Category: DVD Review

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: Quincy, M.E. Seasons 1 and 2

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Before there was CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, there was Quincy, M.E. CSI owed its existence to Quincy. Quincy owed its first DVD release to the success of CSI. The box hailed Quincy as the original Crime Scene Investigator. The three-disk double-sided DVD box set was pressed in 2005, at the height of CSI’s popularity.

Double-sided DVDs remain one of the worst ideas of the early-to-mid 2000s. Still, if you want to enjoy Season 2 of Quincy without getting a bootleg, this is your only option. Shout Factory bought the rights to the series and reissued Seasons 4-8, but only offered Season 1 as a double-sided DVD release. Four years later and nothing has been done for Season 2.

The whole Season 1 and Season 2 thing with Quincy feels like a bit of a money-making conceit. Season 1 and Season 2 were released during the 1976-77 Television season. Every other dramatic show on television was considered to have one single season. Not Quincy. (He never does anything the easy way.) In the fall of 1976, the series had 90-minute episodes and was part of NBC’s Mystery Wheel along with Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan and Wife. This is Season 1. In the Spring, the series became a regular one-hour weekly drama which the DVD makers refer to as Season 2. The longest-existing Quincy fan site insists there’s just one season. Whether there’s any legitimacy to creating two seasons in the same broadcast season, NBC Universal was right when they sold the episodes together.

The technicalities out of the way, let’s move on to discussing the show.

Quincy starred Jack Klugman (The Odd Couple) as a medical examiner for the Los Angeles Coroner’s Office. Quincy is a tireless pathologist who often proves a thorn in the side of his boss, the officious Dr. Robert Astin (John S. Ragin,) and in the side of Lieutenant Frank Monahan (Garry Walberg.) of Homicide.

Quincy as a character required a bit of work. In the first story, “Go Fight City Hall…To the Death” has Quincy as a somewhat problematic character who borders on being insufferable. Quincy is not only a brilliant pathologist, he’s a brilliant Doctor in general and the only one who actually cares about finding the truth. Quincy is quickly thrown into accusing his boss of being in on a cover-up of the crime.

The series dialed back Quincy’s arrogance a bit. Quincy was still brilliant and a great outside-the-box thinker. He never accepts an easy answer and has great instincts. Yet, sometimes he gets carried away with his ideas as in one episode where a long-buried human thighbone was found at a University Construction site and Quincy shut it down to find out who committed the murder. Quincy has a great sense of justice and drive to ensure that crimes are properly solved, which made him a difficult person to befriend or to date. He’s prickly, and demanding, particularly to his assistant Sam (Robert Ito.)

The supporting cast also develops from the opener. The image of Astin and Monahan as uncaring gave way to a more realistic as indifferent to the truth of a case gives way to them as more realistic characters who believe all Quincy is doing is wasting time. They know how to do their jobs and have done them and find Quincy never letting things go to be exhausting and you can’t blame them. While Quincy is almost always right, he makes life difficult for them. Why they continually assume he’s most likely wrong each week is a question, but no different than the challenge every maverick investigator confronts.

The episodes are well-written. Some have standard mystery plots with some forensic twists but some have ingenious ideas that stretched the forensic knowledge of the era to its limits. In the episode, The Thigh Bone is Connected to the Knee Bone, Quincy excites some of the students in the college class in the teaching by setting out to learn everything about the man and how he died from a single thigh bone.

Some episodes don’t quite fit. In, “Has Anybody Seen Quincy,” the character of Quincy doesn’t appear. Instead, the story follows a senior pathologist named Dr. Hiro (Yuki Shimoda) on a typical workday as he encounters short cases/issues to address. Klugman had refused to appear in it and didn’t like the script. While I’m not a fan of stars doing that, Klugman had a point. While it’s not a bad script, it’s not good. It’s also not something a show plays during its first broadcast season. If this episode were presented during season five or six as a filler program, I could buy it. To present a program that says, “We’re running out of ideas,” during the first broadcast season is not a good choice.

The series also had a couple of episodes where Quincy went on crusades with barely any mystery. “A Good Smack in the Mouth” finds Quincy at the hospital after Doctor Astin’s wife and a tween boy she picked up were in a car accident. Quincy views the X-ray and sees wounds that can’t be explained by the mash-up but are consistent with what he’s seen on child abuse victims and is determined this boy won’t be another statistic. While its heart’s in the right place, this episode is weak. Once the abuse is discovered, the story becomes melodrama. By 1976, many programs had already addressed the scourge of child abuse. The one thing it contributes is a bit of pop psychology that will tell who the abuser is. Quincy doesn’t understand and nearly makes a tragic mistake, so I’m not certain what good this episode did.

The far better crusade episode is the season finale, “Let me Light the Way.” The episode finds Quincy busting into a hospital room where a rape victim was being treated by incompetent physicians who destroy all evidence of the rape. Quincy sets out to get rape kits and training for the medical personnel on how to handle and process all evidence of rape, He’s teamed up with a rape counselor (Adrienne Barbeau.) When the counselor is raped, she calls for Quincy to treat her to ensure that the evidence is properly collected so they can bring her rapist to justice. I have to say this was a gut-wrenching episode. Barbeau turns in a great and all too believable performance. In its time, it highlighted an important issue and how public health systems and police departments were failing victims. Watching it in the twenty-first century, the procedures used by Quincy to preserve evidence seem antiquated compared to the efforts to capture rape evidence in something like Broadchurch Series Three. Still, it represents a great bit of insight into the history of this issue.

