Kraft Suspense Theatre (TV Series) One Step Down (1963) User Reviews

Some really fine acting in this one.

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 30 December 2020]

"One Step Down" is an episode from "Kraft Suspense Theatre"....a highly underrated 1960s suspense show. It stars Gena Rowlands, Leslie Nielsen and Ira Lupino.

When the story begins, Janet (Rowlands) enters a hotel room with a man you assume is her husband. However, when the man soon keels over from a heart attack, her behaviors betray that she is NOT his wife....and the pair were having an affair. This is because Janet doesn't call the police from the room but goes to a payphone to alert the police....but she doesn't give her name and she soon hangs up.

While the police rule that no foul play was involved, the dead man's crazed and heavy-drinking wife, Harriet (Lupino) places all the blame for the affair and death on 'the other woman' and she vows to find the woman and exact her revenge. Interestingly, it turns out Janet IS Harriet's good friend....and Janet and her husband (Nielsen) are the ones that go to Harriet to comfort her when the police tell her about the husband being found dead.

Soon Harriet has paid for a private eye (Phillip Pine) and he goes back to talk with the sleazy motel manager (Jack Weston), The motel manager says he can't identify the woman...but soon he approaches Janet with blackmail demands! Wow, is Janet in trouble now....and you sure wonder what's coming up next!

This is one of the least suspenseful episodes of the series. I've seen every episode and can say that. But it IS so well acted and well written that I really didn't care. Kudos all around for a very interesting show.

Any woman who marries with stars in her eyes the third time around has to be feeble minded

[sol-kay · 6/10 · 14 October 2011]

***SPOILERS*** Secretly driving up to the Sea Spray Motel to have an evening of hot and heavy action married couple, but not to each other, Janet Cord & George Whtney, Gena Rowlands & Myron Healey, get a lot more action they they ever expected.

While freshening himself up in the bathroom George suddenly drops dead from a fatal heart-attack leaving his intended and a bit reluctant sex partner Janet holding the bag in being the last person to see George alive. It's when the news gets back to George's wife Harriet, Ida Lupinio, that her cheating husband was found dead in a motel room that he was to spend the afternoon with another woman that she blows a fuses! What Harriet didn't know was that the other woman was her best friend Janet Cord!

Determined to find out who the other woman is Harriet hires private investigator Ellis, Phillip Pine, to track her down. Ellis does in fact find out from motel manager Homer Fargis, Jack Weston,that George was indeed with another woman whom he can identify her if he ever saw her again. It's at George's funeral that Homer was was urged by Ellis to attend that he spots the other woman, Janet Cord, but keeps that information from both Ellis and Harriet. He planned to blackmail Janet in him keeping his mouth shut and her paying him off with $2,000.00 up front and $150.00 a month until further notice! And that further notice can be until Homer feels that he's got enough money to keep him fit & happy which may well be the rest of his life.

As we soon find out it was Janet's doctor husband David Cord, Leslie Nielsen, who drove her to do what she did in trying to have an affair with her best friend's husband Geoprge Cord. By working late hours at the hospital ER and not spending any time with her Dr. Cord left Janet starved for both love and attention which the very accommodating George Whitney was more then willing to give her. Of course George in neglected his serious heart condition as well as his medication for it ended up doing himself him in before he could even spring into action.

***SPOILERS*** In the end everything turned out all right for Janet in the blackmailing Homer getting busted by the police not for blackmail but harboring a number of fugitives, his partners in crime, from the law and Harriet forgiving her in realizing that Janet's husband was as guilty as her own in neglecting her and forcing Janet into George's arms. But best of all it's David who realized what a heel he was in not spending any time with Janet who after finding out that she was about to, but never had, have an affair with another man that he turned over a new leaf and found time for her. That despite his very long hours at the hospital emergency room which, with his marriage with Janet now in jeopardy, he could now do well without.

Shaggy dog story

[lor_ · 19 September 2023]

The writing is quite poor for this Kraft soap opera, dare one call it Cheesy? The talented lead players do a good job, stuck with cardboard characters trapped in an early '60s fake Suburban world worthy of a Joe Sarno sexploitation movie (which would have been far more interesting.

Given her immense talent, I was initially impressed with the subtlety of Gena Rowlands' minute changes of facial expression to exemplify a neglected wife almost cheating with a family friend. His sudden heart attack at a motel (their room bearing a warning "One Step Down" sign that gives the episode its suggestive title) immediately puts her into sustained distress, as the viewer is forced to share her anxiety for the rest of the hour. Final resolution is as fake as the contrived predicaments that keep this potboiler chugging along on a very low flame.

I'm a fan of director Bernard Girard, but he couldn't pump life into this placid story in which all punches are pulled. There's no crime involved, just "guilt for attempted cheating". Poor Gena is quickly painted into the background, saddled with a role that could have been played by anyone, not permitted to create a real character. Intead, Ida Lupino as the dead man's wife harkens back to volatile '40s heroines/loathsome characters in the Joan Crawford mold, grandstanding entertainingly just this side of camp. Leslie Nielsen's walkthrough as Gena's self-absorbed surgeon husband recalls bland leading men of yesteryear, who deferred to their star leading ladies in what used to be called a Woman's Film. There's no hint of his comedic talents that punctuated the latter phase of his career.