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.
“One Tiger to a Hill.†Season 2, Episode 8. 03 Dec 1964. Barry Nelson, Diane McBain, James Gregory, Peter Brown, Warren Stevens. Teleplay: Robert Hamner. Directed by Jack Arnold.
“Four Into Zero.†Season 2, Episode 15. 18 Feb 1965. Jack Kelly, Martha Hyer, Robert Conrad, Sue Randall, Joe Mantell, Jessie White, Bill Quinn. Teleplay: Don Brinkley. Story: Milt Rosen. Directed by Don Weiss.
What these two episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre (syndicated under the title Crisis) have in common is the fact that both are caper stories, and in both cases ones with happy endings. Not that the anthology series didn’t have its fair share of crime does not pay tales like any other series from the sixties, but at least these two episodes are different.
“One Tiger to a Hill†opens with a jewel thief breaking into a safe and relieving it of close to half a million in goodies. That draws the attention of the head of the Burglary division. James Gregory who is enjoying a bit of fine dining and a good cognac when he receives the call — only to find that sharing the restaurant with him is jewel thief extraordinare Colin Neal (Barry Nelson) and his girl Diane McBain, making Gregory Neal’s alibi.
Neal and Gregory are friendly adversaries, Gregory the only cop to ever catch Neal and Neal the only thief to ever elude Gregory. Not so much Gregory’s subordinate Lt. Hadley (Warren Stevens) who wants nothing so much as to put away all thieves — in any condition he can catch them in.
The secret to Neal’s latest success is bartender Peter Brown who is his apprentice and pulled the latest caper in Neal’s style. There are complications though. Aside from Hadley and the much smarter and more dangerous Gregory, Brown is ambitious. He not only wants Neal’s career, he wants his woman, and he isn’t above framing Neal for a crime he never committed. Even worse he shoots a policeman while committing it.
Now Neal has to stop Brown, recover the stolen gems, and get the increasingly driven Hadley off his neck while not getting caught by Gregory.
This could all be done darkly and in a noirish mood, but it is much more a low budget TO CATCH A THIEF, and thanks largely to good players and a light script, it doesn’t pause long enough to let you question the obvious gaps in the story, and it works for what it is.
Next up is a somewhat more serious caper. “Four Into Zero.†Jack Kelly is the husband of wealthy Martha Hyer, tired of feeling as if he has been bought by his beautiful wife and determined to do something on his own. The something is a heist, and on a moving train across country from Chicago to Los Angles.
The train will be carrying the currency plates for a new banana republic in South America, and the plot is lift the plates being shipped from Chicago from the baggage car, use a printing press built by failed artist and engraver Jessie White to print a million dollars in the new currency, and return the plates unsuspected for delivery. Also mixed in the job is Robert Conrad, whose fiance has been working for the South American dictator and unwittingly providing all the details needed for the job.
Joe Mantell is the final part of the scheme, an alcoholic circus performer Kelly rescued from the gutter and dried out for a vital part of the caper, crossing the top of the train while it is moving with the plates.
And complications ensue as you might expect. Kelly’s wife and Conrad’s girl (Sue Randell) are suspicious, and when they meet decide to fly to Los Angles to meet the boys. Meanwhile railroad cop Bill Quinn is taking the same train on vacation, and there is this annoying little boy who keeps seeing men climbing outside on the train …
For once the caper goes fairly smoothly, until Mantell breaks his wrist, ironically on a crate of whiskey, and Kelly has to replace him on the final leg of the heist. It ends fairly happily with Kelly and Conrad rejecting their part of the spoils for love, and a nice ironic touch (actually foreshadowed in the script for once) ends the episode.
Everyone gets at least one good scene, and what more could television actors ask?
Neither the best or the worst of the series, this is your parents comfortable sixties television done with professionalism and style. Both episodes could easily have been expanded to features and both make for a tightly packed forty-eight minutes.
