[profh0011]

THE SNOOP SISTERS:  A Black Day For Bluebeard
Ham with Wine   (5 of 10)

The wife of a terrible ham actor whose speciality is horror movies is murdered at a celebration of his films.  Furthermore, since the latest will that cut him completely out of her fortune is missing, it makes him appear to be the prime suspect.

Vincent Price (THE HAUNTED PALACE) is “Michael Bastion”, whose ego outstrips his acting talent, though he does also have a real knack as a gourmet chef.  Price is basically playing a parody of himself, and I had no idea when I saw this first-run that Helen Hayes had a strong influence on his early career, so his appearance here was a real reunion.

Tammy Grimes (whose career was split between Broadway & Hollywood) is “Amanda Bastion”. Her husband married her for her money, and shortly after she announces she’s divorcing him, she winds up dead.  Who else are to think killed her?

David Huddleston (BLAZING SADDLES) is “Arwin Shanks”, Bastion’s lawyer, who claims the only existing will names Michael as the sole heir, despite Michael insisting that isn’t true.

William Devane (266 episodes of KNOTS LANDING) is “David Prine”, who seems too happy that Michael is the chief suspect.

Roddy McDowell (EVIL UNDER THE SUN) is “Lionel Standish”, who insists he’s happy to be living on a houseboat and not concerned about money.  Or IS he?

Mort Sahl (stand-up comic and actor) is “Lawrence Fortescue”, another interested party perfectly fine with Michael being accused of killing his wife.

Katherine Helmond (88 episodes of SOAP) is “Cissy Prine”.  Is it wrong that I can’t even remember what her part in this story was?

Aside from Price & McDowell, the most interesting thing in this episode for me was that part of it was filmed on location inside the mansion whose exterior was used as "Wayne Manor" in the 1966 BATMAN.  I could tell by the floor layout-out.

This proved to be the last installment for this short-lived series, and the writing was a serious step down from the previous episodes.  No less than 3 writers were involved, and I have to agree with another reviewer at the IMDB, that the entire thing is so disjointed, with sub-plots being introduced that go nowhere and the like, that I’m convinced those 3 writers never once collaborated on the mess that was filmed here.  Also, the part where Gee distracts Michael by dragging lunch out to several hours was just interminable, and made it feel like this was a half-hour story painfully padded out to an hour-and-a-half.  A shame.  This series deserved better, and deserved a longer run.  At least it’s had not 1 but 2 official DVD releases, though of the 6 films in the 2020 box set, 1 of them was RUNNING at the WRONG speed.  I’m not kidding when I say, Canadian outfit VEI deserves to go out of business for how much they screwed up their packages of THE PROTECTORS, McCLOUD and even THE SNOOP SISTERS.  I haven’t found any problems with their McMILLAN & WIFE box set yet… but I’ve still got 3 whole seasons left to watch.

[profh0011]

IRONSIDE:  AMY PRENTISS  aka The Chief
A Woman In Charge   (5 of 10)

When the San Francisco Police Commissioner decides to retire for health reasons, the current Chief of Detectives gets a promotion.  This leaves that job open, and the person with the highest grades on the civil service exam is Lieutenant Amy Prentiss, currently in charge of the Women’s Auxiliary.  Somehow, due to blatent sexism, she’s expected to turn it down… but special consultant (and former Chief of Detectives himself) Robert T. Ironside convices her to take the job, which shocks apparently everyone she is now in charge of.  This leads to a lot of resentment among Detectives who are not used to taking orders from a woman, and in particular, the man who becomes her assistant, a ‘lone wolf’ type used to doing things his own way and breaking whatever rules he doesn’t like to get the job done.

IRONSIDE with Raymond Burr ran 7-1/2 seasons.  AMY PRENTISS was not the first time the series had featured a crossover or potential spin-off.  But it was the only time an NBC Mystery Movie series began as a “back-door spin-off pilot”.  This explains why I never saw this story until this week, as, while I was aware of IRONSIDE, I never watched it regularly.  Seeing as IRONSIDE wound up getting cancelled halfway thru its next season, I’d have to say ratings were going down, and starting a new series this way no doubt contributed to NBC not even bothering to give it a real chance.  As a replacement for the suddenly-cancelled HEC RAMSEY, AMY PRENTISS only ran 3 tv-movies as part of the Sunday night rotation!