Overall, this first season of Quincy has some rough edges, much like Quincy himself. For my money, the character worked better in the one-hour format than in the TV movies. While he does a crusade, there’s little of the preachiness many associate with later episodes of the series, although a very high tolerance for those tendencies. Overall, this set is worth viewing (although perhaps not at current prices) if you like the show already, enjoy scientific mystery shows, or like characters crusading for truth and justice.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD/Streaming Review: The Last Detective, Series Four

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After three series of Detective Constable “Dangerous” Davies (Peter Davison)  solving difficult crimes while being disrespected by his colleagues, and having life continue to throw one indignity after another at him, most notably his estranged wife (Emma Amos) finds new ways to emasculate him and take advantage of him.

In the first three series, his relationship with his boss (Rod Spendlove) improved considerably, and in the third series, he built up the courage to have an honest and direct conversation with his wife that seemed to point towards a reconciliation.

In the fourth series, Dangerous has moved back in with his wife and the two are doing quite well. There are mysteries to be solved and the fourth series give us five cases each weighing in at a little over an hour. The mysteries are each ingeniously plotted, and the episodes are impeccably cast with a variety of both serious and comic characters. The series kicks off with the investigation of the murder of a popular mobster, the second episode turns to a pornographer killed in a case involving a snuff film, the third episode is about the murder of an elderly comedian, the fourth episode features the murder of a limousine driver, and the final episode features the murder of a member of a secret society.

I don’t think there’s a weak mystery among the five, although the fourth episode was my favorite. There were so many angles to the case and it took a lot of surprising turns. Given this turned out to be the final series, I wish that it had the episode had turned out to be the finale rather than the actual finale.

The series’ big challenge is that the Last Detective reached a dead-end in character development. Dangerous had a compelling character arch in the first three series as he became a bit more assertive and showed his strength as a detective and to at last stand up for himself with his wife. In series four, he’s pretty much arrived. He’s peaked at work. While his boss has some more respect for him, their personalities are bound to clash. In series four, he’s a relatively old detective constable. Davies age was never stated in the TV series, but Davison was fifty-five years old when he filmed these episodes and his character is often still mocked and put down by younger, less mature but higher-ranking officers, though a little less frequently. Mostly, in terms of Series Four, we kind of get to see the guy we followed in the first three series get a happy ending. The final episode gives us a little cause for doubt, but not much.

The series’ best attempt to introduce conflict involves Davies’ friend Mod (Sean Turner.)  who becomes a bit of a fly in the ointment for the Davies’ as a long-term houseguest. The problem with Mod is that he provides some nice comic relief but it’s hard to take anything about him seriously.

How much this change impacts your enjoyment will vary. For me, I loved the mysteries and it was nice to see that Davies got a happy ending. However, the existence of the fourth series violated the way modern television programs are typically made when they center around a particular character’s journey. Making the fourth series of The Last Detective, is akin to making the ninth season of Monk after the episode, Mister Monk and the End resolved all his major issues. You just don’t carry on with a series after your main character’s big problems are resolved unless you can come up with some new challenge that’s as big if not bigger than the problems resolved. So even while I was enjoying the series, I knew why there weren’t any further episodes made.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: Cannon: The Complete Collection

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CBS/Paramount stopped releasing the 1970s private detective series Cannon after doing a DVD-R release of Season 3 in 2013. VEI took over the project in 2015 and brought the full collection, all 122 episodes plus the pilot TV movie and the revival movie The Return of Frank Cannon. 

TV Series Overview

Cannon was released during a golden age of television detective programs  It ran from 1971-76. The show’s tenure overlapped partially with Columbo and NBC’s Mystery Wheel movies, along with Kojak, Ironside, Mannix, and the Rockford Files, among others. Many well-made detective programs that got produced during this era couldn’t get renewed due to the sheer competition for people’s eyeballs. In such a world, Cannon‘s endurance for five seasons is a testament to its quality.

The series stood out for a few reasons. First was its lack of an ongoing supporting cast. Recurring characters were a rarity. In season one, a young Martin Sheen played Jerry Watson, an ex-cop with a disability, and was Cannon’s assistant for two episodes. And that’s it for any significant recurring roles throughout the series. If you look at the Cannon IMDB page, you’ll see a few actors appeared multiple times but most appeared as different characters. The show’s guest cast was a combination of future stars (Sheen, Mark Hamill, and Nick Nolte), recognizable talents like Stephanie Powers and Dick Van Patten, well-known veteran actors like Anne Baxter and Keenan Wynn, and obscure actors.

The series leaned a bit towards suspense rather than typical whodunit plots, particularly in the program’s early episodes. The villains would be known to the audience, and it would be a question of whether Cannon would thwart the villains. The series leaned heavily in the direction of action. If you like car chases, fistfights, and explosions, then Cannon has got you covered. Despite his size, Cannon is more than able to handle himself, not only with guns but also with his fists.

Cannon isn’t just a pudgy fighter. He shows many sides to his character in the course of the series. He was a Korean War Vet and and a widowed ex-cop turned high-priced private investigator. In the first episode, Cannon is portrayed with a nice apartment and an assistant, but in this series itself, this was scaled back. Cannon’s apartment in the series could be best described as comfortable. He wears decent suits, but more often than not, conducts his investigations in a windbreaker and clothes that we’d consider business casual. His Lincoln Continental was a luxury car but has been mentioned at least twice on lists of most ugly television cars.

