User Reviews

I caught this one a year or two ago and thought it could use another watch. Alan Ladd plays a writer who has ran out of story ideas. He places an ad in the newspaper saying, "Wanted, Adventure! Will go anywhere, will do anything." His ad is answered by a man, Whit Bissell, who offers him $10,000 to do a small job for him. Before Ladd can find out about the job he is rendered unconscious with a mickey finn. He wakes up strapped to a bed in a mental hospital outside the city. The more he protests they have the wrong man the more they sedate him. It seems that our man Whit has hired Ladd because he needs a body. He plans to pull off a 5 million dollar scam. Bissell is a crooked lawyer who is covering up a client's murder by having Ladd committed under the client's name. It seems Bissell and the client's wife were doing some horizontal mambo. Bissell had decided to eliminate the husband and get the man's wife and cash. Of course Ladd throws a monkey wrench into the works and pulls a breakout. Ladd leads the police on a merry chase while trying to contact a city police detective he knows. He needs the detective to prove his story. The local police of course think he is an escaped madman and have orders to shoot on sight. The old nick of time rescue by Ladd's cop buddy brings Bissell's plot to a halt. A fairly brisk half hour's worth of entertainment. Rest of the cast includes, Virginia Gibson, John Howard, Gene Reynolds and Tina Carver. (b/w)

This action-packed episode of "General Electric Theater" is just the sort of thing you'd expect from Alan Ladd--and I mean this in the best possible way.

Ladd plays a reporter/writer named Dan Holiday. Dan is a bit of a nut in that he doesn't want to research for his next book--he wants to experience it himself. However, when this opportunity is thrust upon him, maybe it's far more than he ever wanted. It seems that an evil wife and her equally evil lover have killed her husband and to hide it, they've picked some similar looking schnook (Holiday) and had him committed to a mental institution. When he protests that he's NOT her husband, the psychiatrist explains that it's all part of his psychosis. This is because this evil rat is ALSO in on the scheme--and it looks like no matter what Holiday says, no one will believe him. And so it's all up to the pugilistic Holiday to make sure folks know...with his fists!

This is a very taut 30 minute show with some wonderful twists and is very well written and acted. Excellent in every way.