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DVD Review, Golden Age Article

DVD Review: The Philo Vance Murder Case Collection

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This DVD collection features six Philo Vance different Philo Vance movies starring six different actors. The films were released between 1929 and 1940 and includes Vance films that Warner Brothers either made or has the right to distribute.

The Bishop Murder Case

This film was released on New Year’s Eve in 1929, thus some sites state it was released in 1929 while others say 1930. It starred a mustached Basil Rathbone as Philo Vance a decade before he played Sherlock Holmes. He investigates the murder of a young man nicknamed Cock Robin. It’s the first in a series of a nursery-rhyme related crimes.

For the era, this isn’t a bad film. Basil Rathbone turns in a great performance and has a great sense of warmth as Vance in the same way he’d bring it to Holmes in a decade. The mystery has some interesting clues. A relatively young Roland Young also turns in a solid performance. James Dolan plays the obligatory dumb cop in Sergeant Heath. He is constantly shown up and plays the fool, but at least he’s an affable fool.

The mystery also has some interesting features, but it’s one of those mysteries where the detective doesn’t look as clever as the film thinks he is due to the sheer body count needed for him to solve the case.

It’s still an early talky and that brings some inherent flaws you have to adjust for. Many actors haven’t figured out how to deliver their lines in a film and give broad theatrical performances. The sound has weird moments as there are odd volume variations, the film has extremely wonky camera work and some weird angles. It also drags because it didn’t know when scenes should start and end, so there are some meaningless seconds (which add up over the course of a movie) in which actors are, in effect, standing around with no real purpose. Filmmaking would get better in the later 30s and 40s, but films from this era generally struggled with this. If we adjust for that, this is an interesting detective film.

The Kennel Murder Case: This film was released in 1933 and saw William Powell reprising the role for Warner Brothers after playing Vance in three films for Paramount. A wealthy man is found dead in a locked room in the middle of getting undressed, and it’s thought to be suicide, but Vance disagrees and it’s thought the man was killed by his brother, but that theory quickly runs into trouble.

There’s a lot to like about this film. For the time, it’s technically proficient. It tries some methods out that add visual appeal. Split-screen phone conversations and Vance using a full-scale model of the neighborhood to explain his theory of the crime are highlights. The cast is superb. Powell is so likable and charismatic, it hardly matters that the film doesn’t make Vance sympathetic in the way the book did. Mary Astor features, and Eugene Pallette is the perfect actor for Sergeant Heath.

The story is good as far as it goes. The solution in the film is as ludicrous as in the book, but these type of mysteries were fashionable at the time.

The one thing I have to emphasize is that do buy this DVD set just to see this film. The Kennel Murder Case has long been in the public domain and nothing is special about this print that couldn’t be obtain from any free, legal public domain copy.

The Dragon Murder Case

In this 1934 film, a man attending a well-to-do dinner party disappears while swimming, presumably drowning, but there’s no body. Philo Vance (Warren William) is called into investigate.

At 66 minutes, this has a strong second feature feel. It’s inhabited by broad characters played fairly well with no character going too far. Pallette returns at Sergeant Heath and is quite a bit of fun. Warren William is fine as Vance if a bit generic.

The story’s entertaining and plays with the idea of whether a sea monster might be involved. The running time leads to a slightly rushed conclusion. However, if you’re looking for a fun little B-movie, this will definitely do.

The Casino Murder Case

A wealthy socialite receives a threatening letter and murder follows.

At 82 minutes, this 1935 film feels too long. Paul Lucas plays Vance with as much charm as he can bring, but he can’t overcome one fundamental problem. His continental accent is a poor fit for Vance. Rosalind Russell gives a decent performance that’s wasted on a less memorable cast than prior films.

It’s not the worst story, but it’s below average in terms of script and most of the talent in it, and I can’t recommend it.

The Garden Murder Case

In this 1936 film, A wealthy man is murdered and it’s suspected someone who lives in his apartment did it. Philo Vance (Edmund Lowe) investigates.

This one is only 61 minutes long but feels longer. The mystery has some interesting points, butthere are so many scenery chewing moments by the supporting characters, which feels more odd with Lowe’s relatively bland performance as Vance. Virginia Bruce is probably the best part of the picture, but the romance between her character and Vance seemed forced.

This is by far, the weakest film in the set.

Calling Philo Vance

This film was another adaption of the Kennel Murder Case released in 1940 after Vance’s Creator S.S. Van Dine passed away. This time it was done as a low-budget B-picture. While remaking a superb film as a cheap knock-off would be majorly offensive to me usually, this movie does have an interesting twist. This time the movie was about espionage.

World War II had started in Europe. While the U.S. was still neutral, there was a lot of interest in all the international intrigue. So it seems like someone decided, ‘Let’s do the Kennel Murder Case, but this time with spies.” Vance (James Stephenson) was doing counterespionage regarding aircraft designs which is what all the suspects want. It’s hilarious as  most of the suspects who were normal civilians in the book and first movie turn out to be foreign agents desperate to get their hands on aircraft designs. The movie is about as neutral as the U.S. officially was at the time, not preferring one foreign agent over another.

Stephenson is no William Powell but he’s charming enough and fun. If you have seen The Kennel Murder Case, there are a few moments where the film’s low budget shows, such as when Vance uses a paper map rather than the full-sized city models of the first film. There are also some bizarre changes that don’t seem to be for any reason, like changing District Attorney Markham’s initials to “JP” and changing Sergeant Heath’s name to Sergeant Ryan.

While it can’t hold a candle to The Kennel Murder Case, this isn’t a bad little film at all.

Overall, this is a tough set to recommend. On one hand, it has one good movie on it. On the other hand, that movie can literally be watched anywhere. The rest of the films are unremarkable and while they’re not all bad, so many films were as good or better than these.

if you’re a big fan of Philo Vance, or a fan of Basil Rathbone who’d enjoy the novelty of seeing him play a non-Holmes detective, this could be worthwhile. Otherwise, I’m not certain you’ll get much out of it.