Jessica Walter (PLAY MISTY FOR ME) is “Amy Prentiss”, a military vet and widow whose late husband served in the Coast Guard.  She’s tough, intelligent, outspoken, but also cares deeply about her job.  She’s also very ‘hands-on’, liking to go out in the field to follow up ongoing investigations, but she has no time for nonsense, whether it’s fellow officers who think women shouldn’t be cops, or a ‘feminist’ journalist who thinks she should be promoted JUST because she’s a woman!

William Shatner (STAR TREK) is “Bill Parkins”, whose free-wheeling style leads to an undercover woman officer being assaulted and raped (“These things happen.”, he says), and himself under investigation for shooting a fleeing suspect.  Prentiss fights to get him cleared and on her team, but his behavior and attitude eventually leads her to change her mind.

Art Metrano (Andy Sedaris’ SEVEN) is “Det. Rod Pena”, whose surface attitude is even worse than Parkins, yet, late in the story, he winds up becoming her assistant.

Robert Webber (REVENGE OF THE PINK PANTHER) is “Sam Burton”, who drinks too much, yet has a soft spot for Amy, and cleans up his act to get on her good side.

Barry Atwater (THE NIGHT STALKER) is “Lt. Tom Hubbard”, the current Chief, who’s getting promoted to Commissioner.  He, at least, seems to have no problems with Prentiss taking over his job.

Gene Lyons (STAR TREK: A Taste of Armageddon) is retiring Police Commissioner Dennis Randall.  This was apparently his last appearance as a regular on IRONSIDE, having been on the show from the very beginning.  The actor passed away only 6 weeks after this story was broadcast.

I’m not sure if I ever saw AMY PRENTISS when it first aired.  If I did, it must not have grabbed me.  I have to hand it to the people who did this, for doing one of the early police dramas starring a woman (though I’ve recently gotten hooked watching DECOY with Beverly Garland from 1957-58).  It’s just possible Jessica Walters, a beautiful woman, was playing a character who was TOO strong, and generally TOO serious to be that likable to tv audiences at the time.  Based purely on this pilot, I’d say the story was TOO complicated, with too many characters for most people to be able to follow what’s going on.  I had it rougher simply because I hadn’t seen IRONSIDE in more than 50 years, so I was trying to keep track of not only all the new characters in the spin-off, but also the older characters in the show it was being spun-off from.  That, I’m afraid, is ALWAYS a problem with “back-door pilots”.  It seems this series was up against it from the word go.

I’ve been attempting to watch every NBC Mystery Movie in broadcast order over the last 2 years, which becomes a challenge as some series have never had official home video releases, and some of the bootlegs that are available have had TERRIBLE picture quality.  I feel very lucky to have found this on Dailymotion, the very day it came up in my schedule.  The fact that NBC waited until December to run the first Sunday night episode would seem to indicate that they just couldn’t be bothered promoting it.

[profh0011]

PHILO VANCE’S GAMBLE  (1947)
The Emerald Murder Case   (5 of 10)

A jewel smuggler forms a "syndicate" to finance buying a rare emerald, to re-sell and double their profits. But he plans to skip the country on his own, leaving them and his girlfriend in the lurch. His mistake was claiming he'd hired Philo Vance to protect the jewel.  On hearing this, Vance (who knew him in New York) shows up to object his name being mis-used.  And that's when the crook is shot dead, and Vance is knocked on the head.

The rest of the film is a sucession of suspects, investigations, more murders, romantic entanglements, and more. 

I agree with the general sentiment that for a PRC film, this one isn't bad.  The plot is virtually impenetrable (but then, so is almost every Charlie Chan film).  Watching it twice back-to-back seems really called for if you want to understand what happens.  And the cast almost overcomes the near-total lack of a budget.  Among the players are Alan Curtis, Frank Jenks, Cliff Clark, James Burke, Joseph Crehen, Dan Seymour, Grady Sutton, Vivian Austin, Tala Birell, Toni Todd and Gavin Gordon. 

At least half of those I know from multiple better movies.  Cliff Clark was in 5 Falcon movies, James Burke was in 7 Ellery Queen movies, and with Frank Jenks as the comedy sidekick, I kept wondering, are we SURE this wasn't written as a "Falcon" film? It sure feels more like one of those than it does a "Philo Vance".

Perhaps the most baffling aspect of the 3 PRC Vance films is they were released out of sequence.  GAMBLE was shot 2nd (after SECRET MISSION) but released first.  And the 3rd one (released 2nd) featured a different lead actor.  Again, WHY? It makes me wonder what the heck was going on behind-the-scenes when these were made.

