Review of Shell Game

Leads John Davidson, Joan Van Ark and Robert Sampson play rather shallow characters in this poor drama about a scheme to defraud a non profit where the contributions are being stolen by the head of the firm to pay off gambling debts. Even at 72 minutes, this is a very dull TV movie where the best performances come from the minor characters, especially from Louise Latham as the executive in charge of donations (blamed for the graft but completely innocent) and Signe Hasso as a lady who lunches, covered in leopard skin. A scheme to make a group of gamblers think that they've just witnessed a murder looks completely staged and the phoniness of it makes everyone involved look like total idiots. Groovy 70's fashions are fun to look at, but outside of that and the cameos of Latham and Hasso, this is a complete dud. Davidson in particular is completely miscast, and has no spark with Van Ark.