User Reviews

So what am I missing here? How is it that Lieutenant Gordon (Edward Binns), attorney Yates (James Gregory), or anyone else on the side of the law, all failed to wonder why Charles Merriweather (Ross Elliott) would have implicated himself with murder if he KNEW there was a body in the trunk of his car? Seriously, why hang around on the side of the road with the flat tire on his car and wait for help, only to have a couple of cops in a patrol car be right there when the garage mechanic pops the trunk of the vehicle? This just doesn't make any sense to me. So again I ask, what am I missing?

If not for that major plot hole, this could have been one of the all time great 'Thriller' episodes. Everything else was intricately woven into a fairly intriguing episode, especially with the connection between Charles, Miss Grant (K.T. Stevens) and murder victim Jake Harbor (Gil Perkins). I don't know if I've ever seen a cast credit before for a character who's only appearance in a story is that of a dead body, but it's done here, so that may be a first. The guy must have had a pretty good agent.

But oh, that clever Mrs. Merriweather (Bethel Leslie). She must have really thought she was going to get away with it. I suppose if you want to really go for a stretch, you might have seen it coming with her character, but I'll admit the story had me fooled. The lieutenant's step by step explanation of the way the murder was carried out reminded me a bit of the way Charlie Chan would have handled it. I assume we have to believe that Binns only gave Ann a pass for the short time it would have taken her new husband to break the news.

Oh yes, one more thing. You get a pretty good view of the body in the trunk along with a side view of the victim's face. But as sure as my name is what it is, I'd have to say the mug shot of the guy at the police station was that of Boris Karloff!

Who is trying to drive troubled housewife Bethel Leslie crazy by making her think that she's the one trying to attempt suicide again the same way that she did several years ago when she accidentally killed her little boy? Is it her struggling husband (Ross Elliott) who is secretly drinking himself into a passed out state? The concerned neighbor (James Gregory) looking after her? An aging floozy (K.T. Stevens) who claims to be seeing her husband on the side? Someone in the mob also responsible for hiding the body of a dead mobster in Elliot's trunk? Between Gregory and detective Edward Binns, they are determined to find out.

The pretty Bethel Leslie played a troubled mother in an earlier "Thriller" episode in the same season, and is quite intense in this episode where she's on the verge of either a breakdown or being scared to death. It's a better than average episode where the guilty party could be just about anybody, and it is quite difficult to figure out just who is responsible. The mixture of crime, mystery and psychological horror has several shocking twists, one of which is so jarring that it is a real life nightmare. By the end of the episode when the pieces begin to fit together, you are still wondering if your intuitions are correct which makes this thrilling right up to the end.