Richard Boone in very good thriller

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33004, 25 August 1972, Page 4

Richard Boone in very good thriller

There’s nothing like an old-fashioned thriller to make the licence fee seem reasonable, and there was a very good one on Wednesday night. “In Broad Daylight” held no mystery, no challenge to the powers of deduction. But as a suspense story it was highly effective.

This tale was about a blinded actor who discovered his wife was having an affair with his best friend. It was taut and tense from the start, as the man planned to murder his wife. It remained gripping as he made his preparations, when the wife was killed, and during the police investigations. If there was a flaw in the plot, it was the husband’s last-second change of heart, and the accidental killing of his wife. That an angry woman should throw a book so accurately, and that the accidental discharge of the gun should And her in the way of the bullet were hardly credible.

For the rest, it was convincing enough. Chapel’s retreat from the scene of the crime was exciting, and so was the slow hardening of the detective’s conviction that the blind man had done the shooting, miles away from his home. Richard Boone made a very good Chapel, Suzanne Pleshette was a sympathetic character as his therapist, Stella Stevens a fairly adequate hussy of a wife. To this viewer, John Marley, as the detective, became the most convincing character of them all. He was utterly real, a veteran In his profession who was without theatrical gimmicks.

The "New Dick Van Dyke Show” began very slowly, and it seemed for some time

that Mr Van Dyke was not going to be able to amuse, as he has so often in the past. But the nonsense about withdrawals from cigarette smoking improved steadily as it went along. Van Dyke’s best contribution, his smallhours confrontation with temptation, was extremely good. • • •

“Softly, Softly-Task Force” maintained its good standard, without holding the impact it has achieved quite often. Charles Barlow was in a rather mellow mood, when in a similar situation in the old days he would have blown his top spectacularly. But it was a sound story of a smooth police operation and Barlow’s smile of satisfaction as he watched it bear fruit was worth waiting for. William Marlowe gave a

particularly good performance as the smooth villain, Patterson.

And although John Watt cannot compare, on the popularity polls, with Elsie Tanner, the fact that he is now married (unknown to Barlow, too!) was undoubtedly of some interest. Elsie’s forthcoming nuptials will remain a principal talking point with viewers, however. * ♦ «

“Doctor at Large” was funnier than usual, and the success of it was attributable largely to the presence of Jean Kent, who has given her support to a good many successful comedies, and to a good performance by Peter Bathurst as Dr Upton senior. His parade-ground rebukes to Michael were splendid.-—PANDORA.