Category: Golden Age Article

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: The Telltale Clue: The Case of the Dying Accusation

by  • 0 Comments

The Telltale Clue was a summer 1954 TV series starring Anthony Ross (the original actor to play Danny Clover in Broadway’s My Beat) as Captain Richard Hale of “The Criminological Division” of the Police Department. Each week he solves a case where a key clue leads to the solution of the crime.

This particular episode of The Telltale Clue aired July 29, 1954. It is noteworthy for having been written by Gore Vidal under a pseudonym, and also for featuring a young Leslie Nielsen.

The story opens with a woman with a bullet wound being thrown from a moving car. With her dying words, she says she was shot by her husband. While that’s a strong piece of evidence, Captain Hale needs more. He finds a whole family’s worth of suspects, with her husband, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law all sure she was cheating on her husband.

As a mystery, the story is reasonably well-done. The mystery is a puzzle and manages to throw out a real red herring. However, as an overall production, it operates very close to the sort of melodrama that defined New York’s radio culture, and would figure in its future as a soap opera mecca for decades to come. In some ways, it’s an odd series to be on television, as CBS chose to launch this as a police procedural when more realistic programs like Dragnet were dominating the airwaves.

Most of the performances play to the heightened, almost soap-operatic style, and certainly Ross fits that mold. Captain Hale is still a sympathetic character in the end, but has to cut a probable solution in under thirty minutes. Ross does a good job, but the same can’t be said for many of his fellow actors, as there are a few bad performances that are either a bit too stiff or a bit too over-the-top for the story.

Twenty-six-year-old Nielsen turns in a solid performance. As with all of Nielsen’s work prior to Airplane in 1980, he turns in a solid dramatic performance as a man who knows more than he’s letting on.

All in all, this is a decent TV episode if you enjoy early live television and if you like your mysteries a little bit soapy.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: The Great GIldersleeve, Volume 9

by  • 0 Comments

Radio Archives’s ninth set of Great Gildersleeve episodes featuring Harold Peary contains twelve episodes, all the circulating programs from September 19, 1943 to March 19, 1944. The bulk of the third season of Gildersleeve focuses on Gildersleeve’s love life. The over-arching through-line in the story is about the love triangle between himself, the very newly widowed Leila Ransom (Shirley Mitchell), and elementary school principal Eve Goodwin (Bea Benaderet), who both find themselves vying for Gildersleeve’s affections.

Beyond this, the episodes are mostly self-contained stories that cover a lot of ground. In one episode, Gildersleeve having agitated against the old water commissioner in the previous season, he finds himself in “hot water” when low water pressure becomes a problem. My favorite episode is “Sleight Ride”, in which Gildersleeve gets together some male friends in the hopes of getting Eve and Leila to join them. The episode is nice for some fun character interactions. It’s also a bit of a time capsule, capturing a practice that you don’t see anymore except for some really rural parts of the country. It was probably out of style by 1944 in most places, but it was a plausible good time to have in a small town where gas rationing limited how much people could drive. The set ends with Gildersleeve launching a mayoral run (and immediately trying to ditch an important meeting with a congressman for the sake of his social life.)

The relationship angle is the most prominent part of the set and also the most frustrating. Once again, this has nothing to do with Radio Archives, but with the episodes missing from circulation. Of the twenty-seven episodes that aired during this time period, there are only twelve in circulation, and the fourteen missing episodes come in chunks of three, seven, and four weeks, so you feel like you’ve missed a few important points in the ongoing romance angle.

Gildersleeve, as a great sitcom hero, manages to provide plenty of situations that lead to misunderstandings, mostly in understandable ways. He’s non-committal and wants to avoid making up his mind, and when he does, he manages to say the wrong thing and botch things up. And by the end of this set, due to his indecision, rivals are emerging for him in both women’s lives, so maybe we’ll write about a love pentagon in the next set.  Of course, he’s not the only one to cause problems. In one episode, Leila tricks Gildersleeve’s cook, Birdie (Lillian Randolph), into letting her take Gildersleeve’s roast. A major issue in an era defined by meat rationing!

The only real issue with Gildersleeve that seems a bit too stupid to be funny is that he keeps actively working to bring Lelia and Eve together for social occasions. They don’t like each other, it’s awkward, and ends uncomfortably for him. There’s no logical in-universe reason to do it. It just makes the story a bit convenient for the writers.

Still, it doesn’t happen that often in twelve episodes, and the series is enjoyable, with a solid ongoing cast. And, as always, Radio Archives does a beautiful job with the transfers. If you’ve enjoyed past GIldersleeve sets, you’ll enjoy this one, even while wishing we could hear all the missing episodes in this collection.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Audio Drama Review, Golden Age Article

Audio Drama Review: CBS Mystery Theater: Ordeal by Fire

by  • 0 Comments

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been posting reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series. However, we’re getting creative this week. The only thing this week’s villain has was a brief cameo as himself, in the second-to-last episode of Kojak. So I decided it’d be nice to review a CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode with another Batman villain who didn’t appear during the Golden Age of Radio, but did some work during the era of radio revival. I’m referring to Julie Newmar, who played Catwoman in seasons one and two of Batman.

