Gloria Talbott makes a good "nutcase." There's nothing weird-looking about her, but there is something in the makeup of her face that convinces the viewer "Ellen Carter" is either off-her-rocker or a "bad girl." I've seen Talbott before in other TV shows of the era and she's good at playing the not-so-wholesome woman. Gloria played in a ton of TV westerns, the most popular genre on the tube in the mid-to-late 1950s.
In this episode, she's both mentally deranged and violent but mostly the former, although she does shoot somebody. Frank Ballinger's narration is a little too liberal here, almost feeling sorry for a shooter not the victims! Ellen even comes close to shooting Frank, but he doesn't seem to mind. Weird. I guess this was "ahead" of its time! This story makes a bigger villain out of a guy who does not have an degree but practices a form of psychiatry, a sort of "Dr. Phil,"but someone who isn't eligible to ask for money for his services. (You wonder how "Mr. Warman" stays in business.)
Dayton Lummis plays Jonas Warman, the pseudo-shrink Ballinger hates. Since "Ellen" went to "doc" a few times despite Warman's denial, "Det. Lt. Frank Ballinger" wants to throw the book at him. He paints him as the big villain in this episode, which seems a bit misplaced since even he told the messed-up girl not to contact him again because he can't help her. Maybe they had a lot of charlatans around making money at the time. Hmmm., maybe they still do.