Thanks to a tight engrossing screenplay by Ernest Pendrell and uniformly excellent performances, this completely different Naked City episode is terrific. No chase, no shooting, no action scenes, just masterful detective work and intense dramatics.
Luther Adler stars but is dead at the beginning of the show, so of course he gets to do his emoting in a series of flashbacks. Pendrell has structured the segment as a classic Locked Room Mystery. MacMahon is impressive in his by-the-book methodical investigation technique, while Burke is totally intuitive, mulling over a Rubic's cube predessor puzzle (this is 1961, remember) found on the dead man's desk, for inspiration, ultimately leading to his ingenious solution at the end of the show.
Instead of the black humor one assocates with such story, with "Succession" the absolute peak of the genre recenty, this is a deadly serious drama. Each character gets to briefly shine in the spotlight, with Adler's meanness as a fashion house owner who treats all his emplyees with contempt leading the way. Nina Foch is spectacular as the head of sales, nursing an unrequtied love for him that leads to attempted suicide - I cannot imagine anyone better in her role, except perhaps for Judith Anderson (although she would be far too sinister). Robert Loggia is fabulous as the logical suspect, Adler's brother who has gotten zero respect for his hard work. Watching Loggia here I realized he would have been perfect in Robert Duvall's consiglieri role in the "Godfather", shot a decade later, edgier that Duvall's exemplary work in that classic. In smaller roles, Michael Tolan, Jerome Cowan and especially Henry Lascoe, the only key player who never achieved movie/TV fame.
An odd fact: Pendrell wrote only one feature film screenplay in his career, for "The Violators" in 1957 starring Nancy Malone. Yet Malone was a "Naked City" regular who does not appear in this episode of his.
