Four Star Playhouse A Man of the World (1952–1956) Online

Over the last several years, I've downloaded and watched dozens of episodes of "Four Star Theater" from archive.org...and it's been a mostly wonderful viewing experience. Seeing these accomplished movie stars in these half hour teleplays has been nice and this is because the scripts and acting were generally very good. Unfortunately, in the case of "A Man of the World", the writing and acting were a letdown--but at least the star of this one, David Niven, cannot be blamed.

When the film begins, a man (Niven) is about to go off on his annual three-week vacation without his wife in order to fish and hunt. He worries that she'll be jealous or worry about him...but she seems amazingly content with his trip. And, the more he talks to everyone, he realizes he's an amazingly predictable and somewhat dull fellow. He's obviously longing for some excitement...and finds it when a very pretty and much younger woman begins paying a lot of attention to him on the train. In fact, she appears more than willing to have an affair with him!! So what gives?

The show doesn't work because the plot isn't very believable but more importantly, the young lady simply comes off as 100% fake. The woman's delivery of her lines is poor and the lines themselves seem as if they were written by a teenager who THINKS this is how adults really talk! Don't say I didn't warn you about this one.