User Reviews

***SPOILERS*** It's when Det. Sgt. Ed Brown, Don Galloway, is asked to be in a lineup in trying Ito identify the killer of a local bookie named Frankie Baum that he's quickly identified as Baum's killer by non other then five witnesses who were at the scene of the crime! With Det. Brown being out of town at the time of the incident on a secret fishing and writing trip he had no one to come froward to provide him with an alibi. The fact that Det. Brown had some issues with Baum in the past as a SF policeman didn't help him either and now he's not only in danger of losing his job but being convicted in a case of manslaughter in Baum's death!

With Det. Brown's boss Inspector Robert T. Ironside, Raymond Burr, taking up his case he tracks down the person who can not only prove Det. Brown innocent but who in fact really killed Frankie Baum in the first place:Julie Mills, Ann Whitfield. It was Julie that Baum was going out with and who can provide Ironside with the evidence in his death. But to do that Julie will have to also provide Inspt. Ironside with the identity of the person who killed him which she's not all that willing to do!

***SPOILERS*** As we soon find out Baum's death had nothing at all to do with his criminal activities but something far more personal. His relationship with Julie whom he not only made with child or pregnant but refused to marry her thus not giving his and Julie's soon to be born child s proper and legal name. This has Julie's outraged big brother Bobby Joe, Warren Hammac, take matters into his own hands. Now it's up to Ironside to get Bobby Joe to turn himself into the police before what was a case of self defense on his part, he killed Baum with his own gun after he tried to shot him with it, ends up in him becoming a fugitive from justice.

After someone is killed in a bar, five barflies work with a sketch artist to produce a composite of the man they saw. It just so happens that the sketch of the killer bears a striking resemblance to Ed, that Ed doesn't have an alibi (he was off fishing by himself), and that Ed had a prior connection to the victim. This means Ed is suspect number one and it also means Ironside will move heaven and Earth to clear his name. Eventually the investigation leads to an unmarried woman and the man who apparently doesn't want to marry her. The woman in question is played by Anne Whitfield, (someone from my neck of the woods), and is another one of the sadly under appreciated actresses of that era. She really has far too little screen time in this episode. If you enjoy seeing her keep an eye out for her in the Perry Mason episode "The Case of the Nautical Knot" where she is better presented.

Will Ed go to the gas chamber? You'll never know unless you watch the show ...

But the one thing I have to point out is an error so bizarre that I had to rewind the VCR tape three times to be sure I wasn't seeing things. (Why yes, I do still use a VCR - doesn't everyone?) At the beginning there is an extended scene where the five barflies describe the killer in exacting detail to the police sketch artist. (It should be noted that in real life such sketches are usually fairly crude, not nearly as good as you see in these police shows.) All of the witnesses agree that the picture is correct in every detail. The police Lt. (played by Norman Fell, who would later become Mr. Roper in that annoying TV show Three's Company) thinks he recognizes the person and goes to compare the sketch with a photo of Ed. Here's where it gets bizarre: The person in the sketch has his hair combed left to right and Ed has always combed his right to left. (As it turns out the real killer combs his hair just like Ed does.) When the Lt. looks at Ed's picture, it's printed backwards, so that the sketch will match the bassackwards photo in his hand!! I cannot figure out how this happened. Did they deliberately print a backward photo so that the photo would match the bungled sketch? Or did someone give the artist the backwards photo to draw the sketch? Did the producer / director think that no one would ever notice? To be sure it's not enough that it ruins the program but things like this stick out like a sore thumb.

And I, for one, do not like a sore thumb.