[profh0011]

AMY PRENTISS:  Baptism Of Fire
One Million Dollars—Or Else!   (6 of 10)

Having recently become the new Chief of Detectives, Amy faces opposition from a City Councilman, who hopes to use her as a target to help him win re-election.  Meanwhile, the chief suspect in a theft of technology plans from one factory to another is an old friend of her family, and, a man fired from his job decides to use a stolen howitzer to set off a series of massive explosions, and blackmail the city into paying him one million dollars—“Or else!”

Jessica Walter (PLAY MISTY FOR ME) is “Amy Prentiss”, promoted to Chief of Detectives but facing resistence from nearly the entire Detective Division because she’s a woman.

Art Metrano (SEVEN) is “Det. Rod Pena”, who’s become her right-hand man, doing whatever he can to help.  This may be the most likable, level-headed character I’ve ever seen him play!

William Shatner (STAR TREK) is “Det. Bill Parkins”.  Despite having been ordered to transfer to another part of the city, he’s back in this story, and seems just as arrogant and out-of-control as before.  He’s convinced that what seems death by natural causes was really murder, and is ordered to find evidence, while he continues to browbeat his suspect to the point where he’s removed from the case.  And even that doesn’t stop him.  By the last act, he looks like what Lt. Columbo might be if he was totally off the deep end.

Ken Swofford (THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN) is “Det. Ralph O’Brien”, who gets called out for moonlighting at a 2nd job, as it’s against department regulations.

Peter Haskell (THE OUTER LIMITS: Wolf 359) is “Ross Whitman”, badgered relentlessly by Parkins.  Amy can’t believe he’s guilty of theft—and murder.  But is he?

Helen Hunt (MAD ABOUT YOU) is “Jill Prentiss”, Amy’s young daughter.  She was 11 years old when she did this!

I was watching all the NBC Mystery Movies by the time this debuted, yet I have NO memory of ever seeing this.  Although, the climax, involving a stolen army howitzer cannon, did turn up in one of my own stories I wrote a year-and-a-half later.  Makes me wonder if I just had the show on but wasn’t paying attention.

At the moment, this is only available to watch on a 1986 Region 4 VHS from Australia, under the title “Prime Suspect”.  It’s been posted on Youtube with the picture “stretched” horizontally, and, naturally, since it’s PAL, is running at the wrong speed.  Somebody really should do proper releases for all the remaining NBC Mystery Movie series—and do them on Blu-Ray, so they’ll play at the correct speed in every country.

[profh0011]

McCOY:  THE BIG RIP-OFF
The Gold-Digger and The Con-Man   (8 of 10)

The young wife of a much-older millionaire is kidnapped.  But his lawyer, who volunteers to deliver the ransom money, is actually having an affair with the wife, and the kidnapping was a phony.  Meanwhile, a professional con-man with a gambling problem hears about it on the news, figures out what really happened, and makes a deal with the husband for 20% of the money, IF he can get it back.

THE STING with Paul Newman and Robert Redford was a huge hit in late 1973.  It figures that only a little more than a year later, someone would do a TV pilot with a similar idea.  Simon Templar had been pulling scams on criminals at least as far back as the early 1930s, and Sam McCloud more than once had gone undercover with similar scams (though in his case, they always tended to go wrong).  Following the loss of not only HEC RAMSEY but the entire NBC Wednesday / Tuesday Mystery Movie line-up, AMY PRENTISS had only lasted 3 installments (plus its IRONSIDE back-door pilot).  So they were definitely in the market for a new “4th” series to add to their 3 long-running ones.

Tony Curtis (SOME LIKE IT HOT) is “McCoy” (does this guy even have a first name?), who one friend says would make a great private eye, but he doesn’t like working steady hours.  He’s also got a bad habit of losing money gambling, and when he finds himself owing someone thirty thousand dollars (and with a pair of over-eager henchman trailing him all over town reminding him of it), he has the urge to make the money as quickly as possible.  His method of doing this involves not simply conning the crooks, but multiple other people simultaneously in order to pull off the main con he’s doing.  It’s absolutely dizzying, watching him portraying several different characters as he works his way through the plot.  This guy makes “Jim Phelps” (Peter Graves) seem like an amatuer by comparison.

Roscoe Lee Brown (2 unforgettable episodes of ALL IN THE FAMILY) is “Silky Gideon Gibbs”, a really terrible stand-up comic & impressionist, who’s much more skilled when he’s acting as McCoy’s right-hand con-man.  Brown and Curtis really made a great team on this series.

