The Joseph Cotten Show: On Trial (TV Series) The Trial of Mary Surratt (1956) User Reviews

Last Comment on an Unseen series

[theowinthrop · 10 October 2006]

This episode was entitled THE TRIAL OF MARY SURRATT. I notice that besides Joseph Cotton, his old fellow "Mercury Theater" player, Ray Collins, is in the episode. I just wonder if the episode actually is dealing with the 1865 trial of Mary Surratt as one of the conspirators in the Lincoln Assassination. The cast does not have a single recognizable character's name from that trial. Collins is a character named "Corbett", but is that "Boston Corbett", the fellow who shot (or supposedly shot) John Wilkes Booth at Garrett's Tobacco Barn in Bowling Green, Virginia on April 26, 1865? If so, Collin (who was in his late fifties, and stout, and short) does not look like the thin and wiry look Boston Corbett. I really would like to see this episode just to see what the story was like. If it was about the unfortunate boarding house landlady, it would be rather thought provoking. But if not, it would be very disappointing.