Search in the Night

During the course of "Four Star Playhouse", the show changed and evolved quite a bit...and this even included the show's title. As to the four stars, they FREQUENTLY changed...so much so that the 'Four Star' in the title was misleading. Generally, three of the four stars were guys--David Niven, Charles Boyer and Dick Powell. However, Frank Lovejoy also made quite a few of the shows and this is one of them. As for the rest--they were women who seemed to cycle in and out of the fourth star.

When the episode begins, a diver is in the Chicago River looking for some lady's purse. A reporter, Mr. Stone (Lovejoy) comes upon it and he's intrigued...maybe there will be a story. Eventually, the diver finds the purse and the lady who contracted him runs off with it before Stone can ask her why any purse is THAT important. Stone is shocked, however, when the diver casually says that the purse contained a lot of money and a gun....and there was STILL a body down there among the pilings! What is going on here?!

The show could have worked but too often the dialog and characters behaved like they were acting in a super low-budget film noir picture...and a bad one at that. The way the diver acted upon discovering the body just seemed weird and the folks throughout the episode just never seemed believable. Nice try...but clearly a sub- par episode.