In the March 1974 episode, a woman (Newmar) grows alarmed when her father becomes increasingly scared and paranoid. She summons her fiancé (Mandel Kramer) back from his trip to China to help sort things out. The fiancé checks with his millionaire future father-in-law and finds that he’s joined the Prometheus Society, a secret society that wants to bring back moral order to the world by doing stuff (making movies, releasing books) that they’ve not actually done with the donations they’ve received. They are led by a man who claims the ability to control fire, which he demonstrates by setting himself on fire without being burned at every meeting.

The millionaire future father-in-law has been commanded to fork over a million-dollar donation. One of his fellow society members had declined to do so, only to have his feet catch fire while he was at home, leaving such severe burns on his leg that it put him in a wheelchair. The fiancé calls in an old Marine buddy from Vietnam, who had since become a private detective, to help sort of everything out.

All in all, this is a solid mystery. There’s some great atmosphere and a good puzzle throughout that’s well-acted and even has one shocking surprise towards the end of the second act. The ending is harsh, with rough justice being arranged in a way that reminds you that this isn’t the Golden Age of Radio, although it has a strong “moral” about the danger of playing with fire.

My big complaint is that there’s not a ton for Julie Newmar to do in this. Her character brings in the fiancé, and her father reveals what’s going to the fiancé on the condition the fiancé not tell his adult daughter because I guess she can’t handle it. After this, she gets two scenes with nothing to do. It’s a waste of a talented actress, who had a significant number of credits to her name. I can only imagine that this script wasn’t written with her mind, but she happened to be available at the time and took the work, which usually amounted to half a day for a modest wage. On the bright side, she didn’t have to do much work for it.

Overall, other than the waste of Julie Newmar and a so

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

Telefilm Review: Matt Houston: The Purrfect Crime

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Zsa Zsa Gabor, who guest-starred in a 1983 episode of Matt Houston, “The Purrfect Crime.” This episode originally aired January 9, 1983.

Background:

Matt Houston (Lee Horsey) is a Texas oil millionaire who moves to California to oversea off-shore drilling, but focuses most of his time on his hobby—being a private investigator. Horsey played Archie Goodwin in the 1980 Nero Wolfe series (See my review). Pamela Hensley plays his lawyer C.J. Parsons, who assists him on his cases, and, in a typical role for him, George Wydner plays Houston’s business manager whose purpose in the series is to hyperventilate about money.

The Plot:

A Cat Food tycoon who kept exotic cats is killed by his favorite tiger. Murder is suspected and his will bars any of his ex-wives (Gabor, Barbi Benton, Pat Crowley, and Janis Page) from collecting a dime of his money. This appears to be resolved when the police arrest the young, “simple” man  (he’d probably be considered on the autism spectrum today) on the general principle of the police arresting the wrong person without any real evidence or motive.

Matt Houston is not convinced (and who could blame him?) and continues his search for the real killer.

This episode is ludicrous. However, some of it is clearly meant to be. Zsa Zsa Gabor’s character owns a spa (which her character in Batman also did.) She has a protective karate master boyfriend, played by Sonny Bono. Sonny. Bono. His character also announces when he’s about to go into karate fighting mode by screaming, “Karate!”

The episode also included an amusement park chase scene where our hero chases his quarry in a bumper boat and then face plants down a water slide after him in hot pursuit. Some of this is entertainingly goofy, but there are also a few moments of genuinely bad acting and some absurd lines that don’t land.

Horsey attempting to deliver homespun aphorisms is something else. “The kid knows no more about murder than a hog knows about a buggy whip.”

Matt Houston

The solution, once you get through a bunch of artificially imposed drama and hoops, is painfully simple. Of course, the question of whodunnit isn’t quite as clear. But based on the limited evidence, it could have been anyone of three of the deceased’s ex-wives. We’re not really given a clue that supports Houston accusing the murderers. But he’s able to prove his theory with a little bit of trickery.

I’ll admit this is my first experience with the series, so I won’t judge it based on this one episode. According to one reviewer of this episode, this was the most goofy episode of the series. That says something, given the description I found of at least one other episode in this series. According to TV Tropes, in one episode, “Matt is abducted by real aliens in an episode where he’s investigating a (fake) claim of abduction covering up a murder. Of course, he doesn’t remember, no one else sees it, and the abduction has no relevance to the rest of the plot at all.”

All in all, while I can’t say I found the plot all that challenging, I was nevertheless entertained. Sonny Bono’s performance is a delight to watch.  The more you appreciate detective programs that go a bit wacky, and enjoy ’80s cheese, the more you’ll like this episode.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5

Matt Houston: The Complete Collection is available on DVD.

 

 

 

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

DVD/Streaming Review: Lifeboat

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Tallulah Bankhead’s starring role in the 1944 film Lifeboat.

