Casualty

Jeff handles this case, with just a few brief appearances by Stu. I'm going to have to get used to seeing Efrem Zimbalist smoking a pipe! He looks like an old-fashioned English professor!

The plot is a pretty good one. I liked that the villains were portrayed realistically, and were not typical hoodlums, of the kind we see so often in detective shows of this period. I also liked that we get to see Kookie getting out and about to help with the case; and it was fun to meet Roscoe for the first time! As for Suzanne, we get some flashes of her beautiful smile, and we get to hear her utterly delightful French accent. I do wish the directors and writers would figure out some ways to get the former Miss France out from behind that crummy switchboard cubicle! I know that does happen later sometimes, so we can look forward to that!

Kookie's cool-guy slang talk of 1958 does sound quite dated now, but it's fun to hear it, and his character adds zest to the episode--and to the entire series, for that matter.

Viewers of today will probably not be familiar with Roger Smith as an actor, unless they see this show. He's just in his mid-twenties here (as is Suzanne) but he has already proven that he can "carry" an episode on his own, without a big assist from the older and much more experienced actor, Efrem Zimbalist. I like them both very much. I have a little bit of a preference for Roger, because he is so witty, and when he flirts with the pretty ladies, he has this fun, impish gleam in his eyes.

Mrs Dolan catches her husband coming out of a shop. Only he died a year ago. So she goes to see Jeff Spencer of the detective agency.

He is reluctant at first to take on the case. Maybe it was a close relative of her husband. Some bereaved wives often claim to see someone who resembles their husband.

As Jeff looks into the case further. He comes across what looks like a clever insurance scam. Mrs Dolan's husband has often assumed another identity, later died for relative low amounts of life insurance. So the companies never look into it that much.

So Jeff also teams up with the life insurance company concerned. There has to be other people involved in the scam, such as a funeral company supplying and burying a body.

A good story that should be harder to do these days. Repeatedly fake your death. It's a lucrative scam that Mr Dolan got involved in.

Jeff is willing to place himself in danger to crack the case. Stuart Bailey only makes a brief appearance. There is a nice cameo from Nancy Kulp as the nosy, sexually starved landlady.

Roger Smith gets hired by Vivienne Marsden who swears she saw her dead husband in Los Angeles. The guy was a bum while he was married to her and before he 'died' he cleaned her out and left her and his two kids penniless.

He's alive now and living with the curvaceous and voluptuous Dolores Donlan. And both of them are now part of a racket faking multiple deaths for the insurance money.

In this digital age it would be harder to pull off a scheme like this and it certainly would take one experienced hacker. I think Roger Smith was a bit slow on the uptake because as the story unfolds it's obvious to me who has to be the key individual.

Still the sight of Dolores Donlon in tight clothes will get every red blooded straight mail twitching below decks.