Rating: 3 out of 5

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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: 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: 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: A Bone to Pick

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A Bone to Pick is the first of the Aurora Teagarden Hallmark mysteries starring Candace Cameron-Bure. Aurora is a librarian and an active member in a local group for readers of true stories of unsolved crimes that likes to speculate on whodunit. A childless group member dies of old age and names Aurora as her sole heir. While going through her late friend’s effects at her friend’s home, Aurora discovers a hidden human skull. This leads her to try and prove her worth as an amateur detective and solve the case.

This TV movie checks some of the most important genre boxes. Aurora is a likable protagonist and the mystery is well thought-out. The mystery is two-fold as Aurora has to figure out who the victim was as well as who the murderer while refusing to report it to the police while she plays detective. The story is given an added sense of realism by having a best friend (Lexa Doig) who warns Aurora this is not a good idea. When the police do get involved, they don’t at all appreciate the amateur’s interference and threaten to arrest her. To make matters worse for Aurora, the police detective on the case is her ex-boyfriend’s new wife (Miranda Frigon) who is about nine months pregnant.

Several minutes are taken up with Aurora meeting and dating the Episcopal Priest Father Scott Aubrey (Stephen Huszar) The relationship goes nowhere, has nothing to do with the mystery, and he never appears in the series again. I also found the attempt to add peril to the denoument to be a bit silly and over-the-top.

But if I really had a “bone to pick” (ha) with the movies it is that there’s a missing sense of place. I’ve heard the books are set in Georgia. This makes sense. Aurora Teagarden the most Southern Belle name you’ll ever find. However, the movie is set in a generic small town and is filmed in Canada. This works fine most of the time, but a few details of the film would make a lot more sense if this story were set in Georgia, such as Aurora’s name and her mother’s attitude. Devoid of her cultural context, the proper patrician Southern lady becomes plain snooty.

Despite that, this was a fun movie. It’s a family-friendly mystery. with a likable actress playing the amateur detective. It’ll never win an Edgar but if you want to watch a cozy mystery with an amateur sleuth, this will do nicely.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

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DVD Review: The Great Gildersleeve Movie Collection

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Harold Peary originated the role of the Great Gildersleeve on the Fibber McGee and Molly radio program in 1939. The character was an antagonist for Fibber McGee and proved so popular that he got his own radio show starting in 1941. Peary played the role until 1950 when he left it for the ill-fated Harold Peary show.

Before that happened, the Great Gildersleeve went from radio to feature films, including four that were directly adapted from the characters in the radio. The Warner Archives Great Gildersleeve Movie features all four of these wartime movies plus the film Seven Days Leave in which Gildersleeve plays a much smaller part.

So how do the films hold up? Let’s take a look at each one:

The Great Gildersleeve (1942)

This film is probably the truest to the radio program. The plot has a lot of gags and bits, but the central point is that a woman mistakenly thinks Gildersleeve has proposed to her. Unfortunately for Gildersleeve, the woman is the unmarried sister of Judge Hooker. And Judge Hooker is questioning Gildersleeve’s fitness to be guardian to his niece and nephew. His goal throughout the movie is to prove he’s fit and to stop Judge Hooker from revoking his custody.

This a good film. It’s well-balanced. A lot of goofiness comes out of Gildersleeve’s quest, but his goals make you want to cheer for him. The heart of the Great Gildersleeve series is that he does care for his family. It’s a fun movie with a lot of great twists and well-worth watching.

Gildersleeve’s Bad Day (1943)

Gildersleeve has jury duty for a gangster who’s on trial for a bank robbery. Unbeknownst to him, he’s been identified by the gangster’s mob as the one man who could persuade the jury to acquit their guilty boss. Unbeknownst to them, he’s already decided to push for acquittal on his own.

This one is decent and has some madcap hilarious scenes, including a great chase involving Gildersleeve at the end. However, there are a few elements that come off as dumb rather than funny. Still, not a bad watch overall.

Gildersleeve on Broadway (1943)

Gildersleeve’s niece Marjorie fears that her beau who is in New York is not being faithful to her, so Gily catches a train to find out what the score is. He’s traveling with Mr. Peavy, the town pharmacist who fears a wealthy woman’s decision which could spell doom for his drug store.

This is probably the most funny of the films. The movie keeps a quick pace as the situation continues to spiral out of Gildersleeve’s control. It’s delightfully over the top fun. Its only flaw is that it ends far too abruptly.

Gildersleeve’s Ghost (1944)

Based on the radio series, someone decided that what the gentle, domestic comedy of the Great Gildersleeve called for was a comedy horror movie. The plot begins when two ghosts of Gildersleeve’s ancestors decide to help him win an election for Police Commissioner by hypnotizing a gorilla of a mad scientist so that Gildersleeve can discover an invisible woman. That sure sounds like a typical Gildersleeve plot.

This one has some funny moments, but it was a really flawed film. For one thing, there’s not enough plot for an hour film, so they keep doing the same gags over and over again, such as mistaken identity around the gorilla being there and someone in gorilla suit. Mr. Peavey says, “I wouldn’t say that,” about a dozen times.

Nick Stewart gets a lot of screen time as Chauncey, a chauffeur written as the racist “cowardly Negro” stereotype. It’s not just a minor point, it’s a big part of the second half of the film. Stewart was a good actor who deserved better than this role.   Stewart did eventually get better roles as he’d voice Brer Bear in Song of the South and play Lightnin’ on the Amos and Andy TV show, before founding the Ebony showcase, the first Black-owned theater, where Black Actors could play way better parts than the one he got in this film.

