Naked City (1958)
Naked City is a police drama series which aired from 1958 to 1963 on the ABC television network. It was inspired by the 1948 motion picture of the same name, and mimics its dramatic “semi-documentary” format. In 1997, the episode “Sweet Prince of Delancey Street” was ranked #93 on TV Guide’s “100 Greatest Episodes of All Time”.
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Episode 1 - Take Off Your Hat When a Funeral Passes
Release Date: 1961-09-27After a military style armored car robbery has left six people dead, including two NYPD cops, the gang's leader is identified. Lt. Parker insists that a reluctant Det. Flint seek leads to the ringleader's whereabouts from a troubled ex-partner of the criminal. The ex-partner is consumed with guilt over having been an informant once before.
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Episode 2 - Dead on the Field of Honor
Release Date: 1961-10-04A 35 year old man, raised by his cultured Southern grandmother to be a "man of honor", has not had fortune shine upon him. He becomes unbalanced and begins to use a dueling pistol to right wrongs in his "field of honor" - Central Park. The bizarre shootings are thoroughly looked into by the NYPD as the man's mental state worsens.
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Episode 3 - The Corpse Ran Down Mulberry Street
Release Date: 1961-10-11After a car wreck between a truck and a hearse, a "corpse" gets up and walks away. The casket used was really a "submarine" - a means to smuggle an illegal immigrant into the U.S. The Undertaker tied to the incoming delivery did not know his "fixer" friend was also having something else illegally brought into the country.
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Episode 4 - The Fingers of Henri Tourelle
Release Date: 1961-10-18A business owner is killed by gunshot in his office. The person who fired the shot couldn't have left the premises before the police arrived to investigate, but the responsible gunman proves elusive.
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Episode 5 - A Wednesday Night Story
Release Date: 1961-11-01An unhappy couple involve their Swedish nanny in their marital discord.
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Episode 6 - The Tragic Success of Alfred Tiloff
Release Date: 1961-11-08Kidnappers target a millionaire to pay the ransom for their victim, a young girl from a poor family. The criminals are a husband who's failed at everything he's tried and a still-ambitious wife who'll leave him if he won't go along with her scheme. The child's mother is afraid to go to the police, but a nosy neighbor pieces together the story for the detectives. The husband is torn about the crime, because he loves children, but his wife is bitter from having to parent her younger siblings.
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Episode 7 - Which Is Joseph Creeley?
Release Date: 1961-11-15A man sentenced to die for the coldblooded murder of another man, is given an operation to remove a tumor from his brain. When the tumor is removed, he becomes a docile individual with no memory of the murder he committed. He is retried. Will he be found not guilty this time?
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Episode 8 - Show Me the Way to Go Home
Release Date: 1961-11-22A young man with emotional problems becomes violent when his mother wants him to be mentally evaluated at Bellevue. After assaulting her boyfriend, the NYPD attempts to find him - and his missing knife. Meanwhile, he is attracted to a charitable girl who is trying to help a confused old woman to find her way home.
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Episode 9 - The Hot Minerva
Release Date: 1961-11-29The 65th Precinct's detectives take a crash course in the art underworld to recover an ancient statue of the goddess Athena. Who'd steal the hot Minerva, when they can never display it ? The gang of thieves are led by an odd couple who model themselves after Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, but look more like Wall Street CPAs. The museum's curator is not much help, because she's perfectly willing to pay a ransom for the statue she worships, no questions asked.
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Episode 10 - Requiem for a Sunday Afternoon
Release Date: 1961-12-06Shoemaker Anthony Scarzi, the much older husband of Josephine Ametto Scarzi, his wife of two years, struggles with her unfaithfulness and her desire to annul their marriage.
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Episode 11 - Ooftus Goofus
Release Date: 1961-12-13George Bick is a 40 year old who never grew up. Fed up with his anonymous life and his henpecking wife, he decides to make the world notice him. He becomes the prankster known as "Ooftus Doofus"
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Episode 12 - Bridge Party
Release Date: 1961-12-27A determined and utterly logical retiree wants an agreement to raise a drawbridge honored by a railroad - no matter what. When the railroad makes a series of trumped up charges against the man, Lt. Parker finds his tolerance of aggravation is at the breaking point. Det. Arcaro losing a prisoner on an elevator was bad enough.
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Episode 13 - The Face of the Enemy
Release Date: 1962-01-03Highly-decorated veteran, Cornelius 'Neil' Daggett, has deteriorated from hero to alcoholic bum since the end of the war, having alienated his wife and family. He desperately wants to again become a hero to them, but his efforts turn into tragedy.
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Episode 14 - Portrait of a Painter
Release Date: 1962-01-10A mentally-disturbed young painter confesses to murdering his wife, who was found on the floor of his studio. But the detectives seek to establish, with the help of the painter's psychiatrist, the full set of details that the painter cannot seem to recollect, which could prove either his guilt or innocence.
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Episode 15 - The Night the Saints Lost Their Halos
Release Date: 1962-01-17A middle-aged neighborhood doctor faces a moral dilemma after a young man, Joey, who is like a son to her, and his friend Phillip break into a fire-damaged haberdashery, and Phillip gets shot and wounded.