Eight American and British citizens are survivors of a passenger ship sunk by a Nazi U-boat. The first to arrive is famed photographer Connie Porter (Tallulah Bankhead), and she is joined by others, including an engine room crewman (John Hodiak), a wealthy industrialist (Henry Hull), the ship’s steward (Canada Lee), a nurse (Mary Anderson), and a mother (Heather Angel) who lost her baby. The cast is rounded out by actors Gus Smith and Hume Cronyn. They then pull up a U-boat crew survivor (Walter Sleazak), who has plans of his own.

While set in the middle of the ocean, the action is confined to the titular lifeboat, which both gives the film a claustrophobic feel, and a resemblance to a well-done stage play. This effect is furthered by director Alfred Hitchcock’s decision to forgo the orchestral score during the body of the film, with the only music coming from characters singing accompanied by another character on a flute.

That the film feels like a stage play makes it a natural vehicle for Tallulah Bankhead, one of the greatest stage actresses of her era, making a relatively rare film appearance. She gives a performance that shows a nice range. While by default, Connie is a very cynical character, there are softer and lighter moments, as well as a few more extreme moments. At each point, Bankhead is flawless.

Another stand-out performance was William Bendix, best known for his comedy roles, particularly his radio/television work in The Life of Riley. Bendix shows some real dramatic chops in his performance as Gus. Walter Sleazak also portrays a surprisingly complex Nazi character, who is eerily likable for most of his time on screen.

The film is smartly written, and while it’s got a pro-Allies propaganda message, it’s subtler than many of its contemporaries, which caused major controversy at the time. While different from many other Hitchcock vehicles, it still has many hallmarks of the great director’s other work. The limits on budget imposed by wartime hardship are apparent but it makes the most of what it has.

With strong performances all around, this remains an entertaining and engrossing war-time drama even 80 years later.

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post at no extra cost to the purchaser.

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: The Snoop Sisters: A Black Day for Bluebeard

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Vincent Price, who guest starred in the final Snoop Sisters TV movie, A Black Day for Bluebeard. 

Background

The Snoop Sisters was part of NBC’s classic Mystery Wheel programs, which featured rotating detective programs designed to be aired in a ninety-minute time slot. Rather than being a full hour weekly program, each series would turn out several “movies” each year. The anchors of this format during its run were McCloud, McMillan and Wife, and the best of them all, Columbo. Viewers would tune in at the same time each week and see one of these programs. The wheel program began the NBC Sunday Mystery Movie.

In addition to the three mainstays, other series rotated on Sunday. In There was a Wednesday (later Tuesday) Mystery movie series launched as well. None of these series made it long-term in this format, mostly lasting only a season or two. One of these series was The Snoop Sisters, which aired in rotation as part of the Tuesday Mystery Movie. The series was part of the mystery wheel during the 1973-74 season and there were a total of five Snoop Sisters movies made.

The series focused on two elderly sisters, spinster mystery writer Ernesta Snoop (Helen Hayes) and her widowed sister and poet Gwendolyn Snoop Nicholson (Mildred Natwick) who drive around in a mid-1920s Lincoln and end up stumbling into mysteries that they solve with the help of their chauffer Barney.

The Plot:

The sisters are attending a festival of a friend and horrible horror movie actor Michael Bastion (Price) who is hoping to revive his career, and shows off his showmanship by arriving in a coffin. However, his wife is upset with him and uses the occasion of the festival and his attempted comeback to publicly announce she’s divorcing him.

She gets murdered during one of Bastion’s films and, unfortunately for him, he’s said some incriminating things that make him look like he murdered his wife for her money. However, Bastion insists that his wife wrote him out of her will and turns to the sisters to prove his innocence.

Review:

The Snoop Sisters has been compared to Murder, She Wrote for both having older female writers as the lead characters. While the concept is similar, the feel of the films is a bit more like Miss Marple but with a decided comedic edge to the material.

Both leads are delightful and bring a great sense of balance. Ernesta is the more serious-minded and somewhat more straight-laced sleuth. She does the heavy-duty questioning of witnesses and the humor she brings is a lot more subtle. Gwendolyn is the fun sister. She might be pushing 70 but thinks nothing of cosplaying as the Bride of Frankenstein at the horror movie marathon. She makes up outrageous cover stories to get them into places to investigate, hilariously stalls Bastion so he doesn’t get in the way of their investigation, and even improvs being a palmist to stall for time.

Vincent Price is good in this, playing a character that has a lot in common with him. Not only did Bastion make a lot of horror movies, he also has many extravagant tastes and, like Price, is an expert cook. One big difference is that Bastion is a bad actor, while Price was a good one. Bastion’s poor acting is the reason the sisters believe in his innocence. He’s too bad of an actor to actually fake innocence or surprise. Thankfully, only a good actor like Price can play a bad one like Bastion and have a result that’s good. Price is a marvelous guest star, as Bastion has some fun, over-the-top moments, but also does a good job playing the straight man to Gwendolyn’s scheming.

