Four Star Playhouse (TV Series) A Long Way from Texas (1956) User Reviews

Light-hearted episode for Powell as Willie Dante

[lor_ · 19 January 2011]

Dick Powell is Mr. Smooth as Willie Dante, the Gotham club owner with gambling in the back room in this minor but entertaining episode. I saw it in the rerun format dubbed "Star Performance", and it's an effective time-killer.

Dante plays good samaritan when he sees a couple of creepy con men attempting to bilk oil man Stuart (Paul Smith) and his bride Molly (Gloria Winters) on their honeymoon in the Big Apple. The baddies are involving Stuart in private poker games at their hotel, but with the assistance of his club employees Dante works a sting on them, saving the day.

Dick Carr's screenplay is as ephemeral as they come, but offers nice dialog and bon mots for Powell and his trusty straight man Alan Mowbray. When Powell donned his producer's hat and spun off the Dante character in 1960 for Howard Duff to star in the title role series, Mowbray was retained.

Acting is fine, with both Winters and Smith convincing as the bumpkins from Texas.

No good deed goes unpunished.

[mark.waltz · 3/10 · 3 February 2021]

Gloria Winters and Paul Smith guest star as a couple from Texas in town for some excitement, and nearly fleeced into getting involved in a private card game at a hotel by two conmen (Milton Frome and Anthony George), rescued by Dick Powell who steps in to rescue them. Waiter Alan Mowbray and bartender Herb Vigran aide the big-hearted Powell in saving Smith from being fleeced, teaching him a lesson by getting into situations that he cannot handle.

The light-hearted atmosphere of this episode diminishes the Dante's Inferno segment of the Four Star Playhouse anthology series and fills itself with some truly silly dialogue that doesn't for in with the quality of the other episodes. While it's nice that Vigran and Mowbray get to be more than the but of Powell's sardonic humor, this episode is the weakest of that segment of the long running anthology series, a letdown in many ways. Once again, this ends with Regis Toomey stepping in for a last minute twist, and rather than being funny, it's a complete eye roller.