IMHO, Steve Cochran was the ultimate in COOL. His dark, swarthy, glowering presence could be terrifying (see the Untouchables' "The Purple Gang") or, occasionally charming, kindly and sincere ----check the 1956 film "Come Next Spring", or THIS episode of Naked City. But even when he was cast as a "good guy", he was more than likely trying to escape a shady past of some sort. All in all, a powerful screen presence, put to very good use in this show.
My only problem with this episode is the OVER-THE-TOP Italian accent of Lois Nettleton, straight out of the "EH, WHAT'S-A-MADDAH-WID-A-YOU?" school of dialect acting. It's really annoying, and almost ruins several scenes. To make it worse, Lois's character, as she says, is just learning to speak English, yet her dialogue is often fairly sophisticated, as you'd hear from a person fluent in English. So it's pretty hard to take. Too bad, since her performance is very good otherwise.
The plot is well constructed and the pace never lags, especially as the tension builds near the end. Very convincing interaction with Steve and the creepy father-and-son thugs, nice Italian-Fest dance scene, and a brief "morning after" breakfast scene on the balcony, leaving little doubt that Steve is "all in" with this Debt-of-Honor-Marriage thing.
Oh, yes.. then there's Uncle Joe who, unlike Lois N. is played by a real Italian---but even HE goes way overboard with that big GRANDISSIMO Italian shtick; too bad they couldn't have dialed it back by 30%.
Billy May's score has much more variety to it than usual; less of that big, blaring brassy stuff, with more subtle variations of his Naked City main theme, and a lovely Italian/folk-like theme with accordion, etc used sparingly and tastefully (unlike those bogus Italian accents). LR
My only problem with this episode is the OVER-THE-TOP Italian accent of Lois Nettleton, straight out of the "EH, WHAT'S-A-MADDAH-WID-A-YOU?" school of dialect acting. It's really annoying, and almost ruins several scenes. To make it worse, Lois's character, as she says, is just learning to speak English, yet her dialogue is often fairly sophisticated, as you'd hear from a person fluent in English. So it's pretty hard to take. Too bad, since her performance is very good otherwise.
The plot is well constructed and the pace never lags, especially as the tension builds near the end. Very convincing interaction with Steve and the creepy father-and-son thugs, nice Italian-Fest dance scene, and a brief "morning after" breakfast scene on the balcony, leaving little doubt that Steve is "all in" with this Debt-of-Honor-Marriage thing.
Oh, yes.. then there's Uncle Joe who, unlike Lois N. is played by a real Italian---but even HE goes way overboard with that big GRANDISSIMO Italian shtick; too bad they couldn't have dialed it back by 30%.
Billy May's score has much more variety to it than usual; less of that big, blaring brassy stuff, with more subtle variations of his Naked City main theme, and a lovely Italian/folk-like theme with accordion, etc used sparingly and tastefully (unlike those bogus Italian accents). LR