The story leans more towards the comedy than the mystery angle. That can work and mostly does. My main complaint is that before they even begin to investigate the murder, Bastion sends them to his house to retrieve his wife’s will. This means it takes a good long while to get the actually investigating of the murder. While there were some funny moments, plotwise, it comes across as padding. There are also a few minor plot elements that could have been improved. While this was enjoyable, this is a story that feels like it could have been a bit more tight.

Connections:

Roddy McDowell, who also played a villain in the 1960s Batman series, is among the guest stars in this series. On the creative end, three old-time radio veterans contributed to the story. The episode was directed by David Friedkin, who was part of the old-time radio writing team with Mort Fine. They wrote many old-time radio programs, including Broadway’s My Beat. The story was by Jackson GIllis, who wrote for many radio programs, including Let George Do It. One of the co-writers of the screenplay was Tony Barrett, who was a versatile radio character actor who also wrote for some radio programs towards the end of the Golden Age of Radio.

Rating:

I’d gotten the Snoop Sisters DVD a while back but hadn’t gotten around to watching it and was glad this series gave me an excuse to try the series out. Overall, if you love a good cozy mystery with a comedic spin, particularly with an older protagonist, this is a fun film to watch.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

Availability:

The Snoop Sisters is not available on streaming anywhere. However, unlike many of the shorter-lived mystery wheel series, this one did receive an official DVD Release.  (Affiliate link.)

Amazing World of Radio, Golden Age Article, Podcast

Favorite Story: Mister Shakespeare (AWR0255)

by  • 1 Comment

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Email | RSS

Podcast (awr): Play in new window | Download

Batman Villains of Old Time Radio

We continue our look at actors who played villains in the 1966 Batman TV series. This week, we look at Vincent Price, who played the recurring Batman villain Egghead in seasons two and three of Batman (1966).

We begin by featuring an episode of Favorite Story. 

William Shakespeare is brought forward to the 1940s to write Hollywood pictures.

Original Air Date: January 14, 1947

Starring: Vincent Price as “Will” Shakespeare; Betsy Blair; Chilius; William Conrad

After the drama, I talk about the season two two-parter “An Egg Grows in Gotham” and “The Yegg Foes in Gotham” from 1966.

Buy Batman: The Complete Series on blu-ray/DVD (affiliate link)

Buy both episodes on Streaming (Affiliate Link)

Go to http://amazing.greatdetectives.net to subscribe to the podcast.

Brought to you by the support of our Patreon listeners…http://patreon.greatdetectives.net

Support the show monthly at https://patreon.greatdetectives.net

Patreon Supporter of the Day: Jovan, Patreon Supporter since January 2018

Support the show on a one-time basis at http://support.greatdetectives.net.

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: The Naked City: The Death of Princes

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Eli Wallach, who guest starred on the first episode of the second season of Naked City, which aired on ABC on October 12, 1960.

Background:

During its 39-episode first season from 1958-59, The Naked City had been a critical success as a well-acted half-hour police drama that was noted for shooting from real locations in New York City. It was not a ratings hit and was canceled after one season. However, the series had its supporters at the network, including a sponsor, which got the series a new lease on life as it returned for the 1960-61 season. Horace McMahon reprised his role from the half-hour series as Lt. Mike Parker. The second season would feature a new protagonist, Detective Adam Flint (played by Paul Burke).

The first episode, “Death of Princes”, would be key to giving the show a strong start. The series had landed a notable guest star in Eli Wallach, whose most memorable roles were ahead of him, but who had already won a Tony and a BAFTA.

Review:

The relaunched Naked City has a perfect opening sequence, beginning on a calm Sunday morning, that’s shattered when a shooter (played by a pre-Columbo Peter Falk) opens fire on a police officer. A shootout then commences over three minutes, ending with the shooter out of bullets and telling the detective’s partner, Peter Bane(Eli Wallach) that he’s out of ammo and drops his gun. Bane guns him down anyway, with Flint arriving just in time to see it happen. Bane insists that, from his angle, it didn’t look like the shooter had dropped the gun, and that it was a clear case of self-defense, leaving it as a case of conflicting testimony with no definite evidence.

This is the third suspect that Bane has gunned down since coming to his current precinct (while also winning several medals) and Flint wants a new partner. Lt. Parker wants Flint to watch Bane. Flint hates the idea of spying on a fellow cop and prefers to leave the matter to internal affairs. Meanwhile, Bane has an endgame of his own. Bane has covered up crimes for three people and is blackmailing them into participating in a robbery of the box office at a Madison Square Garden charity boxing match. In their final meeting, he lets them know that in the course of committing the crime, he’ll murder two people to ensure there are no witnesses who can identify him.

There’s a lot to commend in the episode. It’s beautifully shot and flawlessly directed. But for its length, it feels cinematic in the best noir tradition. Paul Burke does a great job as Flint, showing him in this first outing to be a sensitive and complicated man who is trying to do the right thing, but finds himself in a very uncomfortable position. The episode also established Flint’s relationship with up-and-coming actress, Libby Kingston (Nancy Malone) and she plays a pivotal part in helping Flint resolve his dilemma. The blackmailed conspirators all feature solid performances including George Maharis and old time radio veteran Jan Miner.

