Naked City (TV Series) The Other Face of Goodness (1958) User Reviews

He just wanted someone to see Him

[gordonl56 · 7/10 · 12 May 2016]

NAKED CITY "The Other Face of Goodness" 1958

This is the 10th episode of the superb Police Detective series, NAKED CITY. The series ran for 138 episodes between 1958 and 1963. This one starts with the narrator telling the viewer that NYC is being terrorized by a serial killer. The man is killing disabled women, strangling them with a coat hanger.

Arnold Merritt, is one of those people that just blends into the background. He is a student taking a medical course. It bothers him that everyone just seems to take him for granted. He has no girl, he has no friends, he has nothing. The news reports make the killer sound like somebody, a killer, yes, but people talk about him.

Merritt, decides to confess to the crime even though he never did the deeds. He is given a round of third degree by Detectives, Harry Bellaver, John McIntire and James Franciscus. The Detectives soon see that the lad is not the man they are seeking and toss him.

Merritt returns to his basement apartment. There, he finds one of the upstairs tenants, Loretta Leversee doing laundry. He offers to carry her laundry basket up to the apartment. Of course Miss Leversee happens to have a crippled leg. Merritt decides to kill the woman, but can't go through with the actual act. After he flees, the Police are called and soon corner the man up in a church tower.

Chief Detective, McIntire, talks the lad out of throwing himself off the tower. Merritt just wants somebody to notice him. McIntire promises to help him and brings the lad down. It looks like a long stay in a mental hospital for Merritt.

This episode, which features plenty of location shooting, was directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Rosenberg would hit the big time with the feature films, COOL HAND Luke, THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN, THE DROWNING POOL and BRUBAKER.

The writer, Stirling Silliphant, would go on to win an Oscar for IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT.

You don't understand! I have to do it! I have to do it! I have to be important!

[kapelusznik18 · 6/10 · 18 February 2014]

***SPOILERS*** Trying to pep up his boring and uneventful life pre-med student Jimmy Barrick, Arnold Merrith, seeks action and adventure by trying to be the coat hanger killer who's been terrorizing NYC for the last three months. Not having the guts or nerve to commit the murders himself Jimmy tries to take credit for them making a complete fool or idiot of himself in not knowing how the real murders were committed. In one last attempt to get his name in the papers and be famous as the next Jack the Ripper Jimmy actually tries to murder, with a coat hanger, his sweet and kindly next door neighbor Nora Brown, Loretta Leversee, that he met in the laundry room doing her wash.

Invited to her apartment to carry her laundry Jimmy suddenly goes crazy trying to strangle Nora with a coat hanger but can't bring himself to do it. Crazed & confused and wanted by the police Jimmy now tries to kill himself by jumping off the Grant Tumb Memorial with the police lead by Let. Dan Muldoon, John MacItire, hot on his tail. It turned out that Jimmy who didn't have to heart to kill Nora don't have the heart or will to do himself in either and meekly gave himself up to the police to be treated, at the local hospital, for his obvious mental illness.

There are a lot of people like Jimmy Barrick who feel that life had passed them by and want to be famous in any way that they can. But in his case in becoming or impersonating a serial murderer is the wrong way to do it. Find a cure for cancer or write the great American novel or even better just become a productive member of the community and you'll be famous enough Jimmy. If not to the world at large but to yourself and those around you. Which is far better then being known as the boy on the block that was committed to a mental asylum for trying to live out the criminal fantasies that are or were beyond his control!

Who was tha actual killer?

[searchanddestroy-1 · 22 December 2017]

I began this wonderful crime TV show which has never been aired in France, even fifty years ago...What a terrific series. I have the whole stuff in DVD. This episode is one of the best so far, the ugly, realistic, accurate description of the NYPD police crime department among the concrete jungle, streets, desperate people, hopeless human beings in the search of a goal in their lives...This story is so original, interesting, this poor boy who tells the cops he was the real murderer whilst every body knows he is not... Butt he real question, IF I folowed in the right way, is WHO IS THE KILLER, the guy who kills woman with a coat hanger? but after all, who cares, the real topic here is elsewhere.

A cry baby killer

[lor_ · 8 November 2023]

Stirling Silliphant penned a story about a serial killer, a topic he returned to unsuccessfully a couple of years later on "Route 66". That later show starred a hambone Scott Marlowe who ruined it, but here we have a baby-faced killer who only overplays in one scene, making for a better experience.

He's called The Coat Hanger Killer by the tabloids, referring to his weapon used so far on three married women, beauties who are all crippled. He's a student with a touch of megalomania, convinced that the notoriety achieved through such violence is necessary to make him feel important -a severe inferiority complex. Latest victim to be is the pregnant young wife of his college professor.

Director Stuart "Cool Hand Luke" Rosenberg provides plenty of suspense until a final foot chase past Grant's tomb into a empressive cathedral. Ending, like the other Silliphant show is a poor anticlimax.