Mike Cronin (John Wayne) is a veteran reporter with a small fry local
newspaper who thinks he's just one story away from making it big - so when
he figures Lyn Goodhue (John's real-life son Patrick Wayne), the New York
Yankees' rookie of the year, is actually the son of Buck Garrison (Ward
Bond), a former baseball star who has fallen from grace - and was banned
from the sport for life - for accepting bribes, he thinks he has the story
of his life he can actually sell to his New York newspaperman friend
Shafer (James Gleason). But then Lyn's girlfriend Ruth (Vera Miles)
shows up in his hotelroom with a gun, threatening to shoot him if he ever
publishes the story. Cronin has no problems disarming the girl - but she
makes him listen to reason (and to his heart), that it's just unfair to
sacrifice Lyn for a mistake his father has made before he was even born.
So when Shafer calls Cronin for the story, he tells him he has none ...
and learns that everybody knew about Lyn's father anyhow, just nobody
printed it out of respect for the boy's career. And wouldn't you know
it, karma kicks in right away, and despite of not havingt a story, Cronin
gets the New York job he wanted so much anyhow ... Now on paper
this must sound great: John Ford directs John Wayne on his first excursion
into television - but on (the small) screen, this episode of Screen
Directors Playhouse hardly lives up to his promise: Sure, it's
smoothly directed, and sure, Wayne is everything you'd expect him to be
... but the story the film is just too weak, too one-dimensional and too
predictable to really convince. Actually, I'd go so far and say that
because of the weak plot, the whole thing is an utter disappointment ...
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