The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (TV Series) I'll Be Judge - I'll Be Jury (1963) User Reviews

But did he actually do it?!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 6 May 2021]

A couple are on their honeymoon in Mexico and are nearly run over by some driver on their way to a picnic. During the picnic, the wife disappears and when her husband, Mark (Peter Graves), looks for her, he finds her dead...strangled. The police are unable to charge anyone but they have a suspect...but no proof. So Mark decides to befriend the possible killer in order to get evidence. But when he can't get convincing evidence, he decides to kill the man.

This episode seems a bit more padded than most of the one hour episodes...a problem with a few of these longer episodes. Some parts are unnecessary and the big confrontation scene is really drug out for a long time. Now this isn't to say it's not bad nor lacks suspense...it does well in both departments. Worth seeing despite its faults.

Make love to your wife on your honeymoon, don't nap!

[bryabel-14848 · 8/10 · 9 May 2024]

Newlyweds Laura and Mark Needham (Laura played by blue eyed beauty Eileen O'Neil and Mark by handsome Peter Graves) drive into Mexico for their honeymoon. After nearly being run over by a wild eyed driver (later identified as Theodore Bond, played by menacing Albert Salmi), they continue walking to a scenic, secluded spot away from the beach with a quiet pond, trees and boulders. While Mark spreads a blanket, lovely Laura demurely dressed with a white scarf covering her hair and looped around her neck, wearing a dress with a black silk belt snugly about her waist accentuating her hips and shapely figure, pulls a bottle of wine from the picnic basket suggesting they imbibe. Mark prefers to take a nap, big mistake! As he sleeps Laura wanders away. When he awakes he goes looking for her. He comes across a local who is no help. Then he sees her white scarf down in brush down from the road, so he's on right trail. From a distance he sees Laura lying down by boulders and thinks she's napping now. When he gets close he sees her silk belt tightly tied around her neck.

In typical Hitchcock fashion, he is next seen at police station arrested for her murder. The police inspector has eliminated another suspect, commenting that he only had one hand, and he couldn't have strangled her. (The Fugitive series wasn't out yet, with its 1-armed man strangler of the wife of Dr Richard Kimball, played by David Janssen.) But the inspector is holding back, he suspects another is her killer. Mark is released, Laura's sister (played by pretty English actress Sarah Marshall) and her husband Alec (played by Ed Nelson) attend Laura's funeral at church in town. After service Mark says he's going to find Laura's killer. We learn that the inspector suspects Mr. Bond, proprietor of boat supply store. The very same wild eyed man who nearly ran Laura & Mark down on the road near picnic place. Mr. Bond was in a nearby town a while back, where another young woman was strangled like Laura, and Mr. Bond was very defensive in his interview, but no evidence (days before CSI) could tie him to that murder. The Inspector suggests Mark befriend Mr. Bond to get evidence. He does so and, after few stiff drinks, Mr. Bond reveals his hatred for fairer sex, "they must be punished." Mark tells inspector to arrest him, but inspector tells him a confession is needed. Frustrated Mark decides to kill Mr. Bond. He buys rope and a heavy winch from Bond, and asks him to come to his boat to give more advice for a boat trip down coast. That night in boat cabin, Mark is drinking to ready himself to club Mr. Bond with winch. When Bond arrives he locks him in and tells him a story about a friend whose wife was strangled by a stranger who ruined his life. Mr Bond heads for door, can't exit, so he turns lights off and a fight follows. Scene switches to concerned in-laws who are worried Mark is getting himself in trouble. Alec searches Mark's boat; he finds blood on cabin floor, Mr. Bond's silver cigarette case and skuff marks on boat rail where someone may have been pushed over into bay. They decide to search bars for Mark. It's Laura's lovely sister who sees the sneaky Mr. Bond in a bar stall smoking. So, Mark is not seen again and the in-laws now plan to avenge Laura & Mark.

So, we next see a stunning Sarah Marshall in a tight, above knees, low cut dress, belt tied at waist accentuating her hips, displaying her long legs and seductive cleavage at the bar where Mr. Bond is drinking at a nearby table. She drops her purse. Items spill out. She plays the damsel in distress and Mr. Bond comes to her rescue. She thanks him and she joins him at the table and more drinks are had. She suggests he accompany her to her room where she says she will change clothes (that is get undressed). We know shes baiting him. We see them in her room where he tells her to make him another drink. She sasses him back, he grabs at her but she rejects him, laughs and scorns him as fat and silly. At that he grabs her, and in a continuous action pushes her down on her back onto a couch, rips her belt off and starts to strangle her with it. As she struggles, gasping for air, her husband pulls him off her. As he holds gun on him, the scared wife rises off couch, belt falling from her neck and rushes into his arms crying.

