Above: Defense Counsel Oliver (Philip Abbott) laments the injured itinerant Luke Freeman (pop singer Fabian Forte), in reality a sexually charged homicide beyond redemption in Ellis Kadison's electrifying adaptation of Tom Wicker's novel "The Judgment," directed by the celebrated Robert Altman, as part of the series very loosely based on William Inge's play and subsequent motion picture "Bus Stop," airing--devoid of a scared away corporate sponsorship--on December 3, 1961, via ABC. Perhaps the most controversial teleplay of the decade, it was a study of pure evil, a dark piece of pessimism in an otherwise early 1960s optimistic period. Many an ABC executive long maintained that the gathering storm surrounding its telecast cast a huge shadow over the network's efforts to stir social discourse by way of its weekly dramatic teleplays; thence plunging the network into a Nielsen ratings third status from which it would not recover from for decades.
Above: left, "A Lion Walks Among Us" was luminously photographed in a crepuscular black-and-white by Robert Hauser; right, to the very end unrepentant, Luke Freeman serenely slashes the throat of his own defense counsel, who had liberated him just minutes before.
Adapted by Ellis Kadison from the novel "The Judgment" by Tom Wicker; directed by Robert Altman; produced by Robert Blees; photographed under the direction of Robert Hauser; music by Arthur Morton, supervised and conducted by Lionel Newman; art direction by Jack Martin Smith and John Mansbridge; edited by Richard Van Enger
The Cast [regulars]: Marilyn Maxwell as Grace Sherwood; Rhodes Reason as Sheriff Will Mayberry; Richard Anderson as District Attorney Glenn Wagner; [guest] Dianne Foster as Sally (Mrs. Glenn) Wagner; Philip Abbott as Defense Counsel Oliver; Jenny Maxwell as Linda; Dabbs Greer as Jefty; Bill Tyler as Jeff; Roy Engel as The Judge; Richard Kates as Coroner Smith; Robert Ridgely as Sweetwater; Perry Ivans as Jordan; Owen Bush as Homer King; Peter Madsen as the Clerk; Bob Harris as Deputy #1
Perhaps no other teleplay in our nation's history has been received with so much advance negative publicity as "A Lion Walks Among Us," which the normally composed New York Times reviewer called "cheaper than anything yet seen," and on which a Newsweek piece commented, by way of quoting the New York Post, with an article titled "Low Road." In the controversy generated here, as in the unswerving approach he brought to his own scripts and direction by several "Combat!" episodes of the same period, we see the beginnings of director Robert Altman's long Hollywood disappropriation.
"A Lion Walks Among Us" begins with the obviously oversexed Luke Freeman (pop singer Fabian Forte) making a play for an attractive but forward middle-aged lady with whom he has hitch-hiked a ride en route to the fictional "Sunrise," Colorado, and from whose car he has been accordingly evicted. "Mother Goose," he flatly remarks, "you don't know what you're missin'!" In sight of a grocery store, he enters, picks up a few items, and when asked for the appropriate sum tells the elderly grocer, "Sorry pops, no got!" Instead, he begins to loot the cash register, and when the grocer lunges toward him, fires point blank into him with a pistol Luke has found. Sprawled out lifeless before him, Luke continues his looting unaffected, and nonchalantly exits, singing the refrain, "Oh, I couldn't hear nobody pray--away down yonder by myself."
Entering a local pub, Luke soon initiates a brawl, then feigns innocence when the police are summoned: "I'm eighteen--just passing through." The murder of the grocer has been reported, however, and Luke is called in for questioning, explaining his being dropped off with the lie "that old Mother Goose couldn't keep her paws off my innocent person." Luke's Defense Counsel Oliver (Philip Abbott) now enters the scene, who genuinely believes that Luke has been made the convenient scapegoat, even after the local sheriff (Rhodes Reason as Will Mayberry) uncovers incidents from Luke's licentious past. "A professional gigolo--girls of all ages go for him," comments the sheriff.
It is now learned that Luke's propositioned "Mother Goose" is in fact Sally Wagner, the alcoholic wife of the District Attorney (Richard Anderson). Should she testify concerning the time of her eviction of Luke before the grocery store, Luke ought to be judged the killer. However, the D.A. is reluctant to place her on the witness stand, not merely because it would reveal her dipsomania, but perhaps her own wantonness as well. When it is apparent that without her testimony Luke will go free, Sally (Dianne Foster) is indeed summoned, but breaks down under cross-examination. Her validity as a witness having failed, Luke is freed, soon afterwards making a play for an admiring teenage girl. Luke, walking the streets in Sunrise, now enters the office of his defense counsel and summarily demands that he "spot me a couple hundred..." Flashing a knife before him, the counsel realizes too late his error "You are a monster!" To which Luke responds "Sticks and stones; I'm just a poor underprivileged orphan and I want to thank you."--and thereupon serenely slashes the counsel's throat.
Outside, Luke spots Sally in her car pulling away, who surprisingly invites him in. "Mother Goose," he says, "you've got the warmest hands in the world!" "Aren't you going to thank me?" she asks of him, driving onward. "Where' we off to?," Luke wonders aloud. "We're almost there!" she responds, and soon runs the car off a precipice, killing both herself and her companion. On the screen there then appears this passage from I Peter 5:6, "Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour." Hence the title of writer Kadison and director Altman's study in pure evil, a dark piece of pessimism in an otherwise early 1960s optimistic period, whose sobering message so disturbed contemporary critics.
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