I can’t say either generates much actual suspense, but both are fairly handsomely done and the dialogue is intelligent and revealing in both, making you wish they had been more interested in the suspense end of the thing.
Of the two “One Tiger to a Hill†is the standout, but I recall seeing “Four Into Zero†when it first aired and surprisingly remembered almost every detail when I watched it again for the first time, so there is more here than may meet the eye
“The Deep End.†An episode of Kraft Suspense Theater, NBC, 2 January 1964 (Season 1, Episode 11). Aldo Ray, Clu Gulager, Tina Louise, Ellen McRae, Whit Bissell, Paul Langton. Teleplay by Jonathan Hughes based on the novel The Drowner by John D. MacDonald. Directed by Francis D. Lyon.
Despite some of the more obvious sexual aspects of the novel being toned down considerably, this is a fairly faithful adaptation of the Gold Medal original paperback by John D. MacDonald published as The Drowner, and about the closest thing MacDonald ever wrote to a straight private eye novel.
Lucille Benton (Ellen McRae) a soon to be divorced daughter of regional old money, has died while swimming on private property owned by her lover wealthy self made developer Sam Kimber (Aldo Ray), except, we, the viewer, saw her murdered by someone in scuba gear in the opening credits, so we are one step ahead of everyone but the killer when insurance adjustor Dan Walsh (Clu Gulager) shows up asking Sheriff Kyle (Paul Langton) about things like suicide. Things get even touchier when he talks to Sam Kimber at his office once he gets past Kimber’s protective Amazonian secretary Angie Powell (Tina Louise).
It seems Lucille Benton was divorcing weak willed Nico Benton (Dan Barton) for rough tough sweet Sam a real man, and it also plays out Lucille was holding some $200,000 dollars of money for Sam he had salted away as emergency funds without telling the IRS. Now Lucille is dead, the money is missing, the IRS is hard on Sam’s heels, accountant Gus Hickman (Whit Bissell) has been nosing around and may have talked enough to get Lucille killed, and who knows where this Walsh character will pop up. Sheriff Kyle may know which side his bread is buttered on when it comes to Sam Kimber, but he isn’t so loyal he will keep quiet about just anything.
Then Lucille Benton’s sister Barbara Shepherd (a dual role for Ellen McRae) shows up unnerving Sam with her resemblance and we discover Dan Walsh is no insurance man but a private detective she hired because she thinks Lucille was murdered. When Gus Hickman is killed suspiciously near one of Kimber’s construction sites, Walsh puts two and two together, but the only way he can prove his suspicions is make himself bait for murder at the same place and in the same way as Lucille Benton.
Television had to tone down the novel considerably, Lucille goes swimming in a one piece and not skinny dipping for one thing, MacDonald’s sexual themes are kept to a minimum, and there is some psychosexual business that gets considerably trimmed, but all in all it is a good adaptation of a MacDonald novel that touches on many of his themes including the self made man versus corrupt inherited wealth and influence, the darker side of American business and its practices, adultery, sexual healing, and sexual frustration as a motive for twisted emotions and even murder.
As always in MacDonald, sex as anything but a healthy outlet for adults is dangerous and destructive and nothing more so than repressing it or expressing disgust at it. Prudery and murder are never far from each other in MacDonald’s universe.
There is really too much story for the hour-long format to let a lot of suspense develop, but the performances are good and the story moves along well. It might help if the teleplay didn’t keep revealing things too soon, but at the same time I doubt many people couldn’t guess how this was going to go.
Although Dan Walsh is not the only private detective to appear in a MacDonald novel, he is the only one to be anything like the protagonist in one. You have to wonder if MacDonald just wanted to try a private eye set up on for size or what his motivation was since this could easily have been told in a more typical MacDonald manner with a more typical MacDonald hero. He had used investigators, police and Federal, before, but I think Walsh is his only private detective hero.
