Corpse Walks Away During Drama on TV
And the dead man got up and slowly walked away...
No doubt about it. Thousands of televiewers were talking about it yesterday.
It seems that on the new high-budgeted CBS dramatic series, Climax, which had its debut on KNXT (2) Thursday night, actor Tristam Coffin was lying under a blanket and Detective Dick Powell was talking about having the body removed when the actor arose from the dead and strolled off scene.
Powell and the other actors went right on talking as if nothing had happened. And the show went on and the private eye finally solved the murder, leaving televiewers a little perplexed.
CBS blushingly explained yesterday that Coffin thought the scene was over and that he was off-camera when he took his macabre stroll.
- Los Angeles Times (October 1954)
SLAIN GUY CRAWLS OFF VIDEO SET
CLIMAX! On its premier from Hollywood last night the new Climax series reached a totally unexpected climax. For it's opener, the series presented a tight, taut Raymond Chandler murder thriller titled, "The Long Goodbye", starring Dick Powell as a private eye.
The action had moved to it's moment of greatest impact. An alcoholic author had just been mysteriously shot. A blanket was drawn over the body and while the viewers sought to figure out who killed the victim, the body got up and crawled off-stage on all fours, dragging the blanket atop him.
We haven't seen a camera booboo so ludicrous since the early days of tv when WBKB put on "Arsenic and [Old] Lace", and the corpse in the window seat suddenly came to life.
Despite this bobble, this was a great show with Powell turning in a top-grade performance as a casual, cool detective, who unraveled a complicated case, but I'll be he will always insist on a filmed show in the future to avoid such boners, even though he had no part in causing this one.
- Chicago Daily Tribune (October 1954)
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