The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV Series) Bonfire (1962) User Reviews

Is it possible to be too helpful?? You betcha!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 1 May 2021]

Peter Falk plays a most unusual character....a self-created preacher who befriends folks and takes care of them and then...kills them! At the beginning of the show, you see him with an old lady....acting so kind and caring. But then he insists on dancing with her and he makes the lady dance and dance until she has a heart attack.

In the next scene, the dead woman's niece (Dina Merrill) arrives to take possession of the estate. And, not surprisingly, the nice and helpful preacher is there to assist her. You can't help but wonder how he plans on killing this much younger and healthier lady.

While this isn't a great episode and the twist really is non-existent, it is well done and SUPER-creepy. Falk's character is certainly memorable and awful...and it's worth seeing.

Bonfire of the Vanities

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 28 November 2011]

***SPOILERS*** Inducing old frail and naive Naomi Freshwater, Partricia Collinge, to suffer a fatal heart attack by forcing her to dance with him and denying Naomi her heart medication as she slowly went under taxi driver and part-time country preacher Robert Evans, Peter Falk, felt that she'll leave her Victorian style house to him. You can just imagine how Evans felt when Naomi's niece Laura, Dina Merrill, showed up days later claiming the house that her Aunt Naomi left to her in her will!

Evens using his country boy charm and good looks tries to get Laura to marry him so he can get his grubby hands on Aunt Naomi's house by being the man, as Laura's husband, of the house. At first falling for his act in being a "Man of God" with nothing but good intentions Laura somehow smells a rat in Evans' "Holier then Thou" routine. She also get a bit disgusted with him trying to force himself on her which is the exact opposite that a "Man of God" that Evans claims to be should be doing. In fact it's later when Laura tells the overbearing and a bit obsessed with her Evens to take a hike that he,in not knowing his own strength, ends up strangling her to death!

***SPOILERS*** In trying to rid the body from the police Evans gets Laura's gardener young Craig Curtis to help him dump her body, that's locked in a trunk, in a ditch and set in on fire thus cremate the evidence! That evening with Evans giving one of his fire and brimstone sermons at his church about good and evil all of a sudden the sky opens up and it starts pouring cats and dogs. It's then that young Curtis discovers Laura's half burned body and calls the local police to investigate! Which leads them straight to her as well as Naomi's killer Robert Evans!

A Fine Performance by Falk

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 8 May 2023]

Peter Falk, our wonderful Columbo, plays a coal miner turned evangelist/cab driver. He kills an old lady, watching her die as he withholds her medicine. When her attractive heir come to take the house, our guy begins to plot. He kills her and puts her in a steamer trunk. He then burns it in a fire pit, but there are consequences. Falk's performance is excellent as he wines and dines the old lady. He then turns into a viper. We last see him at a tent meeting, lecturing a little flock in dealing with their sins. But there is something that he hadn't counted on. See the irony in the hymn they are singing and what is going on in the background.

Misfire

[dougdoepke · 23 June 2015]

I hate to knock one of my favorite TV series, but this entry has got to be one of Hitch's least. There's no real tension, creepiness, or even irony since the climax is played more like an after-thought. Direction is slack, while the writing is unstructured.

Seems Evans (Falk) wants his aunt's house so he won't have to back to the coal mine, and by golly he's going to get it. Then the lovely Laura (Merrill) arrives and he finds out she's next in line for the aunt's estate, so what's he going to do.

The first ten-minutes, with Collinge as the aunt, had me thinking this would be a superior entry. But I should have hit the 'off' button since what unfolds after that is pretty aimless. We figure the 60-minutes has to go somewhere, but there's very little build-up to anything. Plus, padding is all too evident, e.g. hauling the trunk down endless stairs.

I'm inclined to think Falk is miscast, certainly as a lay preacher. He's clearly a better low-key Columbo than a high-key Elmer Gantry. Also, Merrill is way too pretty to be convincing as a lonely lass. Nonetheless, this may be the only series entry to give God the last word as he communicates from on high.

"Well, how many souls did you save this week?"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 30 August 2022]

A number of anomalies are present in this story that leave me scratching my head. For example, was it common, even back in the Sixties, to dig a burn pit to dispose of unwanted items? I thought that was pretty bizarre, especially in what looked like an upscale neighborhood. I could see how a guy like Robert Evans (Peter Falk) would try to con his way into procuring a house to replace his mission tent, but going the murder route wasn't going to cut it with the Man upstairs. What I don't see is how a refined and lovely woman like Laura (Dina Merrill) would be attracted to Evans in the first place; the guy came across as a creep right out of the gate. For someone who had the wits to pull himself out of the coal mines, I don't see how Evans thought he could get away with disposing of Laura's corpse by burning it up in a trunk. Forget about the downpour that doused the flames in the burn pit, the fire would never have reached a temperature to reduce the body to ash. I get it how viewers at the time this originally aired probably wouldn't have analyzed elements in the story as much, but watching the episode today makes the story much less credible.

superlative Peter Falk performance

[grizzledgeezer · 10/10 · 4 February 2016]

"Alfred Hitchcock Presents" focused on stories with shock or twist endings (think Saki or O. Henry), which worked well in a half-hour format. But the tension needed to sustain such stories is difficult to hold over an hour, and "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour" was far more down than up. (There are exceptions, such as "An Unlocked Window".)

"Bonfire" is is another exception. I always thought Peter Falk was a good actor, but here he achieves -- dare I say it? -- greatness, something few actors ever deliver on TV. He gives a subtle, beautifully modulated performance as a sinner-turned-preacher, desperate to get hold of the house an elderly woman verbally bequeathed to him before he provoked her death. Only a bland Dina Merrill stands in his way.