Nothing great, but worth seeing for MacDonald fans. There is even an early James Bond joke when Sam Kimber says of Dan Walsh’s theory that it is as fantastic as “That Bond fellow, the one who is always fighting criminal masterminds, what’s his name?†It may even be one of the earliest James Bond references in mainstream television, or close to it.
A good hour long entry in a usually reliable anthology series, and an interesting one for John D. MacDonald fans.
Transplant Cornell Woolrich into a more permissive decade, and you would have this book, first published in hardcover in 1967.
A young attorney and his bride go to a remote Pennsylvania cabin for; their honeymoon, but it is interrupted by rape and murder. In this brutal but extremely suspenseful novel, a manhunt is generated by a desire for revenge with which the reader can easily identify.
ANNE CHAMBERLAIN -The Tall Dark Man. Bobbs-Merrill, hardcover, 1955. Paperback reprints include: Dell #925, 1956; Avon Classic Crime PN322, 1970; Academy Chicago, 1986.
The plot of this 1955 mystery, reprinted in an especially attractive edition, is decidedly Woolrichian. A thirteen year-old girl says she has seen a murder through the window of her Ohio school room, but no one will believe her. She also claims that the murderer saw and recognized her.
When Anthony Boucher originally reviewed this book, he paid it the extravagant praise of saying “This is purely and absolutely, The Suspense Novel, in an ideal form, which the genre rarely attains.” He did not exaggerate very much.
— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
Vol. 8, No. 4, July-Aug 1986.
Part 5.1: Theatre of Crime (Hours of Suspense Revisited)
Following the riches of the 1950s, the anthology series moved into its final period as a stimulating television form. The enormous mass of episodic series featuring regular characters placed the format of the anthology firmly on the back burner.
Both Dow Hour of Great Mysteries (NBC, 1960) and Boris Karloff’s Thriller (NBC, 1960-62) were essentially, and quite effectively, horror-fantasy series, many with strong elements of mystery.
Dow Hour used celebrated classics such as Mary Roberts Rinehart’s “The Bat”, John Willard’s “The Cat and the Canary” and Sheridan Le Fanu’s “The Inn of the Flying Dragon”.
Half of the premier season of Thriller was composed of crime/suspense stories under producer Fletcher Markle, which included tales by Charlotte Armstrong, John D. MacDonald, Cornell Woolrich, Don Tracy and Fredric Brown. Discovering that horror-fantasy worked even better with viewers when they transmitted “The Purple Room” (1960), producers Maxwell Shane and William Frye took over from Markle and concentrated on the macabre. They unleashed scary treats such as Robert Bloch’s “The Cheaters” and “The Hungry Glass”, Robert E. Howard’s “Pigeons from Hell”, and Harold Lawlor’s “The Grim Reaper”. Much to the viewers’ delight.
The opening season of Kraft Mystery Theatre (NBC, 1961-63; not to be confused with the 1958 series) was made up entirely of British cinema second features (B movies) and it was not until the second season (1962-1963) that the series proper began.
The first two episodes of the latter (crime thrillers “In Close Pursuit” and “Death of a Dream”) were directed by Robert Altman. It wasn’t until I happened upon the Mike Doran/Steve exchange in Mystery*File (July 2009) that one episode that had previously puzzled me, called “Shadow of a Man” (1963) starring Broderick Crawford as insurance investigator Barton Keyes and his assistant Jack Kelly as Walter Neff (teleplay credited to Frank Fenton from a story by James Patrick with no mention of James M. Cain or Double Indemnity), was finally laid to rest. Thanks to their information, “Shadow of a Man” proved to be a pilot for a proposed Double Indemnity TV series.
Something of an immediate sister show to the above, Kraft Suspense Theatre (NBC, 1963-65) boasted three interesting contributions: John D. MacDonald’s “The Deep End” (1964) and William P. McGivern’s “A Truce to Terror” (1964) and “Once Upon a Savage Night” (1964) [the latter published as Death on the Turnpike].
