Suspense (TV Series) Go Home Dead Man (1951) User Reviews

You can't quit the job that easy.

[searchanddestroy-1 · 7/10 · 4 March 2020]

Jackie Cooper plays here a character usually used for contract killers, you know those guys working for underworld organizations, well paid, but who decide one day to quit that well paid but dangerous profession to flee for a a quieter life. You know what happens then; Always. The "executives" of those organizations do not particularly agree with such terms. Here Cooper is not a hired killer working under contract but a man in charge of smuggling shipments of goods for a bunch of ruthless businessmen. When he announces them he wants to go elsewhere, they will do anything to prevent him to enhance his own future. First attempt fails during a ridiculous sequence aboard a train compartment, but the evil dudes will proceed anyway to get rid of the unfaithful employee. It remains rather hollow, unsatisfactory stuff. I expected a little better.

Worth A Look-See

[dougdoepke · 7 February 2021]

Nifty little suspenser. So what's the mysterious cargo fly-boy Cooper's been carrying to northern regions. He doesn't know, nor does he know much about the ugly guys employing him. But he does have a sense of doom and wants to quit and spend more time with lovely girl-friend Riva. However, aboard a Scotland train, it seems like the ugly guys don't want him to quit. For Cooper, it seems like it's fly or die. Surprisingly, however, they work out a last-minute deal for one more flight. So maybe the guys aren't as ugly as they seem, or are they. Meanwhile, the lovely Riva awaits along with her stove. Anyway, what the heck's going on.

Cooper shows first-rate acting chops in this 30-minutes of intrigue and surprise. Besides, who can pass up a show with a key player named "Wormy".

Plays like a Carol Burnett satirical sketch

[lor_ · 10 December 2023]

You might have to get your jaw-wired back into place after the jaw-dropping klutziness of this unintentionally hilarious (and ridiculous) suspense story starring a full-speed-ahead Jackie Cooper. It's so bad I imagine Coop might have shown this to friends years later as the pinnacle of camp.

It's styled as a Cold War thriller replete with Hollywood heavy George Mathews cast as an obviously stereotyped Russian bad guy (replete with Vodka served for the backward viewer to pick up on). Cooper's the fall guy, and with Maria Riva effective as an obvious femme fatale pretending to be a nice girlfriend to Coop, it plays well enough for half the running time, until absurd and crazy elements are inserted into the script. At one point, a man in a straitjacket is parked in a crowded train compartment, who on cue tries to kill Coop - even Saturday Night Live would have blue-penciled that skit!

The way the characters carry on as the action becomes more and more ludicrous suggests the comic absurdity of a Charles Ludlam play. In fact, such "dramatic" silliness on live TV like this may have been influential as inspiration in developing the theater of the ridiculous in the 1960s.

One unexpected element is the appearance of George Doohan, a/k/a "Scotty" in Star Trek, as a bad guy underling, a bit hard to recognize wearing a moustache yet speaking with that voice so recognizable on the Starship Enterprise.