Here we see one of the dumbest crooks in the history of this series-and essentially, we're supposed to root FOR him.
We open with a man named Jim Rogers walking beside some warehouse-like building, as our narrator tells us on a Sunday. We see Rogers trying to pry open a window. Just as he swings it open, an alarm sounds. He looks to his right and sees two men coming out of the door, fleeing a guard who was inside. They shoot and kill him and make their escape in a car, without seeing Rogers.
Rogers sees a sign on the window showing a readily posted offer of a $5,000 reward for anyone turning in information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone committing a crime on these premises. He goes to where the guard is, decides he's dead without much of a close look, then picks up the abandoned revolver and leaves the scene, returning home, he stuns his wife by telling her he was involved with two other men in a holdup and a guard was killed.
Now he is apparently out of work with a sick baby. He tells his wife, verbally forces her, to phone the police-sorry, the "Highway Patrol"-and tell them her husband killed someone in a holdup at this place and give their address. Very reluctantly she does so, without them discussing how long he would be sent away. All they seem to think about is getting hold of some money right away so they can take the baby to a doctor.
Even on those old Western shows where someone turned in a crook for reward money, nobody ever got paid just for bringing them into the marshal's office. They had to wait until they were convicted. Imagine, a wily bad guy turning in a partner of his to the marshal, collecting the reward, then when a trial comes, three honest citizens all truthfully testify that it couldn't have been "Tex" who robbed the stage, he was in Silver City playing poker with him at the time. The company says, "Marshal, what happened to the guy you paid our reward to?" Marshal says, "I dunno, he didn't stick around for the trial." A month later, they pull the same scam in another town.
Somehow, Jim Rogers thinks as soon as he gets arrested his wife will get the five G's. He is distressed to learn it will take months until after his trial before she collects. So when Dan takes him to the scene to tell the details of what happens, Rogers, not even handcuffed, easily escapes from our hero.
He phones his wife to come and meet him. He doesn't know that his picture and name have been plastered as confessing to the crime in the newspapers and the real killers are now afraid he will identify them. One of them has gone to his house to find out where he is, and overhears his wife repeat the meeting location, as she believes he is a newspaper reporter.
I have to stop with my plot description here: Her husband is now an escaped fugitive-murder suspect no less-a reporter is in the house and she repeats a location on the phone knowing full well the "reporter" would be able to hear her? Between the two of them, the combined IQ might not hit triple digits.
So Jim is at the meeting spot and he stands where he can be seen as a car pulls up-as though eager to see who's in it-remember, he's a fugitive on the lamb-and this lets the two killers see him clearly-knowing what he looks like from the photo in the paper-which begins a chase scene, which is rather awkwardly filmed with a few reported glitches in the sound effects, as reported in the "Goofs" section here on IMDB. But the whole thing gets resolved nicely, with Dan even forking over a few bucks to the missus to help her out.
The only smart thing Dan did was figure out early that there were several holes in this confessor's story. But it was still dumb to not have him securely in custody when he took him to the scene of the crime.
I cannot believe anyone would think the reward would be paid immediately on the suspect's arrest. Furthermore, how was this previously honest man happy with the thought of life in prison for murder, in exchange for getting his wife money that would likely, in 1959, not last his wife and kid more than a couple of years at most? He had a sick baby that needed medicine, not a heart operation. Is it really a good idea to leave his wife and baby to live without him-even if he got off lightly with, say, 7-10 years in prison? Whatever the sentence would be, living without him would surely not be a good thing for them.
Of course, the other really stupid thing was that it was accepted by everyone on this episode that the company actually would pay a wife for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her own husband? That would in effect be rewarding the killer-had he done the job-by giving his own family a nice reward for him committing a crime. I can see people with terminal cancer and a couple of months to live going out and committing big-time crimes so their loved ones can get a nice payday right before they die.
The plot was different than most, but this whole thing was so implausible on all angles I cannot give it a decent score at all-only a 3 out of 10.