Shamley Productions returned with The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (CBS, 1962-65), but now with its crisp little half-hour story format enlarged to an hour. Among the stretched-out storytelling could be found such gems as Woolrich’s “The Black Curtain” (1962), Richard Matheson’s “Ride the Nightmare” (1962), Henry Kane’s “An Out for Oscar” (1963), the latter with teleplay provided by David Goodis, the superbly spooky “Where the Woodbine Twineth” (1965), from a Davis Grubb story, and the genuinely unsettling “An Unlocked Window” (1965), from a story by Ethel Lina White.
Although a mix of drama, comedy, musicals and would-be pilots, Bob Hope Presents The Chrysler Theatre (NBC, 1963-67) did present an altogether intriguing pilot, or rather a series of pilots, featuring Jack Kelly as private eye/secret agent Fredrick Piper. The first attempt was made with “White Snow, Red Ice” (1964), written by Richard Fielder. It was followed by “Double Jeopardy” (1965), co-starring Lauren Bacall, “One Embezzlement and Two Margaritas” (1966), written by Luther Davis, and, finally, “Time of Flight” (1966), written by Richard Matheson (here Kelly’s name changed to “Al Packer”).
Oh, there was also “Guilty or Not Guilty” (1966), a legal drama pilot starring Robert Ryan and co-scripted by Evan Hunter & “Guthrie Lamb” (the latter name belonging to a private eye character created by Evan Hunter [writing as Hunt Collins] for Famous Detective Stories magazine in the early 1950s). Unfortunately, all of the above remained unsold.
During the 1970s, between the TV pleasures of Harry O (ABC, 1974-76) and The Rockford Files (NBC, 1974-80), Joseph Wambaugh’s Police Story (NBC, 1973-78) was the only other series worth keeping an eye on (the author created the anthology for Columbia Pictures Television).
Arguably, one of the finest genre anthologies to grace the small-screen, even though it was nearly 40 years ago, the earthy stories culled from LAPD interviews were developed into some remarkable episodes, among them “Requiem for an Informer”, where a careful rapport develops between a detective and his street-wise informer, “The Wyatt Earp Syndrome”, focusing on Harry Guardino’s obsessive officer, and the two-hour “Confessions of a Lady Cop”, with Karen Black as a vice detective on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The series Police Woman (NBC, 1974-78) evolved from “The Gamble” (1974) and Joe Forrester (NBC, 1975-76) from “The Return of Joe Forrester” (1975).
Fallen Angels (Showtime, 1993; 1995) seemed to be created as something of a small-screen tribute to hard-boiled literature. The carefully constructed series unfolded its noir-ish stories at a leisurely pace, underlining a symbiotic relationship between actor and story.
In this writer’s opinion, all episodes were nothing short of superb. Many remain etched firmly on the memory. For instance, Jonathan Craig’s “The Quiet Room”, in which two corrupt cops receive their just punishment, Jim Thompson’s “The Frightening Frammis”, celebrating flashbacks and femme fatales, and Chandler’s “Red Wind”, featuring an interminably morose Danny Glover as Marlowe.
The above selected anthologies (including the earlier Part 5.0) had, admittedly, minimum influence on the TV Crime and Mystery genre in general, but their exposure of the work of important crime authors (the Chandlers, the Hammetts, the Christies) acknowledges the form as something of a television pinnacle.
The sheer range and diversity of these one-off presentations during the latter half of the last century remain as something to marvel. Perhaps this overview may serve to mark its passing.
The concluding Part of this history of genre anthologies will observe the UK television history.
