noplotholes

Being a car guy, I was looking forward to an interesting premise, but as in the previous 'car racing' story, I wound up gravely disappointed.

The tale told here lacked any factual realism, the character's motivations were misdirected, and the "special effects" went beyond the pale (in a bad way).

So what I went into with great enthusiasm left me in a flaming, smoky wreck not unlike the racecar in act one...

Not exactly an original plot (by far), but this one is melodrama on steroids. Marian McCargo's character is far too gullible and unstable to demand much sympathy. While it's always a pleasure to see Jeanne Bal, in this one she's miscast -- her portrayal is too enabling (she does much better when her characters have more "oomph"). The insurance investigator looks like a cross between Ted Cassidy and David McCallum. It is what it is, I suppose...

While I always enjoyed Noah Beery jr's role of Joseph "Rocky" Rockford, in this tome he plays a rather unlikeable cad that makes for a rather unempathetic defendant. The most interesting part of the whole story is the early infancy of the idea of 'computer dating'. I can just imagine the room-sized computer and piles of "punch cards" that must have taken to achieve..! But back to the story *cough*... Yeah, well, it just never really went anywhere. Even in the end Beery's character wasn't redeemable. And so it goes...