Kraft Television Theatre

This live episode appears to be riddled with technical errors, and miscues from start to finish. (Its not clear that all of these were seen on the live telecast. Its possible, though unlikely, that the kinescope film camera was recording an alternate "feed" from the control room.): -At the top of the show, rather than showing the usual film of the minature Kraft cameraman, the director cuts to an un-cued reel of film counting down from six to one. When the image appears, its threaded backwards with the Kraft logo appearing as a mirror image. -A montage of two hands stacking money is interrupted for a few seconds of black screen. -In the money counting scene, the director cuts to a shot of an empty part of the set, then returns to Lahr and Gwynne just to fade to black and then back to the picture. -Gwynne tuns on the TV so they can watch the news of their heist. Many seconds pass with nothing on their set. Lahr begins impatiently slapping his leg and looks off-camera dismayed. When the reporter finally appears, the audio is so low we can barely hear him. A photo of the armored car pops onto our screens for several seconds, instead of on their TV set. As Lahr and Natwick stand, the boom mic is viable over their heads. It moves around, but never leaves the shot. -When they tune in for the late TV news, the reporter is on their screen (this time), but says nothing for several seconds. Lahr mouths some unhappy words to someone off-camera. As Lahr, Natwick and Gwynne continue with the scene, the set remains on in the background. There we see the camera jerk away from the reporter and pan around the soundstage to its next set up. -Fred Gwynne is clearly unrehearsed when he appears after the play to plug next week's episode. The cue cards are nowhere near the camera and he reads them tentatively. The cameraman changes lenses in the middle of his pitch, jerkily going to a closeup, then refocusing all while Fred speaks. -The announcer introduces a preview scene from next week's show. An actress looks around waiting for her cue. When she begins speaking, there's no audio and the cameraman begins moving the camera around. When they cut to a pair of other actors in the preview, they're also shown without audio.