MARLOWE (1969)

Sharon Farrell and James Garner

MARLOWE (1969). Director: Paul Bogart. 

Philip Marlowe (James Garner of The Children's Hour) is hired by mousy Orfamay Quest (Sharon Farrell of It's Alive) to find her brother, but during his search the P.I. uncovers a blackmail plot involving squeaky queen sitcom star Mavis Wald (Gayle Hunnicutt of Dallas), who is having an affair with a racketeer named Steelgrave (H. M. Wynant). Little does he know that both cases are connected. Marlowe stumbles over a couple of corpses of men who have been killed with an icepick, and does his best to get along with Lt. French (Carroll O'Connor) and Sgt. Beifus (Kenneth Tobey). Two other characters Marlowe has to deal with are sexy stripper Delores Gonzales (Rita Moreno) and the karate-chopping enforcer Winslow Wong (Bruce Lee). 

Garner with Hunnicutt

Marlowe is an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1940's novel "The Little Sister," and this film almost manages to make a little more sense of its convoluted plot, but not quite. The movie updates the story to the sixties when it was filmed, so one has to look at Garner -- who is not bad -- as an alternate modern version of Philip Marlowe, but hardly the real deal. The best performances in this are actually from a truly excellent Sharon Farrell, O'Connor (who gets one speech taken from the novel), Tobey, and Moreno, who does a very sexy dance late in the proceedings. William Daniels and Jackie Coogan also have good roles and run with them. Hunnicutt is adequate in a smaller and less showy role than Garner or Farrell, although she gets billed after Garner. She and Farrell have a brief "cat fight."

Paging Rockford

Bruce Lee features in two sequences. The first is a funny one in which Lee breaks up Marlowe's office, upsetting the apparently straight hairdresser, Chuck (Christopher Cary), who is friendly with Marlowe, takes his messages, and teaches his trade to women in the office next door. The second is a really stupid sequence in which Lee -- discombobulated after Marlowe suggests he's gay -- hurls himself at his opponent and goes right over a railing several stories high. (As others have noted, any fight between Lee and Garner would actually not have ended well for Garner.)

Garner never appeared again as Marlowe, but he fled to television and starred as a private eye in The Rockford Files for several years beginning in 1974. 

Verdict: This is a modestly entertaining, somewhat confusing private eye flick made twenty years too late. **1/2. 

DALLAS: THE FINAL SEASONS

Larry Hagman and Gayle Hunnicutt

DALLAS Season 12 - 14. 1988 - 1991.

I was never the biggest fan of Dallas, but like most people (including my late mother who never watched the show ever) I tuned in for "Who Shot J.R?" but the show never became a guilty pleasure until the last couple of seasons, which were fast-paced fun. J. R. Ewing (Larry Hagman) got involved in a near-shotgun wedding with Callie (Cathy Podewell), had himself committed to a mental institution to get some papers (from Alexis Smith!), got shot again by his ex-wife Sue Ellen (Linda Gray), who used her money to finance a biopic about him. While this roman a clef film took center stage in season 12, the sub-plot never really amounted to much. Sue Ellen simply told J. R. that she wouldn't release the film as long as he behaved himself. We never saw the reaction from the cast or even the director (whom she married off-screen) when they found out the public would never even see the movie. George Kennedy [Strait-Jacket] showed up as a business rival with his own inner demons, and Gayle Hunnicutt [The Legend of Hell House] appeared in more than one season as J. R.'s lost and long-time love (when she finally breaks off her engagement to him, J. R. doesn't try very hard to get her back). Meanwhile Bobby (Patrick Duffy of The Last of Mrs. Lincoln) lost his wife, Pam, who first ran off after being disfigured in a car crash and then got a terminal illness, but decided not to tell anyone; Bobby's next wife was shot and killed on their honeymoon. Hagman wasn't a great actor, but he made the most of J. R. and offered a very effective portrayal. The performers on Dallas sometimes phoned in their performances, but at other times they were really on target. For instance, George Kennedy had a great scene when he's talking to his son on the phone and expressing how overjoyed he is that he's being released from a Mexican prison. Season 13 introduced the charming Sasha Mitchell as J. R.'s son (by Hunnicutt, who was quite good), who crosses both wits and swords with his father. Mitchell was not a seasoned performer, but he had an appealing, inoffensive arrogance that complimented his good looks and made him an asset to the show. A mention should be made of the two very talented child performers, Omri Katz and Joshua Harris, as the sons, respectively, of J.R. and Bobby. It was fun to see Barbara Eden, Hagman's co-star from I Dream of Jeannie, as an oil woman who really puts J. R through the wringer in season 14. Ken Kercheval was fine as J. R.'s bitter rival, Cliff Barnes, but the character could be so irritating (and always looked like an unmade bed) that it's a wonder he lasted fourteen seasons when others were sent packing! The disappointing last episode of the show had J. R. contemplating suicide while a demon played by Joel Gray (!) showed him what life would have been like for the other members of his family if he had never been born. Ted Shackleford as Gary Ewing (of Knots Landing) probably had more footage in this episode than in all the other seasons combined. The final season was followed by three TV movies and the show was revived in 2014 with some of the original players.

