"Four Star Playhouse" A Study in Panic (TV Episode 1954) Poster

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6/10
Letting your imagination run wild really can drive you crazy.
mark.waltz4 February 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Columnist Dick Powell is tired of the frivolous news stories he's writing on inconsequential subjects and writes a story on a huge fire where he saw supposedly brave men acting in a panicked manner. Fellow columnist Dorothy Malone comes along and tells him that he's going to regret such actions as that's not what his readers want. He begins to receive some mysterious letters and while out on assignment finds himself confronted by whom he believes is the writer. This results in a very eerie situation that makes him feel as if he is in danger, teaching him a grave lesson.

A moral lesson is attempted in this Four Star Playhouse episode that really takes its time in getting underway after the scathing story he writes in the first scene. The highlight comes when he goes to visit bubble dancer Claire Carleton, a scene that isn't really even part of the main story. Carlton is indeed as bubbly as the bubbles she dances with and lightens up the macabre plot line. When Powell is by himself, standing in a foggy, dark setting, it changes it seem to be almost like something out of one of the early film noir he had done, or even an old horror movie. The problem is that this has so many different moods that it changes every few minutes, and that becomes frustrating after a while.
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7/10
This is reminiscent of another Four Star Playhouse show, "Fair Trial"
FloridaFred4 August 2020
This otherwise interesting story is tarnished by the uncharacteristically poor acting of Dorothy Malone in the opening scenes. Her character, Ella, is annoying and over-the-top. Something else - Dick Powell's character Fred Jordon is enlightened about the emotions of fear and panic; this is reminiscent of the Four Star Playhouse episode "Fair Trial", where a different character played by Dick Powell has an epiphany about mob rule.
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3/10
Once again, the show simply was too much plot for 30 minutes.
planktonrules18 October 2010
This is from "Four Star Playhouse"--a show that consisted of four top Hollywood stars who alternated who starred in each teleplay--the other three got that particular week off from the show. Actually, there were five stars, Ida Lupino and Joan Fontaine and Merle Oberon ended up switching roles in the show as the fourth star. The other three were David Niven, Charles Boyer and Dick Powell--some really disparate actors who seemed to have little in common.

This particular episode stars Dick Powell as a rather thoughtless sort of reporter. He is into creating sensational stories--regardless if it hurts people. His co-worker (Dorothy Malone) warns him that this might one day haunt him--and soon Powell begins receiving threatening letters--which he promptly ignores. However, as the story continues, the threat becomes more and more real.

While this show had some interesting twists and good acting, ultimately it was only fair--mostly because it suffered from the same problem most of the episodes of the series faced--too short a time slot. Frankly this story and so many others had plots that would have worked great as full-length films--not 30 minute TV episodes.

UPDATE: I viewed this one again and was shocked how badly the character played by Dorothy Malone was. She was downright annoying and completely ridiculous and I am lowering my score to 3 because of this. How could I not have completely hated her the first time?!
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5/10
A dose of panic
bkoganbing5 November 2020
Dick Powell stars in this Four Star Playhouse drama about a local newspaper columnist who writes a column criticizing the panic that people had trying to escape from a fire. He gets an object lesson in panic before the half hour is over.

I'm in agreement with another reviewer who said there as too much plot for this half hour. Too much plot and not enough character development.

Still Powell, Dorothy Malone and the rest do what they can with it.
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