An Error in Chemistry

"An Error in Chemistry" is a 1954 American television play based on the like-named William Faulkner story, which first appeared in the June 1946 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine.^[2] It was the seventh episode of the anthology series Climax! and starred Edmond O'Brien as Joel Flint.

"An Error in Chemistry"
Climax! episode
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 7
Directed by	William H. Brown Jr.
Teleplay by	David Dortort
Based on	An Error in Chemistry by William Faulkner
Presented by	William Lundigan
Original air date	December 2, 1954 (1954-12-02)
Running time	60 minutes[1]
List of episodes

The episode was broadcast live.^[3]

Cast

• Edmond O'Brien as Joel Flint
• Lon Chaney as Old Man Pritchell
• Douglas Kennedy as Uncle Gavin
• Tommy Ivo as Billy Sartoris
• Margaret Field as M'Liss
• James Bell as Sheriff
• Dan White as Ben Berry
• William Schallert as Young Farmer

Reception

Reviewing the episode for the New York Herald Tribune, John Crosby wrote, "this may have been the best television drama I have ever seen" (a fact he attributes equally to all parties concerned),^[4] while Hollywood Reporter critic Milton Luban's equally emphatic thumbs-up focuses primarily on Brown's "beautiful directing job, from both performance and acting viewpoints, his crowd handling being masterful," and on O'Brien's "brillian[ce]."

O'Brien has turned in far too many brilliant performances to call this his best, but it certainly ranks close to it, [...] getting every nuance out of the role yet maintaining a certain inscrutability that keeps his motives a complete mystery until the bitterly ironic climax.^[3]

Time magazine likewise singled out O'Brien's performance but deemed the story's climax "too forced and too trifling to support an hour show."^[1]

At the Seventh Annual Emmy Awards, adaptor David Dortort's script received a nomination for Best Written Dramatic Material.^[5]