User Reviews

"Bad Actor" is standard Hitchcock but it gives viewers a good look at a young Robert Duvall before he hit it big in features like "The Godfather." Duvall plays Bart Collins, a party-hard semi-alcoholic actor who hasn't gotten a decent role in recent memory. His worn-out and exasperated agent arranges an audition for him and Bart thinks he's perfect for the part until a rival actor named Jerry Lane (Charles Robinson) shows up at the rehearsal office. The two have a history together and Bart, a Method actor disciple, thinks that Jerry has no chance to beat him out for the role. He spends plenty of his time telling Jerry as much and continually insults him. Despite the animosity between these "competitors," they eventually go nightclubbing together, boozing it up while listening to some beatnik music. Then the two thespians head back to Bart's apartment and that's where the fun really begins. Demonstrating his "method" on Jerry, which includes some serious physicality, Bart inadvertently strangles his so-called friend. Problem number one: what to do with the body. In that regard, Bart doesn't mess around. He buys some heavy-duty acidic compounds that can dissolve just about everything from a dead human body to a steel girder; he also purchases some huge knives that can cut through the toughest hides. In no time at all, most of what was once Jerry Lane is flushed down Bart's bathtub, except for one medium-sized object: his head. The damned thing just won't fit through the drainage hole, so Bart temporarily deposits it into a fashionable ice container on his Formica counter in the kitchen. Since this is only a half hour program, it doesn't take long before Bart's girlfriend (Carole Eastman) shows up and she's soon followed by a Police investigator (William Schallert). Jerry has been missing and everyone is worried about him, so naturally the police were called in. There are also several eye-witnesses that claim to have seen Jerry enter Bart's apartment. Displaying all his skills as an actor, Bart nonchalantly allows the detective to search the rooms for the missing person. Everything is looking good for Bart until his agent arrives on the scene and he and Bart's girlfriend decide to mix a few drinks. And what's a few cocktails without some ice? "Bad Actor" doesn't have much of a surprise ending, but it does have a fine early performance by Mr. Duvall, who showed a lot of promise as a young actor, especially playing a struggling one on the small screen. Alfred Hitchcock's disdain for "The Method" is also on display here. He was never a fan of that school and rarely employed actors who practiced it. As for Jerry's severed head, it thankfully stayed in the ice container and out of public view.

Every well known, celebrity actor had to get their start someplace. This was an early role for Robert Duvall, and fortunately, despite his performance in this story, he didn't get tagged for being untalented. The story really expects the viewer to stretch the limits of credibility after Bart Collins (Duvall) literally disposes of a friend and rival actor (Charles Robinson) for the lead role in a major play. You get the idea what Bart was planning to do in that scene where he's sizing up a meat cleaver and a long knife, followed by a trip to his neighborhood dealer in deadly dissolving acids. The suspense builds when Bart is interrupted at his apartment by his agent (David Lewis) and girlfriend (Carole Eastman), having already gotten rid of Jerry Lane's (Charles Robinson) body by sending it down the bathtub drain in little pieces. All except for the head!, which he places neatly into an ice bucket his girlfriend gave him. From there, it takes very little imagination as to what happens next when a police detective (William Schallert) arrives with questions about the missing actor. You might want to take bets on who discovers the grisly remains as the bucket passes from hand to hand among the principals, but by the end of the story, you have to know that Bart himself doesn't come out ahead.

Robert Duvall is a detestable human being. He has that Brando look of the time, and he doesn't work at the craft of acting. He is a drunk and it's surprising he would be hired by anyone on that basis alone. I did have trouble with the whole dissolving bit. I mean, couldn't the guy just take the other guy out in bits and pieces. Think how tiny a bathtub drain is. Is there really such a product. Anyway, the suspense comes when the ice bucket keeps getting passed around.

A young Robert Duvall plays Bart, an actor whose drinking gets in the way of his getting hired for parts. He blows an audition and his competitor/frenemy Charles Robinson (playing Jerry) gets the part. Bart gets Jerry to come to his apartment with the offer of helping Jerry rehearse for the part. While rehearsing, Bart strangles Jerry (it looks accidental, like he got way too into the part). Next thing you see, Bart is buying acid and knives. He dissolves Jerry's body with the acid in his bathtub, but before he can dispose of the head, he gets company - his girlfriend Carole Eastman (Marjorie), his acting agent David Lewis (Ed), and police lieutenant William Schallert (Lt. Gunderson), the latter who is there to investigate Jerry's disappearance. Bart hastily hides Jerry's head in an ice bucket that Marjorie had given him, but his behavior when his guests want some drinks (with ice, of course) alerts the lieutenant that something fishy is going on. BTW, I want that ice bucket (without the head, of course)!! It is a very nice ice bucket.

Robert Duvall is an amazing actor and I'm seen him in tons of movies where he really proved he's a living treasure, such as "Lonesome Dove" and "Second Hand Lions". But here in "Bad Actor" he is a bit....well, bad. Some might have to do with the writing but he was occasionally tough to believe.

Bart (Duvall) is an annoying alcoholic who claims to want to be a great actor but his obnoxious ways clearly are getting in the way. In fact, he was promised a role but because of his behavior, they're considering a friend of Bart's instead. So Bart does what any weirdo would do on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"....he kills his friend, dismembers him and begins dissolving the evidence with acid! But before he can completely finish his evil deed, he's interrupted.

This is a grisly but only okay episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"...not bad but also not nearly as good as you'd expect from a dismemberment show! Worth seeing if you want to see the entire series but a weak episode.