Turn of Events (1959) User Reviews (2)

Your guilt is my guilt.. What else can I say!

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 18 December 2013]

***SPOILERS*** It's when private detective Ben Knauf was gunned down in his Times Square office that the police suspected that it was the result of his sleazy way of doing business. He used his talents in blackmailing his clients more then in helping them. Sure enough the man in charge of the Knauf murder investigation Let. Mike Parker, Horace McMahon, soon realized it was more an act of revenge then anything else. It was the late Ben Knauf's wife Elsie, Jan Miner, who Let. Parker suspected knew a lot more then she was telling him and keyed in on her in his investigation. The fact that Let. Parker was romantically involved with Elsie some time ago in a way handicapped his investigation of the case.

Checking out the late Ben Knauf's clients it's found out that the last case he was involved in was this runaway teen exotic dancer and striptease artist named "Blossom Weeks". It was his involvement in that case that could well have lead to his murder. Doing lots of legwork and using up a lot of shoe leather by the NYPD it's discovered that the mysterious "Blossom Weeks" turns out to be the simple-minded and a bit retarded daughter Laura, Kay Doubleday,of the rich and upscale Hardings, Mel Ruick & Eugenia Rawls, who live in a swanky Sutton Place Penthouse on Manhattan's East Side.

***SPOILERS*** It was Ben Knauf who was shaking down the Hardings by at first finding Laura and then taking cheesecake photos of her in an effort to blackmail them, for a cool $10,000.00, that lead to his murder! And it wasn't the Hardings who were the ones who were responsible for his death! Sleaze-ball Knauf got exactly what was coming to him, six slugs in his chest & ribcage, but the person who did it still had to pay for his or her crime. And that person wasn't any stranger or client of Knauf's but someone dear and near to him. Close enough to realize what a low-life creep he really was. And willing enough to put a stop to his sleazy and underhanded methods in making a living as a private detective!

Solid investigating

[lor_ · 9 January 2024]

Stirling Silliphant takes "Naked City" in a different direction with "Turn of Events", a segment that covers the familiar ground of a police procedural as we've seen hundreds of times in more recent series like "Law and Order".

It opens on TImes Square with the shooting of a sleazy private eye Ben Knauf, and the rest of the show is our cops questioning folks who knew Ben, a parade of brief scenes with talented (if obscure) character actors. Unlike "Law and Order", none of them became stars later, but here we begin with the victim and the "one of eight million stories" told is how that creep affected many others in his lowlife life.

Along the way, we subtly learn more about star Horace McMahon's haracter Mike, his kindness to the widow (Jan Miner, a terrific performer), who he knows, but always his dogged pursuit of criminals outweighing his personal feelings. It leads to a poignant conclusion.