TV Reader's Digest — Season 1, Episode 18: France's Greatest Detective

Episode synopsis

The story of Alphonse Bertillion, a low level employee of the French police, who developed a theory of identifying suspects by their unique physical measurements, like the size of the head. At first his superiors are skeptical, but statistics taken of a man in question exposes his guilt in a murder case.

About TV Reader's Digest

TV Reader's Digest is the title of a 30 minute American television anthology drama series which aired on the ABC from 1955 to 1956. Based on articles that appeared in Reader's Digest magazine, the episodes based on true stories which were varied in their themes, plots and content. Themes included crime, heroism, mystery, romance, and human interest. Episode writers included Frederick Hazlitt Brennan, Cleveland Amory and Frank Gruber. Some of the actors who were cast in the episodes included: Claude Akins, Leon Askin, Jean Byron, Chuck Connors, Peter Graves, Tod Griffin, Francis McDonald, Max Showalter, John Howard, Lee Marvin, Gene Raymond, Jerry Paris, and Michael Winkelman.

More episodes from Season 1

• E1The Last of the Old Time Shooting Sheriffs
• E2Trouble on the Double
• E3Britain's Most Baffling Murder
• E4How Chance Made Lincoln President
• E5I'll Pick More Daisies
• E6Top Secret
• E7A Matter of Life and Death
• E8The End of Blackbeard the Pirate
• E9The American Master Counterfeiters
• E10America's First Great Lady
• E11The Manufactured Clue
• E12Incident on the China Coast