Murder: INDECIPHERABLE *******
A year after Stacy Keach's debut as Mike Hammer in "
MURDER ME, MURDER YOU", the powers-that-be finally stopped twiddling their thumbs and gave the go-ahead for the follow-up. "
MORE THAN MURDER" was the result, and anyone who's ever watched the Stacy Keach
HAMMER TV series can attest, many of the regular elements of the show made their debut here. We already got Mike, his office, his '64 Mustang, his "cowboy" mustache, Pat Chambers & Barrington. This time around, we got Lindsay Bloom as Velda, Danny Goldman as "Ozzie the Answer", "The Face" (WHO IS SHE?
?), and the catch-phrase, "
I'll make a note." There's also Mike's gum-ball machine, and Velda always trying to help him quit smoking. One almost wonders why they bothered doing this as a 2-hour movie, instead of a 2-parter, since the ongoing weekly series began only ONE WEEK after this aired.
There's a lot to like here... the endless parade of large-breasted beauties wearing dresses with low neck-lines, all of whom seem to want to sleep with our favorite P.I.; the endless succession of shoot-outs, punch-outs, and tough-guy wise-cracks. There's also Robyn Douglass (who'd I'd seen in that "
1980" show whose full title I make a point never to utter, or even type out), and Lynn-Holly Johnson (my FAVORITE "Bond girl"-- who DOESN'T get to sleep with Mike, either, poor girl).
However, a trend that, while I suppose does go back at least as far as "
I, THE JURY" in 1953, continues here and, if anything, escalates totally out of control. That being, the plot is COMPLETELY incomprehensible. Believe me, I know. I've seen this at least 6 times since it first aired. When you've watched as many cop shows, detective shows, murder mysteries and the like as I have over the decades, and you STILL can't follow the plot, I figure it isn't me. And, as I recall, this trend became a fixture of the entire Stacy Keach
HAMMER series, from start to finish. It makes me wonder... did they include all the gorgeous women, all the brutal fights and murders, all the hot-tempered ego-posturing, and the cool jazz music score, to distract viewers from the fact that the plots are INDECIPHERABLE? Or are all those elements-- as they were in the Bogart-Bacall
BIG SLEEP-- the REASON it's impossible to understand the stories, EVEN at the end when they spell it all out for you?
As much as I did like this (despite itself), and as much as I loved the weekly series, there's one thing I always regretted about it... that because they waited SO LONG to do the 2nd one, they weren't able to get Tanya Roberts to come back as Velda. Damn shame. Of all of them, she was my favorite (with Margaret Sheridan a close second). Lindsay Bloom (who dyed her blonde hair black and lost a lot of pounds because she wanted the role so much) is terrific... but she never made me forget the girl she replaced.
