Covenant With Death, A

Television favorite George Maharis (Route 66) makes the transition to big-screen stardom in this underrated courtroom gem, powerfully directed by two-time Emmy Award® winner Lamont Johnson. When Louise Talbot is found strangled, suspicion immediately falls upon her husband, Brian (Earl Holliman), a bad apple who threatened his unfaithful wife with bodily harm. Tried, convicted and sentenced to die, he's brought to the scaffold, where he accidentally kills the hangman just as the real strangler confesses to the crime. Now the burden falls on Ben Lewis (Maharis) a young judge who must decide if the hangman's death was murder or a case of an innocent man trying to save his own life. Based on the best-selling novel by Stephen Becker, A Covenant with Death also features an early screen appearance by Gene Hackman, whose breakout performance later in 1967 Bonnie and Clyde would earn him an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor.