What's with all the negativity here, this 1960 episode is a pastiche with over the top acting and such deep levels of cynicism, the Beverley Hillbillies could have dug a well with it.
Betsy Blake, a somewhat faded glamorous actress has died in a boating accident, Gladiator studios fanatically ambitious PR man, Jimmy (aged 23) wants her death to be used to promote the movie she's just completed, asking a supposedly poor chain-smoking author in the rather chic basement apartment next door to him, to write-up the blurb.
All goes well until Ms Blake turns up, having been rescued by a Swedish trawler and spent 90 days away, presumably discussing true cinema greats like Ingmar Bergman or Jan Troell. Her return dashes the marketing plans of the hyped-up pseudo executive with the morals of a rattlesnake - so he helps Betsy return to the condition everyone thought she was in, 90 days before.
Yes, there is an issue of a true glamour-girl (played by Meri Welles - what PR man gave her that name?) entering the writers apartment dripping from a fall in the ocean at the beginning, but having no further role in the script - other than showing that the ambitious Jimmy had pulling power.
You can take the plot - and the twist at the end - with a pinch of salt. It's a fairly garrulous and pale grey (or gray) shade of dark satire - with a little glimmer of truth about shallow ambition and meaningless marketing - such as Jimmy's stories in the Press about the living, but thought dead, Betsy's secret love life from beyond the grave - that makes it sufficiently endearing for a half hour drama.
Betsy Blake, a somewhat faded glamorous actress has died in a boating accident, Gladiator studios fanatically ambitious PR man, Jimmy (aged 23) wants her death to be used to promote the movie she's just completed, asking a supposedly poor chain-smoking author in the rather chic basement apartment next door to him, to write-up the blurb.
All goes well until Ms Blake turns up, having been rescued by a Swedish trawler and spent 90 days away, presumably discussing true cinema greats like Ingmar Bergman or Jan Troell. Her return dashes the marketing plans of the hyped-up pseudo executive with the morals of a rattlesnake - so he helps Betsy return to the condition everyone thought she was in, 90 days before.
Yes, there is an issue of a true glamour-girl (played by Meri Welles - what PR man gave her that name?) entering the writers apartment dripping from a fall in the ocean at the beginning, but having no further role in the script - other than showing that the ambitious Jimmy had pulling power.
You can take the plot - and the twist at the end - with a pinch of salt. It's a fairly garrulous and pale grey (or gray) shade of dark satire - with a little glimmer of truth about shallow ambition and meaningless marketing - such as Jimmy's stories in the Press about the living, but thought dead, Betsy's secret love life from beyond the grave - that makes it sufficiently endearing for a half hour drama.