Hollywood Off-Beat

When Melvyn Douglas was having career problems with the blacklist in 1952, he went to New York and shot this t.v. series which ironically takes place in Hollywood. He stars as a lawyer who has been wrongly disbarred and finds work as a private detective in and around the movie business. The show was titled "Hollywood Offbeat" but was then retitled as "Steve Randall." It had also been known in preproduction as "Randall's Briefcase." In one episode, Cara Williams, plays a second-tier star who has had her contract canceled and sets up a plan to steal $50,000 worth of prop jewelry by using her stand-in to create an alibi. When a studio guard is accused of the theft, Randall takes the case and exposes the real culprit. The sets are cheap-looking and the New York production work was heavily inter-cut with stock location shots of Hollywood. Douglas often appears inside his car, augmented by voice-over, driving to and fro, without the help of rear-screen projection. Each show ended with a credit for filming at Parsonnet Studios in New York.