****SPOILERS**** After serving a six year stretch for running down a ten year old boy in the streets of NYC kindergarten school teacher Arnold Fleischer, Martin Balsam, wants to put that all behind him and continue with his life. It's Arnold's old lady Betty, Phyllis Hill, who want's the police to reopen the case feeling that he was framed and took the rap for it. It turns that Arnold's former co-worker at a toy company Max Bushwald, Gerald Price, was behind the wheel dead drunk and ran the boy down. At first not at all interested in the case NYPD Detective Jimmy Halloran, James Franciscus, soon realizes that there's something to Betty's story and goes all out to exonerate her husband. The problem is that Arnold is more then satisfied with the sentence he received feeling that he deserved it even though he was, as we & Det. Halloran soon find out, was totally innocent! The very fact that he let Max drive his car was enough for him to pay the price of his freedom.
With Det. Halloran doing everything he can to get Arnold to change his mind and have his conviction overturned Arnold is steadfast to keep things they way they are. It's true that Max was behind the wheel of the death car and got away with his crime, a hit & run as well as DUI, of homicide. But the truth is that he really didn't. He now has to live with what he did for the rest of his life. As for Arnold he rightly feels that exonerated or not for what happened happened and nothing can change it. So why open up new wounds and rub salt in them when there starting to heal.
Unusual "Naked City" episode for its time, in the 1950's, that has a person get away with a crime that he in fact committed and an innocent person end up paying for it. But it was Arnold's sense of justice and mercy, for his friend Max, that equaled everything out. Whatever Max did he'll eventually end up paying for it one way or another. As we see that what he did and got away with had changed his life for the worst. A lot worse then what Arnold went through in taking the blame for his actions.
With Det. Halloran doing everything he can to get Arnold to change his mind and have his conviction overturned Arnold is steadfast to keep things they way they are. It's true that Max was behind the wheel of the death car and got away with his crime, a hit & run as well as DUI, of homicide. But the truth is that he really didn't. He now has to live with what he did for the rest of his life. As for Arnold he rightly feels that exonerated or not for what happened happened and nothing can change it. So why open up new wounds and rub salt in them when there starting to heal.
Unusual "Naked City" episode for its time, in the 1950's, that has a person get away with a crime that he in fact committed and an innocent person end up paying for it. But it was Arnold's sense of justice and mercy, for his friend Max, that equaled everything out. Whatever Max did he'll eventually end up paying for it one way or another. As we see that what he did and got away with had changed his life for the worst. A lot worse then what Arnold went through in taking the blame for his actions.