This Kraft Suspense Theatre segment is terrific, thanks to "Route 66" mastermind Stirling Silliphant delivering a highly original script that combines high drama, philosophical content and action/suspense into one tight little package.
Watching it, I felt like it had been written for "Route 66", which I've been watching completely start to finish lately. All that's missing is Milner and Maharis, who could have been usefully inserted in supporting roles.
Heading a cast of solid film actors, Stuart Whitman excels in one of his better roles, almot up there with is pinnacle, in "The Mark". He plays a daredevil of a stuntman, beset with family troubles (his wife, sensitively played (as always) by Joan Hackett who attempts suicide over the uncertain future for their brain-damages son).
Gary Merrill is utterly convincing as an award-winning movie director who needs a bang-up climax for his latest action picture, and Whitman concocts and volunteers to deliver a 200-foot fall from a bridge stunt, handled by him, not a dummy or special effect. Silliphant digs in on vital issue of death and proving one's worth to oneself, even invoking Icarus in his script.
Steve Ihnat as his stunt buddy and former super-starlet Terry Moore are excellent, each given complex, thought-provoking speeches by Silliphant along the way to an exciting climax. To my mind, Silliphant's screenplay is superior to that of the famous (if perhaps not so much any more) cult classic, Richard Rush's "The Stunt Man", made 12 years later.
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