Naked City (TV Series) Daughter Am I in My Father's House (1962) User Reviews

Unusual story and thought provoking too

[pacificgroove-315-494931 · 8/10 · 26 August 2015]

From the few episodes I've watched so far, The Naked City was certainly one of the most accomplished and sophisticated TV police dramas ever. The caliber of the writing and acting and location cinematography was superior.

In this episode, Dan Durea, Barbara Harris, and a likable semi-delinquent who has an innocent attraction to her (name?) all give compelling believable performances.

I've never seen a TV show with the sort of story depicted here; it's quite a fascinating look at a violent and obsessive father, who genuinely loves his innocent daughter, but all but pimps her out to entice young men, so he can beat the sh*t out of them.

Very dark Naked City episode

[kalibeans · 9/10 · 11 July 2020]

"Daughter Am I in My Father's House" is a dark and deeply disturbing episode of Naked City aired in 1962 that I believe would be hard put to air today. A young woman, appears to be late teens, is cat called in a movie by four teen boys. After the movie they follow her and tease her implying they want to harm her, yet not doing any physical harm. So far this episode seems like an ordinary Naked City episode. Enter Ken Duryea, the young woman's father, retired or ex military living in the past surrounded by the accoutremonts of war in their home. It is obvious from his opening lines this man is disturbed. This is where this episode turns very dark. This man, appearing to both want to defend the honor of his daughter (who was not physically harmed and does not appear to even hold a grudge against the young men after one of them talks to her and apologizes for their stupidity), and re-live his military days by hunting these young men down actually forces his daughter to "tart herself up" as bait to lure them out so he can attack them. You will have to watch to see how it concludes. This was a very well written and well acted episode that will stay with you. I was surprised this passed the censors of the time. Very good psychological thriller episode.

Daddy I'd rather not!

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 14 January 2013]

***SPOILERS*** It's when his teenage daughter Helga, Barbara Harris, came home in tears from the local movie theater that her pop Clyde Royd,Dan Duryea, went ballistic in trying to track down the boys who hassled his little girl as well as tried to put their hands on her. With a by then composed Helga wanting to put the whole incident behind her Clyde, a major in the US paratroopers in WWII, planned to open military operations on the boys using his daughter Helga as bait. That's by having her get all dolled up and dress like a hooker to attract them and then use his military hand to hand combat skills to put her tormentors into the hospital with broken heads arms and legs! Determined to go through with his crazy plan poor Helga is soon involved with Clyde's efforts to commit assault and battery as well as possible murder. Something that Helga never expected, by telling her pop what happened to her in the movie house, to happen!

It's later when Clyde tracked down, with Helga as bait, one of the boys who hassled her Dom, Marco St. John, he did just that by busting his skull and in the process getting arrested by the police for assault with intent to kill. It was in fact Dom who felt really sorry for what he did and wanted to apologize to Helga but ended up with a broken head instead! As for Clyde he in fact liberated Helga from the emotional straight jacket that he put her into by getting, in having herself look pretty, noticed by boys her age whom he wanted her to be unappealing to. And now with a possible jail sentence hanging over his head Clyde realizes what a complete jerk he really is!

You see right away what a mental case Clyde is by him being so into violence that, I assume, he had his wife leave him to raise Helga all by himself. Dressed in pajamas while a the same time wearing his paratrooper combat boots while doing his job calling clients to sell them insurance isn't exactly normal by any stretch of the imagination. As for Clyde's apartment looking like, with an arsenal of guns bayonets and spent artillery shells, Hitler Bunker what can you expect from a nut like that anyway but a one way ticket to Sing Sing when he, like Clyde did here, finally snaps!

****SPOILER**** We get to see the mind set that Clyde has towards his daughter in keeping her as pure as the morning snow later in the "Naked City" episode. Reminiscing about his life in the US Military Clyde proudly tell the police investigating his attack on Dom that back in Japan his paratrooper friends used to beat up kidnap and possible murder Japanese men back in occupied Japan who didn't take kindly to GI's like himself who tried to get it on or date their women folks! And that he in enforcing law & order put three of his fellow paratroopers into the hospital,by barking their skulls, for doing it. That's exactly what he did to poor Dom who was only trying to be friendly with his daughter Helga, who in fact got to like him, when he almost ended up putting him on a cold slab in the city morgue!

A complex, downbeat story

[jameselliot-1 · 6/10 · 10 June 2020]

"A teenage girl is teased and handled a little roughly by four prankish teenage boys at a movie theater." This IMDB synopsis is sugarcoating the opening scene in which Barbara Harris (as Helga) is almost dragged into the back seat of a parked car for raping by four young street predators. They run when she fights them off. Harris, born July, '35 was probably 17 or just hit 18 when this was shot in 1962 (I can't find the production date; it was broadcast in October, '62.) She has the same kind of ingenue attractiveness as Sally Fields and Daria Massey. Her dad the great movie villain Dan Duryea doesn't like or trust cops so if not for a would-be rescuer finding the books she dropped during the attack and turning them over to the police, the incident wouldn't have been discovered. The girl will not speak to the cops anyway. Her overprotective, unhappy father is a WW2 vet who covers their motherless apartment with his military weaponry and items. His goal is to find and punish the punks who 'touched his daughter.' One of them inadvertently helps by stalking the girl and hanging around her block. apparently crushing on her. He seems like a simpleton and his father says he's been a problem for years. Adam and the other cops are fringe players and ineffective in this heavy, morbid drama. Naked City was famous for shooting on the shabby, gritty streets of Manhattan and the despairing stories delved into the complexities of crowded urban life in a concrete jungle, not the healthiest environment to live in. The writer of this drama- Shimon Wincelberg- paints the father as on the border of derangement and extreme bitterness. The title 'Daughter Am I in My Father's House' may have been a riff on Genesis 24:23. He pressures the girl into tarting up with make-up and junk jewelry in some unpleasant scenes so she can lure the guys to her like bait, Then he can follow her on the street and then beat the crap out of the punks. As it turns out, she enjoys the results of acting sexy. The dad's scheme has backfired. After he's arrested-the three detectives have had their issues with him-his daughter will not help him and tells him at the precinct in front of the squad that she enjoys being looked at by men and walks out accompanied by the stalker who's being let go. "I like to be looked at by all men. I like it when men look at me and dream." Lines a men's magazine writer would pen for a pictorial. This bizarre ending adds to the overall point of view of Wincelberg's perverse morality teleplay, that the father has a sick attachment to his daughter and he's the one who should be punished. The story ends with Helga and the boy walking into the night, leaving the dad in the clink.