Television Anthology Series
Suspicion was a short-lived American television anthology series from NBC that only lasted one season, and focussed mostly (but not exclusively) on murder and mystery stories, with many of the episodes filmed live.
The executive producer of ten of the filmed episodes was film director Alfred Hitchcock, and he even directed the show’s first episode, “Four O’Clock.” Hitchcock was riding high at the time, wowwing them at the box office, and he doing okay with his own anthology series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, over on CBS. The show was hosted by Dennis O’Keefe.
Many of the shows were based on works by writers regular visitors to this site might recognize, including Cornell Woolrich, Helen McCloy, Richard Deming, Eric Ambler, Daphne du Maurier and Leigh Brackett. In fact, the pilot for the 1959-60 private eye series Markham, starring Ray Milland, aired as an episode of suspicion, and was based on the novel by Brackett.
I’m guessing that there may have been other episodes that featured private eyes, so I’ll keep looking…
- SUSPICION
(1957-58, NBC)
Black & white
42 60-minute episodes
Host: Dennis O’Keefe (Walter Abel in repeats)
Writers: Jameson Brewer, John Kneubuhl, Stirling Silliphant,
Directors: Alfred Hitchcock, Arthur Hiller, Don Medford, James Neilson, Robert Stevens, John Brahm, Ray Milland, Jules Bricken, Jack Smight
Starring Claudette Colbert, Bette Davis, Boris Karloff, Eli Wallach, Dan Duryea, Barbara Rush, Robert Middleton, Charles Bronson, Agnes Morehead, William Shatner, Jack Klugman, Roddy McDowall, Rod Taylor, Cathleen Nesbitt, Audrey Totter, James Daly, Jane Greer, Ross Martin, Warren Beatty, Joseph Cotten, George Peppard, Harry Dean Stanton, Rod Steiger, Edmond O’Brien, Ray Milland, Audie Murphy, Michael Landon, E.G. Marshall, Donna Reed, Andrew Duggan- “Eye for Eye” (June 23, 1958)
Based on the novel An Eye for an Eye (1957) by Leigh Brackett
Teleplay by Jameson Brewer and John Kneubuhl
Directed by Jules Bricken
Starring Ray Milland as ROY MARKHAM
Also starring Macdonald Carey, Kathleen Crowley, Andrew Duggan, Dorothy Green, Peter Hansen
- “Eye for Eye” (June 23, 1958)
