This episode marks the most recent television role to date for Vera Miles, as well as the first television role for Steven Novak.
Angela Lansbury delivers a most compelling performance in this episode about a veteran military nurse and her architect son, for whom she claims a connection with the Fletcher family, as they face charges of destruction and murder.
As Nancy Landon (Vera Miles), from her Atlanta, Georgia, residence, watches a televised interview of author Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) broadcast from Tampa, Florida, on her way into Atlanta, Nancy's son, Steve Landon (Richard Gilliland), enters to announce problems arising at a school building construction site.
Architect Steve Landon designs his blueprints wisely, in terms of materials, safety codes and economical costs, but Olston Construction Company owner Ben Olston (John Beck), who won the City Council bid to erect a school, orders Steve to cut corners with his specks, as Ben plans to substitute inferior materials, which could lead to future disaster.
Ben controls the situation at hand with his heavies, Crocket (Jim Boeke) and Aaronson (Fredric Cook), Crocket overhearing Steve's threat to blast the site with dynamite, in order to expose corruption, before Ben faces a visit from his wife, Cynthia Olston (Jennifer Warren), who stops by the site to announce her plans to visit at her mother's residence for two or three days.
Dawn Bickford (Lindsay Frost), Administrative Assistant for City Councilman Axelrod (Alan Fudge), gives Olston Construction preferential treatment, as her plans to marry Ben after he divorces Cynthia cloud her judgment, as she drags Axelrod into the illegal scheme of fixing the bidding process. But Dawn takes the news of Cynthia's vacation well and plans to meet Ben the next evening at his place.
That night, an explosion rocks the sight, which Jessica is able to hear from her hotel room, after arriving in Atlanta that day. (It's not exactly clear from the dialogue whether all of this action occurs in Tampa or Atlanta, but the exterior shots appear nothing Florida-like, so we'll set the action in northern Georgia, or at least until we reach Seattle here.)
Lieutenant Barney Claymore (Paul Gleason), with Duty Patrolman (Elven Havard) at different points along the way, begins his arrests with Steve Landon, as Nancy reaches Jessica at her hotel room to plead with her to listen to her story.
They arrange lunch for the next day, at which time Nancy asks her to help to prove Steve's innocence; after all, Steve was conceived in Korea during the war, as Nancy served as a military nurse in the same unit with Jessica's now-late husband, Frank Fletcher. Oh, and, by the way, Frank is Steve's father, Nancy confides.
A tearfully shaken Jessica turns to Frank's old Air Force comrade Clint Phelps (Martin Milner), via telephone to Seattle, Washington, to learn whether Clint has any memory of Nancy Landon, or of her closeness with Frank, without revealing Nancy's confession to Clint. Clint answers that he remembers her as part of the overall unit for a short period around 1952, but that she wasn't very close to Clint and Frank, or at least not before Clint had to recuperate in sick bay for an extensive period of time.
Jessica's Atlanta attorney, Andrew Dixon (John Anderson), advises Jessica not to involve herself with Nancy and Steve's difficulties even though they cannot afford legal assistance. But Jessica says that she believes Steve's innocence especially because they have little money after Nancy spent hers on Steve's education, and Steve spent his on medical bills before losing his late wife the year before.
Jessica decides to see what she can do, by paying a call to Olston Construction, under the guise of a political fund-raising volunteer, at which time she observes Ben's handing Roy Temple (Steven Novak) a pay-off, while he's on the telephone with Dawn Bickford, creating connections which Jessica will somehow tie together to get to the bottom of things.
But when Jessica returns to Nancy's residence, Nancy shows her a letter from Frank, postmarked a year after Steve was born, while Nancy was living in Ohio. Jessica bottles her feelings until she is able to speak with Clint face-to-face, but he cannot leave Seattle because Bonnie is visiting their daughter, Phyllis, in Tacoma, after delivering her third baby.
So, Jessica takes an excursion to Seattle to discuss the situation with Clint over dinner at the airport, at which time Clint reassures Jessica that it is only she whom Frank has always loved, and chances are great that Frank has remained invariably faithful to Jessica.
Back in Atlanta, Jessica visits Nancy, who shows Jessica a pistol which she has discovered in the glove compartment of her station wagon. "It must belong to Steve," she says, as she sets the gun aside, immediately before Lieutenant Barney Claymore arrives to arrest Nancy for a murder, which she nor Jessica knows anything about, because it is a Taxi Driver (S. Scott Bullock) who stumbles across the body this time around.
And now that a murder has been committed, Jessica finally knows her way around, as she rises to the occasion to defend the innocent, once she decides who's being honest with her and who's not. After all, as the old nursery rhyme would have it, "Thursday's Child has far to go."
This episode also represents the first of two "MSW" performances each for Jennifer Warren and Richard Gilliland, the second of two "MSW's" each for John Beck and Elven Havard, the second of three for Paul Gleason, the third of three for Vera Miles, the first of five for Alan Fudge, and the third of five "MSW" guest roles for Martin Milner, including this, the second of two as USAF Veteran Clint Phelps.
John Anderson, acting in film and on television since 1950, and Paul Gleason, acting since 1962, have unfortunately since passed.