The one thing I do like is the title sequence. It looks spooky and shows a lot of labor went into it. The film itself is padded and at times, unpleasant to watch. This one was understandably a franchise killer.

Seven Days Leave (1942)

Johnny Gray (Victor Mature) learns he is heir to $100,000 through the radio program, The Court of Missing Heirs. He borrows from every member of his company to have a time with his fiancée before he goes to meet the lawyer in charge of this estate, the Great Gildersleeve. Gildersleeve advises the money was left by the descendant of a Union Civil War general and will only be willed to him if he marries the descendant of a particular Confederate general who was his friend. The descendant in question is Terry Havalok-Allen (Lucille Ball) who is also already engaged to someone else.

The movie is a musical with beautifully performed numbers. Gildersleeve even gets in on one of them. There are also great orchestras in the film, including Les Brown’s with Brown playing himself, Ginny Simms shows up to sing a song, and there’s a talented dance trio. The film looks expensive and looks mostly made before the crunch of wartime cost-cutting hit Hollywood.

The movie is a treat for radio fans. First, we get to see Gildersleeve, albeit his characterization is much more like on Fibber McGee than on his own program. We also get a look at two rare radio programs. The Court of Missing Heirs was an actual radio program, with no full episodes in circulation. In addition, the film has Grey and Terry attend a taping of Truth or Consequences and get involved in a game. The earliest available radio episode of Truth or Consequences is from 1945, so this gives insight into how the show looked and sounded in its earliest days.

In addition, Lucille Ball is good in this. She has great lines and good moments when her character is rebuffing Grey’s advances. In addition, Marcy McGuire is a lot of fun as Terry’s sixteen-year-old sister. In a rarity for these films, she was actually sixteen and not only was funny, but her musical numbers were great.

Everything works about this film except the lead character. Johnny Grey is not likable at all. He’s written as a greedy narcissist and none too bright. After all, he’s stringing his own fiancee along while he sets out to break up someone else’s engagement so that he can get big money. While the movie tells us he changes, we don’t see much evidence or growth. Grey sets out to win Terry over by being as obnoxious, intrusive and irritating as possible. My favorite scenes in the movie are the ones where he’s put in his place. The only reason he wins are genre conventions.

If you find Johnnie irritating and unlikable as I did, the question becomes whether that ruins the movie for you. For me, the good stuff in it out-weighs the bad, but your mileage may vary. In a scene my wife found disturbing, Johnny crosses a serious line by kissing Terry by force. My wife found some parts of the film very disturbing, including one where Grey forcibly kissed Terry. Looking at it through modern eyes, Johnnie Grey’s behavior is really predatory and the movie’s message that seems to affirm the behavior illustrates that even with the Hayes code, Hollywood films could have some creepy ideas about sex in them. This is not one I’d say is definitely not for kids.

Overall Thoughts:

The Gildersleeve films came before the TV sitcom was invented and often feel more like TV episodes than actual movies. The first three films managed to expand enough to tell a passable story but Gildersleeve’s Ghost only had enough good material for a half-hour TV episode and then repeated stuff to fill up the run-time. Seven Days Leave is fun for those willing to overlook Johnny Grey’s general sleaziness. Taken together, it is an eclectic set of wartime comedy.

If you’re a fan of old-time radio and the Great Gildersleeve, the set is worth checking out for all of the highlights, unless the lowlights are deal-breakers for you.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

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DVD Review: Assignment Redhead

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Note: Twitter followers @radiodetectives voted this as the movie I’d review this week rather than Whodunit.

In 1951, the Australian radio company Grace Gibson released the first audio drama series featuring Major Gregory Keen, of MI-5. Series creator Lindsay Hardy turned this into a book, “Requiem for a Redhead,” which became a basis for the British movie, “Assignment: Redhead.” (aka Million Dollar Manhunt.)

The basic plot is the same as in the radio drama. A criminal mastermind known as Dumetrius kills a Colonel and takes his place on a flight from Germany to London. On the flight is a U.S. serviceman who takes a picture of Dumetrius. With the help of Hedy Bergner (Carole Matthews), a singer who is a secretly a spy for him, Dumetrius has the serviceman killed and a British Airman named Peter Ridgeway is framed for the crime. Keen (Richard Denning) steps in to locate Dumetrius and hunts for Ridgeway when he escapes.

The movie has some solid points. The original 104-part serial had a lot of repetition and the movie cut a lot of the fat. One thing I like is that we don’t get to see Keen acting like a fool in his being in love with Heddy Bergner and blind to the fact she’ s working for Dumetrius for more than 16 hours as in the radio drama. The plot remains interesting and engaging with some great elements still included. Richard Denning (star of Michael Shayne and Mr. and Mrs. North) turns in a good performance.

Yet, the movie is nowhere near as good as the radio drama overall. The film is low budget and it shows. With a Film Noir, a low budget feel can work, but a spy film needs a bit more room in the budget. The seventy-six minute run time cuts some of the more annoying elements of the radio serial, but it also eliminates a lot of the good stuff, including many complicated relationship dynamics. We don’t get to see Heddy’s growth as a character or her conflict as we do in the radio serial. Instead, her change towards the end of the story is abrupt. In addition, because Keen is an American in this version and his aide Sergeant Coutts is a Brit, there’s not some of the shared backstory and Coutts’ tireless loyalty which was such a great highlight of the radio drama. Key sequences from late in the story are cut or compressed. Even if I hadn’t heard the radio serial, I’d know something was missing. Weirdly, the initial set up is kept mostly intact. The acting is as spotty as you’d expect from a low-budget film.

Overall, this isn’t a horrible movie, but it’s tough to offer a general recommendation. If you’ve heard the radio series, then it’s worth checking out for the curiosity’s sake. If you’ve thought about listening to the radio serial, and want to check out the movie first, I’d recommend listening to the radio drama first. It’s far better than what was put out on the screen.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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DVD Review: Father Dowling Season Three

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After a TV movie and two partial seasons, ABC gave the Father Dowling Mysteries a regular season of 22 episodes in 1990-91.