He generally approaches the question of whether to accept any given case with professional detachment. However, his high prices to the wealthy often allowed him to take on the cases of people in need but without means for free or at a reduced rate. He’s naturally friendly and particularly kind to young people in distress as they seem to bring out his fatherly instincts and he jumps in to help. However, he accepts no nonsense and if you start a fight with him, he will finish it.

The writing on the series was solid. With the series not committed to any particular formula, this gave the writers a lot of freedom to put Cannon into different situations that could range from suspenseful adventures to more typical mysteries. Some story ideas reoccurred, such as the small southwestern towns where law enforcement was crooked or some dirty secret was kept and Cannon had to bust heads to set things right. But that also left room for interesting ideas like the time Cannon helped a political prisoner from another country flee only to discover he’d been conned and had to get the prisoner back or the episode where Cannon had to investigate a murder that appeared to be committed by a being from outer space, or the last episode where Cannon had to save a friend who had gone mad after some military experiments. And then there were a lot of plots around the mafia and underworld class that knew of Cannon from his years as an honest cop.

Cannon never jumped the shark. In fact, Cannon’s last season was probably its best written. It started out with “Nightmare,” the best episode of the series that dug deep into Cannon’s past and how his wife died. (Review here) and also the crossover with the Buddy Ebsen-led series Barnaby Jones, “The Deadly Conspiracy” (reviewed here). The series end was not a case of the show going bad or losing its edge but of the public’s interest going elsewhere.

The DVD also includes The Return of Frank Cannon, a TV movie released four and a half years after the series ended. It finds Cannon having retired and bought a restaurant. However, Cannon comes out of retirement to help the widow (Diana Muldaur) of an old friend, who was also an old flame. Cannon’s friend’s death is tied up in a some cloak and dagger stuff and the local area’s unusually high number of retired intelligence officers.

The Return of Frank Cannons feels like a long episode but a good one. The romance between Cannon and the widow is played up more than any other romantic angle in the TV series. The romance is wistful and sweet. The movie does feel padded at times. Reportedly there were talks of doing a few more Cannon TV movies, but they only ended up doing one which leads to some scenes which in retrospect become unnecessary. That doesn’t stop the Return of Frank Cannon being a nice curtain call for a remarkable TV series.

In my view, Cannon is underappreciated. In its time, the series received several awards nominations including Emmy and Gold Globe nominations for Conrad, and was well-beloved overseas and recognized with awards in West Germany and Spain. But until recently, it’s not received near the same amount of play in TV syndication or on streaming services as many other 1970s programs.

While Cannon isn’t as good as Columbo and The Rockford Files, it’s a well-made series and better than some shows from the era that have been more widely distributed. It’s a superb series and a highlight of a great decade for TV private eyes.

DVD Release Review

This is a no-frills collection. They even dumped the pre-show teasers that CBS included in their releases. Other than some production slides with the theme music playing in the background, you have no real extras. The episodes are essentially provided exactly as aired with no remastering or retouching.

To be fair, Cannon isn’t a series where you expect high definition remastering or featurettes about the making of the series. VEI released a set that’s sure to make fans say, “Finally, the whole series is available on DVD.” And for that, I’m glad.

The DVD Covers are all basic, as is the disc art with William Conrad framed in a picture and a different color for each of the five seasons of the show. I do like the disc art, which does show a sort of elegant simplicity. Each season also has an episode guide with the date the episode aired and a generally accurate synopsis of the plot.

My only complaint with the presentation comes back to how they handled the release of “The Deadly Conspiracy.” Originally, it aired as a two-parter with part one being an episode of Cannon and part two continuing on Barnaby Jones. On this collection, “The Deadly Conspiracy” is shortened to a single episode that hardly justifies the title with a different ending. To get the story as it originally aired, you have to purchase Barnaby Jones, Season Four. VEI was only following the syndication strategy that Cannon had used. (While Barnaby Jones syndicated both episodes as originally aired.) However, it does seem like they could have included the full version of “The Deadly Conspiracy” particularly since Cannon Season Five included an extra disk that would have easily accommodated it.

Overall Thoughts

Cannon is a personal favorite. William Conrad is a delight in this, and if you’re a fan of old school private detectives, this is a real gem of a series. As of this time of this writing, the entire collection is available for $33.99, which comes out to twenty-eight cents per episode. A true bargain by my measurement.

Rating 4.0 out of 5

Note; If you’re curious about Cannon but not ready to buy it, you can check out an episode or so for free. It’s currently airing on the nostalgia-themed network ME-TV. It’s currently in the 2 a.m. time slot, so unless you’re an insomniac or work the late shift, you may want to plan on setting the DVR to record it.

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: The Magician

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The Magician was a 1973 pilot film for a TV series starring Bill Bixby (The Incredible Hulk, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.) Bixby plays a stage magician who solves mysteries. The pilot has a 70-minute runtime as opposed to most later pilots that opt for either a forty-five-minute regular pilot episode of a series or a TV Movie length. This was aired over NBC which was doing the “Mystery Wheel” format at the time with rotating 90-minute mystery movies being aired, so that’s the reason for the odd length.

Tony Dorian*(Bixby) is sought out by a mother who’s daughter supposedly died in a plane wreck after a man who had been on the plane (and also was supposed to have died) has a spontaneous heart attack at Dorian’s performance. Dorian has to find out what happened to the woman’s daughter and thwart the very dangerous and powerful people who want to stop him.

