{"id":39496,"date":"2024-06-15T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2024-06-15T06:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/?p=39496"},"modified":"2024-06-11T20:48:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-12T02:48:06","slug":"telefilm-review-kraft-suspense-theater-twixt-the-cup-and-the-lip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/telefilm-review-kraft-suspense-theater-twixt-the-cup-and-the-lip\/","title":{"rendered":"Telefilm Review: Kraft Suspense Theater: Twixt the Cup and the Lip"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PMRq3TCU8fM?si=VO_c0RK_UvtVCEi-\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/category\/amazingradio\/\">Amazing World of Radio Summer Series<\/a>, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, our focus is on Ethel Merman.<\/p>\n<p>She guest starred in a 1965 episode of the anthology series, <em>The Kraft Suspense Theater, <\/em>in &#8220;Twixt the Cup and the Lip,&#8221; a comedic heist story. A gallery employee (Larry Blyden) is fired by his employer for being far too honest, after telling two gallery patrons that a $2 million scepter was overpriced. He&#8217;s given two weeks working notice before his employment is terminated. His fiancee complains that he&#8217;s a doormat. So the employee does the only things he can do: start taking long lunches and coming in late now that the boss has fired him anyway. He dons a turtleneck sweater and cap (a sure sign in the mid-1960s of a heel turn), and hatch a multi-person conspiracy to steal the scepter with the aide of a corrupt ex-cop (Charlie McGraw), his landlady (Merman), a washed-up actress, and her daughter (Lucille Burnside), a wannabe actress.<\/p>\n<p>The episode is fairly entertaining. It&#8217;s easy to sympathize with most of the characters to an extent except the sleazy ex-cop. Merman adds to every scene she&#8217;s in and manages to make the most of a small part. The plot itself has a few turns, as some of the co-conspirators begin plotting double-crosses. At least one of these felt a bit forced. The ending is fun, but a little bit too pat. Still, Larry Blyden turns in a really earnest and fun performance as the protagonist, and Ethel Merman adds just a touch of star power to make &#8220;Twixt the Cup and the Lip&#8221; a thoroughly watchable bit of 1960s television.<\/p>\n<p>Rating: 3.5 out of 5<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, our focus is on Ethel Merman. She guest starred in a 1965 episode of the anthology series, The Kraft Suspense Theater, in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[123,248],"tags":[5377,5427,5428,5429],"class_list":["post-39496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-golden-age-article","category-telefilm-review","tag-ethel-merman","tag-heist-story","tag-kraft-suspense-theater","tag-larry-blyden"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pECdK-ah2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39496"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39510,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39496\/revisions\/39510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.greatdetectives.net\/detectives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}