User Reviews

I sat through this 1974 Cannon installment, and found myself in disagreement with the previous reviewer.

First of all, I'll admit it - I'm an unabashed fan of the great William Conrad. He was good to great in his other TV roles, and if you've never had the chance to hear him as a Radio Actor, you've missed more than you know. When no one could see him, he was AMAZING as Marshal Matt Dillon on the Radio version of "Gunsmoke". Before there was TV, Radio was the only "big time" home entertainment - and the former "Big Three" TV Networks started as RADIO NETWORKS, boys and girls. Back in the day it could take 100 people or more to put on a LIVE broadcast (and there WAS no tape, and anything digital had yet to even be imagined!). If the show was nationally broadcast, they'd have to do the entire show OVER AGAIN for the West Coast! The actors HAD to be good to make the listener believe it. The people who made those shows made them SOUND real - and YOU provided the pictures in your mind. MUCH higher definition than HDTV... but I digress.

The previous reviewer was correct about the then-named "multiple personality disorder. This rare malady happened on TV and in movies MUCH more than it ever did in real life. But even though we know that NOW, when this Cannon outing was produced, it was well made, well acted, well edited and well scored. Therefore I find it difficult to call it "awful". The people who worked very hard on this show did their jobs, and they did GOOD jobs.

A wealthy young woman (Pamela Franklin) hires Cannon to find her sister Jennifer, who supposedly drowned five years ago. Intriguing though a bit muddled in its execution. Got a good story idea, and it's watchable enough, but I felt it could have been better.

Thanks to Gene Nelson who directed this episode, without fail, bringing out some super performances from the cast, especially Pamela Franklin. Gene was behind the MOD SQUAD. This was his second episode.

There's a neat connection to this story. In addition to all the cop shows and westerns William Conrad directed at Warner Brothers for years, he also cranked out some eerie cult thrillers in the mid 60s, such MY BLOOD RUNS COLD, which he also produced. He may have contributed some ideas to this story, and it makes sense. When it came to chillers, Conrad's style was similar to director William Castle.

Here, Cannon finds himself in Beverly Hills where Pamela Franklin hires him to find her evil twin sister (who drowned five years ago??). This also sounds a bit like the classic Bette Davis mystery, A STOLEN LIFE, if not DEAD RINGER. What a tangled web.

Franklin was the right choice for this role, also appearing in some shocker films at the time. This could have been very bloody, but Nelson toned it down. It's a campy ride, very atmospheric, perfect for a late night. Look for Keye Luke (famous as Charlie Chan's Number One Son), and Christopher Stone as Franklin's boyfriend. Stone turned up regularly in dramatic tv roles.

Additionally there are three familiar faces in the cast; Ann Doran (long time actress who even appeared with the Three Stooges) as the housekeeper, Bill Quinn as her husband and Maxine Stuart playing an artistic welder? That's original. One observation. Its quite possible one of Bill Conrad's boats was being used in the party scene. It's sharp.

Cannon is also back to smoking his pipe. The ending is fairly effective, and not as violent as it could have been. SEASON 3 EPISODE 19 remastered color CBS dvd box set. 21 hrs. 2012.

Virginia McKeller (Pamela Franklin) hires Mannix to help her find her sister, Jennifer and stop her from messing with her things. In other words, she thinks Jennifer is sneaking in to her home and taking or re-arranging things. This sounds pretty crazy...but is even crazier when Cannon finds out that Jennifer died long ago! Through the course of the case, he also finds another 'sister'....Cyndi. Cyndi is very different from Virginia...but all three are actually the same person as Virginia is mentally ill and has Multiple Personality Disorder (now called Dissociative Identity Disorder).

The whole multiple personality angle is just silly and makes this a very hard episode to endure. It's a real shame, but back in the 70s this was a big issue (with films like "Sybil") but most therapists today feel the problem is extremely rare, as most cases have since been proved to be hoaxes. Of course the "Cannon" folks couldn't know that but the episode is still silly and sloppy and is filled with mumbo jumbo.