The 1970s was a golden age for the TV Detective. The Magician has a lot of gimmicks that make it stand out from its contemporaries.. The wealthy playboy aspect of Dorian’s character is somewhat reminiscent of Banacek but Dorian’s different style plus the fact he cared not one whit for money makes that comparison strained. From this movie, the best comparison I could make is that Dorian is the Saint, if the Saint were a magician.

Bixby’s performance is good. He was superb at playing characters with a kindly nature. At the same time, he manages to play the mystery and the ultimate coolness of his character in a way that’s relatable and pleasing to watch.

With a name like The Magician, the series promises magic and spectacle and delivers. We get the same magic trick twice, but it’s an impressive and fun illusion to watch. 1970s was also a great era for chase scenes in detective shows and this featured one of the best-filmed and most-fun ones to watch (even if the logic of why the chase is done is a bit elusive.)

The series also cast a solid actor to play the first guest villain in Hollywood veteran Barry Sullivan. Sullivan could still really bring a sense of menace to his character and he made a great foil for Bixby.

The theme tune is a solid fit for the era and a good listen, with some real complexities in the composition. It’s great to listen to, though I doubt it’s an earworm that sticks with you unless you grew up with it.

The plot of the episode was a bit convoluted and had a couple holes such as the puzzling actions of the security team pursuing our hero in the final act.

The movie’s biggest fault is it may try a little too hard. We learn our hero lives on a plane piloted by Jerry (Julian Christopher) and is also friends with a sophisticated but unconventional columnist named Max (Keene Curtis) who lives with his wife and computer genius wheelchair-bound son Dennis (Todd Crespy.)  We also get quick exposition explaining that Tony’s life is a real-life version of the Count of Monte Cristo. 

Some of this may have benefitted by a feature-length pilot episode, but there’s too much going on for a series like this which is always going to focus mostly on Tony investigating the case on his own. When that’s going on, the film is a lot of fun to watch. At other times, it just feels like we have too many characters on-screen that we hardly know anything about.

If you like Bill Bixby’s acting, or enjoy a 1970s detective series with a little bit more flash, this film is worth watching.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The telefilm is included on the Complete Series disk for The Magician. 

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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple – Movie Collection

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The four 1960s Miss Marple films starred Margaret Rutherford as Miss Marple. For purist fans of Agatha Christie’s spinster detective, these films don’t offer much. Only one of the four was based on a Miss Marple book while two others were based on Poirot stories and one of the four was an original story. Some have compared these films to Peter Ustinov’s Poirot films in the 1970s and 80s, but to me that misses the mark. Ustinov’s Poirot films were at least nearly recognizable as the same character and stories despite the changes.

The only way to enjoy these four films is on their own merits and by that measure they do work. Miss Marple finds herself in one murder mystery after another. It begins with Murder She Said, when she sees a murder through a window while riding a train and is disbelieved by the local Detective Inspector (Bud Tingwell) and she’s assisted in solving it by her friend, the local librarian Stringer (played by Rutherford’s real-life husband Stringer Davis.) The formula of her getting involved in murder and having the Inspector treat her like she’s a meddling amateur and her being vindicated in the end is the way all three films go that see her investigate murders at stables, at a rooming house, and at sea. And she also generally gets an unexpected marriage proposal.

The series gets a little goofier, though mostly in a good way, as it goes along with a lot of tongue and cheek humor. I might compare it in some days to a somewhat more restrained version of the approach to the 1966 Batman TV series with a bit more of a British pantomime take to its comedy, as there are very broad characters who are well-played.

The writing is decent, although the last film Murder Ahoy (the only original story) was a bit weaker than the rest of the series. However, the weaknesses in the script are made up for by the performance of Lionel Jeffries gives as the ship’s captain as he helps sell the dodgier aspects of this story.

The music is light, with a cheery upbeat tune that wouldn’t fit most productions based on Agatha Christie’s writing, but fits this one like a glove.

This is one of the coziest mystery movie series you’ll find. If you like that sort of film and can tolerate its deviation from its source material, this is a delightful romp that’s worth viewing.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

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Telefilm Review: Casebusters

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In Casebusters, an elderly ex-cop turned security company owner (Pat Hingle) who sometimes acts like he’s a cop sometimes has his two grandkids come to spend the Summer and they get involved in solving crimes.

This Wes Craven directed short film appeared on the Wonderful World of Disney back in 1986 and given its 45 minute length it feels like a backdoor pilot for a TV series. Growing up, I watched a lot of the Wonderful World of Disney, but didn’t have any memory of this unlike other films from the era such as Little Spies or Earth Star Voyager.

Casebusters does a lot of things that kids movies of the 1980s and 1990s did: kids get involved mysteries, thwart hapless bad guys, and save the day. It’s big problem is it doesn’t do much of it well. The sister (Virginia Keehne) is into mysteries into a superficial way but, we don’t get to know much about the siblings and their characterization is inconsistent times.

The villains aren’t all that interesting. Many kids films of this era would have broad and colorful villains who provide a lot of humor, but this couple is just kind of there.

Nor do we get any zany action or over the top chase scenes, or a real sense that the kids are in serious danger but escape at the last moment. I know kids films of the era and this one didn’t check any of the boxes you’d expect or provide anything interesting instead.

The best part of the film is Hingle, who is likable enough as the grandfather and Ski (Gary Riley), who showed a little potential to develop into an interesting character if the show had been picked up as a series.

