No oversell on this one, which circles around two possible scenarios involving a teenaged runaway (Brenda Scott) who could be the missing daughter of a wealthy woman (Gloria Swanson!) that a police lieutenant (Dan Duryea!!) suspects might have actually murdered some years ago.
Kraft Suspense Theatre (KST for short) was the last incarnation of the processed food giant's weekly series, running from 1963-65 as a three-weeks-on, one-week-off fixture on NBC (the fourth week rotated in a Perry Como variety show segment: the king of the sweater ballad was tired of doing a weekly show and agreed to take on KST if they let his son Ronnie be the executive producer via Perry's production company, Roncom). IIRC, it is the first of the mystery/suspense anthology series to go color.
While the show is uneven (middle of the pack for KST), it has its moments and the casting is fascinating. Swanson and Scott are tiny dynamos (both barely five feet tall) but they do have several good toe-to-toe moments. It's a hoot when 6'4" David Brian (playing Swanson's long-time friend and lawyer) has scenes with them and they don't put the ladies on a box or dig a hole for him. (Director Alvin Ganzer, a journeyman TV hack, shows little if any imagination in staging or camera setups, relying on his actors to carry the action.)
And then, of course, there's Duryea, with his weaselly voice intact despite playing a cop. Shortly after this, Dapper Dan would travel to the UK to star in his two final noirs, DO YOU KNOW THIS VOICE? (1964) and WALK A TIGHTROPE (1965).
Apparently this episode was in the process of being filmed in November 1963 when it was interrupted by the Kennedy assassination. Luther Davis (co-author of the stage play KISMET with Charles Lederer) was in his second Hollywood phase at the time (he worked at MGM right after WWII) and was the producer of KST for its first season, contributing seven scripts during the show's two-year run. He also found time at this point to write the screenplay for Olivia de Havilland's most off-the-rails film, the 1964 "home invasion" noir LADY IN A CAGE. In the early 70s, he went further afield by writing the screenplay for ACROSS 110TH STREET (1972), his last feature film credit.
The action is set in Carmel, but Swanson's house might look familiar to eagle-eyed folks (paging Dan in the MW!)... :-)
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