Telltale Clue, The – Nostalgia Central

1 9 5 4 (USA)
13 x 30 minute episodes

The best thing about this Thursday night summer mystery show from CBS was the title. There was an aura of Edgar Allan Poe about it. But the writers – having purloined the better part of a Poe title – let it go at that.

The rest was pure routine.

The switch was the introduction of a fairly obvious clue, which viewers were invited to dig out for themselves during the commercial break before the denouement . . .

The body in the lake was well preserved because a paper mill had been dumping formaldehyde into the water for years, or the car actually chased the poor pedestrian since the tyre tracks zig-zagged, or the detective himself came down with poison ivy.

The sleuth was Captain Richard Hale, a Homicide detective played with an almost burning intensity by Anthony Ross.

Ross bore down on his lines to the point where it began to create a certain amount of sympathy for the villain.

All in all, The Telltale Clue was uninspired stuff, simply filling one of those half hours that might have been better spent reading a good book – perhaps one by Poe.

Captain Richard Hale
Anthony Ross