Tables turned they take him to a tower where they extract his confession to the murderd and prepare to hang him. Then the inspector interrupts the vigilante justice, assuring them he will pay for his murders. Hitchcock closes with same.

The episode is based on a 1960 novella-Dominant Third-written by English author Elizabeth Hey. The book is set in a French village. In book Mr. Bonden is a grocer who is a serial rapist and strangler of young women, one being a Laura Needham. The Hitchcock Hour (HH) has no rape, then it tracks with Ms. Hey's book. Hitchcock's Frenzy, a few years later, has parallels with Ms Hey's book, with a green grocer, serial rapist and strangler of attractive women, who uses his ties, instead of the women's belts.

The HH Mexican fishing village is a backlot of Universal Studios used in Jaws and for Canot Cove in Murder She Wrote episodes.

Pretty Suspenseful, Despite Some Padding

[dougdoepke · 20 March 2015]

Albert Salmi's storekeeper Bond is such a mousy character. Still, he's got a burly body, so he may be the strangler, after all. Seems Bond's car almost hit Mark (Graves) and his wife by roadside in Mexico where the latter are vacationing. Then while Mark's napping, his wife turns up strangled in the woods. Everybody, including the Mexican cops figures Bond's done it, but can't prove it. So how to get the goods on him, that is, if he is guilty.

The first part's pretty suspenseful as Mark plays aggressive cat and mouse with Bond, trying to incriminate him. It's not clear at first why Alex (Nelson) and Louise (Marshall) suddenly enter the picture, though that becomes clearer later on. The last part, however, appears padded with the cat and mouse dragging out beyond effect. Unlike the half-hour shows, this was a chronic problem for the hour-long Hitchcocks. Nonetheless, about 40-minutes into things, there's a major twist that no one, I'll bet, sees coming. Anyway, Salmi, in particular, turns in an adept performance in a role unlike his usually belligerent ones. All in all, it's a suspenseful story, with some imaginative touches.

Very unusual after the two third of the movie.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 9/10 · 6 January 2021]

Oh, I love this kind of surprise in a story, the same kind as you have in PSYCHO or THE COW BOYS. SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER. When the lead character suddenly dies after the two third, or less, and when a supporting character who suddenly appears takes everything in charge. I love this. I love surprising schemes, unlike many idiots who crave only for the predictable schemes. The risk with one unusual and unpredictable topic or twist, is that it may be totally incredible or unbelievable, I agree, such as the scheme of a man betting to swallow the Eiffel Tower. But in this case, a husband on rampage to avenge his wife's killing, and who gets also killed, what the hell is unbelievable here? What? If one day I want to take revenge on someone who harmed me or my wife, who says I will be the winner of the game, as in a Hollywood crap garbage feature? Who? With an unusual scheme, no matter the quality of the acting or even directing, I love that. Period.

The name's Bond.. Theodore Bond... Da Dumb Da Da Da Da Da. Dumb Dumb Da Daaaa!

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 2 December 2011]

***SPOILERS**** One of "The Masters" Alfred Hicthcock's rare misfires in both films and on TV has this American couple Mark & Laura Needham, Peter Graves & Eileen O'Neil, vacationing in Mexico almost run down by a not drunk but crazy driver Theodore Bond, Albert Salmi, while out picnicking in the Mexican countryside. It's later when Mark takes a nap under the shade of a eucalyptus tree that Laura was attacked and strangled while he was fast asleep.

It's at the local police station that Mark is told by Inspector Ortiz, Rodolfo Hoyos Jr, that he in fact knows who his wife's murderer is but doesn't have enough evidence to have him arrested. Inspector Ortiz tells Mark to check out the harbor area in the village to find Laura's killer or better yet for Mark's wife's killer to find him. Mark to his shock and surprise then runs into the very same person, Bond Theodore Bond, who runs a boat fitting store who almost ran him and Laura off the road! Knowing for sure that Bond Theodore Bond is his wife's murderer Mark instead of gathering evidence against him plans instead to murder him in revenge!

Setting him up for the kill Mark gets the tea toting Bond good and drunk at a local bar and then later that evening invites Bond to come over to his boat and continuer to drink the night away. It's when Mark lays all the cards on the table to what he's planning for the now totally smashed Bond that that Theotore Bond suddenly starts to act not like that dumpy and soft mama's boy that we've seen up until then but as Secret Agent 007 license to kill James Bond. In a fit of drunken fury Bond makes, by breaking his neck, short order of equally drunk but nowhere as deadly Mark Needham who was a good three to five inches taller and far more in psychical shape then he was. It's when Mark's brother in law Alex Trevor and his old lady Louise, Ed Nelson & Sarah Marshall, showed up for Laura funeral that they got the news from Inspector Ortiz of Bond's possible involvement in her murderer. As for Mark he body was never found and was during the entire Alfred Hitchock episode considered to be only a missing person.

