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Lock-Up
Video cover
Genre	Crime drama
Directed by	Walter Doniger Fred Hamilton Jack Herzberg Henry S. Kesler Otto Lang
Starring	Macdonald Carey John Doucette
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	78
Production
Executive producer	Frederick W. Ziv
Producers	Jack Herzberg Henry S. Kesler
Camera setup	Single-camera
Running time	30 minutes
Production companies	Ziv Television Programs United Artists Television
Original release
Network	Syndication
Release	September 26, 1959 (1959-09-26) – June 17, 1961 (1961-06-17)

Lock-Up is an American crime drama series that premiered in syndication in September 1959 and concluded in June 1961. The half-hour episodes had little time for character development or subplots. It instead presented a compact story without embellishment.

Series overview

The program stars Macdonald Carey as real-life Philadelphia corporate attorney Herbert L. Maris (1880–1960) and John Doucette as police detective Lieutenant Jim Weston. Maris died during the program's initial run.

Each episode began with the following introduction: "These stories are based on the files and case histories of Herbert L. Maris, prominent attorney, who has devoted his life to saving the innocent."

The foundation of each episode is the cornerstone of English and American jurisprudence: a person charged with a crime is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. The series featured stories of persons who were unjustly accused, usually due to circumstantial evidence. The program's primary theme is that when individuals are charged with a crime, not all is as it first appears and a thorough investigation is duly warranted in order to uncover vital facts pertinent to the case.

Herbert L. Maris had an uncanny sense about the honest, innocent persons who had been falsely accused. With his lucrative private practice of corporate law, he also had the time and resources to help these people. He was an attorney who spent his spare time helping defendants unjustly charged by the State. The stories portrayed in this series do not involve federal crimes.

Episodes

Season 1 (1959–60)

Season 2 (1960–61)

Guest stars

Among the many guest stars on the show were:

Production notes

Ziv Television Programs, Inc., of Cincinnati, Ohio, a producer and distributor of more than 40 television shows during the 1950s including Highway Patrol, Sea Hunt, Science Fiction Theatre, and subsequently, ZIV-United Artists produced the television series. Later, Showcase Media of Studio City, California distributed the series.

Home media

ClassicFlix announced that they would release Season 1 on DVD in region 1 in 2017. However, these plans were shelved indefinitely on April 17, 2018, when ClassicFlix announced that they wouldn't be moving on with the project after all, due to the film elements not being in good enough shape. In November 2024, Classic Flix has revived plans to release Lock Up in 2025, upon learning that there are 16mm prints in good shape for remastering.

References

1. Lock-Up - Macdonald Carey Stars in 'Season 1' of the 1959 Crime Drama DVD Plans for this title, coming later in 2017 from ClassicFlix Archived 2017-03-01 at the Wayback Machine
2. Lambert, David (April 17, 2018). "Lock-Up - Announced Over a Year Ago, the 1959 Series Isn't Coming to DVD After All". TV Shows on DVD. Retrieved April 19, 2018.

External links

• Lock-Up at IMDb
• Lock-Up sample episode ("Compulsion Killer") on YouTube (original air date: December 24, 1960)

• 1959 American television series debuts
• 1961 American television series endings
• 1950s American legal television series
• 1960s American legal television series
• 1950s American crime drama television series
• 1960s American crime drama television series
• Black-and-white American television shows
• American English-language television shows
• First-run syndicated television programs in the United States
• Television series by Ziv Television Programs
• Television shows set in Philadelphia