Note: The introduction to this series of columns by Tise Vahimagi on TV mysteries and crime shows may be found here, followed by:
Part 1: Basic Characteristics (A Swift Overview) Part 2.0: Evolution of the TV Genre (UK) Part 2.1: Evolution of the TV Genre (US) Part 3.0: Cold War Adventurers (The First Spy Cycle) Part 3.1: Adventurers (Sleuths Without Portfolio). Part 4.0: Themes and Strands (1950s Police Dramas). Part 4.1: Themes and Strands (Durbridge Cliffhangers) Part 5.0: Theatre of Crime (US).
SUSPENSE. Monogram, 1946. Belita, Barry Sullivan, Bonita Granville, Albert Dekker, Eugene Pallette. Story & screenplay: Philip Yordan; director: Frank Tuttle.
Back in 1946, Monogram Studios, home of Sam Katzman, the Bowery Boys and Bela Lugosi, made a bid for respectability with a couple of films noirs starring Barry Sullivan and skating star Belita.
The Gangster bloats itself on pretension, but Suspense comes in right on the money, with a clever script by Philip Yordan and solid performances by a cast that includes Albert Dekker and Eugene Pallette.
The story uses the framework of the rise-and-fall of a hustler, played by Sullivan with his usual assurance, who leeches onto a classy ice show run by Belita and her husband Dekker, playing a role he patented: the crook too smart for his own good.
Things take off when Sullivan and Belita fall for each other, Dekker decides to kill at least one of them, and an old flame turns up from Sullivan’s past with romance and/or blackmail in mind.
But that’s just the start of a clever, elliptical screenplay that implies more than it shows and keeps the viewer guessing for its entire length. The ice-dance numbers slow things down a bit — in fact they bring the whole story to a wheezing, protesting halt for minutes at a time — but they’re well-mounted and anyway that’s why God gave us the fast-forward button. Even with the interruptions, Suspense is a film to gladden all fans of gritty little B-movies.
Editorial Comment: The movie is available on DVD from Warner Archives.
“Four into Zero.” An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre(Season 2, Episode 15). First air date: 18 February 1965. Jack Kelly (as Charles Glenn), Robert Conrad (Gary Kemp), Joe Mantell (Frankie Shields), Jesse White (Emil Glueck), Martha Hyer (Caroline Glenn), Sue Randall (Jane Crane), Ronnie Dapo (the boy), Hollis Irving (the mother), Murray Alper (the conductor). Teleplay: Don Brinkley. Story: Milt Rosen. Director: Don Weis.
When most of us talk about “making money,” we usually mean collecting a paycheck from an employer. Four men, however, are planning to make money — quite literally..
The four are: Emil Glueck, an expert printer; Frankie Shields, an ex-acrobat with a drinking problem; Gary Kemp, a handsome playboy who knows how to wheedle information from young women; and Charles Glenn, who doesn’t really need to steal since he’s married to an incredibly wealthy woman, Caroline. Glenn chafes at the situation, however, and feels he has something to prove by masterminding this caper.
To get the inside information he needs, Glenn has assigned Kemp to date Jane Crane, who works in a large bank in Chicago. From Kemp, Glenn learns that the currency printing plates for a South American country have recently been crafted and are due to be shipped to that banana republic on a train from Chicago to Los Angeles.
The plan is simple: Get aboard the train, “borrow” the plates and run off a million dollars’ worth, return the plates as if nothing had happened, and convert the money to American long green at prevailing exchange rates. Piece of cake.
However, while a plan might be simple in conception, it isn’t always easy in execution. The unexpected sometimes occurs, and that’s when one’s ability to adapt to changing circumstances is called for.
Among the unanticipated developments: the presence on the train of a railroad inspector on holiday; that nosy little boy who manages to catch sight of Shields when he’s doing his acrobatic thing; Jane’s determination to find out why Kemp, her fiance, has apparently abandoned her and gone missing; the loose nails that roll out of sight; and that falling whiskey crate.
The question is: Can this collection of oddballs pull off this caper, or will they soon be cooling their heels in federal prison ….?
