User Reviews

***SPOILERS*** A bit shocking even now the 1964 "Kraft Suspense Theater" episode of murder and brainwashing touches a number of issues that never saw the light of day back then. Defense attorney Joe Monti, Herschel "The Bird" Bernardi, who's dying from leukemia is given the task of trying to get wife killer Martin Rosetti,Dean Stockwell, to withdraw his signed confession or else he'll end up losing his life by being strapped into the state's electric chair. What we soon find out is that Martin was brainwashed over the years by his now widowed mom Mrs. Lina Rosetti, Lilia Skala, to hate women like his wife Gladys who are loose around the edges by fooling around and drink, that's alcoholic beverages, too much.

As it soon comes out Joe back in his high school days had a hot and heavy romance with Lina while the two were in their teens and still unmarried! It's up to Joe to convince Martin that what his wife did to him, as despicable as it was, wasn't worth him taking her life and leaving his five year old son Danny, Danny Kulick,by getting himself executed an orphan. Trying to get Lina's permission to tell her son the truth about her and the affair she had with him has her throw a fit that leaves Joe understandably a bit confused. Lina won't let Joe tell Martin about her affair with him even if it ends up costing her son's life! In him realizing that what Gladys did wasn't as evil and worth taking her life as his righteous and beyond reproach mother made it out to be!

***SPOILERS*** It was a very hard thing for Joe to do after promising Lina he would keep his affair with her secret from Martin but in the end he had to do it in order to save Martin's life regardless what the truth would end up doing to him. Martin did a terrible thing in murdering Gladys but as Joe pointed out to him her "crime" wasn't any worse that what his mom committed some 30 years ago. In fact it was the guilt of what she did that got Lina to developer such a hatred of women more or less like herself that she,in brainwashing him, drove her son Martin not only to murder but even to willingly get himself executed for it. When in fact, due to the extenuating circumstances of the case, he didn't have to!

After watching several of these just recently I gather that there is a hint of "Twilight Zone" or "Hitchcock" style in that the plots are a bit of a stretch from reality. Either the writers had to know that there were inconsistencies or that there was not enough time of make everything fit.

It was not about a killer getting away with murder, but the actual value of life itself, whether one is in prison or has a deadly disease. I expect someone involved in the writing had first hand experience with someone facing immanent death and choosing whether or not to cling to what ever measure of life was left for them.

This show is often illogical and the audience is expected to care about someone who isn't particularly likable.

It begins with Martin Rosetti (Dean Stockwell) confessing to the police that he murdered his wife--kicking her to death. Not only that, he tells them that it was premeditated and he wants to be executed. A family friend and lawyer, Joe (Hershel Bernardi) comes to his defense--insisting that Martin is a nice boy and there MUST be a reason for the crime....and that if he just admits that the killing was spur of the moment, he can get the guy 2 or perhaps 3 years in prison. This made no sense because promising such a ridiculously light sentence and without knowing the details was illogical. Through most of the rest of the show, Joe and Martin argue back and forth until eventually we learn that Martin hated his mother and took his rage out on his wife...and the wife deserved it!! Huh?! And, in the closing scene, we have a priest spouting some of the most ridiculous and clichéd dialog I've heard in my life.

The bottom line is that this show was badly written AND was the epitome of a program that is soaked in pop psychology and lenient (to a ridiculous extreme) attitudes towards murder. Why did they make this?! Possibly the worst show in the entire run of "Kraft Suspense Theatre".