As usual, I won't repeat the plot line, but this story is enough riveting to keep you awake, despite the ever awful music that put your nerves under trial. The charlatan character is so disgusting with his big mouth that you can only enjoy what finally happens to him in this not so foreseeable scheme.
2 Reviews
Walter Slezak - a vision of Brother Theodore
lor_4 October 2023
Walter Slezak gives a larger-than-life performance in this offbeat "Suspense" episode, that benefits from a device that opens out the story beyond the usual claustrophobic setting of the live TV show. (At the end, the voiceover mentions that elements of the show were "mechanically reproduced", a departure from strictly live performance.)
It concerns a trio planning a murder, while anyone can hear them in a busy pub, set in 1920 England. A young man (Michael Shepley) and his wife (Cara Williams, the popular star of movies & TV doing fine with a Cockney accent) listen intently to a slightly drunken Slezak lay out the details of murdering Shepley's brother on a train, with an imagined enactment -featuring Slezak as the murderer -breaking up the continuity of the pub scene.
Slezak as a snake-oil salesman working in carnivals is superb, and had elements reminding me of the great Brother Theodore -the way of holding an audience with the power of an intense, heavily-accented voice delivering a carefully crafted spiel. The story's trick ending is corny, but surprisingly effective once you've bought into listening to Slezak spin his tale.
There's an effective supporting cast, but the show only gives screen credit to the three principal players, quite a disservice.
It concerns a trio planning a murder, while anyone can hear them in a busy pub, set in 1920 England. A young man (Michael Shepley) and his wife (Cara Williams, the popular star of movies & TV doing fine with a Cockney accent) listen intently to a slightly drunken Slezak lay out the details of murdering Shepley's brother on a train, with an imagined enactment -featuring Slezak as the murderer -breaking up the continuity of the pub scene.
Slezak as a snake-oil salesman working in carnivals is superb, and had elements reminding me of the great Brother Theodore -the way of holding an audience with the power of an intense, heavily-accented voice delivering a carefully crafted spiel. The story's trick ending is corny, but surprisingly effective once you've bought into listening to Slezak spin his tale.
There's an effective supporting cast, but the show only gives screen credit to the three principal players, quite a disservice.
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