User Reviews

Casting is right-on for this brief suspense story on "Alcoa Theatre", but the concise nature of the medium (with just 23 minutes to tell the tale) works against the piece's effectiveness. A full-length movie would have been far better.

Jack Lemmon brings his very familiar mannerisms to a role that fits like a glove: he plays a successful tv comedy writer who gets caught up in a murder investigation. Three of the men in his high school graduating class have been murdered, so the cops visit him to gain information as to who the probable killer might be.

Lemmon scoffs at the idea that someone is systematically killing off his graduating class, but when he checks his yearbook from 10 years back, he discovers that the three victims are shown on the first page together and that he would be #5, pictured first on the next page.

Lemmon whips into action against his wife's objections (she naturally asks him just to go back to the police) and tracks down the guy who would be #4 next in line, a TV actor played by King Donovan. The killer's identity is shown to the audience half way through the show, and there's an exciting climax to wrap it up.

Director Robert Florey is a veteran of suspense movies including "Beast with Five Fingers" and this should have been a mystery thriller with plenty of suspects and a full-fledged role for Lemmon's wife to play. Instead, it's set up and all over in a flash, fun but not filling.