Run For Your Life was an American drama series that aired for three season on NBC, from September 13, 1965 to March 27, 1968. It starred Ben Gazzara as Paul Bryan, a lawyer who has been told that he only has between nine and eighteen months left to live. Armed with that information, Bryan decides to do all of the things that he never had time to do, traveling from place to place, meeting new people in new situations. The character of Paul Bryan had been introduced in an episode of Kraft Suspense Theatre called Rapture at Two-Forty, which aired on April 15, 1965.
Jocelyn appeared in an episode called Who's Watching the Fleshpot? (Season 1, Episode 22), which originally aired on March 7, 1966. Based on notices in Variety, it appears that this episode was shot in the latter part of November 1965.
In this episode, Bryan arrives in a seaside town in France, where he encounters an old buddy, Mark Shepherd (Bobby Darin), who is living the life, hanging out with beautiful women and running a travel agency of sorts (or dating service, at times, so it seems). Shepherd wants his buddy Bryan to hang out and work with him for a while, which comes in handy as Mame Huston (Eve Arden) arrives, seeking a couple of guys to show her and her daughter Marcia (Davey Davison) a good time in the city. Huston drives a fancy convertible sports car that catches the eye of a couple of criminals, who sabotage the car so that they can take it to a repair shop and hide diamonds in it for smuggling back to the U.S.
Bryan is Marcia's date, but she wants nothing to do with him, because she wants to be back at home with her conservative fiance. Mame, on the other hand, is trying to get Marcia to realize that she is not really in love with the fiance and break off the engagement. Of course, Marcia eventually warms up to Bryan's charm and decides to do just that. As a thank you gift, Mame decides to give the car to Shepherd and Bryan, rather than having it sent back to the U.S.
When the thieves find out what has happened, they try to steal the car back in order to retrieve the hidden diamonds. The remainder of the episode involves action, fights, and chases as Shepherd and Bryan try to get the car and diamonds back.
This is the only episode that I have watched of this series, so I'm a little perplexed as to what to make of it. It was interesting enough that I would like to watch some other episodes to get a better sense of the series, but it was not so good that I am jumping for the chance to watch more. Gazzara has always been a well-regarded actor, and Darin was OK in this episode. It was almost like two different shows, the first half being sort of a romantic comedy and the second half being more of an action-thriller. The episode was filmed on-set in California, but stock footage is used well in setting the mood for the location being on the French seaside.
As for Jocelyn, she only has about 60 seconds of screen time in the first few minutes of the episode. In fact, she did not even get billing as a "Guest Star" at the beginning of the episode. Her screen credit was at the end. She works for Shepherd and is there to greet Bryan when he arrives, pointing him to the beach where Shepherd is hanging out with some lovelies, including Thordis Brandt, who showed up as eye candy in several television shows and movies of the mid-to-late 1960s. Jocelyn makes the most of her brief screen time, looking as lovely as ever, and delivering her lines in a great French accent. Once again, we're left to scratch our heads and wonder how Jocelyn could have been so woefully underutilized. If you're only interested in this show because of Jocelyn, it's probably not worth the time and effort to track down this episode.
Run For Your Life has never been released on home video, as far as I can tell. It has, however, aired occasionally in syndication through the years. I was able to watch this episode from an old VHS recording off of a TV re-run, but the quality was very weak, as evidenced by these screen captures.
Here is a an ad about Jocelyn's appearance in this episode that ran in the August 19, 1966 edition of the Cleveland Press TV magazine. The picture used does not appear to be from the episode itself.
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