***SPOILERS*** The ending is a bit ridicules with Alex holding Bond hostage and planning to string him up, with Bond's help, from the top of the village church tower. It's then that Alex get a confession from Bond, before he's about to be dropped, that he murdered Laura Mark, whom in fact he killed in self defense, and a number of other people in the village. It was Alex's wife together with Inspector Ortiz and the local police who at the very last moment prevented Alex from murdering Bond where if he succeeded he would have ended up at the end of a rope, just like Bond almost did, for 1st degree cold blooded murder.

I don't think Hitchcock wrote this

[biker415 · 4/10 · 24 November 2013]

I agree with everything the previous two reviewers wrote, with the added observation that there is a huge plot-hole when Peter Graves character (Needham?) reveals to Bond that he and his wife were the couple that he almost ran down a few days earlier. Bond must have known that the woman he strangled later that same day was Needham's wife, so why wasn't he suspicious when Needham approached him claiming he wanted to be friends. Also worth noting, the bell-tower scene at the end is very phony, and the acting is pretty lame as though they realize this story has no credibility. I find it hard to believe Hitchcock the master of suspense put his name on this.

One of the worst episodes

[opmanso · 7 February 2006]

This is, in my opinion, one of the worst episodes from the series 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour'.

The story is set in Mexico. A young couple is on vacation when the woman is killed. The husband seeks revenge and tries to find the man who killed his wife. However, after he finds him he also gets killed by the same man. Now, is the time for his wife's sister and his brother-in-law (both came to Mexico to her funeral) to settle the score...

I believe the story is too ambitious and fails to be credible. Little suspense is experienced.

"String along with me, and the best is yet to be."

[classicsoncall · 5/10 · 14 September 2022]

I found this to be one of the more ridiculous stories Hitchcock presented in either the half hour of hour-long format. None of it really passed the smell test for this viewer. First off, who takes a pleasure trip down to Mexico and the first thing you do when you arrive at a nice picnic spot is lay down a blanket and take a nap? And then, when Mark Needham (Peter Graves) discovers his wife has been strangled, he enters into a half-baked scheme with Police Inspector Ortiz (Rodolfo Hoyos Jr.) to conduct a private investigation, even while Ortiz has an idea who the killer was. Also, consider this - at one point during Needham's conversations with Theodore Bond (Albert Salmi), it's mentioned that the incident where Salmi recklessly drove by the couple when they first arrived occurred ten days ago. Not only did Needham hang around, understandable under the circumstances, but the Trevor's, who attended the funeral in Mexico, also remained behind while Needham worked undercover. Didn't these folks have a life, jobs, and commitments to get back to?

So Needham's plan goes off the rails and he winds up dead at the hands of Bond, and now Alex Trevor (Ed Nelson) takes charge, but what is he doing? Does he want to uncover the murderer or blackmail Bond for five thousand dollars? The "Vertigo" inspired finale at the top of a bell tower defies all kind of logic, because just as Trevor is about to force Bond to hang himself, the police arrive while Bond confesses to killing everyone he was suspected of murdering right from the start. Did the police inspector have any qualms about Alex attempting to kill Bond? Apparently not, it was left to Hitchcock himself to throw cold water on Trevor's motivation, stating he didn't get away with it. That was a common feature of Hitchcock's epilogs, which in this case was just the icing on the cake of an ill conceived story.

Endless/Stupid Tourists

[Hitchcoc · 5/10 · 10 May 2023]

I thought there was no end to this thing. Peter Graves and his fiancee are in Mexico. They go on a picnic but he decides to just sleep. When he wakes up his wife is dead. The rest of the episode is so long, so tedious. There is this big fleshy guy played by Albert Salmi who did the killings of both people. Now it's revenge time because nothing else will work. The killer is accosted by the two folks who are left, a man and a young woman. I think the problem is that at no point do we, the audience, really find ourselves in on this thing. While the guy deserves no sympathy, he is tormented by these people and they never seem to get to the point. A really bad episode.

Weird, Unbelievable story.

[everypathalliance · 4/10 · 6 May 2024]

The premise is implausible with a newlywed wife strangled for seemingly no reason. This occurs in a small town in Mexico. The chief of police knows who the murderer is but has no proof, so sends the young husband on a dangerous quest to get proof. He finds his wife's killer, who then kills him. So, two friends of the slain couple seek revenge for the slayings of the newlyweds. Ridiculous storyline and ludicrous ending.

Strangely, the killer, actor Albert Salmi, actually killed his wife in real life in a drunken incident. He had been physically abusive before.

Another Hitchcock episode features Gig Young, who ALSO murdered his wife in REAL LIFE in a drunken rage. What is it with Hitchcock and drunks who kill?

Have you ever seen a Hitchcock episode where cocktails or beer were NOT consumed? Very odd.