Alfred Hinckley | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Decoy, which aired in Syndication in 1957 and 1958. The show can be viewed on Tubi!

This week, Casey investigates a case of arson!

Episode 1.23 “Night of Fire”

(Dir by Don Medford, originally aired on March 17th, 1957)

This is one of those episodes that ends with Casey speaking directly to the camera. She tells us that Michele (Betty Lou Holland) will be hitting the streets in search of a new job. If she comes in your office, Casey says, give her a chance.

It’s a nice sentiment, especially since the viewer has just spent 30 minutes watching a number of people wrongly accuse of Michele of having set a fire at a factory. Casey, working undercover as another secretary, knows that Michele has recently been released from a mental hospital and that she’s still haunted by a bad relationship that she had with an older man. But Casey also understands that evidence against Michele is circumstantial. Yes, Michele had some matches in desk. Yes, Michele had a can of turpentine in her desk. All the rest, though, is gossip.

And it does turn out that Michele is innocent. Co-worker Joe (Clifford David) has an alibi for the night of the fire. While the factory was burning, Joe was getting arrested for making a scene at the bar. When Casey learns that Joe is diabetic, she announces that diabetics can’t drink so Joe must have been faking being drunk to give himself an alibi. Joe confesses that he was hired by the owner of the factory to set the place on fire for the insurance money.

(And it’s a good thing that Joe confessed because I’m pretty sure Casey’s logic would not have held up in court.)

Problems with Casey’s logic aside, I did like this episode. Betty Lou Holland gave a very good performance as Michele, as did Betty Walker as Jenny, Michele’s main tormenter. Beverly Garland did a great job communicating Casey’s righteous fury over Jenny’s self-righteous attitude. Finally, after two stage-bound episodes, this story saw a return to the location shooting that makes Decoy such a fun show for history nerds like you and me. 1950s New York was apparently the best place in the world to go shopping with a suspect.

As this episode ended, I found myself hoping that someone did give Michele a shot.

She deserved it.

This week, Casey goes after a drug dealer.

Episode 1.5 “Dream Fix”

(Dir by Teddy Sills, originally aired on November 11th, 1957)

This week’s episode opens with Casey walking down a city street. She tells us that she’s working Juvenile undercover, which apparently means that she just walks around the city and waits for a teenager to do something strange. When she sees a teenage girl collapse on the sidewalk, Casey runs over to her and looks at the powder in her hand. Casey tastes it.

“Heroin!” Casey snaps.

(How are cops always able to dip their fingers in random powers and then taste it without anything bad happening? What if the cocaine turned out to be strychnine? It just seems like a poor training and an unnecessary risk.)

Joanne Kittridge (Phyllis Newman) is indeed hooked on cocaine and heroin. However, neither her rich father (Les Damon) or her attorney (Frank Bandimer) want her to work with the police to track down her dealer. Her attorney arranges for Joanne to be sent to a rehab. Casey’s lieutenant (played, in this episode, by Simon Oakland) assigns Casey to undercover as a nurse.

In the end, Joanne not only gets straight but she reveals that her drug dealer is her lawyer! When the attorney pulls a gun on Joanne, Casey pulls her gun and shouts, “Freeze, police!”

This was a good episode, one that was well-acted by the entire cast and which featured Beverly Garland at her best. (Garland even gets to show off some karate moves when she disarms the attorney.) That said, it’s starting to bother me how almost all of Casey’s assignments seem to involve her pretending to be someone’s friend. I get that she’s working undercover but it’s sometimes hard not to wonder what’s going to happen to people like Joanne after they realize that the only reason Casey talked to her in the first place was because someone ordered her to.