The Dick Powell Theatre (TV Series) The Fifth Caller (1961) User Reviews

The Fifth Caller

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 27 November 2023]

A passerby finds a woman unconscious on a beach in Bournemouth. She has slashed her wrist. She turns out to be Anna (Eva Gabor) a Hungarian emigre.

At the hospital she is interviewed by Inspector Marshall (Michael Rennie.) Not why she tried to harm herself. That she was working for Dr Whitehall and she has been found dead in her home.

The Inspector believes that both incidents are linked. Anna quickly becomes a murder suspect. Although she has no memory of what happened to her.

She had a dispute with Dr Whitehall. However the doctor was not well regarded within the medical profession. The medic treating Anna did not regard Dr Whitehall as a proper medical doctor as she was into some supernatural beliefs accompanied with loud organ music.

Despite Sergeant Lansing convinced that Anna is guilty. The Inspector has some doubts.

It is a story of Anna trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together. While Inspector Marshall works out just who did visit Dr Whitehall on the day she was killed.

There is some very melodramatic acting, especially from Elsa Lanchester. The identity of the killer was not difficult to work out.

Routine mystery

[searchanddestroy-1 · 21 March 2016]

A woman is found unconscious on a beach, on the British shore, by a walker with his dog. It appears that she was the secretary of a doctor who was found dead, murdered. The woman in question had her wrists cut with razor blades. Her behaviour is weird and she is rapidly suspected to have committed the crime. This story is built on the flashback scheme and I felt a little bored, I admit. This kind of stuff is really not my cup of tea. But the performances are fine, nothing to argue about it.

Michael Rennie is perfect in this tale. We find here some kind of a British touch. Maybe because it takes place in UK.