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 gets involved with gun smugglers!

Episode 1.20 “Across the World”

(Dir by Teddy Sills, originally aired on February 24th, 1958)

Andrew Garcia (Frank Silvera), Herbert Carson (Arthur Batanides), and Carl Walton (Nicholas Colasanto) are using an import/export business to smuggle guns to the communists.  (Booo!)  When the owner of the company finds out, they murder her in a hit-and-run.  Because of the suspicious nature of the woman’s death, Casey is sent undercover to investigate.  She shows up at the company, claiming to be the woman’s only heir.  Her cover is blown early, leading to her getting knocked around by the bad guys.  Fortunately, for her, the bad guys end up turning on each other and eventually, the rest of the police force arrives and puts an end to the smuggling once and for all.

This episode didn’t feature much of Beverly Garland.  Instead, the majority of it focused on the three smugglers arguing amongst themselves and then plotting various double crosses.  Unfortunately, the smugglers weren’t particularly interesting.  Sometimes, bad guys can be compelling to watch but these dopes were obviously doomed from the minute that they first appeared.  Though it’s never specifically said to whom they were smuggling the weapons, I’m going to assume that it was probably Castro and his forces.  In 1958, there were a lot of Americans who actually thought that Castro would be more willing to work with America than Batista was.  Needless to say, they turned out to be incorrect.  Casey could have warned them if anyone had bothered to listen!

This was a lesser episode of Decoy but the episode did feature some location shots of New York City.  The actors where shivering so I can only assume it was very cold when they filmed this episode.