Other than that, Casebusters was a disappointing viewing experience. I’d hoped to find a forgotten Disney classic from the era of my childhood that, like the best Disney live action films of the era, still held some appeal for adults. Instead, Casebusters is a film written for kids, and written down to them. The result is one of the most lifeless productions I’ve ever seen from Disney. The only fascinating part of the film is why it was made in the first place. Hopefully, Disney brings back better quality productions from the era.

Rating: 1.25 out of 5

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

TV Series Review: The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency

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In 2008 Alexander McCall Smith’s book series The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency came to television with a pilot movie produced by the BBC in cooperation with HBO.

The series follows Mma Precious Ramotswe (Jill Scott) as a woman who starts the first female-led private detective agency in Botswana. She hires young secretary Grace Makutsi (Aniki Noni Rose) and wins the affections of local JLB Matekoni (Lucian Msamati.)

The series premiered with a feature length telefilm that tracked closely with the first book in the series in 2008 and in 2009 followed up with a six episode series.

The acting is solid and the characters mostly work. The series was shot on location in Botswana with unique and beautiful cinematography and gives it the sort of authenticity that a series like this needs to work.

The writing on the show was mixed and some of this goes back to the original novels. After the first novel, the books became cozy. There were less serious crimes or no crimes in whatever investigations were going on.

Potential problems and challenges would be raised for our heroine and friends, but they would be resolved sometimes with little to no action by any character in the book. They’d thought about it, worried a little, went on with their life, and the problem went away on its own. That may occur in life, but it doesn’t make for particularly gripping drama.

Doing a straight adaptation of the books would never work on television, so what we get are a mix of stories based on incidents in various books that were changed as well as original story ideas, and even an element or two to make the series more politically correct, as well as reflecting the reality of then-modern Day Botswana.

This had mixed effects. Some of their changes worked well. They did a good job with how they developed the relationship with Mma Ramostwe and JLB Matekoni. The first book contains both of Matekoni’s proposals, the first which Mma Ramotswe refuses and the second which she encourages and accepts. One change the pilot film made was that she does become engaged to him by the end of the film. The series explores both reasons why she’s reluctant and also his feelings.

Msamati’s performance as JLB Matekone helps the production stay true to who he was in the book. Matekone would never go up and have a big conversation with someone else about his feelings, but he still feels deeply. Msamati’s facial expressions and body language can convey that a situation is killing him on the inside without saying a word.

In the books, Matekoni comes down with depression for medical reasons that are irrational. This was intended to illustrate how depression can often come into play in people’s lives. Here, the storyline of him needing to leave unexpectedly is used to better dramatic effect as he’s trying to sort out his relationship with Mma Ramotswe.

I also thought that in the later episodes, they did a good job giving Mma Ramotswe personal stuff to work through. In the books, a male detective establishes a competing agency, the Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency and at another point, her abusive ex-husband comes to town. In the first instance, the detective is a potential problem that is easily foiled, never becomes a threat to her agency, and leaves town after one book. In the books, she also meets her abusive ex-husband with no real problems. In the TV show though, the competing detective isn’t so easily dispatched and is kind of menacing. The ex-husband returns and poses a huge challenge to Mma Ramotswe and brings her to a point of crisis. The finale of the season is very good for that reason.

While the series is on target with its character development. Some of the plot ideas don’t work. It’s not necessarily that the writers didn’t have good ideas but that they didn’t have a good idea for this show. For example, they take a story from the book but have the denouement end in a way that’s absolutely absurd. It was funny, but not in a way that fit the tone of the show. In another episode, a solution of a case was changed from a simple domestic problem to actual attempted murder so that Ma Ramotswe could gather all the suspects around the table like Hercule Poirot and tell what happened. That doesn’t fit her, plus while the writers made that big change to the plot, they didn’t make enough little changes to set the situation up or to change the consequences or to provide any foundation for why the consequences didn’t change. It really was a mess.

There were also a few cases where elements were added and changes to make the show a little more edgy or a little more cynical than in the book, but with little rhyme or reason. Perhaps, it’s one of the hazards of having HBO in on the production, but to me it didn’t work.

Overall, despite a few wrinkles in its execution of its mystery plots, the series is a solid adaptation of the story of the novels. If you’re a fan of the novels, it’s worth watching. If you’re not a fan of the novels, it’s worth seeing for the characters and location work. But if you’re looking for a truly great mystery series, you may want to look elsewhere.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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DVD Review: Fast Company/Fast and Loose/ Fast and Furious Triple Feature

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This DVD features three films from 1938 and 1939 following a rare book seller and amateur sleuth Joel Sloane and his wife Gerda. The series began after the first two Thin Man movies were released and this series was definitely in that same vein.

Each of the three films featured a different pair as the two leads which made it hard for the series to gain traction.

The first film Fast Company is the best. It stars Melvyn Douglas and Florence Rice. It features a solid mystery with a lot of twists and turns. While I’d never heard of Douglas or Rice, they had great on-screen chemistry.

The second film Fast and Loose is also pretty good and has the best known leads in Robert Montgomery and Rosalind Russell. The mystery was still pretty enjoyable.

The third film Fast and Furious is the most mediocre of the three. Ann Sothern, who’d be best known for the Maisie films, does a good job with the material given her, but the overall plot is not as interesting. Franchot Tone as Joel is adequate as a detective but doesn’t have that the same chemistry with Sothern. It’s not a bad film, but it’s the weakest of the lot.

