The Four Just Men (TV Series) The Judge (1959) User Reviews

A condemned woman.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 28 January 2023]

Jean Lawson is arrested and charged for the murder of her husband, her Lawyer calls on the help of Jeff Ryder, but Doctor Chase's evidence against her is strong, as he's well respected.

Jeff Ryder receives a tip off, and springs into action, it's as much a mystery who made the phone call, as to who really killed Lawson.

It features a very good, very dramatic opening sequence, that introduces the story, and leads us straight into the thick of things, pacing is one again a real strength here, it takes almost no time to get going.

There is a definite streak of cleverness in this story, you can definitely see the input of Edgar Wallace.

Richard Conte is excellent once again as Ryder, I also liked Kay Callard's appearance as Jean Lawson.

It's another very good, fast paced episode.

8/10.

A Crazy Doctor

[gordonl56 · 8/10 · 26 May 2013]

THE FOUR JUST MEN – "The Judge" - 1959 This is the fourth episode of the 1959-60 series, THE FOUR JUST MEN. The series stars Richard Conte, Jack Hawkins, Vittorio De Sica and Dan Dailey. They are all part of a group out to fight injustice throughout the world. In each episode one of the four men is the featured player. This episode is centered on lawyer Richard Conte.

In this episode, Robert Robinson, a former student of Richard Conte pays him a visit. He is involved in a murder case in a small town and wants to ask for help. A woman, Kay Callard, has been charged with killing her older husband. Robinson believes the woman is innocent.

Conte agrees to look into the matter and pays the town a visit. He sees Callard in jail and comes away likewise believing her story. The main witness in the case is the well-respected, local doctor, James Dryenforth. He says that the autopsy showed massive amounts of strychnine in the dead man's body. Callard, was a nurse at the hospital where some of the poison went missing.

Conte has a talk with Dryenforth about the autopsy results. "Why do you care? The woman was a tart who played around on her husband. She is a woman of loose morals". Conte decides to look further into the doctor's background. Conte gets an anonymous phone call at his hotel telling him that Dryenforth is lying about the autopsy results.

Conte hunts down Naomi Chance. Chance, a cripple who was badly hurt when hit by a truck, has plenty to say about the doctor. "He lied in court about me. Said I was drunk and the accident was my fault." "So I got no insurance settlement." Chance is of course another woman of questionable virtue. There seems to be a pattern here Conte decides.

Upon returning to his hotel, Conte is grabbed by the town constable, Bruce Boa. He is taken to the court-house for a talk with the District Attorney and Police Chief. They would like a word about why Conte is rocking the boat on the Callard case.

Conte tells them he knows Callard is innocent and intends to prove it. He now has a talk with a former doctor at the hospital, Ruda Michelle. Turns out it was she who made the anonymous phone call. Michelle tells Conte about a third woman of ill repute whose life Dreyenforth had destroyed. It all goes back to the man's daughter. She had, in Dreyenforth's eyes anyway, ruined the family image when she became an unwed mother.

Conte soon digs up some hospital files that reveals all Dreyenforth's misdeeds. The files are given to the D.A. and Callard's lawyer, Robinson. An injustice has been stopped.

Also in the cast are, Robert Ayres, Virginia Bedard, Mark Baker and Estelle Brody. (B/W)

An injustice put right

[Paularoc · 7/10 · 19 June 2013]

Richard Conte as Jeff Ryder is the featured star in this episode. At a National Bar Association conference, Ryder is approached by a former student who asks his advice about a case he is defending. His client, Jean Lawson, has been indicted for poisoning her husband. Ryder agrees to go to the small town of Maynard and interview the client. It's interesting that her attorney doesn't believe his client and really doesn't want to be defending her. Ryder, however, does think that there are some unanswered questions and thinks that she may be telling the truth. Soon thereafter, Ryder gets a mysterious phone call from a woman saying that the autopsy proved that the husband was not poisoned and that Dr. Chase who performed the autopsy and who is the prosecution's main witness, knows this. Ryder determines that the caller was Dr. Helen Townley. Townley had had a bitter argument with Chase over how he handled a case and was fired from the hospital. So she doesn't like Chase but more importantly she provides an important clue about the case. This was a good mystery and while the culprit's motive was deplorable, it was believable. The culprit was completely unrepentant at the end and in fact suggests to Ryder that he is only doing what the Four Just Men do. There is little that Ryder can say to this deluded person but "I hope not." It was great seeing a woman doctor in an important role but it was mildly irritating to have the IMDb credits list her as 'Helen' and not 'Doctor Townley' as was the case with the 'Doctor Chase' entry.

Way too British

[lor_ · 25 February 2024]

Richard Conte is a commanding presence in his first episode starring as one of the Four Just Men. An overly straightforward (and thereby uninteresting) story lets him down.

He goes to a small Virginia town near the nation's capital to investigate a murder case that one of his former students is serving as defense counsel. He gradually puts two and two together to figure out that the beloved town doctor is carrying on a demented vendetta, framing "fallen" women.

Conte is smooth as silk as he wanders around in his custom-made suits interrogating locals, and way too easily finding the crucial evidence in the finale. Famed British documentary director Harry Watt directs mechanically, saving one big fat closeup for Conte as the final shot, delivering a moralistic attitude that underlines the series' dated Edgar Wallace title.

The main problem here is that everyone other than Conte in the cast is from British central casting. And other than the stereotyping of mob rule in the American South (alas, all too true), the show seems fake from start to finish.

The Judge

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 29 January 2023]

Small town prejudice and small town justice is the order of the day.

Richard Conte is the just man in this story as Jeff Ryder. The law professor in New York who is approached by a criminal lawyer for some advice.

He is defending Jean Lawson who is accused of killing her much older husband with strychnine poisoning. The lawyer does not think his client is innocent because of the expert medical evidence of the much respected Dr Chase, the town doctor.

Ryder decides to tag along and he receives a mysterious telephone call telling him that Dr Chase is the problem.

Ryder discovers that several women with loose reputation which includes Jean Lawson has fallen foul of Dr Chase's moral admonishments.

However this small town will not stand criticism of the good doctor. Ryder believes that Dr Chase has gone mad.

It was hard to believe that the husband of a woman condemned to being crippled for life. All because Dr Chase falsely labelled her as drunk would be so supportive of him. The husband rounds up a mob to lynch Ryder. Maybe he should had lynched Dr Chase for denying his wife compensation after being hit by a truck.