Die Laughing

Milton Berle stars and is adequately dramatic in this episode concerning a person's right to suicide. Roger Lewis's screenplay lays out the legal issues and has emotional moments involving Berle's wife (Marsha Hunt) and daughter (Lynn Loring), but only scratches the surface of this subject matter, leading to an anticlimactic ending.

Watching Berle emote, I immediately thought of two of his contemporaries in comedy, Jackie Gleason and Red Skelton, all of which I grew up watching on TV. Both Gleason and Skelton were masters in their repertoire of creating pathos with characters like The Poor Soul and Freddie the Freeloader, but Berle is far less convincing here. Jan Murray, more or less playing himself, adds to the entertainment value of the hour as his buddy and the show's highlight is Berle performing stand-up before a nightclub audience, including an excellent tap dance routine.