with Herrmann music from other episodes and there is one very effective shock well done by the usually overlooked director Leacock. Torin Thatcher isn't very convincing as a southerner but it's a supporting role so, oh well.

Amusing and very unpolitically correct opening Hitchcock bit with a blunderbuss.

one of the best of a fine series

[kevinolzak · 9/10 · 7 May 2008]

Patrick O'Neal stars as a newlywed husband who, leaving his sleeping wife and a stubborn garage door behind, is forced to take a taxicab to a midnight rendezvous with a former lover who intends to blackmail him. The cab driver is played by George Lindsey (from THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW), who becomes indignant at the twenty dollar bill offered by O'Neal as payment since he doesn't have the proper change. The impatient passenger tells him to keep the change and also leaves behind a rose in the back seat. Once the cabby departs, O'Neal rings the doorbell but gets no answer. Finding the occupant apparently dozing on the couch, he tries to awaken her only to discover her dead, carefully removing any trace of his presence and quietly departing. The next morning, he's reading of the murder on the newspaper's front page when he's joined by his young bride, a talkative, slightly ditsy blonde played by Kathie Browne, whose father (Torin Thatcher) commands great power in the local community (which happens to be New Orleans.) Now employed by his father-in-law, O'Neal is shaken by an unexpected visit from the cab driver, bearing the rose and his own ideas about blackmail. That is the terrific setup courtesy scriptwriter James Bridges, who later proved to be a fine director as well (1980's "Urban Cowboy"). Patrick O'Neal was a solid actor who never quite reached the upper status (he died in 1994) while Kathie Browne was a ubiquitous presence on television during the sixties and seventies perhaps best known for her eye-catching turn as the desirable queen of a dying race on the STAR TREK episode "Wink of an Eye" in 1968. At about this time, she lamented playing mostly goody-two-shoes-type characters in westerns such as BONANZA and HONDO, becoming the wife of actor Darren McGavin, later appearing as a tough police lieutenant in the very last episode of KOLCHAK:THE NIGHT STALKER (she died in 2003 at the age of 73).

Without the unnecessary epilogue, this would merit a 10!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 31 May 2021]

"The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" as well as "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" were generally very good shows. But they both had one serious problem. In many episodes involving 'perfect murders', the show just could not leave well enough alone. After the brilliant episode, Hitchcock came out for his usual epilogue and invariably he'd say something like "the murderers were soon apprehended and paid the price for their crimes". In other words, a moralistic ending which essentially undoes much of the greatness of the episode! He'd never have done this with his movies....so I can only assume sponsors of the networks demanded this tacked on ending. And, in the case of "Bed of Roses", it took a perfect episode (which clearly merits a 10) and reduces it's impact considerably.

When the story begins, George (Patrick O'Neal) has just married the boss' pretty daughter. Despite this, soon after the wedding, George sneaks over to his old girlfriend's house after she sent him some note asking to see him. Well, when he walks in her place, he finds the girlfriend dead....and he runs instead of contacting the authorities.

The next day, the cab driver who drove him to the girlfriend's house arrives at the office. He informs George that he COULD tell the police about that cab ride....or he could pay for the cabbie's silence. Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, he agrees to meet the man later. In the meantime, he tells his wife about his predicament. Oddly, she's not angry at him at all and suggests he invite the driver over to their house. What happens next sure comes as a shock to George!

This is a perfect episode....minus Hitchcock's terrible concluding remarks. The acting and especially the writing are right on target.

Delicious Hitch

[dougdoepke · 30 September 2016]

First-rate Hitch. I love that early scene around breakfast. Husband George (O'Neal) sits silently by, enduring wife Mavis's (Browne) air-head blather as she flits around like a blonde butterfly. But George better keep quiet, because she's the boss's daughter entitling him to a big house, servants, and an executive position with the firm. Lovely empty-headed Mavis amounts to real tour-de- force by actress Browne. But who's that dead girl George finds in an apartment. Panicked, he leaves in a hurry along with obnoxious cab driver Kirby (Lindsey) Trouble is Kirby turns up later much to George's chagrin. So how will things sort out for the now besieged George.

