User Reviews

Despite the original idea of using four rotating stars in each of the episodes (David Niven, Ida Lupino, Charles Boyer and Dick Powell), soon other actors and actresses were brought in to replace these original four. When it came to the women, the turnover was especially high--with quite a few different women taking on this role during the series' run. In the case of "Sound Off, My Love", Merle Oberon plays the female lead.

The show begins with Martha (Oberon) at an audiologist. While she thinks she might be slightly hard of hearing, she's lying to herself and the ear specialist informs her she has become deaf and needs a hearing aid. However, Martha is rather vain and refuses. However, once home she nearly gets herself killed because she cannot hear her husband's car coming down the driveway--so she returns to the audiologist and gets the hearing aid! However, something peculiar soon occurs. Martha does not tell others she's wearing it and she hides it quite well--and because of this she learns what lots of people have been saying behind her back. And, it's not just catty nonsense--something truly evil is afoot! I'd say more, but it would spoil the suspense.

I was particularly interested in this episode because I am hard of hearing and have worn hearing aids--plus my youngest daughter is deaf. Because my hearing is not great, I actually found myself a bit frustrated with "Sound Off, My Love" because the sound quality was not good--how ironic. It's not just that the volume is a bit low--it also has a muffled quality that hearing aids won't improve upon. Perhaps it would have sounded better had I watched it on TV and not my laptop. Regardless, it IS worth seeing even with this limitation, as the script was very creative and suspenseful.

FYI--Although they have Martha reading lips very well in the beginning of the show in order to compensate for her hearing loss, this is NOT an easy thing to do and it's VERY imprecise. Many deaf and hard of hearing folks simply cannot do it and almost no one can do it consistently well. Just thought you might want to know.

About as gimmicky as a melodrama can get (apart from those that are intentionally silly and played in drag), the Four Star Playhouse showcasing beautiful Merle Oberon was hard for me to watch. I suppose that being this dated and piling on one dumb gimmick after another is hard for me to overlook (or suspend my disbelief).

I imagined as I watched it the director Robert Florey, a film suspense master stuck doing TV later in his career, gritting his teeth and trying very hard (at times too hard) to make a hokey script work. The Bagni writing team is usually reliable, but handing in this stinker is a blot on their record.

The predictability of the show, once the PSA first half (which reminded me of those government-made Safety films made during this era, the kind Something Weird Video would resurrect on video decades later to amus exploitation movie fans) to thriller was annoying. The most significant one concerning TV great Barbara Billingsley I guesed immediately.

Planting of clues, with the used of intercut closeups, was way too emphatic to pass muster. Florey of all people knew better, so I presume he just grit his teeth and plowed ahead with the task at hand.

Oberon is great to look at (they even turn her into a sweater girl near the end), but her one-note performance is poor, even if technically mandated by the script. She should be a multi-dimensional character, not merely a vain, pitiable handicapped person. Putting oneself into the context of the 1953 era, what woman wouldn't want to be Merle, bad hering andall! And casting as bland a leading man as possible as her husband is cheating and insulting -given the series it should have been Charles Boyer gaslighting her!