Man Without A Skin is a well above average entry in the gritty and generally grim Naked City series from its final season, and it's one of the best episodes of this show that I've seen. Like most of the show's entries it's a character study, however in this case the show is really a study of two characters: a young hot shot cop hot in the trail of a killer who murdered his partner and the chief (series regular Horace McMahon) of the new precinct he's assigned to who doesn't care at all for the the much younger man's style.
What transpires has tragic consequences for both men, as one becomes acquainted with these two very different individuals. More than most episodes of the series this one moves outside a lot, features far more action than usual; especially on rooftops, basements and fire escapes. A very young George Segal, prior to his success in feature films, plays the troubled and troublesome cop with admirable intensity and conviction. His familiarity was not a problem for me; and though he didn't come across as quite so tough as the character he was playing he handled his scenes well, doing solid work, dominating his scenes without hamming.
As the mad dog killer, ex-Dead End Kid Gabe Dell is scarcely seen; a shadowy figure, his character gets little screen time, makes a huge impact as a real life monster, a man with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Horace McMahon is his usual stoic self as Segal's superior, and without bidding for sympathy gets it anyway, at least from me. If there's a moral to this tale it's that while pure evil can and does exist, pure virtue is a near impossibility. We're too flawed, most of us, to do the right thing all the time, or for that matter to know what the right thing is; and being human, we often conflict and compete when we ought to be working together.
What transpires has tragic consequences for both men, as one becomes acquainted with these two very different individuals. More than most episodes of the series this one moves outside a lot, features far more action than usual; especially on rooftops, basements and fire escapes. A very young George Segal, prior to his success in feature films, plays the troubled and troublesome cop with admirable intensity and conviction. His familiarity was not a problem for me; and though he didn't come across as quite so tough as the character he was playing he handled his scenes well, doing solid work, dominating his scenes without hamming.
As the mad dog killer, ex-Dead End Kid Gabe Dell is scarcely seen; a shadowy figure, his character gets little screen time, makes a huge impact as a real life monster, a man with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Horace McMahon is his usual stoic self as Segal's superior, and without bidding for sympathy gets it anyway, at least from me. If there's a moral to this tale it's that while pure evil can and does exist, pure virtue is a near impossibility. We're too flawed, most of us, to do the right thing all the time, or for that matter to know what the right thing is; and being human, we often conflict and compete when we ought to be working together.