A secretary with an impeccable reputation for trustworthiness and reliability colludes with her boyfriend to steal $50,000 from her employer.A secretary with an impeccable reputation for trustworthiness and reliability colludes with her boyfriend to steal $50,000 from her employer.A secretary with an impeccable reputation for trustworthiness and reliability colludes with her boyfriend to steal $50,000 from her employer.
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Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe narrator refers to the character, Doris as "This girl, an efficient secretary...". The actor playing the role, Paula Houston, was 41 at the time, hardly young enough to be considered a girl. But, in the Fifties, women in the workplace were often referred to as girls no matter their age.
- GoofsWhen Dusty puts his right arm around Doris during their lunch-time rendezvous, the DDT or sulfur powder on his hand leaves a faint, but visible, hand print on the back of her dress. Back at her office, when Mathews notices the mark, it has become a large, very noticeable light-colored smudge that covers nearly half her upper back. [The hand print could have smeared when her back touched the seat back in her car.]
- Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator: In its day-to-day job of enforcing the law, the Highway Patrol has come to know many types of lawbreakers, their methods, and habits. But some fit no previous pattern. This girl - an efficient secretary, hardworking, thorough, and loyal. For five years, she has held her daily job with the Colton Valley Farmers' Co-Operative. Doris Mauldin does not look like a criminal, nor has she ever been one. Until today.
What made her do it is never explained. As I think on it she's a bit like insurance man Walter Neff of Double Inemnity, also a highly trusted employee; and Psycho's Marion Crane, the attractive young woman who absconds with forty grand from her long time employer. All three characters are middle to low level business types, a far cry from upper level management, they're not exactly working stiffs, either. They steal less from greed as a desire to break free from their humdrum lives.
The character of Miss Mauldin in Efficiency Secretary is the least sympathetic of the three. I could never warm up to her. There wasn't much to like, though her professionalism earned my admiration. She was clever enough to outfox top cop Dan Mathews early on, but even he noticed that she was almost too efficient, so disciplined and reliable to actually raise suspicions. Counter-intuitive types, whether in crime or business, often forget that they can themselves be "counter counter-intuited" by others and that no, this doesn't take a rocket scientist, just a professional cop with a keen eye. The episode features a good story, decent acting and an interesting villain of the week whose motive is never explained. Indeed, the subject never comes up.
This one isn't action packed but it's worth sticking with, as it gets better as the story moves along.
- telegonus
- May 4, 2012
Details
- Release date
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- Filming locations
- Whiteman Airport - 12657 Osborne Street, Pacoima, Los Angeles, California, USA(final capture scene filmed here)
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- Runtime30 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1