It's a Lucky 7-11 Wholesome Wednesday in The Dungeon, that is, wholesome if you consider murder and heroin addiction wholesome, which oddly enough, a lot of people do these days!
"DECOY" was on TV for what they considered one season in 1957 and 1958, but that one season consisted of 39 episodes!
The reason I was interested in watching "DECOY" was because Dungeon fave Beverly Garland as New York City policewoman Casey Jones, is the star! Here's just only two reasons to love Beverly Lucy Fessenden aka Beverly Garland, "It Conquered The World," and "Not Of This Earth!" Case closed! And if that's not enough, then throw in "The Alligator People!"
Episode # 25 that aired on March 31, 1958 was a sweet and sour story titled "High Swing."
Casey Jones is having to escort a young lady to the hospital in the ambulance because she has seemingly overdosed on heroin, but....in her dying words she says all she did was drink some coffee.
There have been a string of robberies in the neighborhood, so Casey sets up as a decoy in a local dive. In an effort to draw attention to herself, she steals a guy's wallet, and takes off!
She goes down the street and pretends to hide in a doorway.
The perp whose attention she was trying to get catches up to her and offers her a business proposition!
So, it turns out the man's wife is crippled from a circus accident! She explains to Casey that she was a high flying trapeze artist, and one night she looked down, and her husband, the dirty scoundrel, was with another woman, and she missed her catch, fell, and has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since! Her husband has been been trying to make it up to her ever since, because this is really a sad love story! Edith Atwater is the lady in the wheelchair, Lily Flagler. Edith had an amazing career that included films like "The Body Snatcher," "Mr. Sardonicus," "Strait-Jacket," and "Die Sister, Die!"
"Dr. Cyclops" himself, the equally amazing Albert Dekker, has the role of the husband Otto Flagler!
Otto's plan is that Casey will go out and entice some guy to come with her, and Otto will hide behind the door, and jump out and put a sleeper hold like this on the guy! Otto is an expert in Judo, but............he has to be really careful, because he accidentally killed a guy one time!
It's finally time to put the plan into action. Otto has no idea that the victim is really a cop, and Beverly is looking as gorgeous as ever!
After the job is done, and back at the Flagler's apartment, Casey finds a picture of the girl that worked there before her in the closet. The bad news is that it's the same girl who overdosed in the opening scenes. That girl was played by Zohra (Posse From Hell, Hey, Let's Twist) Lampert who just had her 81st birthday last May 13th.
They use a lot of head shots in "DECOY" like this, so I thought I would too!
They were just doing it because after the accident Lily Flagler got hooked on painkillers, and later heroin, so Otto was just out robbing people to get the junk for his wife who was in a lot of pain. Lily brings out some coffee to share, but this time the heroin was in her and Otto's cups!
It's really a bittersweet love story, but did they really have to end it with Bev and a freaky clown portrait? I guess so. Anybody who has an Amazon Prime account can watch all 39 episodes for no extra charge. It was a 30 minute show, so without commercials, they run about 26 minutes, and it really goes by fast! You really can't lose, except for the clown part!
