With Ring Lardner Jr credited as one of the writers, although at the time he would had used someone else's identity. He had been blacklisted by the McCarthyite witch-hunts of the 1950s and eeking out a living writing for British television.
This story indicates that the wounds were still raw in 1959. Lardner would later win his second Oscar for writing the film version of MASH.
Here Jeff Ryder goes to a small town where the locals are hysterical. He had been contacted by student Sue Pearson who is upset that she cannot continue with her legal studies because she is radioactive.
Her father is a scientist that might have been exposed to being radioactive after an experiment. However because of gossip by poisonous neighbours, the whole family are shunned.
They are not wanted in the community and the police are not helping. It is left to Ryder to bring some calm and a family in France might be the answer.
It is very much similar ground to Arthur Miller's The Crucible that deals with mob hysteria. Viewers at the time might have been unaware of the subtext beneath the story.
Lookout for a young Oliver Reed and Steven Berkoff as rowdy students. The filming location stands rather unconvingly or small time America.