MovieChat Forums > Kraft Suspense Theatre (1963) Discussion > The Machine That Played God episode star...

The Machine That Played God episode starring Anne Francis


Having just found Kraft Suspense Theater I also found that there are a lot of those old episodes on YouTube.

The Machine That Played God episode starring Anne Francis was one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0GIt7Sqe5s

Watching it made me realize how powerful, informative and educations ... to the point ... TV programming used to be.

This episode was about a woman who was out for a night's drinking with her husband, but she really didn't drink but a sip. On the way home she was driving, drove the wrong way up an off-ramp and collided with a truck leading to the death of her husband.

The police investigated the accident, and decided to charge her with murder because they believed she deliberately drove up the exit ramp.

The episode deals with the emotional reactions a lie detector can reveal, and the inadequacies that the technician doing the test brings to its interpretation.

I rarely see anything on TV that tries to explore real issues in anything but a trivial childish way on TV anymore. I think it is a real loss the kind of media baby food we get today, and it explains how the infantile behavior we see so common with Americans these days in the news and in real life happens.

The TV droning on and on throughout one's life influences the way people see and interpret the world, and our modern TV programming is as junky to the mind as our modern junk food is for the body.

reply

I remember seeing episodes of this series a few years back, and enjoying all of them. Glad it's on YouTube, but if someone put it out on DVD, I'd buy it.

And you're right, serious TV in the early 1960s really explored ideas & issues in depth, while always been gripping & entertaining as well. For all of the network restrictions then—or maybe even because of them?—those were intelligent, literate, passionate series. And you're especially right about such series being written by & for adults.

reply

MeTV was playing episodes on the weekend a few years ago.

reply

I just watched it on YouTube. Your comments are spot-on. It has genuine suspense, psychological depth, questions of morality vis a vis the increasing domination of technology over human life & human experience --everything a thoughtful adult would want from a solid story that's made for adults.

reply

Thanks

reply