One really wants to give executive producer Jack Webb, associate producer James Lydon, and director/producer William Conrad a lot of credit for their effort with this five-part story arc. Part Four adds flesh-and-blood to a series of clues and directions revealed in Part Three, including some vicious flashbacks set in Italy during the Second World War, and has some good acting vignettes by Telly Savalas and Jacques Bergerac, plus another scene-stealing sequence with Walter Slezak. The only weak point is the appearance, in a straight acting role, by Tony Bennett -- at this writing in July of 2018, Mr. Bennett is a national treasure as a singer and personality, but his performance here is, if anything, even worse than his notoriously bad work in the movie The Oscar, and it throws off the balance of the entire second half of the episode; why, beyond his well-recognized name the makers would have picked him to participate in the episode in this way is as big a mystery as anything in this script. It's not enough to ruin the episode, but it is six minutes of viewing that will add nothing to anyone's life or experience thereof.
The only other major flaw, more evident here than in the preceding episode, is the decision by the producers to ignore the history of the Stuart Bailey character. It was well established in the prior seasons of the series that Stu Bailey had, at some point before becoming a private investigator, worked in some security capacity or other for the United States government, and was employed in that capacity anew on at least one occasion in the series itself. We realize that it creates more dramatic tension if the US Army colonel (Lloyd Nolan) in charge of the government's interest in this case has doubts and questions about Bailey's motives, but longtime viewers would have to wonder way the officer couldn't make a few calls to settle his doubts.
Otherwise, this is still a good entry in a uniquely ambitious dramatic/adventure effort of its time, for American television.
The only other major flaw, more evident here than in the preceding episode, is the decision by the producers to ignore the history of the Stuart Bailey character. It was well established in the prior seasons of the series that Stu Bailey had, at some point before becoming a private investigator, worked in some security capacity or other for the United States government, and was employed in that capacity anew on at least one occasion in the series itself. We realize that it creates more dramatic tension if the US Army colonel (Lloyd Nolan) in charge of the government's interest in this case has doubts and questions about Bailey's motives, but longtime viewers would have to wonder way the officer couldn't make a few calls to settle his doubts.
Otherwise, this is still a good entry in a uniquely ambitious dramatic/adventure effort of its time, for American television.
