Alfred Hitchcock Presents Bed Of Roses: “Bed of Roses,” the final episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour with writing by James Bridges to appear in the ninth season, succeeds by expanding on a short tale that was already excellent. Emily Neff’s novel “No Bed of Roses” was not published until more than a decade after the show aired. The short tale “Bed of Roses” was published in March 1977.
Novel issue of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, and was broadcast on CBS on Friday, May 22, 1964. George Maxwell is seated in his office when his secretary, Miss Hinchley, informs him that a guy has arrived to see him. (https://almomento.net) Even though it’s July in New Orleans, the man handed the secretary an envelope holding a sheet of paper with the words “April 17” written on it. George brings the man into his office and discovers that he is a cab driver named Jim Kirby who has been hunting for George since he dropped him off at Adele Beaumont’s house on April 17, the night she was murdered, a year ago.
When Kirby tries to blackmail and George tells him to go, the cab driver suggests speaking with George’s wife, Mavis. Mavis Rothrock, the only daughter of Herbert Rothrock, “chief of the shipping firm where [George] was a clerk,” is described as “big, nearsighted, and shy.” George married Mavis for her money and got a promotion, but she became “a controlling, domineering wife,” so he turned to Adele for “warmth, tolerance, and company.” Mavis had gone to bed early the year before, on April 17th. Because the garage door got stuck, George had to take a taxi to Adele’s house.
Inside The Novel Phenomena
When he entered her home, he discovered she had been slain. George was never named as a suspect in the case in the months that followed. George gets home early after Kirby leaves George’s office to discover Mavis supervising the digging of a rose garden. When he tells her about Kirby, she realizes he’s lying when he says he’s never met, Adele. Mavis insists that they must pay Kirby’s blackmail money, and she has George call him and invite him to their home that night. Kirby asks $1000 per month when he arrives.
Mavis appears with drinks and a tray removes the napkin covering the tray and uses a revolver hidden beneath the napkin to shoot and murder Kirby. Kirby’s body is buried in a pit prepared for rose bushes, and the bushes are planted above the corpse by George and Mavis. Mavis tells George to take Kirby’s cab to the top of a bridge and toss his cap, wallet, and revolver over the edge to make it appear as if he jumped. George understands as he drives home that Mavis must have murdered Adele and then bolted the garage door shut to keep him from going to the crime scene.
Mrs. Hinchley announces that she taped George’s conversation with Kirby and demands a raise the next morning when George arrives at work. The story’s title, “No Bed of Roses,” has a double meaning: George and Mavis’ marriage isn’t a bed of roses, and Kirby’s body is buried in one. The surprise conclusion is effective, but James Bridges’ teleplay takes it a step farther. A flashback in the story is relocated to the beginning of the show, as is customary on the Hitchcock show so that the story can be delivered chronologically.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents Bed Of Roses
George makes a phone call to his party on a dark and stormy night in “Bed of Roses,” but is unable to connect. When he goes to check on Mavis, he discovers that she is sound asleep. He takes a cab to Adele’s house since the garage door is jammed. After Kirby argues that he can’t break such large money for a fare of fewer than two dollars, he hands him a twenty-dollar bill and instructs him to keep the change. Kirby will recall his passenger as a result of this exchange.
In these early scenes, music supervisor Stanley Wilson makes extensive use of Bernard Herrmann’s “Behind the Locked Door” theme, the five-note phrase providing a sense of foreboding to George’s discovery of Adele’s dead body. George opens the newspaper at breakfast the next morning, and we see the headline: “Show Girl Murdered,” referring to Adele. Mavis joins him for breakfast, and the unattractive woman described in print is a knockout on screen, in dramatic contrast to the story but typical with earlier Hitchcock adaptations. James Bridges reduces the time sequence as well as shifting the scenes around.
The murder occurs in April of one year and Kirby visits George in June of the next year in Neff’s version. The murder occurs one night in the teleplay, and the article appears in the newspaper the next morning or the next day. When George spills coffee and Mavis wipes it up with the front page of the newspaper, a shot of coffee flowing over the dead girl’s photo resembling blood is added by director Philip Leacock. George Maxwell is a former playboy who recently married Mavis, the daughter of his boss. George, on the other hand, needs to meet with an ex-girlfriend in order to offer her money.
George’s Secretary Threatens him with blackmail
When he arrives in a cab, he discovers his ex-girlfriend has died. He returns home, but the cabbie who brought him to the crime scene threatens him with blackmail the next day. When George informs their wife Mavis, she murders the cab driver and buries him in the rose garden. Mavis then informs George that she assassinated his ex-girlfriend because she was blackmailing him as well. When George’s secretary threatens him with blackmail since he knows about the cab driver, George contacts Mavis and informs her that additional rose bushes are on the way.
Three of the actresses in supporting roles are also worth mentioning. Miss Finchley, the blackmailing secretary, is played by Alice Backes (1923-2007). She appeared in six episodes of the Alfred Hitchcock series, including “The Jar” and “The Second Wife,” from 1948 to 1997. Celeste is played by Pauline Meyers (1913-1996). She was on television from 1938 until 1992, and this was her only appearance on the Hitchcock series, but she was memorable in two other roles: first, as Mamalois, the voodoo practitioner in Kolchak: The Night Stalker’s “The Zombie,” and second, as the witness who needs thick spectacles in My Cousin Vinny (1992).
Finally, Ethel Griffies (1878-1975), who plays the inebriated elderly lady in the bar scene, gets a few minutes of screen time before being hauled away. She had been acting on screen since 1917 and turned 86 the year “Bed of Roses” debuted. Werewolf of London (1935), Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945), and Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), in which she plays ornithologist Mrs. Bundy, are among her many films.
She only appeared in one episode of the Hitchcock series. “No Bed of Roses” has not been reissued, and “Bed of Roses” is not available on the internet or on DVD, although it is still seen in syndication on a regular basis. The Alfred Hitchcock Hour is now shown on MeTV on weeknights, thus “Bed of Roses” should air in the coming weeks.