We open with a man named Jim Rogers walking beside some warehouse-like building, as our narrator tells us on a Sunday. We see Rogers trying to pry open a window. Just as he swings it open, an alarm sounds. He looks to his right and sees two men coming out of the door, fleeing a guard who was inside. They shoot and kill him and make their escape in a car, without seeing Rogers.
Rogers sees a sign on the window showing a readily posted offer of a $5,000 reward for anyone turning in information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone committing a crime on these premises. He goes to where the guard is, decides he's dead without much of a close look, then picks up the abandoned revolver and leaves the scene, returning home, he stuns his wife by telling her he was involved with two other men in a holdup and a guard was killed.
Now he is apparently out of work with a sick baby. He tells his wife, verbally forces her, to phone the police-sorry, the "Highway Patrol"-and tell them her husband killed someone in a holdup at this place and give their address. Very reluctantly she does so, without them discussing how long he would be sent away. All they seem to think about is getting hold of some money right away so they can take the baby to a doctor.
Even on those old Western shows where someone turned in a crook for reward money, nobody ever got paid just for bringing them into the marshal's office. They had to wait until they were convicted. Imagine, a wily bad guy turning in a partner of his to the marshal, collecting the reward, then when a trial comes, three honest citizens all truthfully testify that it couldn't have been "Tex" who robbed the stage, he was in Silver City playing poker with him at the time. The company says, "Marshal, what happened to the guy you paid our reward to?" Marshal says, "I dunno, he didn't stick around for the trial." A month later, they pull the same scam in another town.
Somehow, Jim Rogers thinks as soon as he gets arrested his wife will get the five G's. He is distressed to learn it will take months until after his trial before she collects. So when Dan takes him to the scene to tell the details of what happens, Rogers, not even handcuffed, easily escapes from our hero.
He phones his wife to come and meet him. He doesn't know that his picture and name have been plastered as confessing to the crime in the newspapers and the real killers are now afraid he will identify them. One of them has gone to his house to find out where he is, and overhears his wife repeat the meeting location, as she believes he is a newspaper reporter.
I have to stop with my plot description here: Her husband is now an escaped fugitive-murder suspect no less-a reporter is in the house and she repeats a location on the phone knowing full well the "reporter" would be able to hear her? Between the two of them, the combined IQ might not hit triple digits.
So Jim is at the meeting spot and he stands where he can be seen as a car pulls up-as though eager to see who's in it-remember, he's a fugitive on the lamb-and this lets the two killers see him clearly-knowing what he looks like from the photo in the paper-which begins a chase scene, which is rather awkwardly filmed with a few reported glitches in the sound effects, as reported in the "Goofs" section here on IMDB. But the whole thing gets resolved nicely, with Dan even forking over a few bucks to the missus to help her out.
The only smart thing Dan did was figure out early that there were several holes in this confessor's story. But it was still dumb to not have him securely in custody when he took him to the scene of the crime.
I cannot believe anyone would think the reward would be paid immediately on the suspect's arrest. Furthermore, how was this previously honest man happy with the thought of life in prison for murder, in exchange for getting his wife money that would likely, in 1959, not last his wife and kid more than a couple of years at most? He had a sick baby that needed medicine, not a heart operation. Is it really a good idea to leave his wife and baby to live without him-even if he got off lightly with, say, 7-10 years in prison? Whatever the sentence would be, living without him would surely not be a good thing for them.
Of course, the other really stupid thing was that it was accepted by everyone on this episode that the company actually would pay a wife for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her own husband? That would in effect be rewarding the killer-had he done the job-by giving his own family a nice reward for him committing a crime. I can see people with terminal cancer and a couple of months to live going out and committing big-time crimes so their loved ones can get a nice payday right before they die.
The plot was different than most, but this whole thing was so implausible on all angles I cannot give it a decent score at all-only a 3 out of 10.