The same cast of regulars from Season 2 returned with Father Frank Dowling (Tom Boswell), Sister Steve (Tracy Nelson) investigating mysteries and Father Prestwick (James Stephens) and housekeeper Marie (Mary Wickes) providing comic relief.

The series maintained a pleasant, family friendly voice tone with likable characters. Steve does a lot of undercover work and handles most tasks well, but you don’t get the impression she’s unrealistically super competent in everything like during Season One.

Some of the past seasons had episodes that could more rightly be called “adventures”  than “mysteries,” but these are true mysteries. The plots are thought-out but never too intricate.

The one thing I did miss from Season Two was the little touches that made Father Dowling and Sister Steve seem more like a real Catholic priest and nun. Except as discussed below, they don’t do anything to cut against that idea other than the fact that the two can always run off to investigate a mystery.

My favorite episodes of this season is, “The Christmas Mystery.” It’s a nice mystery with a few suspect twists, but it’s a fun Christmas treat and there aren’t enough good Christmas mysteries out there. In, “The Moving Target Mystery,” a contract killer comes into Father Dowling’s confessional and confesses he was hired to kill him. He is backing out because he won’t kill a priest but somebody else will. It’s a good set up for a story.

The “Fugitive Priest Mystery,” finds Father Dowling on the run thanks to his evil twin Blaine, and he has to clear his name and find out what Blaine’s up to. “The Hard-Boiled Mystery,” is my favorite episode of the season. Father Dowling goes to have words with a writer who decided to write a story based on Father Dowling. It’s set during the 1930s with Dowling as a hard-boiled priest-detective. We flash from the present to the hard-boiled detective scenes and they’re absolutely hilarious.

On the downside,  some stories just didn’t work. After having an angel in Season 2, the writers decided, “How about having Father Dowling encounter the devil?” Thus we were given, “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Mystery.” What we get is a Hollywood version of the devil who is defeated by a plot ripped off from, “The Devil and Daniel Webster.” The story introduces an older brother for Steve and contradicts a previous season’s story featuring Steve’s younger brother. Further, it has the characters acting really out of character. It’s the worst episode of the series.

“The Consulting Detective Mystery,” is a bit of clunker. Father Dowling makes a deduction as to who committed a crime. He’s wrong, leading to an innocent ex-con losing his job. This leads to Sherlock Holmes appearing in order to restore Father Dowling’s confidence. It’s not a great setup and the actor playing Holmes doesn’t work. It’s not as bad as, “The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Mystery,”  but it’s weak and poorly executed.

The rest of the box set is serviceable and fun. Father Dowling was never a big budget show, and it never featured television’s most clever mystery writers. It was a show you could enjoy with the whole family. Another reviewer described the show as “cute,” and I’ll go with that. This season, in particular, features Father Dowling and Sister Steve working to save a cute zoo monkey framed for murder. It’s easy viewing with a bit of nostalgia for simpler times thrown into the deal.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

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DVD Review: The Line Up

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The Line Up is a noir film based on the 1954-60 TV series of the same name (later syndicated as San Francisco Beat.) The film begins with an exciting scene where a cabbie flees police and drives erratically until he’s shot. Lieutenant Guthrie (Warner Anderson) and the police discover a smuggling ring which smuggles heroin through the baggage of innocent people and then retrieves the heroin from them.

There are two basic reasons to see this film:

The first are the stars are not the police but the villains. Dancer (Eli Wallach) is a psychopathic gangster and is assisted by his wiser mentor Julian (Robert Keith) in collecting the drugs and disposing of those who know too much which turns out to be most people.

Unlike in an earlier era where these two would walk around sounding dopey, Dancer and Julian are constantly well-spoken, polite, even friendly when the job calls for it. However, in an instant, they turn deadly. Julian sums up Dancer well, “There’s never been a guy like Dancer. He’s a wonderful, pure pathological study. He’s a psychopath with no inhibitions.” Wallach makes the character very believable and menacing.

Johnny Dollar star Bob Bailey has one scene in this film as a finger man telling Dancer who the drugs had been smuggled in with. It’s a decent performance.

Also, though he only appeared in one scene where he barely spoke, Vaughn Taylor turns in a memorable performance as the drug kingpin, “The Man.” It’s practically an acting clinic on how much can be communicated using only facial expressions.

The second big reason to see this is San Francisco. So much of the movie is shot on location in the City by the Bay. The locations aren’t only good looking but they’re used in some innovative ways in the story. It really makes for a unique look.

The film’s biggest issue is the police characters. The film’s intent was to rope in the 30 million fans of the TV series, “The Line Up,” which is why stars of that series were brought in. However, these scenes are the least interesting in the film. Not bad per se, just obligatory. Policework can be interesting in a Noir film (see: He Walked by Night) but it doesn’t happen here.

In addition to the trailer, the DVD release includes a kind of interesting special feature with Dark Knight Director Christopher Nolan discussing how the NOIR genre influenced him. I was surprised that this film had a commentary track, but listening to it, I found it a bit unpleasant as one of the commentators was just randomly foul-mouthed rather than insightful or funny.

Overall, The Line-Up is a solid film and there’s much to recommend it to those who love Noir films, San Francisco, or Bob Bailey. Ironically, the only thing you won’t get out of it is a sense what the classic radio series the Line Up looked like on film.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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DVD Review: Hawkins: The Complete TV Movie Collection

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A recognizable and beloved Hollywood actor from Hollywood’s yesteryear playing a sharp and folksy lawyer who solves mysteries? That description will make people think of Matlock starring Andy Griffith. However, more than a decade before Andy Griffith played the hot-dog loving, Southern lawyer, Jimmy Stewart brought the concept to the small screen as Billy Jim Hawkins, a homespun West Virginia lawyer with a penchant for getting to the truth and winning tough cases.

