“Twixt the Cup and the Lip.”   An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 27). First air date: 3 June 1965. Larry Blyden, Charles McGraw, John Hoyt, Ethel Merman, Jean Hale, Joan Blackman, John Harmon, Lee Patterson, Lane Bradford. Teleplay: Don Brinkley; based on a story by Julian Symons (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, January 1965). Director: Leon Benson.

    Imagine being fired for being too honest. That’s what happens to Lester Pennell (Larry Blyden), however, when Mr. Orbin (John Hoyt), his boss at an up-scale art gallery, catches Lester being too forthcoming about the value of an item they’re displaying for the French government: a silver sceptre once wielded by Louis XIV. Mr. Orbin and the French say it’s worth $2 million; Lester says it couldn’t be worth a penny over $1.5 million — tops.

    Not only has he been given his two weeks’ notice but Larry also has a falling out with his girl Lucille (Joan Blackman), who accuses him of being a “doormat.”

    Meanwhile, back in Lester’s apartment house his neighbor across the hall, Nick Stacey (Charles McGraw), has stolen two rare books from Lester. Nick, you see, is an ex-cop who got caught taking bribes and is presently, as he says, “at liberty.” (How he missed jail time for his graft is never explained.)

    Down the hall Clara Lovelace (Ethel Merman) and her daughter Lambie (Jean Hale) are under-employed actors waiting for a job.

    Lester is in a dark mood when he catches Nick with his stolen books, dark enough indeed to see how Nick can be of enormous help in exacting revenge on Mr. Orbin. Lester is intimately familiar with the security systems at the gallery — and that silver sceptre just seems to be begging to get ripped off.

    And so Lester evolves a shaky caper that involves Nick and his fence, Pogo (John Harmon), Clara, Lambie, and himself. When you consider that they never have a chance to do a full rehearsal of the robbery because the French ask for the sceptre back days sooner than expected and that Nick and Lambie have ideas of their own for the boodle, you may have already concluded this caper won’t go off anywhere near as planned ….

    However, while you might anticipate the outcome of this one, I seriously doubt you’ll be able to foretell exactly what happens in the fourth act — and why.

    Larry Blyden was a regular fixture on American TV in the ’50s and ’60s, playing amiable yet somehow sinister characters; he also hosted several daytime game shows. He appeared in a couple of episodes of Twilight Zone, one where he winds up in Hell and another in which he’s a ham actor in a TV Western who gets an education from a real cowboy. Blyden even won a Tony Award on Broadway.

    Gruff and gravelly-voiced Charles McGraw is the legendary film noir star (T-Men, Border Incident, Armored Car Robbery, The Narrow Margin, etc.) who could also register integrity if the role called for it (The Bridges at Toko-Ri). He and Ethel Merman appeared together in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World two years earlier.

    Always dependable character actor John Hoyt’s career stretched from the ’40s to the ’80s. He could handle comedy or drama equally well. Science fiction fans may remember him from When Worlds Collide, in which he played a devious, wheelchair-bound billionaire, and as the friendly doctor in the first Star Trek pilot film.

    Julian Symons, upon whose story this show is based, is famous — or infamous, depending on your viewpoint — for the opinions he expressed in his critical survey of mystery fiction, Bloody Murder (a.k.a. Mortal Consequences).