Episode # 5417 THREE MINUTES TOO LATE
Original airdate: 12-26-54

New Year's Eve hardly seems worth celebrating for Alice and Sam Hendricks. Sam is out of work, the rent is overdue, and Alice is expecting their first baby any minute now. This is the inspiring story of a young expectant wife named Alice (Loretta Young) and her faith in the future, even though she and her husband Sam (Hugh O’Brian) face a bleak New Year’s Day.

Can things get much worse? Yes! Sam resorts to stealing, and Alice has triplets – ‘three minutes too late’, or so they say!

Co-star Hugh O’Brian would go on in 1955 to star in his own ABC television series The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp as well as many other filmed appearances. He was highly regarded for creating the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership Foundation in 1958, a non-profit youth leadership program which has sponsored over 400,000 students. O'Brian died at his home in Beverly Hills, California on September 5, 2016 at the age of 91.

Robert Foulk also makes another return appearance in this episode as Tub Walker. Between 1953 and 1959, Foulk was cast in thirteen episodes of this series. From 1954 to 1957 he was cast in five episodes as Ed Davis in the sitcom Father Knows Best with Robert Young. In 1956, he played Jackley in the Walt Disney Mickey Mouse Club serial "The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure." But he is perhaps best remembered for having portrayed Sheriff H. Miller in the CBS series, Lassie, a role which he filled in eighteen episodes from 1958 to 1962.

Robert Foulk died in 1989 at age 80. He is buried at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

Also note in this episode, a cameo appearance by Miss Young’s sister, actress Sally Blane, as Nurse # 1.

Blane had her film debut at the age of seven when she appeared in Sirens of the Sea in 1917, along with her sisters Loretta and actress Poly Ann Young. Sally appeared in over 100 movies. She was at one time romantically linked to singer Russ Columbo, but married actor and director Norman Foster in October 1935. In June 1936, they had their first child, Gretchen, named after her sister Loretta Young.

Blane died in Palm Springs, California, on August 27, 1997, of cancer (as did her sisters Polly, who died seven months prior and Loretta) at the age of 87. Blane is interred in Culver City's Holy Cross Cemetery, as are her sisters.

Directed by Harry Keller

Screenplay by John Meredyth Lucas & story by Ralph Mays

Cast:
Alice Hendricks Loretta Young
Sam Hendricks Hugh O'Brian
Tub Walker Robert Foulk
Nurse # 1 Sally Blane
Nurse # 2 Ann Doran
Mr. Banner Parley Baer
Mrs. Hulgard Jessalyn Fax
Reporter Rayford Barnes