The Warner Archives DVD set includes all eight Hawkins telefilms that aired in 1973 and 1974. The first film is ninety minutes long. The other seven are seventy-five minutes long as this film was aired along with another mystery series to compete with the popular NBC Mystery Wheel.

In each case, after a sensational murder has been committed, Hawkins is called in to defend the accused, who generally has a massive amount of circumstantial evidence pointing towards their guilt. Hawkins’ seeks to clear them with the help of his assistants. Hawkins usually has to win his client’s trust, inserts himself into his client’s world, and seeks to get to the bottom case with the help of his assistants.

Like Matlock and Perry Mason, every movie ends with a climactic courtroom scene where Hawkins reveals the true killer. There are a few more nods to legal procedure in this series than in either of those better known series. In particular, the series acknowledges that as Hawkins hasn’t been licensed to practice law in every state, in order to appear in those states, he needs to be working under a local attorney who will serve as the Attorney of Record for the defense even though he’s not actually arguing in court.

The Supporting Cast

In each episode, Hawkins is helped by one or more assistants. One of the key points of Hawkins’ backstory was that Hawkins had an enormous extended family of more than 100 people. In different episodes, different members of that family show up to assist. Most frequently, it’s R.J. Hawkins (Strother Martin) but Jeremiah Stocker (Mayf Nutter) and Earl Coleman (James Hampton) took turns as well. Stewart had the best chemistry with Strother Martin and R.J. Hawkins was the most interesting character, which is probably why R.J. Hawkins was in the final three films without any other assistants after only appearing in two of the first five.

The guest stars were generally quite competent. There’s an early performance by Tyne Daly, as well as appearance by golden age of Hollywood notables like Lew Ayers and Teresa Wright, along with character actress extraordinaire Jeanette Nolan. One of the more interesting guest appearances is James Best playing a serious role as a sheriff in the episode, “Blood Feud.” In a few years, he would take on the role of the ultimate comic sheriff as Rosco Coltrane.

The Lead

Ultimately, while the scripts were decent and the supporting cast is competent, it’s Jimmy Stewart that makes the series worth watching. While watching the first few minutes of the opening film, I thought Stewart had overplayed the folksiness, but once he settled into the role, he made Hawkins special. Hawkins is a country boy, and he doesn’t put on airs. Everyone who meets him is urged to call him Billy Jim.

Yet, at the same time, Hawkins has a keen mind and is aware of how the world works. Like many of the characters Stewart played over the years, Hawkins lives by a code.  His life is dedicated to the core principle that everyone’s entitled to a defense. Hawkins has a great way of connecting with and gaining the confidence of clients who’ve been unwilling to act in their own defense before.

In the courtroom scenes, Stewart is superb, building a level of rapport and using subtle humor to undercut the prosecution and then delivering an innocent “aw shucks, I’m just a country lawyer” type of comment to deflect  objections from the prosecution. The scenes where he confronts the genuine murderer are incredibly compelling. Hawkins was one of the more credible TV lawyers to be featured in this sort of program. In many ways, he seems true to life to other nationally known trial attorneys such as Gerry Spence as opposed to a character someone made up.

Stewart’s acting netted him a well-deserved Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.

Why It Only Lasted One Season

In addition to Stewart’s win, the series was nominated for a Golden Globe as was Strother Martin for best supporting actor. However, despite critical recognition, the series went away after a single season. Why?

CBS created the series as a counter to NBC’s rotating mystery programs and CBS didn’t quite seem to understand a big part of why NBC enjoyed success. NBC rotated Columbo, McCloud, and McMillan & Wife.  The beauty of the mystery wheel was that these programs all appealed to the same audience and if you liked one, there was a good chance you liked them all, and NBC could count on you to watch their mystery movie every Sunday night.

CBS on the other hand rotated Hawkins with the TV series Shaft based on the Blacksploitation film series of  the early 1970s. The two series drew two very different audiences and there was little crossover in audiences between the two shows and as a result both got cancelled.  Hawkins could have lasted longer if not for the network’s scheduling mistake.

Is This Series For You?

If you love the classic lawyer series, these films are for you. Stewart’s Hawkins is at least as good as Perry Mason or Matlock. If you’re a fan of Jimmy Stewart’s later work, this is also a must as this was arguably Stewart’s last great role before his career went on the downswing and hearing loss drove him to semi-retirement in the early 1980s.

Overall, I found Hawkins to be an enjoyable series that stands up well when compared to most of its 70s peers.

 

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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DVD Review: Torchy Blane Complete Movie Collection

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Torchy Blane was the feature character in nine B movies released from 1937-39 starring Glenda Farrell in seven of the films, with the two other installments featuring Lola Lane and Jane Wyman. The character was also part of the inspiration for Jerry Siegel’s Lois Lane. All nine films have been released as a single set by Warner Archives.

Torchy was an intrepid female reporter solving crimes. I reviewed her first movie and I think the opening of her first movie, Smart Blonde really set the tone for the series. In it, she has a cab drive up to a moving train and jumps out of the cab and onto the moving train.

From the beginning, she established herself as a daring, clever no-nonsense reporter who manages to stay a step (or several steps) ahead of her boyfriend/fiancé Lieutenant Steve McBride (played by Barton MacClane in the seven movies starring Farrell) and his sidekick Gehagen (played in all nine films by Tom Kennedy.)

The idea of a female reporter being the girlfriend of a police detective was hardly original to this film series, but there was more done with it in Torchy Blane. As Torchy racked up a scoop in the first film, other reporters got jealous, with their bosses complaining to the police brass, who responded to their headaches by trying to frustrate her access to McBride. In another film, her fellow journalists decided to humiliate her by staging a hoax murder and getting her to believe it so that she would be embarrassed by having been duped. It’s rare for a movie from the 1930s to really explore the consequences of its premise and that’s one thing that sets the Torchy Blane film apart.