Yet, this episode belongs to Eli Wallach, who brings Bane to life. Bane is a challenging character to play because the episode makes clear, Bane is evil. Truly evil characters are hard for actors to play without turning them into snarling cartoon characters. But this is exactly the sort of character Wallach could bring to life. His portrayal captures the nuances of the Bane and makes it totally believable that he could survive and thrive on the police force for many years. Bane is intelligent and cunning, he quotes Shakespeare and has a certain charisma. But he’s also utterly corrupt and a sadist. He’s a malign influence and is seeking to turn his three blackmail victims into co-conspirators in a double murder. The character is horrible yet absolutely compelling.

The fundamental question of the story that’s not resolved until its final minutes is whether anyone will dare to take him on and stop him.

Overall, “The Death of Princes” is a superb start for Naked City‘s new format and a compelling episode, with the episode and Wallach’s performance holding up very well more than sixty years later.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

This episode is available for purchase on Amazon. (Affiliate Link)

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Matlock: The Last Laugh

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week we look at Milton Berle, guest starring in a 1993 episode Matlock, in a script he co-wrote.

In “The Last Laugh,” the notoriously frugal Ben Matlock (Andy Griffith), after sneering at the ridiculous bids being put up by fellow rich people at a charity auction, gets into a bidding war and wins dinner with a once-famous elderly comedian Harvey Chase (Milton Berle) for the princely sum of $225 ($496 in today’s money). Matlock goes down to a comedy club where Chase is performing, but for no one particular, as his act can’t draw flies. Ben thinks everything Chase says is hilarious and is in peels of the most over-the-top unnatural laughter imaginable, which somehow makes Chase’s routine work.

Chase is fired by the club owner and replaced by one of those new, edgy, dirty comics like those on cable TV. Harvey does the only thing he can – goes in and gets plastered on crème de menthe and heckles the new comic. The potty-mouthed comic is then found murdered, and all signs point to Harvey Chase, including a blood-stained handkerchief found on Harvey, and the powerful odor of crème de menthe at the crime scene. Matlock’s efforts are challenged by the fact that Harvey is always “on” and it’s tough to get a serious answer for him.

In terms of what works in this episode, there are a few really nice moments for Berle as a comedian. There are some jokes that land and are actually pretty funny, and he has a really poignant dramatic scene that captures the feeling of having enjoyed success and fame in the entertainment industry, and then the world moving on.

But the rest of the episode is honestly a bit of a mess. I’ll admit my biases. The era of Matlock when the show had moved to ABC with Matlock assisted by his other daughter Leanne (played by Brynn Thayer) and a dull-witted law school associate who serves as his assistant (Daniel Roebuck) was probably my least favorite era of the show. But there were good episodes. This just wasn’t one of them.

The episode manages to feel rushed and padded at the same time. The A-plot of who actually committed the murder is rushed, and the B-plot of what Harvey is up to and his feeling about his career and being forgotten is massively padded out. A ridiculous amount of time is taken up by Harvey’s improbable attempt to jump bail and leave town by catching a bus out of Atlanta. While Matlock always played a bit fast and loose with rules of procedure and evidence, the mystery reveal on the stand comes right out of nowhere. The police have searched the murder’s home without any evidence, and apparently without notifying the prosecutor, because the episode is almost over.

The script is over-indulgent to the guest star (and co-writer) to the extreme. Leanne is not a fan of Harvey’s at all, but Ben insists she’ll be won over and she is, even though nothing in the script makes that make sense.

Probably the worst part of this is how the script treats the star. Matlock is given short shrift throughout. The scene where Matlock comes into the empty comedy club and does painfully bad stand-up is painful to watch. Even during the courtroom scene, the script has him uncharacteristically mocking a prosecutor by mimicking her tone of voice like a fourth grader. While Matlock was known for blowing his fuse, this seems out of place. He does as good a job as could be expected in the confrontation scene, which, along with some of Berle’s stronger moments, make up the redeeming parts of the episode.

Overall, there are really strong moments that show that both as a comedian and a dramatic actor, even late in life, Berle had a lot to offer. As a mystery writer, not so much.

Rating 2 out of 5

This episode is Matlock is currently available on demand on Pluto.

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Charlie’s Angels: I Will Be Remembered

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week we look at Ida Lupino’s last television acting appearance in an episode of Charlie’s Angels called “I Will Be Remembered”, which aired on March 9, 1977.

Aging Hollywood Actress Gloria Gibson (Lupino) is looking to stage a career comeback by playing the mother’s role in a remake of a film she made as a young actress. However, she’s been seeing ominous and horrifying sights right out of her old movies. She’s a friend of Charlie’s and Charlie suspects a “gaslight” scheme and so has the Angels (Farrah Fawcett, Kate Jackson, and Jackly Smith) go undercover to find out the truth.

