This review comes from the August 17, 1955 issue of The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Source: The Internet Archive
WON 49 FINGERS
Ghoulish TV Drama Called Corking Good
by Val Adams
NEW YORK, Aug. 16—The ghoulish world of two contributors to the New Yorker Magazine came to television. The result was a corking good play with an explosive ending.
Titled “The Man From the South,” it was based on a short story of the same name written a few years ago by Road Dahl. Charles Addams, the cartoonist, introduced the play with some of his drawings and served as narrator.
And certainly there could be no more fitting host than Addams to set the stage for a play like “The Man From the South.” Televised by the National Broadcasting Co.’s Cameo Theater, the drama dealt with a fantastic circumstance.
DeMonet, portrayed perfectly by Joseph Schildkraut, meets a young American who has just gone broke at the Monte Carlo gambling tables. Finding the American bragging that his cigarette lighter never fails to work, the Frenchman proposes a bet—his new Cadillac against the little finger of the American’s left hand if the lighter fails to flame 10 times in succession.
And De Monet’s motive? Excitement, or so he said. He had seen his father live a boring business life for 50 years and he, the son, wanted to part of it. He lived his fantasies.
It is entirely possible some viewers found the proceedings a little too macabre for their well-being. In arranging to test the cigarette lighter in a hotel room, DeMonet called room service for a butcher’s cleaver and a chopping block in case he should be the winner. Naturally these bizarre circumstances were played to the hilt, but Schildkraut never forgot his training in tongue-in-cheek type of playing.