The films are a great mix of comedy, adventure, and mystery. Torchy’s intrepid adventures take her around the world, on a cruise trip, and even running for Mayor. Farrel and Maclane were usually more bit players and lacked the glamour of the A-list stars but that helps to make Torchy and Steve feel very realistic. Farrell is a delight to watch in each film as she’s always entertaining whether she’s playing an impish trick to get past the latest attempt by the attempt by the police to stop her from getting the inside dope, trying a daring stunt to thwart the bad guys, or delightfully worming another steak dinner out of Steve, she’s just fun to watch. Maclane was probably the weakest link in the series to start with but the character got better and by the end he was a step or two behind Torchy and would arrive in the end to help Torchy out. Gehagen is a lovable poetry-reciting goof whose rank on the police force appears to be Gehagen. The character is often Torchy’s unwitting dupe in whatever scheme she’s pulling to get her story.

The films have a great comic element but it’s rarely over-the-top or too absurd as many screwball comedies of the era. These are good, solid B films.

But it’s important to remember that they are still 58-63 minute, low-budget “B” films. So to enjoy them, you have to be willing to accept a few quirks such as policemen from the same department wearing uniforms that don’t match and the coroner being used as an escort for a witness to save budget on scenes. To embrace Torchy Blane, you have to accept Fly Away, Baby as a story of Torchy’s world tour even though that grand tour is told with stock footage and so-so soundstages. There are a few politically incorrect moments (although it’s very mild for the time) and anyone expecting a twenty-first century feminist will doubtless be disappointed in Torchy.

Yet, for my money, the Glenda Farrell films are wonderful, with the first four being my favorite followed closely by Torchy Runs for Mayor where Torchy fights her toughest battle against a corrupt political machine where she’s constantly abandoned and finds cowardice and calculation at every turn, until it’s clear that she’s the only one with the guts to stop them.

The Lola Lane film, Torchy Blane in Panama, is good as well. Lane had been part of the singing Lane sisters and would get a reputation for playing tough girls on screen and her performance of Torchy really showed that sort of toughness. I thought Paul Kelly was a disappointment as the replacement Steve McBride.

Jane Wyman in  Torchy Blane…Playing with Dynamite was a bit more problematic. Wyman would become a great Oscar-winning and Golden Globe winning actress, but she wasn’t that actress in 1939. She was only twenty-two when she made her sole appearance as Torchy (after appearing in a minor role in the first film) and she practically did a Glenda Farrell impression, wearing a blond wig for the role. The film’s plot really stretched believability even by B-movie standards with Torchy endangering lives by causing a near panic with a series of false alarms to get herself thrown in prison so she could reach a missing criminal. The film is rescued in the second half by some solid action and Gehagen’s comedy wrestling. It’s not a horrible film, and it’s enjoyable in its own right,  but it’s far from the best in the series.

Overall, the Torchy Blane Movie Collection is a must-see for fans of Detective B-movies. It’s a thoroughly entertaining nine hours that’s easily the equal of many better known series.

Rating: 4.25 out of 5.0

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DVD Review: I Was a Communist for the FBI

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This week and next two weeks from now, I’ll be taking a look at I Was a Communist for the FBI.  The first post will talk about the movie and next will discuss the radio program.

Any discussion of Communism in the 1950s will be controversial due to the “red scare.” My understanding based on the study of the era is that two things are true: 1) there were many innocent people charged with being Communists and 2) there were actual Communist who working to infiltrate others as agents of the Soviet Union and still others working to undermine and basic the basic social systems of the United States in order to bring about a people’s revolution.

There is also debate on the exact role that the real Matt Cvetic had or what he accomplished in his undercover work, but this debate doesn’t really matter as both the Movie and the Radio show were very fictionalized (though in different ways), so the exact truth of what actually happened to Cvetic has little to do with either.

In the film, Cvetic (played by Night Beat’s Frank Lovejoy) is in the tale end of his 9 years as a Communist for the FBI and it’s a miserable lot in life. His mother is dying and he rushes to her bedside too late to tell her the truth. His brothers look on with contempt for being a Communist and for the pain that brought his mother. When Cvetic’s son learns that Cvetic is a Communist, he turns on him as well.

Cvetic has worked his way up into high circles of the American Communist Party and the film draws an interesting line between the rank and file Communists as represented by a Cvetic’s son’s teacher and the leadership.

The leadership is two faced and hypocritical. With rank and file party members, they’re all about equality and the revolution of the proletariat. Among themselves, they’re far more honest. When the Communists take over, someone’s going to be in charge, so it might as well be them. They want to be like the pigs in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. One of them who is working actively to incite Communist activists among Blacks casually drops the “n-word” and persists with even when Cvetic challenges him on it. Cvetic is ironically considered the “true believer” of this group of senior party members.

The party leaders are also cunning and ruthless, not caring if innocents or bystanders are hurt in the process. In one scene, dedicated to helping the Soviets stop American steel production by staging strikes with fake protesters. This leads to people being savagely beaten including Cvetic’s own brother.

The teacher decides she’s had enough and wants out of the party but the party sets out to liquidate her and Cvetic has to foil the plan without breaking his cover.  This is a bit of an add on but it’s decently done.

Overall, the movie shows some ways in which Communists did  or could have operated at the highest levels  particularly how on one occasion, they staged a filibuster and managed to force their way through a non-Communist union to get their way on the strike.

The film is in a way targeted towards the casual Communist and tried to warn of the long-suspected ties between the Community Party USA and the Soviet Union in hopes of encouraging people to leave before they got in too deep similar to a radio series of the time called Last Man Out. 