Angela Lansbury delivers a most compelling performance in this episode about a veteran military nurse and her architect son, for whom she claims a connection with the Fletcher family, as they face charges of destruction and murder.
As Nancy Landon (Vera Miles), from her Atlanta, Georgia, residence, watches a televised interview of author Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) broadcast from Tampa, Florida, on her way into Atlanta, Nancy's son, Steve Landon (Richard Gilliland), enters to announce problems arising at a school building construction site.
Architect Steve Landon designs his blueprints wisely, in terms of materials, safety codes and economical costs, but Olston Construction Company owner Ben Olston (John Beck), who won the City Council bid to erect a school, orders Steve to cut corners with his specks, as Ben plans to substitute inferior materials, which could lead to future disaster.
Ben controls the situation at hand with his heavies, Crocket (Jim Boeke) and Aaronson (Fredric Cook), Crocket overhearing Steve's threat to blast the site with dynamite, in order to expose corruption, before Ben faces a visit from his wife, Cynthia Olston (Jennifer Warren), who stops by the site to announce her plans to visit at her mother's residence for two or three days.
Dawn Bickford (Lindsay Frost), Administrative Assistant for City Councilman Axelrod (Alan Fudge), gives Olston Construction preferential treatment, as her plans to marry Ben after he divorces Cynthia cloud her judgment, as she drags Axelrod into the illegal scheme of fixing the bidding process. But Dawn takes the news of Cynthia's vacation well and plans to meet Ben the next evening at his place.
That night, an explosion rocks the sight, which Jessica is able to hear from her hotel room, after arriving in Atlanta that day. (It's not exactly clear from the dialogue whether all of this action occurs in Tampa or Atlanta, but the exterior shots appear nothing Florida-like, so we'll set the action in northern Georgia, or at least until we reach Seattle here.)
Lieutenant Barney Claymore (Paul Gleason), with Duty Patrolman (Elven Havard) at different points along the way, begins his arrests with Steve Landon, as Nancy reaches Jessica at her hotel room to plead with her to listen to her story.
They arrange lunch for the next day, at which time Nancy asks her to help to prove Steve's innocence; after all, Steve was conceived in Korea during the war, as Nancy served as a military nurse in the same unit with Jessica's now-late husband, Frank Fletcher. Oh, and, by the way, Frank is Steve's father, Nancy confides.
A tearfully shaken Jessica turns to Frank's old Air Force comrade Clint Phelps (Martin Milner), via telephone to Seattle, Washington, to learn whether Clint has any memory of Nancy Landon, or of her closeness with Frank, without revealing Nancy's confession to Clint. Clint answers that he remembers her as part of the overall unit for a short period around 1952, but that she wasn't very close to Clint and Frank, or at least not before Clint had to recuperate in sick bay for an extensive period of time.
Jessica's Atlanta attorney, Andrew Dixon (John Anderson), advises Jessica not to involve herself with Nancy and Steve's difficulties even though they cannot afford legal assistance. But Jessica says that she believes Steve's innocence especially because they have little money after Nancy spent hers on Steve's education, and Steve spent his on medical bills before losing his late wife the year before.
Jessica decides to see what she can do, by paying a call to Olston Construction, under the guise of a political fund-raising volunteer, at which time she observes Ben's handing Roy Temple (Steven Novak) a pay-off, while he's on the telephone with Dawn Bickford, creating connections which Jessica will somehow tie together to get to the bottom of things.
But when Jessica returns to Nancy's residence, Nancy shows her a letter from Frank, postmarked a year after Steve was born, while Nancy was living in Ohio. Jessica bottles her feelings until she is able to speak with Clint face-to-face, but he cannot leave Seattle because Bonnie is visiting their daughter, Phyllis, in Tacoma, after delivering her third baby.
So, Jessica takes an excursion to Seattle to discuss the situation with Clint over dinner at the airport, at which time Clint reassures Jessica that it is only she whom Frank has always loved, and chances are great that Frank has remained invariably faithful to Jessica.
Back in Atlanta, Jessica visits Nancy, who shows Jessica a pistol which she has discovered in the glove compartment of her station wagon. "It must belong to Steve," she says, as she sets the gun aside, immediately before Lieutenant Barney Claymore arrives to arrest Nancy for a murder, which she nor Jessica knows anything about, because it is a Taxi Driver (S. Scott Bullock) who stumbles across the body this time around.
And now that a murder has been committed, Jessica finally knows her way around, as she rises to the occasion to defend the innocent, once she decides who's being honest with her and who's not. After all, as the old nursery rhyme would have it, "Thursday's Child has far to go."
This episode also represents the first of two "MSW" performances each for Jennifer Warren and Richard Gilliland, the second of two "MSW's" each for John Beck and Elven Havard, the second of three for Paul Gleason, the third of three for Vera Miles, the first of five for Alan Fudge, and the third of five "MSW" guest roles for Martin Milner, including this, the second of two as USAF Veteran Clint Phelps.
John Anderson, acting in film and on television since 1950, and Paul Gleason, acting since 1962, have unfortunately since passed.