Brenda Vaccaro (McCLOUD: The Park Avenue Rustlers) is a newspaper reporter and good friend of McCoy, who winds up being indispensible helping him set up various aspects of his ridiculously-complicated con-game.

John Dehner (KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER: The Knightly Murders) is “Bishop”, the rich old millionaire whose gold-digging wife married him when she thought he was dying, then decided to rob him blind when he recovered.  Though shocked by McCoy’s theory, he’s happy to make a deal with him, only paying if McCoy is successful.

Larry Hagman (I DREAM OF JEANNIE) is “Darnell”, Bishop’s lawyer, in con-man’s terms, “the mark”.  As with most of the best con-games, the key is to make the mark do much of the work himself, based purely on how greedy they are.  Still some years before DALLAS, Hagman in the 70s was obviously trying to put his squeaky-clean image from JEANNIE behind him.  (I’ve seen a lot of 60s TV stars doing that in the 70s.)

Also in the rather large cast were Morgan Woodward, Nate Esformes & Len Lesser (the gambler eager to get paid back and his 2 henchmen), Woodrow Parfrey (a real estate agent trying to rent out a mansion), Charles MacCauley (a potential renter that McCoy has to scare away), Vito Scotti (Captain of a tanker that McCoy has to get out of the way for an hour), and Ed Peck (a cop, who reveals that McCoy & Gibbs are nothing but crooks).

Multiple episodes of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE had Phelps reveal to the baddies that he and his people were actually government agents—but in every case, that reveal was part of his plan, and they still had no idea what he was really doing.  The climax of this story has a variation on that, except, in this case, McCoy didn’t plan it out in advance, he was improvising as he went along!

As with so many NBC Mystery Movie series in the 70s, I missed this pilot when it was first-run, but came in on the first “regular” episode.  It only ran 4 installments (5 including the pilot), but for that one season, it was one of my FAVORITE things on the air!  It continued to baffle me how NBC kept doing these really wonderful Mystery Movie series, that just DIDN’T last.  McCOY remains, to this day, one of my favorite things Tony Curtis ever did in his entire career.  If this thing hasn’t been issued on DVD, it damn well should be!

[profh0011]

ELLERY QUEEN:  TOO MANY SUSPECTS  (1975)
Never Cheat On Your Wife!  (10 of 10)

When a fashion designer is murdered in her apartment, the married man she was having an affair with is the obvious suspect.  But as the investigation continues, several other people (including his wife, his son, his chauffer and a burglar who’s been robbing apartments in the area) all come under suspicion as well.  Stymied by this, New York Police Inspector Richard Queen gets his murder mystery writer son Ellery to help, and at times, begins to regret doing so.

Near the end of the 1974-75 tv season, NBC aired 2 pilots that wound up going to series the following September.  One was McCOY with Tony Curtis, aired on an odd night but which became part of the Sunday Mystery Movie rotation.  The other was ELLERY QUEEN, actually aired during the Sunday Mystery Movie timeslot, but which instead became a one-hour weekly when it went to series.  I’d say both were far-better than AMY PRENTISS, which only had 3 regular movies, but, maddeningly, neither of the new shows lasted more than a single season.

It turns out, by 1975, there had been no less than 9 previous film versions of ELLERY QUEEN!  There were a paid of one-off movies in the 1930s, a pair of short-lived movie series in the 1940s, 4 different tv series in the 1950s, and a terribly-misguided unsold tv pilot in 1971.  At the time, this 1975 tv movie was my first exposure to the character.  As of this writing, I’ve seen all but the 1950s versions, and of the 6 that I have seen, I rate this one as BY FAR the BEST one ever done!

Jim Hutton (THE GREEN BERETS, HELLFIGHTERS) is “Ellery Queen”, young, brilliant, so focused at times as to be downright absent-minded, and according to his Dad, the worst driver in the world.  He tends to think ouside the box, like when he sets a trap for the burglar, just to use him to clear one of the murder suspects.

David Wayne (BATMAN) is “Inspector Queen”, alternately warm or agitated, depending on the moment, who wants his son’s help solving complicated crimes, but also finds himself arguing with him so much that at one point he threatens to cut him out of his will.  Harry Morgan played the part in 1971, and he was every bit as good as Wayne, in fact, to me, the ONLY good thing about that film. 