Ultimately, nothing was too original about the movie’s message or propaganda value but what makes it stand out is the performance of Lovejoy as Matt Cvetic, a man whose position is eating him up. After 9 years, he hates the people who like him and is alienated from his friends and family, he takes part in despicable plots. Lovejoy does a good job portraying a tortured man who continues being ripped apart by what he does because his love for country and concern for his son’s future is worth the sacrifice even if part of that sacrifice is being despised by his son.

Overall,  this is a good but flawed film, with an ending that’s a bit confusing. Still, this is a decent film that rises above average due to the complex issues surrounding Matt Cvetic.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.0

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DVD Review: Nick Carter Triple Feature Mysteries

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Walter Pidgeon played Nick Carter in a series of 3 MGM films in 1939 and 1940 and the three films were released in the last few years by Warner Archives.

The first film was, Nick Carter, Master Detective (1939) which saw Nick heading to California to investigate the theft of plans for an advanced aircraft and sabotage of the factory.

This film is engaging  and breezes by in 59 minutes. The mystery isn’t all that complex, but the film is interesting for its look at a time when the aviation industry was very young.

Carter as portrayed on the film, jumped to conclusions and made plenty of surmises about people’s guilt, some of which were far fetched but promised repeatedly, “If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize later.” A line that would be used in other films, though not as frequently as  here.

The second film was Phantom Raiders (1940) and it was probably the worst of the three. The film was expanded to 70 minutes, but really didn’t seem to know what to do with the extra time, so it opted for padding. You could start watching the film ten minutes in and really not miss anything.

Carter is brought in on a case where several boats are being blown up at sea by the same company leading to massive insurance payoff. This film because of the first ten minutes (which gives away the plot) is much less of a true whodunit and more of a battle of wits between Nick and the villain which does work fairly well.

The location shots are good and the plot progresses nicely. Other than the very boring first ten minutes, my big complaint is that Nick keeps trying to bow out of the case in a way that hardly seem consistent with the heroic reputation of the character.

Finally, we have the best film of the series Sky Murder  (1940) which has Nick investigating a murder that occurred in the air. The movie was one of those pre-war films that really dealt with the war in Europe and fifth columnists in the US. This 72 minute film was exciting, well-paced, suspenseful, and with some lighter moments included as well. In terms of B Detective movies, it didn’t get much better than this. This movie makes the whole set worth buying.

Overall, I found this to be a very good series of films. The glaring flaw with the series was that the Nick Carter on the screen had very little relation to the Nick Carter off the books. Through fifty years of pulp fiction, Carter had been established as a resourceful tireless he-man who looked at danger and laughed in its face. Carter also surrounded himself with younger detectives who he was mentoring, thus the title master detective.

Pidgeon plays Carter as much more typical Mystery Comedy lead. Carter’s no fool, but he’s also a bit of a lady’s man and in The Phantom Raiders he’d rather catch up with the ladies and take a vacation than bust up the ring.

And as for assistants, Nick has Bartholemew (played by Donald Meek), a middle aged bee keeper and wannabe amateur detective who attaches himself to Nick with Nick’s sufferance more than anything else.

It was Hollywood’s practice in the 1930s to pay to adapt characters to the screen and then shove these characters into the formula of the moment, which is why there was a series of Nancy Drew where Nancy was a little bit ditzy, and two Nero Wolfe films where Archie Goodwin was played as a typical punch drunk Lionel Stander character.

Even with this flaw, these three movies are good in and of themselves. The stories are well-written and there’s plenty of action for a film of its era though it’s not bloody. There were a couple of machine gun scenes in this series that were thrilling.

Even Bartholemew works as a sidekick, particularly in the last two movies. While similar characters from the golden age of film usually became  nothing more than annoying comic foils, Meek turns in a solid performance and Bartholemew actually becomes a valuable asset to Nick in the second and third movies, comfortable with a gun and with using some trick action to get the upper hand on the bad guys.

The series stands up well. Only lasting for three installments meant that unlike Mr. Moto or The Thin Man, the Nick Carter series didn’t stick around for one film too many.

The DVD itself is up to the usual standard of Warner Archives with no thrills but three good and very rare films with decent transfers. The only mistake made was that Warner put Phantom Raiders before Sky Murder but this is only of trivial importance as it really doesn’t matter which order you watch these in.

Rating: 4.0 out of 5.0

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DVD Review: Poirot Series 10

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Some things are very hard to mess up or turn to something catastrophically bad. Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories combined with the acting of David Suchet are one such combination. It’s a recipe for success.

Any joy or success that the tenth series of Poirot had was due to this combination, but the result was a mediocre series of feature length telefilms.  When you had someone a recipe for Prime Rib and you end up with something that tastes more like Hamburger steak, you have to ask why.

The answer is a creative team who decided to change some of Christie’s stories. I’ve been clear in the past that I can stomach or even enjoy some revisions. I’m a huge fan of the Series 11 episode Appointment with Death which arguably is the most radical departure from Christie’s original story in the entire first twelve series.

The difference between Appointment with Death and the episodes in Series 10 is that the telefilm of Appointment with Death was actually a well-thought out story and its revisions held in a very cohesive narrative and there was an actual point in mind

The addition in Series 10 stories on the other hand seemed to randomly insert revision with names changed and characters motivation being different for no particular reason whatsoever.  These were obvious hack elements inserted into a much better story.

To be fair, Mystery of the Blue Train was not one of Christie’s favorite stories, but the additional changes such as having a rich man (Elliot Gould) having locked his disturbed wife in a convent or giving the idiot husband of Lady Tamplin a major role in the denouement of the story made the telefilm vision worse.