Despite having the name “fast” in the titles, these films move at a cozy, leisurely pace. While many B pictures were around an hour, these films were 73-75 minutes in length which leaves plenty of time for investigations, questioning suspects, romancing, and a few good gags.

Overall, if you enjoyed the first few Thin Man sequels, these are worth checking out. Their quality could be better, but still they make for three fun evenings of viewing for fans of 1930s detectives.

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TV Episode Review: The Hardy Boys: Welcome to Your Life

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The new series of the Hardy Boys kicks off with the episode, “Welcome to Your Life.”

The series makes a lot of changes to the Hardy Boys formula and characters. For those who have never read the books, the Hardy Boys were two teenage boys: Frank (age 18) and Joe (age 17) living in the upstate New York town of Bayport. Their father is Fenton, a private detective, and their mother is Laura, a librarian.

Frank and Joe are not complex characters in the book. They are distinct. Both are smart and physically capable, however Frank is more of a geek and more cautious, and Joe is more physically capable and more given to making rash, impulsive decisions.

The TV series takes things in a different direction. It looks to be set in the late 1980s where Frank and Joe (Rohan Campbell and Alexander Elliott) live with their parents in “the city.” Frank is sixteen and Joe is twelve. Frank is a nerd, but he’s also a good baseball player. We spend the first few minutes of the series seeing the boys interact with their mom who is then killed in what appears to be an auto accident. On top of that, their father Fenton (James Tupper) decides to move them back to their mother’s hometown of Bridgeport for the summer. At first blush, this seems incredibly insensitive, but its for their own safety due to information it’s implied he’s hiding.

In Bridgeport, they meet their grandmother (Linda Thorson) who is glad to see them and eager to go about the business of micromanaging their lives. They also meet the townsfolk who are mostly friendly, even though we’re given some hints of something suspicious a few times. And both a flashback prologue and a couple moments later on hint at the ongoing mystery the Hardy boys are eventually going to resolve to solve.

This first episode doesn’t do a lot for me. There’s definitely room to flesh out the Hardys and make them more three dimensional. However, the writers seemed to have approached this using the most cliched methods of modern storytelling. Killing off a parent as a plot point and in order to make the characters more relatable is the most overused tool of modern writers. And here it’s handled in such an uninspired way that it feels obligatory.

At the same time, the change in ages also changes the dynamic in ways that don’t work well. In the book, Joe and Frank were peers. Plus they’ve made Frank not only a genius nerd but a talented athlete, leaving Joe’s defining characteristic as “the younger one.” Which is a bit of a step back from the balance in the books, not a step forward.

Probably, the biggest problem with this first episode is its length. It’s over forty minutes and feels padded. It ends on a strong note, but in order to get to that note, it has a lot of time where it’s dragging through its runtime to get to the punchline. This particular episode would have been better at 20-22 minutes, which is more typical for a kid-centric TV series. Based on this episode, I’m also skeptical that the writers have enough mystery and enough twists to justify the thirteen-episode, season-long plot arc.

That said, no performances were bad. The interesting clues left me a bit curious to see what will happen next. I’ll watch at least one more episode to see if the series picks up its pace and moves beyond all the set up in this first episode. This may turn out to be a good series when it’s all said and done, but this first episode was rough.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

DVD Review, Golden Age Article, Podcast

Streaming Review: The Inner Circle

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The Inner Circle is a 1946 film inspired by the 1944 radio series Results Incorporated. Private Investigator Johnny Strange (Warren Doughlas) is on the phone placing an ad for a new secretary when a young woman named Gerry (Adele Mera) who seems perfect for the job walks in and practically hires herself. Johnny agrees as she seems to be perfect for the job. The scene is almost verbatim what happened in the first radio episode. But that’s where the plot diverges.

Before she can properly settle in, Gerri takes a call and tells Johnny it was from a woman wanting to hire him. Johnny goes to meet the woman who turns out to be a mysterious woman in a dark veil, speaking with an exotic accent. Johnny and the woman stumble on a dead body. The woman knocks Johnny out and then we learn she’s actually Gerry. Gerry than pretends to have followed Johnny and tells the police a false story that exonerates Johnny, but Johnny is determined to find the truth before the police figure out the self-defense story Gerri told was false.

There was a lot like about this film. The B-movie detecitve stories could follow into the trap of being formulaic. The twist on this story makes it a nice break for that. Throughout I was really intrigued by what Gerri’s role in the murder, and there’s some great tension as she is trying to throw Johnny off her trail. The lead actors and supporting players all performed well, even though there was only one actor that is recognizable to a significant number of viewers-William Frawley (aka Fred Mertz from I Love Lucy who played Johnny’s police foil. Although big fans of 1930s films might appreciate the appearance of Ricardo Cortez.

The one thing I didn’t like was the denoument scene where Johnny arranges with a police Lieutenant to expose the murderer on the air. While I appreciate the nod to the age of radio drama. The scene was convulted, awkward, and lacked logic, even by B-movie detective standards. Still, that scene doesn’t spoil a really intriguing film that moves at a nice pace and tells a good story.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

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DVD Review: Pie in the Sky, Series Three

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The Third Series of Pie in the Sky sees Richard Griffin return as Chief Inspector/Restaurant Chef Henry Crabbe. Unlike the first two ten-episode series, this series and the next only featured six episodes.

I’d describe this particular series as mellow compared to the two that came before. From its gentle theme song to its stories which leave plenty of room for character development and light human drama to its lovely small town setting, the show was a series that’s unafraid to walk on the mild side. Only one homicide occurs in the six episodes.