John Hillerman (BLAZING SADDLES, MAGNUM P.I.) is “Simon Brimmer”, a radio actor who plays a detective, who at first wants to adapt Ellery’s real-life cases and pass them off as his own, but later decides to act as a real-life detective, trying to get to the solution before Ellery can.  He was fun in this pilot movie, but when the show went to a series, he became increasingly-annoying, virtually this show’s “Dr. Smith”.

Nancy Kovack (JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS) is “Monica Gray”, the murder victim, who presents Inspector Queen with a baffling clue when she yanks out the electric cord to her TV set just before dying.  Ellery eventually decided to find out exactly what was on the screen at the moment she died.

Ray Milland (THE UNINVITED) is “Carson McKell”, who was in the process of ending his affair the very night his mistress was murdered.

Kim Hunter (PLANET OF THE APES) is “Marion McKell”, who figured out her husband was unfaithful, and the night of the murder, went to visit her, just to get a look her “competition”.

Monte Markham (DEATH TAKES A HOLIDAY) is “Tom McKell”, the hot-headed son who objects violently to having his parents accused of murder.

Tim O’Connor (BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY) is “Ben Waterson”, the family attourney who defends Carson in court.

Gail Strickland (the NIGHT COURT pilot) is “Gail Stevens”, Carson’s secretary, who helps Ellery prove that at least Mrs. McKell couldn’t have done it.

15-year-old Frannie Michel played Ellery’s young cousin “Penny”, who I found quite charming.  It’s disappointing she never appeared in the follow-up series.

This movie and the subsequent series was done as a period piece set in 1947, and had more class, more style and more entertainment value than any of the existing NBC Mystery Movies combined! I loved it when I first saw it, and again when I saw it on a rerun.  I wasn’t surprised it went to series, but was terribly saddened when it ended after only one year.  How this could end so soon while something like COLUMBO just went on and on year after year was beyond me.

As part of my chronological NBC Mystery Movie marathon, I was able to see a crystal-clear print of this on Youtube, and had the most bizarre experience. I’m certain I saw this twice before, but it’s been DECADES—and yet, it felt as if I’d only watched it recently, so many parts of it were so vivid, so clear in my mind.  I haven’t had a thing like that happen since I got the DVD set for THE TIME TUNNEL and watched the pilot, “Rendezvous With Yesterday”, for the first time since September 1966!

I haven’t looked to see it this series is available on disc yet, but, if it is, I’m sure I’ll be going after it.

[SuperScrounge]

On a side note, on the Leverage episode, The 10 Li'l Grifters Job, the characters were at a party where people dressed as fictional detectives and star Timothy Hutton dressed as Ellery Queen and even wore the same hat that his father wore in the '70s series.

[profh0011]

Sounds fun.  Timothy Hutton always struck me as one of those actors who was drawn to the types of films I never had any interest in whatsoever (ORDINARY PEOPLE for example).

But he made NERO WOLFE a success!  I understand after the pilot, he got involved as one of the producers.  Good for him!  Best decision anyone made on that show was making "sidekick" Archie Goodwin the real star and focus of the show, as he was always so fun, charming, likable, whereas Nero, while brilliant, was none of those things.  It was William Conrad in an earlier version that turned me off on that series, despite my being a fan of his earlier show CANNON.

I've since seen the 1960 unsold pilot with Kurt Kaznar as Nero and William Shatner as Archie-- THAT was fun!!!  Also, the 1977 unsold pilot with Thayer David and Tom Mason as Nero & Archie.  Thayer David got my vote as the BEST Nero Wolfe ever.  But that tv film had NO style whatsoever, and Tom Mason was just annoying.  Crazy enough, the very same story they did in that pilot was later done by Chaykin & Hutton.  The latter was way more fun to watch-- but almost indecipherable.  The 1977 version, I had NO trouble following the plot at all.  I think that sums up the difference pretty simply.  The Chaykin-Hutton series was probably the only mystery show I ever watched where, I LOVED watching it... even if I almost always found it IMPOSSIBLE to follow the plots.

Years later... I discovered that many of the one-hour episodes had been filmed as 2-HOUR episodes... but A&E in America BUTCHERED them down to one hour stories.  GEEZ!!!  No wonder I had so much trouble following so many of them.  The versions I saw on Youtube made perfect sense.  If that show is available on DVD or BR, I hope to God they have the FULL-LENGTH versions, not the heavily-edited ones.


A real missed bet was no one ever casting Raymond Burr as Nero Wolfe.  He would have had a lot more style than William Conrad, and, in real life, he loved orchids (just like Wolfe did).