If good acting can be defined by a single word, it's "restraint". In a role most actors would play for Gantry-ish excess, Falk seems stable and reasonable most of the time, leaving room to a believable excitement when it's called for. It's one of Falk's best performances anywhere.

I can't say too much good about Joseph Pevney's direction. This is one of those rare, rare, rare TV episodes in which we see the director's hand, and it's a sure one. When Falk murders Merrill, not only is the acting perfect, but so is the //lighting//. This is what you'd expect from a theatrical film, not a hunk of TV sausage cranked out in six days.

Strongly recommended.

Quite good-- don't listen to the naysayers

[PhillyBen · 9/10 · 27 April 2022]

I'll keep this brief. I can understand why some user-reviewers have invoked Elmer Gantry as a comparison, but the one who brought up Robert Mitchum had it even more on the money. Peter Falk brings elements of each, but more Mitchum. He gives an excellent and creepy performance.

Others have given plot summaries, and you don't really want more of those, do you? It's a short screenplay and won't take you long to figure out what's going on. What I want to mention is that in addition to good directing and acting, the play isn't purely obvious. Having read and watched many Hitchcock-type short stories and short screenplays, I knew to look out for irony and twists. I won't give any spoilers, but I'll say that things didn't go just as I had expected-- and that's a good thing. Not the most inventive or mind-blowing Hitchcock piece out there, but this is a solid and creepy production with pretty good character sketches. One of the better Alfred Hitchcock Hour presentations I've seen.

Flannery O'Connor probably liked this one.

[bribabylk · 4/10 · 18 January 2022]

In some of her stories she seemed to suggest that serial killers were doing God's work.

The opening is a zinger, and Peter Falk's slow-burn intensity is never less than compelling, but I have to agree that at an hour the story seems padded. Dina Merrill's character's commitment to rootlessness would only have been interesting if it had helped her in some way, or perhaps had masked a dark secret of her own. As it is, watching Falk's attempted courtship of Merrill stretches one's patience and the plot's credibility. The only real reason to stick with the episode for the entire running time is to see if Dina Merrill makes it out alive.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

She doesn't.

A big storage trunk in a suspense-themed show is kind of like Chekhov's gun; once it's introduced, you know someone is gonna end up inside it.

Not His Aunt!

[CherCee · 9/10 · 8 August 2022]

Patricia Collinge was Dina Merrill's aunt, not Peter Falk's! If she was both of their aunt, that would make them cousins! He was someone that befriended her, hoping she would leave her house to him to use as a church. He made her have a heart attack & wouldn't give her her medicine, so she died. Then he finds out that she had left the house to her niece, not him.

Not A Riveting Episode

[film_poster_fan · 3/10 · 9 January 2022]

Patricia Collinge is the only actor of interest in this show and she disappears early in the episode, unfortunately. Neither Peter Falk nor Dina Merrill have the acting ability to sustain one's interest for the remainder of the Hour. The direction is heavy handed and the writing is very poor. The episode seems to last much longer than its allotted timeframe.

Night of the Preacher

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9/10 · 4 January 2021]

I am surprised that no one seems to have noticed the analogy between this topic and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, where Pete Falk would have the Bob Mitchum's place. This little story is terrific, bringing a top Falk performance. Among the best of this series.

I JUST WANT TO KILL YOU, THAT'S ALL!

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 2 May 2023]

Two top stars; Peter Falk and Dina Merrill play well off each other in a fascinating, yet creepy tale. I agree with the last reviewer this could be described (in a way) as a tv version of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, that starred Robert Mitchum as a homicidal preacher.

Falk fits the part remarkably well as a wry small town preacher (where else?) who sets his sights on an old lady's fortune. When she dies, his next victim is her niece (excellently played by Dina Merrill), only this time he applies some charm.

The second half of this thriller is classic Hitchcock as you see Falk slowly transform into a Jekyll/Hyde character, and he is scary! Always comes the knock at the door at the wrong time?

The trunk scene is the macabre best of the best.

Long time Hitchcock favorite Patricia Collinge plays Merrill's elderly aunt. Written by William D. Gordon, who did six episodes for Hitch, also a few for Boris Karloff's tv show, THRILLER. Gordon later did many classic stories for IRONSIDE.

A GOTSTA' SEE. From SEASON 1 EPISODE 13 remastered Universal dvd box set.

Very creepy...

[Ripshin · 25 December 2023]

...and not in a good way. The whole thing is very "cringe-worthy."

I really like both of the lead performers, but this is just...UGH.

I suppose that this could be considered the "Anti-Columbo."

There is NO WAY that Merrill would be attracted to this smarmy man. It is impossible to believe that these two people would be appealing to each other.

I guess neighborhood "fire pits" were a "thing," at the time? Dig a hole in your suburban yard, burn stuff, and bury it? I've seen that sort of thing in the country, but...

Once again, the Universal lot is used extensively. "Colonial Street," seen in so many of these hour episodes.

The ending is laughable.

Passable but not great

[coltras35 · 5/10 · 17 May 2022]

Seems Evans (Falk) wants his aunt's house so he won't have to back to the coal mine. He wants to turn her house in to a church, but the pretty Laura (Merrill) is next in line for her aunt's estate, and when she arrives, he befriends her and even courts her in the hope of marrying her, but will his rustic charm be enough to sway into accepting such proposal?

This is a creepy episode, accentuated so by Peter Falk's character. He's one creepy guy, as he forcibly charms his way into Laura's life. His acting is quite good, though it's not a great entry; it is just passable. It lacks suspense and punch, though there's some good noirish lighting.