Excellent screenplay that builds suspensefully to fill out the hour, without the pitfall of padding. Great character color, even George's dour deadpan that fits the character perfectly. And get a load of old hag Lulu who gives whole new meaning to 'barfly'. But maybe most of all is that really jarring got'cha, one of the best of the series. At the same time, the irony of the got'cha is unexpectedly delicious. Note too, how the episode's central relationship alters as more character is revealed. That's another good subtle feature. All in all, in my book, the hour's just below the series' very best.

(In passing—Mr. Amack's Storyline synopsis gives away much too much. Come on, IMDb, check these out before posting. After all, the episode depends a lot on surprises.)

One of the Best of the Series

[jett-59673 · 10/10 · 11 October 2021]

In what is one of the best productions of "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" (and my personal favorite), Actress Kathie Browne delivers a dazzling performance. In a role that early on appears to be no more than a spoiled rich girl airhead out of the sitcoms, Miss Browne is eventually revealed to be a powerhouse who has set the action in motion and one who has more tricks up her sleeve.

This episode has one of the most surprising shock scenes in all of Hitchcock's series, courtesy of Kathie Browne, playing a character who has a lot more on her mind than growing roses and serving molasses cookies on a covered tray.

Bad Goober! Bad Bad Goober!

[Hitchcoc · 10/10 · 22 May 2023]

Patrick MacNee is a rich man. He has married into wealth with a seemingly air-headed blond southern girl. He has had a past and one night he goes to see a showgirl "friend." When he gets there, she is dead--murdered. Because his garage door malfunctioned, he had to take a cab. The cab is driven by George Lindsay (Goober Pyle from Andy Griffith). When he reads about the murder, he starts the blackmail process. Up till now, it's pretty typical. The new wife is really tiresome and an avid gardener. But circumstances and rose bushes come into the picture. An molasses cookies. I won't spoil a great scene that comes out of the blue. Love this one--one of the best of all.

DON'T YOU LOVE THIS STUFF?

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 27 June 2023]

Can't get enough of Hitchcock's dark comedy. I agree with several reviewers that this may be one of the best episodes of the hour long series. Perfectly cast is devious and cool Patrick O'Neal (as George), married to goofy Kathie Brown (as Mavis) whose sugar daddy father has given him a fat job, a mansion and servants.

Everything's going fine and dandy until some blackmailers enter George's life (he has lots of secrets) ready to topple the apple cart.

There is one solution, though. The pleasant couple have a budding rose garden in the backyard with lots of space. In go the bodies and they plant more rose bushes! Simple Simon.

There are some memorable character actors in the supporting cast, including George Lindsey (from ANDY GRIFFITH), playing a smiling cab driver, who also wants his cut. Another hilarious scene involves George and his dutiful secretary --who bugged his office! She wants her cut, too! Where do these guys come from?

Kathie Browne is fun to watch, who later married actor Darren McGavin. A veteran of many tv shows, also working for Warner Brothers tv.

Recommended for Hitch completists. Yes, indeed. From 1964 CBS dvd box set release.

"I was thinking about growing a mustache!"

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 20 December 2022]

Not all Hitchcock scripts come across as airtight, but this episode had no flaws. A surprising revelation is made in the middle of the story by up till then, the ditsy wife (Kathie Browne) of George Maxwell (Patrick O'Neal), right after he became the object of blackmail by opportunistic cab driver Sam Kirby (George Lindsey). As if her shooting of Kirby didn't come right out of left field with no warning, Mrs. Maxwell follows up with an admission that she also was responsible for the murder of George's former lover Adele. In keeping with the story's title, Kirby is laid to rest in a newly dug rose bed in the couple's back yard, and I don't know about anyone else, but I was just as taken aback when Mavis Maxwell asked her husband to hand her a shovel! Now that's a woman who stands by her man! The story could almost have ended right there, but for George's enterprising secretary, who at the company owner's request (George's father-in-law, portrayed by Thorin Thatcher), recorded the meeting with Kirby and decided to cash in as well, in her own little way. A last-minute invite for Miss Hinchley (Alice Backes) to the Maxwell home for Geoge to consider her request was all that was necessary to figure on a new rose bed in the backyard. Though Hitchcock spoils the irony of the program in his closing monolog, no doubt attributed to the Hollywood Production Code soon to become history, there's some gratification to be taken in the fact that the Maxwell's wound up producing a prize-winning rose in absentia.

