THE DEFENDERS (1961): Season One

Robert Reed and E. G. Marshall

THE DEFENDERS (1961 TV series). Season One. 

Lawrence Preston (E. G. Marshall) and his son Kenneth (Robert Reed) are partners in a law firm that represents criminal defendants. The show lasted for four seasons and won numerous awards and accolades. Only the first season has been transferred to DVD and it gives a good taste of the series' good and bad points. Marshall and Reed are both excellent as the highly dignified if personable Lawrence and his comparatively hot-headed son. The interplay between the two, which is often quite argumentative, is one of the best things about the show. 

Marshall with Jack Klugman

The Defenders was created by Reginald Rose, who also scripted several of the episodes. The series is unlike Perry Mason because it often deals in social issues and eagerly embraces controversy. One might say it has "depth," although there are times that the show is more pretentious and irritating than anything else and worse, becomes quite preachy and even muddled. The series takes place in Manhattan and was shot at the Filmways Studio in New York, giving it an added veracity and lots of local color with its location filming. The directors who worked on the series include Daniel Petrie, Franklin Schaffner, Buzz Kulik, Paul Bogart, and others. Jack Klugman appeared sporadically as one of the ADAs in the district attorneys office and is quite good in the role. Guest stars on the show included Elizabeth Ashley, Ben Piazza, Frank Gorshin, Pat Hingle, Robert Duvall, Robert Loggia, Sylvia Miles, Ken Kercherval, Gloria De Haven. and Zachary Scott. 

Reed with Salome Jens

Most of the episodes were solid "Bs" with a few that were even better. "The Point Shaver" deals with a college athlete who is accused of taking bribes. "Death Across the Counter" has a vet (Clu Culager) accused of shooting a man during a robbery but Ken is convinced, against all odds, that he is innocent. "The Treadmill" has the Prestons doing their damnedest to save a man from the death penalty for a crime he committed 25 years in the past. "The Search" has a man confessing to a murder that another man was executed for and Larry tries to find out the truth while he and the prosecutor (Jack Klugman) try to figure out what went wrong with the system.  "The Best Defense" is a terrific story in which a mobster is arrested for murder but swears he is innocent -- this has a highly ironic finale. In "The Naked Heiress" a man leaves his money to a stripper (Salome Jens), then falls in front of a train (Glenda Farrell is outstanding as the stripper's mother). "Reunion with Death" has Larry presiding over a mock trial when Korean vets accuse one of their number of selling them out under torture. The very best season one episode is arguably "The Bedside Murder," in which an elderly doctor (Sam Jaffe) is accused of murdering a wealthy old woman because she left him money in her will. 

"The Attack:" Marchand, Barbara Barrie, Kiley

Although not quite as good as the aforementioned episodes, "The Attack" presents an interesting situation when a man (Richard Kiley) goes after the youth who assaulted his little girl, only to learn that he killed the wrong man; Nancy Marchand played the dead man's mother. Hands down, the absolute worst season one episode was "Gideon's Follies," in which a rich man is murdered and all of his many ex-wives are the suspects. Foolish and unfunny, it played like a witless spoof of Burke's Law, a series that did not debut for another two years. It was as if the producers, told that some people found The Defenders too grim, decided to lighten things up for one episode -- but it was a disaster. 

Verdict: Some very good scripts, but not nearly as much fun nor as classy as Perry Mason. **3/4. 

12 ANGRY MEN

12 ANGRY MEN (1957). Director: Sidney Lumet.

12 men have to decide the fate of a young man who's been accused of murdering his father. One of the jurors (Henry Fonda) is a doubting Thomas when it comes to the defendant's guilt right from the get-go and slowly he encourages the others to take another look at the purported evidence. While well-meaning and very well acted (Martin Balsam, Lee J. Cobb, E. G. Marshall, Jack Klugman, Jack Warden etc. are also in the cast), the picture is too theatrical, a bit cliched, and rather superficial all told. The implication that a death penalty advocate is a secret sadist is simply dime store psychology at its worst. It's also odd that no one ever brings up the simple notion of self-defense, which of course would make the defendant not guilty.

NOTE: I watched this on TCM with a friend who is hard-of-hearing, so I had the closed captioning turned on. I was appalled at the difference between what was being said by the actors and what I read in the captions. For instance, a line about the "electric chair" was changed to "lethal injection." Another pivotal line had its meaning carelessly reversed. It was as if the person doing the captioning just felt like writing whatever the hell they wanted instead of sticking to the script. I recognize that dialogue is often changed in a caption to make it shorter and more easily and quickly read, but that's not what was going on here. TCM should get another company to do its captions or whoever captioned 12 Angry Men should find work elsewhere.

Verdict: Movie -- **. Captions -- 0 stars.

INTERIORS

INTERIORS (1978). Director/writer: Woody Allen.

63-year-old Arthur (E. G. Marshall) tells his wife and three daughters that he wants to move out and be by himself for awhile. His wife Eve (Geraldine Page) foolishly imagines that he'll come back to her, and in this is humored by one of her daughters while another tries to make her see reality. Renata, a poetess (Diane Keaton), is married to a novelist (Richard Jordan) whose work fails to impress the critics. Her sister Flynn (Kristin Griffith) is an actress with an undistinguished career, and the third daughter, Joey (Marybeth Hurt), is still struggling to find herself. Renata says of Joey: "She has all the anguish and anxiety of the artistic personality without any of the talent." The situation leads inexorably to tragedy after Arthur gets a new woman, Pearl (Maureen Stapleton), in his life. Interiors is interesting and well-acted, but while Allen may not have wanted to just spell everything out, the film still needs more detail and character development. Dramatic things happen but the film doesn't always give us a chance to see the characters reacting to them. Interiors is Allen working in an Ingmar Bergman mode, although the film is not as deliberately-paced as anything by Bergman. Well-photographed by Gordon Willis. Sam Waterston has a small role as Joey's better half.

Verdict: Good enough to make you wish it were better. ***.