Ida Lupino turns in a tour de force performance. She’s compelling and owns every scene she’s in. Like Burgess Meredith in Mannix a few weeks ago, Lupino delivers a performance that’s massively above what anyone would expect for a TV mystery guest actor. She also has a really great speech on the difference between screen acting and stage acting in making her case to be given the part.

As for the rest of the episode, I have to confess I’ve never seen an episode of Charlie’s Angels before, but it’s a series that you know something about even if you haven’t seen it, particularly the central premise of three beautiful female private eyes working for a male boss who is never seen. The series also had a reputation as being a bad program that tried to use the leads’ sex appeal to paper over weak scripts.

I was pleasantly surprised by the episode. It was a good, competently plotted mystery. Each of the three angels took their own part in the investigation, had her own moment to shine. The mystery was interesting and had a clever solution that didn’t become readily apparent until the last five minutes. While I wouldn’t put it in the same class as the era’s best detective programs, like Columbo or The Rockford Files, this particular episode was a fun hour.

There were a few bits of cheesy dialogue, and two of the Angels crashed through a security gate for no good reason but that’s kind of par for the course for 1970s programs. If there is one issue with the episode, it’s that the solution of how the perpetrators did what they did offers a broad hand-wave solution that’s a massive stretch for at least one incident.

Still, with Ida Lupino’s great performance, this was a solid outing for Charlie’s Angels.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5

This episode of Charlie’s Angels is currently available for free viewing on Tubi

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Friday, the Rabbi Slept Late

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Art Carney’s performance in one of two leads in a 1976 TV movie that was a pilot for a short-lived TV series called Lanigan’s Rabbi. The film was based on the first of Harry Kemelman’s Rabbi Small novels.

In a small California town, the local rabbi, David Small (Stuart Margolin, The Rockford Files), is facing problems from within his own congregation, from board members who want the synagogue to build a bowling alley, rather than actually doing the sort of youth work Rabbi Small thinks is important. Things get far worse for the already besieged rabbi when the body of a secretly pregnant maid who worked for a woman in his congregation is found murdered in his car after a rainstorm. He ends up getting drawn into the mystery despite Chief of Police Paul Lanigan (Carney) trying to get him to leave the case alone.

Rabbi Small is a likable character who is very well realized by Margolin. If you, like me, are most familiar with his work playing Jim Rockford’s Shady friend, Angel, this character is a huge change of pace. Rabbi Small has a cunning intellect that makes him a great amateur sleuth, but he also has the right mix of eccentricity, constantly losing his keys, even forgetting that he’s on his way to a wedding when he stops in to visit Chief Lanigan. It’s reminiscent of Columbo with Margolin’s own unique spin.

Carney’s Chief Lanigan strikes a really neat balance. The police foils for amateur detectives are usually belligerent idiots, arrogant know it-alls, or bumbling fools. Lanigan is a good cop and nobody’s fool. He initially tries to dissuade Rabbi Small from his investigation for sensible reasons; normal cops don’t usually want local clergymen going out and trying to solve crimes. However, Lanigan relents as he comes to like and respect Rabbi Small. He has his own eccentricities, as illustrated by his comic battle against his wife’s desire to buy a new suit. The rabbi and the chief bond throughout the episode and the great chemistry between Margolin and Carney helps to sell the relationship.

There are some really strong guest performers, including Lorraine Gary (Jaws) and Robert Reed (The Brady Bunch). Janet Margolin (no relation to Stuart) has some very strong performances as Miriam Small and delivers a key clue that helps lead to the solution.

One thing I really liked was the open credits sequence that tied into the motif of the murder happening during a rainstorm. It was really a great way to add atmosphere.

The mystery itself offers a lot of twists and clues, and just the right number of suspects, all of whom have surprisingly sordid interrelated motives. Given the way, the movie plays out, the solution is a bit of a surprise. However, it borrows from one of the great classic clerical detectives, Father Brown.

Overall, this is a very good production with two likable leads and an engaging storyline. And if you like TV mystery films, this is worth checking out. Currently, it is only available on YouTube, as a 1980s replay of the TV film as a late movie (complete with 80s commercials).

Rating: 4 out of 5

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Blacke’s Magic: Ten Tons of Trouble

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, we take a look at Cesar Romero’s guest appearance in the first episode of the 1986 mystery series Blacke’s Magic.

Blacke’s Magic was NBC series in which Hal Linden (Barney Miller) and Harry Morgan (Dragnet and Mash) play son and father. Linden is Alexander Blacke, a stage magician who also serves as a part-time consultant to the police on seemingly impossible cases, and Morgan is an old-school conman who will often lend his son some assistance. The series was created by mystery legends Richard Levinson and William Link.

The series was preceded by a pilot TV movie. This episode firmly establishes the status quo for the new ongoing series, as Alexander is called in to investigate the seemingly impossible disappearance of a 10-ton statue brought from a museum where it had been brought by an Italian businessman (Romero). The CCTV was running and nothing appeared on camera. It appeared to have vanished without a trace.

