"Naked City" Saw My Baby There (TV Episode 1959) Poster

(TV Series)

(1959)

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5/10
They'll never find out unless you tell them
kapelusznik187 January 2014
***SPOILERS*** With his son in law Ralph Harris, Mark Rydell, now refusing to go along with his stolen goods racket that he's been involved in for years Papa Simon Beecher,Harold J. Stone, has no choice but to blast him to keep himself from serving a long jail term in the state pen. It seems that the very concerned Simon Beecher is not interested in his daughters welfare as he claims in blasting her husband Ralph and leaving her not only a widow but single mom before her child is even born. Getting away from the desperate and somewhat crazed Beecher Ralph is in hiding with a not to stable Beecher, to cover his tracks, goes to the city morgue claiming that the first stiff, or body, that he sees there to be his son in law Ralph Harris.

It's Beecher's young daughter Katie, Rochelle Oliver, who smells a rat in her fathers BS story in demanding to view her "dead" husband's body which Beecher keeps her from viewing. It's not long after that Ralph on the lamb in a Lower East Side ginmill gets in touch with his grieving wife Katie and spills the beans on her dad's attempt to murder him and cover up the evidence. With the NYPD now wise to Beecher's blotched plan are now there at his warehouse to arrest him for fraud and attempted murder of his son in law Ralph Harris. That's before Beecher in his crazed and unstable state of mind attempts to do Ralph in, in what can be described as an act of bitter revenge, for exposing his stolen goods racket that he was forced to be an unwilling partner in.

***SPOILERS*** Like everything else he did in this "Naked City" episode Beecher screwed this one up as well. Coming out in the open and attempting to murder his "ungreatful", in not willing to take the rap for him, son in law Beecher is caught with his pants down by the NYPD in of all places his stolen goods wear-house. It's there where all the evidence, including the attempted murder of Ralph Harris, is right there for the police to charge and arrest him for. As for Beecher's daughter Katie, the apple of his eye, knowing what a deranged lunatic her father is she leaves him to his fate, 10 to 15 behind bars, and takes off with her hubby Ralph Harris for a much better life then the one that Papa gave or planned to give her.
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A really bad guy in a lousy episode
lor_17 January 2024
Harold J. Stone plays a bad guy of the first rank in this unsatisfactory "Naked City" segment. I enjoyed hating him but it takes more than that to qualify as fine entertainment.

He's a criminal dealing in stolen goods with his son-in-law (Mark Rydell) as dispensable pawn in his crimes. He threatens the young man in the opening scene - keep fencing the goods or face death.

Rydell escapes and the story rests on a gimmick: two people separately identify a dead body: a shylock money lender claims it's his brother, while Stone says it's his son-in-law. The cops investigate and poor Rochelle Oliver is stuck in the middle, when Rydell finally contacts her (on the run, not dead) and she has to choose: back her daddy or her husband.

It's a dull story, with an unrewarding ending, loaded with loose ends not tied up properly, such as how Stone knew about a random corpse to misidentify. Silliphant didn't write this junker, and it shows.
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