Belvedere Tower

The director of this episode is no one else than William Beaudine whose career shone in the silent era, before losing much of his quality and I guess ambition after the forties. Remember his last films JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER and BILLY THE KID VS DRACULA; no comment, folks, no comment... He reached the total depth of the tank...Now, with this episode for NAKED CITY, for me, it is the new birth of William Beaudine, a sensitive drama with an unusual plot, in the criminal element. I guess it was inspired from actual facts. It is riveting, and so short. It would be a crime to avoid it.

Looking at this one is a reminder that in the right hands, fifties machine made half hour black and white filmed TV could hold attention and even provide a few resonant moments.

One of the earlier half hour NAKED CITYs, this episode has Franciscus and Mac Entire called in to take down cop killer Spencer, after he shelters in the Belvedere Tower castle-like weather station in Central Park. There's a surprisingly well written confrontation with the meteorologist, comparing their life styles.

The cast, camera, editing and direction (Beaudine was a sure handed pro, whose work only lacked ambition) are more than adequate.

***SPOILERS*** Always wanting to live the good life bank teller Mitchell Pierce, Paul Spencer, was hindered in doing that by earning $58.33, that's $450,00 in 2014 dollars, a week which barley paid his rent & food expenses. That"s when he came up with this great idea to moonlight as a milkman and break into people's apartments pretending to deliver milk bottles and rip the place off. Hijacking the local milkman's truck that delivers its cargo to the mostly rich & swanky upper West Side, or Central Park West, of Manhattan he has lots of customers who being on vacation, mostly in the Hamptons, who won't miss what he robbed from them until they get home at the end of the summer.

After ripping off his latest victim of among other things his gun collection, that includes a .44 Magnum, Pierce is caught red handed trying to escape and ends up blasting a policeman , with his Magnum .44, trying to apprehend him. Now a cop killer and on the run for his life, cops don't usually arrest cop killers they shoot them while "trying to escape", Pierce makes his way to the Central Park weather station at Belvedere Tower to make his last stand. He as insurance takes the weatherman Dobbs, Dean C. Almquist, as hostage as he barricades himself there against the police.

***SPOILERS*** Pierce plans to go down in a blaze of glory and take Dobbs and a number of the NYPD along with him. This has the by now reality challenged Pierce feel that by doing that he'll finally succeed in death as another John Dillinger, by getting shot in a police shoot-out, by being noticed in the history books that he couldn't succeed in life by being rich & independent! As usual even in that Pierce was a total failure in blowing his chance of immortality by getting caught alive with both his hands as well as .44 Magnum being tied or better yet stuck behind his back without him having a chance to use it!

A far-fetched crime story is overshadowed by extensive use of the photogenic Belvedere Castle in Central Park as the location for a solid shootout with police that climaxes this "Naked City" segment.

Paul Spencer, an itinerant young actor who IMDb identifies with just two screen credits, typifies a no-name cast, hamming it up as a maniacal criminal who has a lowly job working at a bank but insists on living the high life. He commits apartment robberies by kidnapping and impersonating milkmen, which sounds silly as a plot device and is.

Similarly, Spencer steals a 44 magnum from a gun collector's apartment, just in time to use it to threaten cops (or kill them) faster than you can say Dirty Harry, a gimmick commanding its own special sound effect. The token glamorous blonde with whom Paul has a ritzy restaurant date is played by Dorothy Dollivar, as obscure an actress as you can find, again with only two minor IMDb credits.

But the well-photographed views of the Castle, being used as a weather station, with a talkative weatherman taken hostage by the killer, stands supreme.