Despite the stated desperation of some of the characters, as viewers we never really feel it. Nevertheless, the caper itself is fascinating to watch, and the ending is surprisingly upbeat.
Jack Kelly (1927-92) previously appeared in “The Name of the Game” (reviewed here). Martha Hyer (b. 1924) was in “Crimson Witness” (reviewed here). Robert Conrad (b. 1929) is best remembered for The Wild, Wild West (1965-69), but he had a P.I. series, Hawaiian Eye (1959-63), a short-lived spy series, A Man Called Sloane (1979), and gave Lt. Columbo a hard time in “An Exercise in Fatality” (1974).
Joe Mantell (b. 1920) is a versatile actor; he can do comedy or drama, and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Marty (1955). Jesse White (1917-97) almost always played it for laughs, but you could find him acting seriously on occasion (e.g., Witness to Murder, 1954); still, he has an unforgettable moment in Harvey (1950) when he’s reading the definition of a “pookah.”
“The Trains of Silence.” An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 28). First air date: 10 June 1965. Jeffrey Hunter, Tippi Hedren, Warren Stevens, Lloyd Bochner, Patrick Whyte, Francis DeSales, Dale Johnson. Teleplay: William Wood. Story: Ben Maddow. Story consultant: Anthony Boucher. Director: Douglas Heyes.
Fred Girard (Jeffrey Hunter) storms into a hotel demanding to see the man who lives in the penthouse, his old college friend Wolfe Hastings (Lloyd Bochner).
Fred is a Canadian geologist who has made a huge discovery: mineral deposits laced with titanium ore worth a cool three million dollars at current assay rates. He needs Wolfe, a reclusive multimillionaire, to finance development. All he wants is to see Wolfe, but he gets stonewalled from the get go, first by Wolfe’s alcoholic personal secretary Lee Anne (Tippi Hedren) and later by Wolfe’s righthand man, Mark Wilton (Warren Stevens).
The D-Day invasion of Normandy proved easier than getting in to see Wolfe. Fred’s initial attempt to penetrate Wolfe’s lair nearly gets him killed. When that fails, Wilton tries to buy him off with a $3 million check — provided he leaves town to cash it. Fred accedes at first, but then has second thoughts. Now he wants to see Wolfe more than ever.
With the unwilling assistance of an alley cat, at long last Fred breaks through the wall of security surrounding Humpty Dumpty and all the king’s men and discovers an ugly secret about his old college chum.
Unfortunately for Fred, he’s the one — and not Humpty — who’s been chosen to take the fall — from a rooftop sixteen floors up ….
This is Jeffrey Hunter’s show: He dominates every scene he’s in, and he’s in every scene. The script is already sharp, but Hunter improves on it. Tippi Hedren was a Hitchcock “discovery,” with The Birds (1963) being her first big starring role, followed by Marnie (1964).
Warren Stevens has often played villains. A few of his crime drama credits: Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), Gorilla at Large (1954), Black Tuesday (1954), Women’s Prison (1955, reviewed here ), The Price of Fear (1956), Accused of Murder (1956), Intent to Kill (1958).
TV credits for Stevens include two episodes of Checkmate, four appearances on Hawaiian Eye, three Kraft Suspense Theatre‘s (including “One Tiger to a Hill,” reviewed here ), Madigan (1968), and four episodes each of Mission: Impossible and Ironside.
“Nobody Will Ever Know.” An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 19). First air date: 25 March 1965. Tom Tryon, Pippa Scott, Myrna Fahey, Liam Sullivan, Robert Quarry, David Lewis, Frank Maxwell. Teleplay: Richard Fielder and Harry Essex. Story: Roger H. Lewis. Director: Don Weis.
Tom Banning (Tom Tryon) seems to have it all: a well-paying research position at Continental Plastics, being married to the boss’s daughter, and the prospect of a promotion.
So why is he skulking around a chemical laboratory with a camera photographing secret bench experiments, engaging in industrial espionage?