Verdict: Big hair, bad marriages, cat fights, bar fights, bed-hopping, philandering, plotting and co-plotting, and a little something about the oil industry, ***

THE RETURN OF THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.

David McCallum and Robert Vaughn

THE RETURN OF THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair (1983 telefilm). Director: Ray Austin.

"THRUSH is now a nuclear power."

"Bed bugs. Bed bugs in every hotel in New York." -- Illya

Fifteen years have gone by and both Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) have left UNCLE. Solo now works in computers and Illya runs a fashion house called Vanya's. Alexander Waverly has passed on and been replaced by Sir John Raleigh (Patrick Macnee of The Avengers.) THRUSH is also back in business, and has acquired a nuclear device with which it can wipe out a large part of the country. Justine Seraphin (Anthony Zerbe), who is working for THRUSH, wants $350 million dollars to be delivered by Napoleon Solo -- or else. Can Solo importune Illya, who quit UNCLE after an assignment went bad and a young lady died, into coming out of retirement one last time? Both Vaughn and McCallum were in their early fifties but time was much kinder to McCallum, who still seems lithe and attractive. Vaughn, however, plays with his customary authority and panache, and both men give excellent performances. Gayle Hunnicutt is on the mark as a Russian woman who needs Solo's help, as are Simon Williams as the son of the man who built the bomb, John Harkins as the nasty Alexi Kemp, and Jan Triska as the gambling, icy Vaselievich. Zerbe and Geoffrey Lewis make acceptable villains, and Susan Woollen has a nice turn as Raleigh's gal Friday, who happens to be named Janice Friday. George Lazenby of On Her Majesty's Secret Service has a cameo playing "J.B." and even George Sanders [A Scandal in Paris], who appeared in more than one UNCLE episode, shows up briefly at the end as Hunnicutt's father. Tom Mason is effective enough as a comparatively crude UNCLE agent. [Amazing that no other operatives are in the league of Solo and Kuryakin!] The souped-up version of the theme music really sucks. This is basically a fair-to-middling longer episode of the UNCLE show with a suspenseful climax, and some well-done sequences. Stupid moments have Raleigh asking Solo to report to duty but not bothering to tell him that UNCLE HQ has moved!

Verdict: Seeing Napoleon Solo and John Steed playing together is not as much fun as you might imagine. **1/2.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973). Director: John Hough. 

A group of parapsychologists come to investigate the haunted Belasco house, known as "The Mount Everest of haunted houses" as part of a paid experiment to see if there really is life after death. The last investigating team were all killed except for one man, Ben Fischer (Roddy McDowall), who is going along on this trip as well. Also in the party are scientist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), his wife Ann (Gayle Hunnicutt), and the psychic Florence Tanner (Pamela Franklin), who is convinced that the strong presence of the dead old owner Emeric Belasco is permeating and corrupting the spooky mansion. The film has a choppy continuity, but it's also suspenseful, absorbing, and quite creepy at times. McDowell and Franklin give particularly good performances, and Michael Gough has a notable guest appearance. Based on a novel by Richard Matheson, who also did the screenplay. 

Verdict: Watch after midnight with a friend. ***.