Man in Shadow

Armstrong Circle Theatre • Season 7 • Episode 12

About this episode

Docudrama of a mentally ill man and the effort to help him recover. Paul Foster had to give up an engineering career to take over his father's insurance business because it was expected of him. He was ill-suited to the work and when the drama opens, the business is failing. Outwardly at the age of 31, he is a normal young man with a wife, Ruth, and a child.... Suddenly, he hits his secretary and accuses her of spying. Diagnosis by a psychiatrist finds he has suffered a mental breakdown, a schizophrenic reaction with marked paranoid tendencies. His mother refuses to believe it. His wife faces the facts and has him committed to a state hospital for treatment, which does not go well at first. But with the support of his family and with new drugs, Paul can communicate his problems and fears and return to his place in society.