The series kicks off with a shake-up in the first episode as the criminal who has been key to Crabbe being blackmailed by his superior Assistant Chief Chief Constable Freddy Fisher (Malcolm Sinclair). This had been the only reason Crabbe remained on the force while also working at the restaurant. However, a new complication is added in that policies have changed and he can’t take early full retirement and has to wait three more years to do so. This is not nearly as interesting of a hook and the thing I least liked.

Overall,  even though the mysteries were not homicide, they were generally interesting and well-written. My favorite mystery was  in the episode, “The Other Eden” where Crabbe was tasked with solving the mystery of several stolen gardens and had to deal with a national department that was trying to claim jurisdiction.

Beyond that, the character work in the series was pretty good. Crabbe and his wife Margaret (Maggie Steed) do have some clashes. She technically owns the restaurant (due to regulations that forbid him from owning it as long as he’s still a policeman) and they have a bit of a battle of wills over her desire to save money by cutting corners on the ingredients. They also have to deal with a super strict health inspector threatening to close down  their restaurant and a bank manager who’s not too certain about giving them another extension of credit. It makes for interesting viewing since we’re invested in the characters and we get to see the way that Margaret and Crabbe approach problems differently.

The second episode, “Game Pie” sees some nice character moments for Fisher. Through the first two series, Fisher had been portrayed as the  ambitious police officer who was more concerned about his career and looking good with his superiors than with doing the right thing. However, when he’s implicated in an apparent accidental death, many of his fellow senior officers take steps to protect the department and put him at a distance, this brings out a different aspect to him.

There were some changes as well in the kitchen staff with Nicholas Lamont joining the cast as the new assistant chef and ex-con Gary Palmer who replaced the old chef Steve Turner.  Other than having a bit of a chip on his shoulder, I didn’t get much of a feel for Gary as a character. Though, it should be noted the kitchen staff characters, while having some distinct characteristics, were much more functional than anything else.

Overall, this series is a likable bit of television with solid acting, particularly with the leads, good stories, and makes for easy viewing.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5

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A Look at the First Two Episodes of T and T

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T and T was a 1988-91 syndicated television series starring Mr. T as T.S. Turner, a former boxer who was wrongfully convicted of a crime until attorney Amanda Taylor (Alexandra Amini) clears him. He becomes a private detective and teams up with her to help the wrongfully accused.

As a kid, I loved Mister T and but never got to watch more than a  few minutes of the show as at that age, I never had control of the television. So I was curious to find out what I missed when I found it streaming on Tubi.

T and T was from an era where Canadian-produced first-run syndication series were quite popular and this was a half hour program which could come in handy for local TV stations looking to fill a block of programming. The budget for the show is modest and the show definitely looks of its era.

The child actors and supporting actors on this series range from competent and professional to either monotone or over the top. Ms. Amini comes off a bit flat in the first episode, but in the second, I think she’s much better.

Mister T. carries the show in these first two episodes. Mr. T’s charisma and warmth make Turner an endearing character. Turner isn’t quite the larger than life character of Mr. T’s most famous roles, Clubber Lang and B.A. Baracus. He’s slightly more down to earth. He’s a professional who cares about people, does his job, and carries himself with style. In these first couple episodes, Turner spends a lot of time wearing nice suits and the look really works for Mr. T.

The first two episodes are, “Extortion in Chinatown” and “Mug Shot.” The first involves Turner and Taylor trying to help a shopkeeper and his son in Chinatown. “Mug Shot” finds Turner and Taylor trying to help out a teenage boy who was duped into delivering crack.

These are pretty boilerplate detective show plots and the story plays out in a typical manner. The storytelling is workmanlike and not all that surprising. Like a lot of Mr. T projects during this era, T and T is concerned about teaching good morals, with the high popularity of Mr. T among 1980s youth. These episodes weren’t too preachy, but there were a few pieces of dialogue that were a bit off. (Though it could have been the acting.)

The show was hurt by its half hour length. By nature of the format, both Turner and Taylor were working together and operating in very different worlds. I don’t think there’s enough time to do this properly in the half hour runtime. I did find that there was a four part story (originally a TV movie) and I might check that out in the future.

Overall, T&T is an okay show. If you like Mister T and are intrigued by the idea of him as a 1980s private detective and are willing to overlook a few production quality issues, this is a fun show to watch, and the half hour length makes it a quick fast-paced watch.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

T and T is available for streaming on Tubi for free with ads.

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: The Avengers: The Complete Emma Peel Megaset

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Three seasons of the Avengers passed prior to Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) becoming John Steed’s (Patrick Macnee) partner in fighting crime and espionage. After she left the series, it carried on with a new assistant for Steed for another thirty-two episodes. Yet to many fans, if they think of the Avengers as anything other than Marvel Comics’ superhero team, they think of Steed and Peel. The Avengers was that rare British TV show that came to America and became a success in prime time television.

Steed worked for British Intelligence. Emma Peel was the latest civilian drawn into Steed’s orbit. She had inherited wealth, but also had a keen scientific mind, along with amazing martial arts skills.  

This DVD release collects all 52 episodes comprising the Black and White Season 4, the color Seasons 5 and Season 6, and her departure story in the first episode of Season 7. 

The series had them dealing with a wide variety of different threats, including some that were science fiction. The series was always stylish. Steed’s Bowler hat and umbrella and luxury cars mixed with Diana Riggs iconic style made for a compelling combination. The opening to the color episodes could easily be repurposed as a high-end champagne ad.  

