Naked City (TV Series) The Deadly Guinea Pig (1961) User Reviews

"I've Burned People Like You-- in Ovens."

[lrrap · 8/10 · 3 March 2020]

Very grim and violent episode-- a la "The Untouchables" at its darkest.

A well constructed drama-mystery centering on $500,000 of Nazi loot, stashed in New York since the mid-40's, and now fought over by two factions: a Viennese family of death-camp survivors, and a trio of Nazi death camp SS officials. And yes...they "encountered" one another 20 years earlier at Dachau (the title of this review is spoken by George Voskovec's character, a high-brow orchestral conductor living and working in New York...obviously with a disturbing past).

And therein lies the intensity and muted horror of the War Years that propels this powerful story, which requires a first-rate cast to pull it off. Fortunately, the lead roles are all in excellent hands, especially Leonie Leontovich, who brings great class and dignity to the role of Mama Keller. Mike Kellin is very effective as (what else?) a brooding, tormented psychopath, his trademark. Even Voskovec and Barry Morse-- both scenery-chewers of renown, dial it back, and as a result are also very convincing.

Several minor complaints--inconsistencies typical of a hastily filmed weekly TV show. The main problem, I feel, is the bufoon-ish tone of much of the opening scene, which contains two cold-blooded murders in broad daylight, witnessed by two young knuckle-headed boys (one of whom takes a well-aimed snowball to the crotch). Surely there were other, more dependable witnesses, since we see extras walking in the background.

The scene with Harry Bellaver and the two kids plays like a bad vaudeville routine, and creates a major DISCONNECT with the gravity of the rest of the show---as does the cheesy TV interview with Viveca Lindfors' character, using her faux Zsa-Zsa Gabor public persona--which will change dramatically as we get to know her. In any case, these early scenes tend to undermine the rest of the episode; they could have been done in a much less "cartoon-y" way...but that's what "Naked City" seemed to prefer in their street scenes.

ALSO-- WHAT'S WITH THE DELIVERY BOY in the beginning (at 2:35")??? Check out the suggestive glances shared between him and Nancy Malone; what's THAT all about?? Should Adam be concerned?? LR

Convoluted melodrama

[lor_ · 26 March 2024]

Veteran screenwriter (of movies including "Laura") Jay Dratler concocted a complicated melodrama for this episode about Nazis and their concentration camp victims still warring over 16 years later in Manhattan.

A wealth of foreign talent brings the show to life, starting with Leonie Leontovich and Viveca Lindfors who seem exotic femme fatales, except they are the good guy. Barry Morse, pre-"The Fugitive", is subtle as the Nazi doctor who experimented on Lindfors at Dachau, and George Voskovec is also involved, with the guessing game as to which side each one is one left for McMahon and Burke to discover.

It's all extremely contrived, right down to Morse wearing an SS-belt buckle that shoots bullets like something out of Q's workshop in the yet-to-be-made James Bond films.

Mama Keller's Ratskeller

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 8 July 2014]

***SPOILERS*** Det. Adam Flint, Paul Burke. suffering from near fatal pneumonia jumped out of his sickbed and into the cold cold winter day to solve this murder of just released from Nuremberg prison Hinrich Bauer who was gunned down in the street by a phony policeman who, as it turned out to be a woman, gunned him down in return. The briefcase that Bauer was carrying was then picked up by another cop, with a noticeable limp, who then checked out by car with it.

As Let. Flint soon discovered is that there was a Nazi connection to all this with everyone involved being either a former or on the run Nazi or concentration camp survivor! It turned out that Bauer had $500,000.00 squirreled away in a York City bank since before the end of WWII and was about to split the cash with his two fellow Nazis who worked together with him at the notorious Dachau concentration camp: Concert musician or band leader Johann Von Bunow, George Voskovec, and on the lamb in far off Mexico City concentration camp doctor Paul Multer, Barry Morse. This hit or hit-job was orchestrated by the grandmotherly looking Mama Keller, Eugunie Leontovich, a holocaust survivor herself who runs the German restaurant Mama Keller's Ratskeller in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. It took a while for the NYPD to unraveled all these confusing facts but by the time they got their Mojo going some half dozen persons ended up dead in the process. All more or less, the Nazis that is, deserving their fate especially the sadistic Von Bunow who ended up being drowned in a wine barrel at Mama Keller's Ratskeller's wine cellar.

***SPOILERS*** It was in the end when Dr. Multer not realizing what Mana's got in store for him showed up at a party thrown by Mama Keller's jet setting fashion model daughter Lulu Kronen, Viveca Lindfors, at her penthoused apartment that the trap for him, By Mama & Lulu, was sprung on him with her poisoned nail she used to read his palm. That as well as him springing or activating his hidden SS belt-gun that finished off a surprised, in not expecting it, Lulu. Were soon told by Mama the whole story behind this plan to us in the audience and the startled police Det. Flint and his boss Let. Mike Parker, Horace McMahon, who showed up , uninvited, at the party a bit too late to stop the carnage. It was the experiments that Dr.Multer preformed on Lulu as well as many other of his victims at Dachau with the help of his fellow Nazi cohorts Von Bunow & Bauer that got them what they so rightfully deserved! And a note to all this confusion the police as far as I could see didn't bother to arrest Mama Keller, for being the mastermind behind a triple murder, in knowing that she did the right thing as this very complex "Naked City" episode finally ended!