However, Cards on the Table should have been one of the best stories of the entire program’s history. The premise was brilliant: four different  invited by the mysterious Mr Shaitana to dine with four sleuths and four potential murderers invited to dinner and the host is murdered. And arguably it was looking that way for the first seventy percent of the film as we saw the detective interact. It continued until the writers felt the need to insert some Jerry Sprnger-appropriate sexual situations including one of the detectives having hired the very creepy Mr. Shaitana to take compromising photos of him.

The best episode of the season was After the Funeral which was the most logical and consistent story the whole season and didn’t tamper too much with Christie’s original plot except for the addition of another Jerry Springer sex situation.

Finally, we had Taken at the Flood which has two problems. One, the villain is too obvious and second is more central to the essence of the story.  The title of the book comes from Julius Caesar, ” “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune…” which is about taking advantage of an unexpected situation that comes to you. In the book, the villain takes advantage of an accident that occurs to gain power and wealth. In the telefilm, the incident has been changed so it’s no longer an accident and thus title Taken at the Flood no longer makes any sense. Bravo.

This isn’t to say Series 10 wasn’t without its good moments, but these were often undermined by horrible production decisions and writers who haphazardly rewrote Christie’s stories in ways that just didn’t work. Series 10 adds gratuitous sex but  loses a lot of intelligence.

Having seen all the Series 11 episodes, the good news is that Poirot films did get better. Thus Series 10  marked a dip in series quality rather than a legendary and irredeemable “Jumping the shark” season

Rating: 3.0 out of 5.0

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Sleuths of My Youth: Mathnet

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Mathnet

Previous in this series: Perry Mason and Ben Matlock, Batman, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and Tom Swift , Sherlock Holmes, and Encyclopedia Brown.

“The story you are about to see is a fib, but it’s short. The names are made up, but the problems are real.”

With these words began one of my earliest mystery series, Mathnet. 

Mathnet began as just one sketch on the series, Square One, a PBS educational program designed to teach kids about Math. Other sketches included “Mathman”, the animated adventures of “Dirk Niblick of the Math Brigrade” among others. Infrequent parodies included a couple of Honeymooners parody sketches. Each sketch, song, or story had the goal of teaching about math in an entertaining way.

Mathnet was its Dragnet-style sketch starring Beverly Leech as Kate Monday and Joe Howard as her partner George Frankly. They were crime-solving mathematicians who demonstrated a wide variety of math concepts in solving crimes.

The initial episode of Mathnet, The Case of the Missing Baseball was more parody than anything else with the cameramen playing off of Dragnet’s use of close ups to show a series of rapid close-ups in part one of the Missing Baseball.  The show couldn’t keep that up forever, so it became much of a homage with comic and educational overtones.  The show also changed from its pilot episode in which the two mathematicians weren’t part of the police force, even though they acted like it until they got the criminal.

Leech turned in a solid straight man performance as Officer Monday, but Howard was the one who shined as the goofy, but usually competent partner. Like Ben Alexander (Frank Smith) and Harry Morgan (Bill Gannon), Howard brought comic relief to the cases with dialogue like this when Kate announces they’ve received a call about a missing autographed baseball:

George: I love baseball, Kate. Martha and I we went to Dodger Stadium last night, Kate.

Kate: The Dodgers played in Cincinatti last night, George

George: Yep. No trouble parking. You ought to go with us. Martha and Me to a Dodger game. No trouble parking.

In another episode, Kate Monday asked an apprehended criminal, “Do you agree that crime doesn’t pay?”

He responded, “Yeah, at least not the way I do it.”

The show’s comedy worked. Then, it was merely funny. Today, I see some of the way it copies Dragnet’s success.

The show played homage to Dragnet in other ways that a kid under 10 who hadn’t seen Dragnet wouldn’t have caught on. James Earl Jones appeared as Chief of Detectives Thad Green.  In the original Dragnet, the Chief of Detectives was Thad Brown.

The program was cleverly educational, working math tricks such as estimating,  calculating the angle of refraction, basic geometry,  probability, depreciation, and the effective use of databases and spreadsheets seemlessly into the plot. While Mathnet didn’t provide a comprehensive math education, it taught some great math principles.

For kids, the program also provided solidly plotted mysteries with some fascinating conclusions. The stories were told as five-part serials that would end each episode of Square One and give kids a reason to tune in tomorrow.  Mathnet began as just one sketch of many, it’s first serial averaging about 6 minutes of air time per show. However, due to its popularity, Mathnet took up an ever-increasing share of Square’s One time.

In the middle of the second season, the show was packed up and moved to New York where other Children’s Television Workshop Shows were based.  Their first case in New York, The Case of the Swami Scam aired as a standalone TV movie. In subsequent seasons, Leech was replaced by Toni Di Buono as Pat Tuesday. But by then I was in an area where we didn’t get PBS.

I remember Mathnet fondly for two reasons.  First, it along with the entire show, Square One was successful at making math fun. There are math tricks I use today that I learned from Mathnet and I wasn’t the only one. A reviewer on IMDB notes:

In 6th grade in 1997, on Fridays we would watch Mathnet. It was always fun but plenty educational! As a student math was always the easiest when it was made fun, and that is exactly what this movie did for us. Quite frankly, the Mathnet series actually inspired my class to do our homework, because we weren’t allowed to watch it unless the whole class did their homework. It was always a treat when we got to watch these movies. There aren’t many good math movies (as I know now because I am studying mathematics)so it is amazing that Mathnet is so interesting. When the teacher who used them retired, he took the tapes with him and now Indiana is Mathnetless which it a pity!

If only educational TV was always that effective. It also helped spur a lifelong interest in Dragnet.  When I got older, my love of Mathnet fueled my love of Dragnet and the rest, as they say, is history.

Mathnet with its blend of great comedy, solid math skills, and some great fun with classic mysteries, still brings a smile to my face. My only regret is that the show has not been given its due with a DVD release.

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