The Avengers had a tongue in cheek feel that  grew as the Emma Peel went on. The fourth Season may be the best from a dramatic standpoint. The episodes were often tongue in cheek, but more grounded than some of the color episodes. When the series went to color, there seems to have been a thought that there wasn’t much to it, if the plots weren’t going to be as outlandish as possible. The plots ranged from elaborate revenge plots to towns populated by assassins, dance schools that were training killers, cyborg killing machines, body swapping, mind control, shrinking technology, underground cities, and even killer Christmas Trees. One episode paid homage to the iconic 1960s Batman show by having Mrs. Peel holding up Comic Book action words like, “Pow!” To be fair, this makes slightly more sense in context of the episode but not a whole lot more.

McNee was great as a leading man, providing great humor, but Riggs is ultimately what made the Avengers work so well. Mrs. Peel was a fun character with a lot of facets as a scientist, heiress, and fighter. Riggs’ acting ability is absolutely superb. She’s able to play both the serious and the playful aspects of the show. The strength of how good she can be is seen in an episode like, “The House that Jack Built” where Steed is mostly absent and Peel is trapped in a house meant to destroy her. She walks about the house in silence and sells the eeriness of the situation.

The set lacks a lot of bonus features, but it’s priced reasonably on Amazon at around $20 for more than fifty episodes. The episodes are a mixed lot. Some black and white episodes are bit dull, and more than a few color episodes that are a bit too silly or over the top. But those are matters of taste. At the end of the day, The Avengers is an iconic classic.

Recently Diana Rigg passed away after a long career that included appearing in a James Bond film as well as working on more modern hit TV shows like Victoria and Game of Thrones. If you want to see how she rose in stardom and why after such a long career, this is the role many remember her best for, this is a must-purchase. It’s also essential if you’re a fan of 1960s spy and adventure shows.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5

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DVD Review: Forgotten Noir and Crime, Volume 12

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Forgotten Noir and Crime, Volume 12 collects another three rare low-budget films.

First up is The Treasure of Monte Cristo: A seaman (Glenn Langan) on shore leave is swept up into romance and marries a mysterious woman (Adele Jurgens) and then finds himself framed for murder. This is a clever plot and it’s gutsy for a low-budget film to try to write a modern-day sequel to one of literature’s great classics. There are nice location scenes and Langan and Jergens (who would later marry) are both pretty good. The rest of the acting is uneven and some plot points are not well-realized, including a confusing escape sequence. Still, this is a fun story.

The second film is Roaring City, the second of the Dennis O’Brien films which adapted two Johnny Madero radio scripts per film. Hugh Beaumont does seem to settle into his role as the tough talking private eye, strolling casually through scenes pipe in hand and finding a way to deliver the over the top hard boiled lines with as much credibility as he could muster. Similarly, Edward Brophy settles into his role as sidekick/roommate/drunk Professor Schicker.  The film is fun and breezy but not without errors. Outside of Beaumont and Brophy, the acting is so-so and there’s a pretty significant continuity error in the second half. O’Brien tells the Professor he’s agreed to go on a date and pretend to be a woman’s husband before he goes on the date and then after he’s inevitably framed for murder, he tells the Professor all over again as if he hadn’t told him the first time. Still, if you can get past hiccups like this, it’s not a bad way to spend about an hour.

The final film is Sky Liner, which is about a murder occuring mid-flight and being investigated before the plane lands. This is a film with silliness that includes ridiculously fast autopsies, but it’s a good setting and with a breezy pace that’s a tad under 50 minutes. There is a longer version of the film that includes a juvenile song number and a subplot about a newlywed couple. I can’t help but feel that this is probably the best cut of the film.

Overall, these are pretty good, low-budget films. They’re quirky and fun. There’s plenty of flaws to be found, but also fun elements that will bring a smile to the face of classic film buffs.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

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Streaming Review: T-Men

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In the 1947 film T-Men, two Treasury agents (Dennis O’Keefe and Alfred Ryder) travel to Detroit and go undercover in an attempt to infiltrate and ultimately break a counterfeiting ring.

T-men was a very entertaining bit of noir. It has the same cinematographer as He Walked by Night, and if you enjoyed the look of that film, you’ll probably like this one as well.

It’s one of those procedurals like He Walked by Night which really strove to portray the real life work of the investigator. So there’s a lot of detail, a lot of different scenes and minor characters who pop-up as our heroes try to work their way to the top, through a long tangled web of the underworld from creating their criminal identities to solving the case and making the bust. 

The script is smart, well-written and well-thought out. Our heroes are in constant peril and we’re given a reminder of how much they and, by extension, real-life Treasury Agents risk in the course of their work. Throughout most of the time, the film takes a deliberate pace, but it definitely picks up in the last ten minutes as the case comes to a finale.

The acting is solid. Outside of O’Keefe, most of the cast is made up of veteran character actors who manage to play their parts without seeming over-the-top, campy, or too stereotypical. Wallace Ford as the Schemer may have been my favorite performance. The main rising star in this is June Lockheart (Lost in Space) who appears as one of the agents’ wives.

The criticisms I’ve read online have basically come down to complaints about it being a procedural noir made in 1940s. If you want something faster paced or less detailed, this may not be the film for you. However, if you appreciate the realistic procedural films of the 1940s, this is a must-see.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

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Currently Available for free Streaming with Amazon Prime or on Blu-ray/DVD with two other films.