Nick Segal is expecting to be paroled, largely due to the manipulation of his partner behind the scenes. So when Segal is denied parole he decides to rat out his partner to the feds as payback, and by proxy will probably drag Frank Nitti's operation into matters too. Before Eliot Ness can get to the prison to talk to Segal about what he knows, Segal is taken out by a sniper's bullet. Law enforcement investigates and says the bullet must have come from inside the prison, thus the titular "three thousand suspects". Ness promises another convict, Tom Sebring (Leslie Nielsen), an early parole if he will work undercover and discover who killed Segal.
I say Nielsen hasn't managed to grasp the subtlety of the acting craft at this point in his career because he goes about snarling as though he is a cross between Captain Bligh and James Cagney's Cody Jarrett out of White Heat. It is a one note performance and manages to get almost comical, as though he is doing his famous late career parodies but at this point doesn't know that he is doing it.
I would have probably given this episode just a 5/10 had it not been for the opportunity of seeing Leslie Nielsen so early in his career, and plus Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti always entertains.
I say Nielsen hasn't managed to grasp the subtlety of the acting craft at this point in his career because he goes about snarling as though he is a cross between Captain Bligh and James Cagney's Cody Jarrett out of White Heat. It is a one note performance and manages to get almost comical, as though he is doing his famous late career parodies but at this point doesn't know that he is doing it.
I would have probably given this episode just a 5/10 had it not been for the opportunity of seeing Leslie Nielsen so early in his career, and plus Bruce Gordon as Frank Nitti always entertains.