Dorothy Sands Movies

This 1956 presentation of the TV anthology The Alcoa Hour represented a new collaboration between writer Ernest Kinoy and the husband-wife acting team of Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, all of whom previously worked on the highly-regarded (but low-rated) situation comedy The Marriage. Cronyn plays the title character, a scam artist named Sam Pickens who is working the suckers in 1880s New York. Posing as a clergyman, Sam insinuates himself into a posh men's club, where begins taking up a collection for a bogus missionary project. Once his victims figure out what's going on, Sam is booted into the street--where he meets a wealthy spinster named Olivia Crummit (Tandy). Sizing the woman up as a prime pigeon, Sam worms his way into the confidence of Olivia and her family, fully intending to pick them all clean. But either Sam is losing his touch, or Olivia is not quite as innocent and gullible as she seems. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi