No Wings at All

Allan Sloane delivered a top-notch script for this well-acted segment, highlighted by a terrific turn by character Lou Frizzell as a young man, sheltered by his dad Theodore Bikel, who lives with the problem of retardation.

A "Nancy" type mother falsely accuses him of molesting her young daughter in a park, but Lou is entirely innocent. The accusation gets him embroiled in the legal system, and though the judge on the mater is scrupulously fair and concerned, matters escalate and only George C. Scott can save the day.

Bikel is solid as always in a no-nonsense performance, while Frizzell is utterly convincing portraying the man/child, no indication that he is just acting. And Scott once again gives a master class any would-be thespian could learn from: he is perfect and understated as a listener making his cogent points, building up to a terrific physical outburst, loaded with its of business when he finally explodes at Bikel and presents his strongest statement on the importance of letting an individual fulfill his greatest potential rather than be sheltered from the world. Sloane's ending to the story is surprisingly apt and satisfying.

Exec producer David Susskind is to be commended for the casting of Raymond St. Jacques as an authoritative psychologist, a rarity of giving Black talent a positive and non-stereotyped role on television, way back in 1963. His acting is excellent.

****SPOILERS*** Undiagnosed but suspected autistic George Everett, Lou Frizzell, is considered a weirdo by his neighbors in his bazaar actions and it's when little Laura Simmons, Rona Gale, asked him to take a walk with her through Central Park alarm bells suddenly went off in the neighborhood. Laura's mom, Virginia Kaye, ran to the police and accused Georgie of molesting her daughter which in fact Georgie didn't do as they began to investigate him.

It was Georgie's dad, Mr. Everett, Theodore Bikel, who in disciplining his son who would lock Georgie up in the closet that in fact made him as unstable has he was to become. And it was "Our Hero" the star of the series the kind hearted but tough as nails social worker Neil Brock, George C. Scott, who by putting his two cents in that in the end-With hard love- straightened poor and confused Georgie out. But only after Georgie ran away from home beat up a number of neighborhood tugs who were making fun of him and , by reading street signs, found his way back on his own!

****SPOILERS*** All Georgie needed was both love and attention by his by the books and slave driving dad which he didn't get. All he got was being treated like a caged animal and let out only to deliver shoes that his dad, the neighborhood shoemaker, fixed up for his clients. It was by accident that Georgie was driven to the edge that he finally found confidence in himself in being able to think for himself and be able to function like a grown up. And it was the trouble that he found himself in, thanks to his dad, that was the kick in the a** that showed him how to handle problems all by himself without anyone else's help.