Cesar Romero displays the typical charm and charisma that made him so fun to watch throughout his career, whether playing a dashing hero in the 1940s or the Clown Prince of Crime. He’s a delight to watch in this, even though it becomes clear from early on that he’s behind this. This isn’t really a spoiler as this episode is less about “whodunit” and more about figuring out why and, more importantly, how.

The solution to the case is actually pretty clever, although there are a few finer points of it which would warrant an expert in 1980s technology weighing in.

Linden and Morgan play well off each other, with Linden making for a believable magician, and the more sober and responsible of the pair, while Morgan captures the lovable rogue with eccentric quirks that call to mind his character on Dragnet, Bill Gannon, despite having been on the opposite side of the law. The episode did have a subplot of a glory-hungry insurance agent (Jane Badler) trying to hog media publicity that takes up time but is really hard to care about.

The series, which ran for only thirteen episodes, is a real curiosity. The concepts seem to be an amalgam of ideas from other obscure detective programs. The prominence of the “impossible crime” element is reminiscent of Banacek; the protagonist being a magician calls to mind Bill Bixby’s series The Magician, and one of our leads being a conman calls to mind Tenspeed and Brownshoe. These were all programs that aired within the previous fifteen years. Like Blacke’s Magic, none of these made it long-term.

Beyond that, this is a series that doesn’t feel like the decade that produced it. I don’t say that as a criticism but more as an observation. This doesn’t feel like it fits into the same decade that gave us Murder, She Wrote; Magnum, PI; Matlock; Simon & Simon; and the Perry Mason movies. Only the trappings (clothes, cars, and some of the elements of the solution) feel of its time. The style of the story and the way the two leads relate wouldn’t have been out of place in a 1940s B-detective film. I liked it, but I could definitely see why audiences in 1986 might not have gone for it.

Still, this was a fun curiosity, boosted by a strong performance from Cesar Romero.

Rating: 4 out of 5

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Murder She Wrote: Hit, Run, and Homicide

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews of Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, our focus is on Van Johnson, who played the Minstrel, and I’m posting a review of an episode of Murder She Wrote in which he appeared. (Note: A version of this was posted in 2019 in support of our Summer of Angela Lansbury series.) This episode was the eighth episode of Murder She Wrote that aired on November 25, 1984. It is available on Amazon.

The Review:

In the middle of a baseball game at the Cabot Cove Founder’s Day Picnic, a car chases a wealthy out-of-town businessman, hits him, and disappears. Several witnesses testify that no one was driving. The same car then runs down the businessman’s partner.

The businessman claims they were there at the invitation of a disgruntled former employee, Daniel O’Brien (Van Johnson), who wanted to meet with them. O’Brien is an inventor who had made plans for the driverless car and jumps to the top of the suspect’s list.

What Works

Murder by remote-controlled vehicle is a novel murder method, particularly for 1984.

Cabot Cove is very much a work in progress at this point as the show tries to grasp the feel of it. There’s a nice scene that captures the spirit of many small towns when a grocery store clerk points out O’Brien is an out-of-towner and Jessica points out that he’s lived there six years which leaves the clerk unimpressed.

It also feels like they’re still establishing Sheriff Tupper (Tom Bosley), who is a bit out of his depth about the whole case. I like the scene where Jessica provides him with a gentle and respectful nudge that gets him to stop spinning his wheels.

O’Brien has a former colleague (June Allyson) as a house guest, and the two have very sweet chemistry together.

There’s a fun discussion about driverless cars and technology that’s fascinating, if just a bit quaint for modern viewers in a time when driverless cars are becoming a reality.

What Doesn’t Work

Let’s start with the murder. The business partner is killed on a road with two shoulders, and he faced a choice. He could run up a hill with an impossibly high grade on his left, or he could run down a hill into a forest filled with trees. Our victim chooses to run up the hill, which he can’t climb, and the car hits him. If he had run into the forest he would have been fine.

While I can believe the victim panicked and did something stupid, it makes the killer’s plan look a bit haphazard, because the whole thing could have been avoided with common sense.

In the scene that made the teaser for the episode, Jessica is trapped in the remote-controlled car as it careens towards the edge of a cliff. It looks exciting, but in context, it makes little sense.

Tupper had spent an entire day searching for anywhere the car might have gone, hadn’t found it, and decided to go with the theory that a large truck had driven it away. Jessica points out that there’s a place that Tupper hadn’t looked. Tupper refuses to go check, complaining about his budget, and so Jessica goes off by herself, finds the car, and gets inside it. The killer, watching from an ominous van, remotely locks Jessica in, and guides the car down the highway, following it through Cabot Cove, towards the edge of a cliff over the ocean … and then stops it.

This is a scene where nothing makes sense. Tupper is unrealistically stubborn. Jessica has no reason to get in the car and get behind the wheel. The killer has no reason to send Jessica on a scary ride through Cabot Cove unless they were going to kill her, which they weren’t.

