Four Star Playhouse The Contest (1952–1956) watch online HD

FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE – The Contest – 1954 Dick Powell is the Chief of Detectives in a large city. He is out for an evening with his fiancé, Marguerite Chapman. Some dinner, drinks and dancing are on the card for the night. Into the place, walks John Hubbard. Hubbard, a con-man, is known to both, Powell and Chapman. He had swindled Chapman's father out of tens of thousands of dollars. He had also gotten Powell's brother some jail time on another scam.

Chapman and Powell decide to finish their drinks and leave. Hubbard sees them and comes over all smiles. He would like to stop by the next day and see Powell. Powell gives him a time and place to meet. He then pays his bill, helps Chapman with her coat and exits. He drops Chapman at her place and drives home.

The next morning, just as he gets to his office, he is called out to the scene of a murder. The victim is of course, John Hubbard. Powell has a look at the stiff and tells the Detective in charge, "Put out the usual suspects call and for anyone that had it in for him." The cop smiles and answers. "For this guy, that will be quite the crowd." Powell then has a look around Hubbard's apartment. He finds a single woman's glove behind the front door. He pockets the glove without anyone noticing. He then returns to the office to think.

The Detectives have finished the door to door of canvas of Hubbard's apartment block. Two witnesses say they saw a woman leave the apartment just after the shot was fired. They however did not see the woman's face.

Later that afternoon, Powell pays a visit to fiancé Chapman's apartment. He pulls out the glove, looks her in the eye and asks. "Were you at Hubbard's apartment? Did you shoot him?" Chapman admits to being there, but denies shooting Hubbard. Powell says he must play this straight, fiancé or not. "Did you shoot him! Or did you see who did!" Chapman breaks down and admits that she had gone to Hubbard's place to kill him. But that someone else had pulled the trigger. Who was the man, none other than Powell's brother. He was getting even with Hubbard. Powell has an arrest warrant issued for his brother.

A pretty intense little episode if you ask me. The director was, Robert Florey. His noir include, DANGER SIGNAL, ROGUE'S REGIMENT, THE FACE BEHIND THE MASK and THE CROOKED WAY.

The d of p was, George Diskant. THE NARROW MARGIN, RIFFRAFF, THEY LIVE BY NIGHT, PORT OF NEW YORK, THE RACKET, K.C.C., BEWARE MY LOVELY, and ON DANGEROUS GROUND are examples of his work. (b/w)

In the half hour format of Four Star Playhouse the issue of informing came up as it did in Marlon Brando's Oscar winning performance in On The Waterfront in the same year of 1954. The verdict was a resounding yes.

Homicide cop Dick Powell is dating Marguerite Chapman once done dirt by Broadway playwright John Hubbard. When Hubbard is shot to death she's a suspect, but so is Powell's brother who has a grudge against Hubbard.

I doubt very much in real life that Powell would even catch this case. Still he does break it and in doing so breaks down a witness's antipathy of being labeled a stoolie.

Not the best of dramas, I could have done a better ending myself here, I could think of two alternate endings that would have played better.

Four Star Playhouse was having an off night.

The big twist ending is completely revealed in the brief and horrible summary IMDb gives this one. I hope you didn't read this!!

Dick Powell plays a tough but honest detective. He's in a real bind when there's a murder and it seems as if his girlfriend is either the killer or knows who the killer is! Much of the film is a battle of wits between the detective and his girl and just how honest and decent he is becomes very evident in the surprise ending.

As usual, Dick Powell was excellent in the lead. His starring roles in "Four Star Playhouse" were actually much better than most of his movies because it allowed him to be more realistic--less the singing pretty boy he was in the 1930s. Because of this, I do recommend you see the show. While it's far from his best from the series (the ending, though exciting is also hard to swallow), it still shows his excellent style and grace.