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Episode 16 - The Contract
Release Date: 1962-01-24Both the fiancé and the guardian of a beautiful dead young woman claim to have murdered her, and it's up to the detectives to discover who's telling the truth.
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Episode 17 - One of the Most Important Men in the Whole World
Release Date: 1962-01-31A widowed gangster is being challenged for custody of his son by his sister in-law. To show the court that he is a positive influence the gangster needs to convince his son's teacher to change a failing grade to an "A". The teacher is stubborn and the gangster offers the tempting bribe of a chorus girl.
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Episode 18 - A Case Study of Two Savages
Release Date: 1962-02-07Two newlyweds from Arkansas, honeymoon in New York City. Their happy time is interrupted by the husband's continual penchant for murder and robbery as a means of getting what he wants for himself and his bride.
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Episode 19 - Let Me Die Before I Wake
Release Date: 1962-02-14A psychologically-troubled moving company owner discovers some troubling truths about his family after a young girl is injured by a hit-and-run truck driver who was really targeting him.
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Episode 20 - To Walk Like a Lion
Release Date: 1962-02-28An embezzler who stole to finance his mother's medical care runs into trouble while trying to end his scheme and return the leftover money.
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Episode 21 - Today the Man Who Kills Ants Is Coming
Release Date: 1962-03-07A mentally-stressed police officer suffers a debilitating breakdown over his family's poor financial condition, catalyzed by missing button on his uniform.
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Episode 22 - A Run for the Money
Release Date: 1962-03-14A middle aged hired killer, who committed his first murder for pay at age 14,is hunted both by organized crime which has put out a contract on his life and the police. Needing a bankroll for leaving the country, the killer hires an "arm". The expert craps player he has chosen to win him money is as unpredictable as the roll of the dice.
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Episode 23 - The One Marked Hot Gives Cold
Release Date: 1962-03-21A man steals records from the orphanage where he grew up, hoping to find his father. At the same time, the age of his young female companion gets him in trouble with the police.
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Episode 24 - Without Stick or Sword
Release Date: 1962-03-28A Burmese Buddhist sailor (William Shatner) seeks revenge upon a ship's captain (Martin Balsam) who refused to pick up the sailor's younger brothers at sea, leaving them to perish.
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Episode 25 - Lament for a Dead Indian
Release Date: 1962-04-11A man recently released from prison comes to NYC to get his friend to join him in running a farm. He is warned that his "partner" is bad news by Flint and Arcaro. The friend is not interested in leaving NYC and is heavily involved in the rackets-including murder. The man tragically tries to help his friend.
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Episode 26 - The Sweetly Smiling Face of Truth
Release Date: 1962-04-25A Broadway agent dies in an actress' apartment and the detectives must discern who among those present is telling the truth: the actress, the married actor with whom she is having an affair, or the actor's chauffeur.
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Episode 27 - ...And If Any Are Frozen, Warm Them...
Release Date: 1962-05-09Detective Flint strives to stop his aging Romanian friend from using his big wedding party as cover for a bank robbery.
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Episode 28 - Strike a Statue
Release Date: 1962-05-16A renowned sculptor "immortalizing a moment in time" of a reviled European dictator is warned to stop working on the project. The men warning him, formerly supporters of the dictator but presently seeking his overthrow, are violent. The sculptor refuses to cease working as to him Art is not involved in politics.
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Episode 29 - The Multiplicity of Herbert Konish
Release Date: 1962-05-23Mild-mannered Herbert Konish is living multiple simultaneous and separate lives, stumping the detectives who are trying to figure out exactly who he is and what crimes he may have committed.
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Episode 30 - The King of Venus Will Take Care of You
Release Date: 1962-05-20A man wanted by the police for robbery and murder is trapped in a tenement neighborhood.He crosses from building to building via rooftops and eventually hides in a water tank enclosure.The "king" of the neighborhood,a young fatherless boy,may or may not help him to escape from the police dragnet.
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Episode 31 - The Rydecker Case
Release Date: 1962-06-06Adam and an inexperienced D.A. attempt to prosecute the well-connected fiancé of a wealthy New York scion. Adam wonders just who is on trial and gets an education in Justice.
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Episode 32 - Memory of a Red Trolley Car
Release Date: 1962-06-13A chemistry professor develops mental confusion symptoms after being exposed to a dangerous chemical spill, and the detectives race against the clock to find him before his condition deteriorates fatally.
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Episode 33 - Goodbye Mama, Hello Auntie Maud
Release Date: 1962-06-20Chauffeur snuffs his employer with roses, by forcing them in her face as the allergic dowager lies ill. Her agoraphobic daughter is ecstatic that now she'll never have to leave the mansion she loves, but torn over losing her harsh mother. Lt. Parker, a family friend, comforts the young heiress, but she immediately finds more succor in the arms of Harry, the handsome devil in the driver's seat. Flint pushes an objective view of the case on Lt. Parker.