Telephone Time (TV Series) Novel Appeal (1957) User Reviews

Claudette Colbert and John Carradine

[kevinolzak · 6/10 · 11 January 2011]

TELEPHONE TIME was a dramatic TV series that attracted bigger Hollywood stars than most, with "Novel Appeal" reuniting Claudette Colbert and John Carradine, veterans of Cecil B. DeMille's "The Sign of the Cross" (1932) and "Cleopatra" (1934), plus John Ford's "Drums Along the Mohawk" (1939). Playing real life author Mary Roberts Rinehart, the still attractive, 54 year old Colbert interviews convicted murderer Ernest Weber (John Dierkes), coming away convinced that he is innocent of killing three people with an axe in 1896, 15 years earlier. Failing to get the authorities to reopen the case, she decides to write a mystery novel titled "The Afterhouse," covering the same events, but with the names changed. The real murderer is revealed to be religious fanatic Kurt Wolfgang Muller (Carradine), who boarded the ship and committed the murders under the name Charlie Brown, whose response to Mary's call provides a chilling reaction from his padded cell. Many familiar faces support the two stars, such as Paul Langton, John Hoyt, Paul Newlan, Robert Karnes, and Gene Roth, under the direction of Arthur Hiller, who soon graduated television for movies like "Love Story" and "Silver Streak."

A very interesting show...but I could find nothing substantiating what occurred in the show.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 12 September 2021]

In this installment of "Telephone Time", Claudette Colbert plays the famous American mystery writer, Mary Roberts Rinehart, who was to pass away a year after this TV episode. According to the host, this is a true life story and the epilogue at the end would seem to substantiate it, though when I checked the internet, I found nothing about it other than the name of the story Rhinehart wrote, "The After House".

According to this story, Mrs. Rinehart was doing some research for her stories by interviewing a murderer. However, after meeting with Mr. Weber, she was thoroughly convinced he hadn't killed the three people he was convicted of killing aboard a ship. The rest of the effort shows her trying to come up with an alternative account for the murders...and which ended up influencing her fictionalized version of the killings.

The acting is very good here, as you'd expect from a professional like Colbert. Well worth seeing and very interesting. I just wish I could find out more about what actually occurred.