A Family Plot

[sneedsnood · 6/10 · 24 July 2015]

This is an uneven mixture of a crime drama and a black comedy, similar in many ways to Hitchcock's own "Family Plot" a decade later, even to the extent of using many of same sets of characters. This episode is replete with plot chiches, so many so that it is more fun to count them than it is to watch the predictable story unfold. It begins with an awkward, unlikely scene that seems to have no point, so the viewer can only guess that, like the gun at the beginning of a Checkov play, it will go off later in the plot, which it does. The plot concerns handsome George Maxwell, played by Patrick O'Neal, who is married to ditzy southern belle Mavis, daughter of George's rich and powerful boss. Mavis' parents live in a southern Gothic mansion with pillars on the porch and a Negro maid, this being 1964. George and his father in law have a man to man talk about the male roving eye, and the father warns George that he will never let anyone cause heartbreak for his daughter. George gulps, because he is has already been having an affair with his former mistress, a leggy showgirl whom he has found dead when arriving at her home for their final rendezvous. After finding her body, he had wiped away his fingerprints and retreated, imaging that nobody will be the wiser. But this is where a minor character reappears to become a major player and complicates the plot in dangerous ways. Soon we see ditzy Mavis planting roses, having already dug a ditch about eight feet long and three feet wide. We wonder what might eventually be buried in that innocent-looking hole, and find out soon enough, because Mavis turns out to be not so ditzy. Complicating matters even further is George's efficient, observant secretary, who is unusually plain -- so plain that she wears ugly, over-sized glasses and her hair in a bun, lest we miss the point. Knowing all the details, she presses her advantage. Can you see what might be coming next? The only surprise for this viewer was that the plain secretary's makeover did not make her stunning, only mildly attractive. The ridiculous story finally ends on an upbeat note with the promise of another murder, and everyone has a good laugh.

Those molasses cookies do it all the time

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 21 June 2014]

***SPOILERS***There's lots of digging in this "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" episode that has to do with both murder and blackmail that has the just married to the bosses daughter George Maxwell, Patrick O'Neal, getting involved in the murder of his former girlfriend bit actress Adele Beaumont who, while sneaking out of the Maxwell Mansion, found her murdered in her apartment. It just happened that the taxi driver Sam Kirby, George Lindsey, who drove George to Adele'as pad took note of all that and, reading about her murder the next day, began to put the squeeze on George for money. It's not that George murdered Adele but his presents at the murder scene could be very embarrassing for him and outrage his battle ax of a wife Mavis, Kathie Browne.

Finally agreeing to give in to Kirby's demands, $1,000.00 a month for a riverfront fishing shack, it's also agreed that Kirby come over to the Maxwell place and make engagement's together with Mavis for the monthly payoffs. As it soon became evident Mavis the betrayed wife had some plans of her own for both Kirby and her by now totally clueless husband George. Plans that involved digging up ground for the newly to be planted rose bushes and cooking up a batch of molasses cookies.

***SPOILERS*** George should thank this lucky stars that his not too wrapped together wife Mavis didn't put him on her hit-list since he was in fact too out of the loop to realize what was on her mind. And by just going along with her plans and later actions could very well put him, as a willing accomplice, behind bars together with her!

This show and The South

[Ripshin · 20 April 2024]

Hitchcock Hour consistently presents Southerners as drawling idiots.

The accents in this episode are horrendous, particularly Kathie Browne's, portraying her "Mavis" character as an excruciating (yet murdering) dimwit.

And George Lindsey has a natural, pleasant accent, yet he is directed to speak in an exaggerated manner. Just annoying, as is his stereotypical performance as "Sam." (It does tone down a bit, as the episode progresses.)

"Bed of Roses" is padded with several pointless, or drawn out, scenes. The timeline makes no sense. George finds his dead "girlfriend" in the middle of the night, and leaves without reporting it to the police, yet the newspapers have a detailed story a few hours later.

The first three-quarters of the episode takes place within 24 hours??

The conclusion is an out-of-the-blue contrivance. And of course, Hitchcock makes the standard "criminals always get captured" wrap-up. Meh.

The three stars are for Patrick O/Neal - always a pleasure to watch.