Could it have to do with the fact that he’s not making enough money to cover the bills? That he resents his father-in-law’s intrusions into their private lives? That although he’s due for that promotion soon, he’s afraid he might not get it?
That there’s an extremely attractive woman, part of the evaluation team, with whom he’s having an affair? That the money he’s getting for his spying would solve all their financial difficulties? Or could it be that the people he’s working for have guns and won’t hesitate to use them?
How about all of the above?
As Thomas Tryon, Tom Tryon made the bestseller lists with his written fiction (The Other, Harvest Home, Lady, etc.).
Liam Sullivan specialized in playing villains almost entirely on TV, with three appearances on Perry Mason (1961-62), a Western series (The Monroes, 1966-67), a nice turn as a sadistic overlord in Star Trek (1967), as well as several primetime TV soaps.
Frank Maxwell could be seen on TV just about anytime during the ’50s through the ’70s, including Perry Mason (1960-61), a comedy series (Our Man Higgins, 1962-63), two other episodes of Kraft Suspense Theatre (including “Leviathan Five”, reviewed here ), one Banacek (“Now You See Me, Now You Don’t”), five Barnaby Jones episodes, and four appearances on Quincy, M.E.
Editorial Comment: Tom Tryon was born in Hartford, the city around the corner and up the street from me, and as something of a native son, all of his accomplishments, both in TV and the movies, then later as a bestselling author, were always written up in the local paper — the one I used to write mystery reviews for — but I’ve never read any of his fiction, I’m sad to say.
The photo is only a publicity shot. It has nothing to do with the TV show that Mike just reviewed, but it’s how I remember him as an actor the most, with a solidly sculptured face and lots of hair.
“That Time in Havana.” An episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre (Season 2, Episode 14). First air date: 11 February 1965. Steve Forrest, Dana Wynter, Victor Jory, Frank Silvera, Val Avery. Teleplay: William Wood. Story: Irving Gaynor Neiman. Director: Alex March.
It’s been six years since Castro’s revolution took over Cuba. An American woman, Anne Palmer (Dana Wynter), has come to Havana to plead for her husband, who has been imprisoned for being a spy against Fidel. But El Jefe won’t see her, and she’s forced to deal with a lower-level functionary, Colonel Velasquez (Val Avery), who seems only to want to molest her. She gets nowhere.
Until she meets Mike Taggart (Steve Forrest), a journalist; with him she’s able to turn up some unpleasant facts about her husband, including that million dollars her husband was trying to retrieve for the Mob when he was arrested. It seems Anne didn’t know the man she married as well as she thought she did…
Despite the title, “That Time in Havana” isn’t a light-hearted caper film, although it could have been played that way, from which it would have greatly benefited. It mostly reminds me of two Humphrey Bogart films: Casablanca (1942) and To Have and Have Not (1944).
In both of those, Bogie spends a lot of time being — or pretending to be — uninvolved with the political turmoil swirling around him; similarly, Dana Wynter’s character cares only about her husband’s plight and is indifferent to politics until she has to make a decision near the end of the story that has political ramifications.
He-man actor Steve Forrest has had a long career. Criminous credits include: Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1954), Rogue Cop(1954), three episodes of The Name of the Game (1969-70), four episodes of Gunsmoke, 36 episodes of S.W.A.T. (1975-76), 15 episodes of Dallas (1986), five appearances on Murder, She Wrote, and 3 on Team Knight Rider (1997-98).
Dana Wynter has the distinction of appearing in one episode of the Colonel March of Scotland Yard TV series (1956, under her German birth name, Dagmar Wynter), the sci-fi thriller Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), one episode of The Wild Wild West (1966), a regular role in the nearly-forgotten spy series The Man Who Never Was (18 episodes, 1966-67), five episodes of The F.B.I., three appearances on Cannon (1973-75), and as Mrs. Ironside in the TV movie The Return of Ironside(1993).