It’s true the car needed to be found as part of the killer’s plan, but once it’s found, mission accomplished. They did the remote-controlled chase for no good reason and exposed the van they were driving in to scrutiny. You can interpose your own reason for this, such as equipment failure or the killer losing their nerve, but that’s the audience having to fix the writer’s mistake as you won’t find it in the episode.

The clue to solve the case is simple, but a little bit too simple. I pretty much had guessed the involved parties already but didn’t feel too smart for doing so.

Overall: This episode is flawed and continues an odd streak in Murder She Wrote’s first season where episodes set on the West Coast are way better than the East Coast stories.

Still, it’s got one of the more interesting premises so far and you also have June Allyson and Van Johnson bringing some golden age magic. So despite its flaws, this episode is far more entertaining than it deserves to be and makes for good viewing.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5   This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post at no extra cost to the purchaser.

Golden Age Article, Telefilm Review

Telefilm Review: Kraft Suspense Theater: Twixt the Cup and the Lip

by  • 0 Comments

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work. This week, our focus is on Ethel Merman.

She guest starred in a 1965 episode of the anthology series, The Kraft Suspense Theater, in “Twixt the Cup and the Lip,” a comedic heist story. A gallery employee (Larry Blyden) is fired by his employer for being far too honest, after telling two gallery patrons that a $2 million scepter was overpriced. He’s given two weeks working notice before his employment is terminated. His fiancee complains that he’s a doormat. So the employee does the only things he can do: start taking long lunches and coming in late now that the boss has fired him anyway. He dons a turtleneck sweater and cap (a sure sign in the mid-1960s of a heel turn), and hatch a multi-person conspiracy to steal the scepter with the aide of a corrupt ex-cop (Charlie McGraw), his landlady (Merman), a washed-up actress, and her daughter (Lucille Burnside), a wannabe actress.

The episode is fairly entertaining. It’s easy to sympathize with most of the characters to an extent except the sleazy ex-cop. Merman adds to every scene she’s in and manages to make the most of a small part. The plot itself has a few turns, as some of the co-conspirators begin plotting double-crosses. At least one of these felt a bit forced. The ending is fun, but a little bit too pat. Still, Larry Blyden turns in a really earnest and fun performance as the protagonist, and Ethel Merman adds just a touch of star power to make “Twixt the Cup and the Lip” a thoroughly watchable bit of 1960s television.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

DVD Review, Golden Age Article

Telefilm Review: Mannix: The Crimson Halo

by  • 1 Comment

We continue our reviews that focus on Batman actors in other detective and mystery programs as part of our Amazing World of Radio Summer Series, focusing on their old-time radio work.

“The Crimson Halo” was the third episode of Mannix‘s sixth season, broadcast in October 1972. Attorney Noah Otway (Burgess Meredith) hires Mannix (Mike Connors) to determine whether a recent attempt on the life of his client, Dr. Graham Aspinall (Joseph Campanella) was targeted at him, or if it was just a random drug addict who had been attempting to steal drugs from a doctor. At first, it appears that no one would have a motive at all, as Dr. Aspinall’s life’s work is dedicated to performing surgeries on cancer patients who have what are considered inoperable tumors and are lost causes according to their own doctors. Yet somehow, Aspinall’s method is able to give them a 50-50 chance.

Mannix discovers that while Aspinall may be a life-saving miracle worker, he’s also an arrogant egotist who hands out fierce tongue-lashings to everyone he considers beneath him (i.e. the entire human race), and is manipulative and cold. Mannix finds himself drowning in motives, and then gets decoyed to a spot where someone tries to shoot him. His client pulls him off the case. But once you shoot at Mannix, he’s not stopping, no matter what the client says.

The first half of the episode is really solid. It does a great job of establishing the world of Dr. Aspinall and all the people who hate him. It’s mostly Mannix questioning suspects, but the dialogue is sharp and crisp as you’d expect from a Levinson and Link TV show during this boom time for TV detective programs. There is a bit of sag in the middle, and the story takes a few improbable turns to get to its final twist. The solution does make the episode make sense and makes sense of some parts of the story that felt incongruous.

The appearance of Campanella is a bit odd to long-time fans of Mannix as, in the first season of the series where Mannix was working for a “modern”  1967 detective agency, Campanella played Mannix’s boss, Lew Wickerstrom. It’s not unprecedented to have an actor play one guest character in one season and another years down the line, or for an actor to play a guest character and get cast later as another main character. But it is weird to have an actor cast in a major role in a series, and then come back as another guest character.

Still, despite the curiosity aspect of the episode, Burgess Meredith’s guest performance is what really makes the episode work. He’s in less than half a dozen scenes but he owns each one and really sells both his character and the conclusion in a way that makes this a really solid episode.

Rating: 4 out of 5

This post contains affiliate links, which means that items purchased from these links may result in a commission being paid to the author of this post at no extra cost to the purchaser.