Sun 10 May 2020
A TV Episode Review: SUSPENSE ‘The Crooked Frame†(1952).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[4] Comments
SUSPENSE ‘The Crooked Frame.†CBS, 30m. 29 July 1952. (Season 4, Episode 45). Richard Kiley, Neva Patterson, Dean Harens, Lois Wheeler. Screenplay: Mel Goldberg, loosely based on the novel by William P. McGivern. Director: Robert Mulligan.
The relationship between the book and the TV adaptation is minimal, but you can hardly expect more when the screenplay has to be crammed into a 30 minutes time slot, less commercials. Here’s the resemblance. The book takes place in the editorial offices of a magazine; the tv show takes place in that of a small comic books company. I grant you that. Better visuals.
It’s been a while since I’ve read the book, so I’ll concentrate on the TV show, but my sense is that the last line of the previous paragraph is as close as it gets. When the episode begins, the office is in an uproar. The creator of the comic strip “Sally Forth†has derided to quit, and if she follows through, the company has nothing as big (or profitable) to fall back on, and chances are they will have to close up shop for good.
One of the writers (Richard Kiley) goes to see her that night, they quarrel, he blacks out, and of in the morning her body is found dead. Luckily the lady was not so very nice, and there are other suspects. The 30 minutes go by very quickly, the acting and directly are perfectly fine, but the show is clearly a small scale production, and at this late date, little more than a curio from the past. William P. McGivern was a very good writer, in a strong noirish vein. I hope he got paid well for the use of his story, but somehow I don’t think it was all that much, even at the time.
PostScript: Fifteen or so years later, comic book artist Wally Wood also came up with a “Sally Forth†comic strip. I don’t think there’s any connection, but you never know.
May 11th, 2020 at 6:27 am
I discuss this and other early Suspense episodes, in my article on director Robert Mulligan:
http://mikegrost.com/mulligan.htm
Mulligan is an important director, someone with a creative, individualistic approach.
It’s good to see his work studied.
May 11th, 2020 at 1:55 pm
Thanks for the link, Mike. I didn’t realize that Mulligan was one of the directors you’ve been covering.
As for this episode of SUSPENSE is concerned, the story was so slight I was able to follow both it and the movement of the cameras. It was broadcast live with a kinescope recording made, which made it fun to watch. The camera work was well planned out, with no glitches that I noticed. Very very effective.
May 11th, 2020 at 8:49 pm
There is a SALLY FORTH strip now, but certainly it is nothing like the Wally Wood one.
Many of the SUSPENSE episodes deserved better production values and more than a half hour to tell the story in. They also often benefited from surprisingly good casts as well as writing.
Likely they used little more than McGivern’s basic plot.
May 11th, 2020 at 10:36 pm
Ha! You’re right. From Wikipedia:
Sally Forth (Wally Wood) (1968–74), a bawdy American comic strip written and drawn by Wally Wood for US Armed Forces newspapers
Sally Forth (syndicated strip) (1982–), a syndicated comic strip about a working mother and her family
I’ve seen the latter once or twice while out of own, and it’s nothing like the Wally Wood version.