MR. & MRS. NORTH “Weekend Murder.” CBS, 03 October, 1952 (Season 1, Episode 1.) Barbara Britton (Pamela North), Richard Denning (Jerry North), Francis De Sales (Lt. Bill Weigand). Guest Cast: Margo Wood, Rita Johnson, Paul Cavanagh, James Kirkwood. Writer: DeWitt Bodeen, based on the characters created by Frances & Richard Lockridge. Director: Ralph Murphy.

   The TV version of Mr. & Mrs. North lasted for two seasons, the first on CBS from 1952-53, and the second, only 18 episodes long, on NBC in 1954. They were also on the radio from 1942 to 1954. Alice Frost and Joseph Curtin had the title roles for most of the run. And of course before that, there were the books, 26 of them, before Frances Lockridge’s death in 1963. After her passing, her husband Richard continued writing, but he never produced a Norths novel on his own.

   It surely must have helped that so many people knew who the Norths were, because this, the first TV episode jumps right into the story without so much of an introduction. (I think this was common, however, back in the early days of television.) In any case, it is Jerry, a book publisher who has to be persuaded by his wife Pam to take a weekend off and spend it at a famous actress’s country home, somewhere outside Manhattan and their usual city environs.

   But as chance would have it, when they all arrive, the housekeeper is missing and there is a dead man in the kitchen closet. As in all the books and their other adventures, it is Pam who decides that she needs to solve the case. Jerry would just as soon let the police handle it. I don’t know whether (or how many) other married sleuths tackled their cases in this same particular way, but this was the usual Norths’ modus operandi, with Pam always sticking her neck out a little too far along the way. And so it is here.

   I don’t think that most readers of the books had too much to complain about in terms of the casting. Richard Denning does ham up the comedy a little too much for my tastes, but that’s just me. As for the case itself, the clue to the killer is way too obvious, although the writer does try to gloss it over as it happens. Not enough so for a long-time TV crimesolver such as myself, though.