Mannix: I haven't seen much of this, but it had an interesting history. The first season had Mike Connors's title character working for an investigative firm called Intellect which relied on computers to reach its solutions. Only Mannix was an old-fashioned PI who ignored the computers and went with his own hunches. So a variation on the rationalism-vs.-romance theme that's really at the heart of classic mystery fiction. From Season 2 onwards they'd drop the computer angle and make Mannix a private detective.
Columbo: A biggie, maybe the biggie. They first created the LAPD lieutenant for a TV play starring Bert Freed as Columbo. But of course it was after Peter Falk stepped into the role that he really became the character we know and love. And actually Falk needed a practice run. He's off, a little too standard a cop, in the movie Prescription for Murder. In the follow-up, Ransom for a Dead Man, he's more disheveled and disarming. This seems like it could work.
Ellery Queen: Interestingly they took two stabs at Dannay and Lee's mystery writer detective. The first was in a TV movie starring Rat Packer Peter Lawford as Ellery, helping police track a serial killer. They used a pseudonym for this one, perhaps not approving of the changes made to their script. Their second try starred Jim Hutton (Timothy's dad) as Ellery, with David Wayne as his police inspector father. It only lasted one season plus a pilot movie, but hasn't been forgotten.
Murder She Wrote: Their last commercially successful series, as Levinson died a couple of years into production. Also features a mystery writer as the lead, making it something of a Queen companion piece. It's not a period piece, so 80s aesthetics permeate everything. (Femme fatales wear so much product in their hair that they can't even smoke!) Angela Lansbury plays Jessica Fletcher with a mix of warmth and reserve that helps to sell fairly standard crime stories. Then sometimes it pays off with a truly bonkers episode, like one where Jose Ferrer plays a hypnotist who gets murdered in a roomful of hypnotized subjects.
The pair ventured outside of the genre sometimes as well. TV movies they've scripted include That Certain Summer, with Hal Holbrook as a gay father, and The Execution of Private Slovik, a docudrama about a young GI executed for desertion in World War II. They had some impressive accomplishments.
2 comments:
Jer said curiosity led him to learn about Richard Levinson and William Link when we started watching Columbo. I hadn't heard of them at all but TVTropes has a brief synopsis of their accomplishments in tv series history and it's quite a list. In a way it's almost like the two of them defined tv mystery shows from 1967 to 1985. High school friends collaborating so successfully for that long is remarkable at any time.
I remember seeing a few episodes of Mannix when it was on originally, probably at my parent's house, since owning a television set wasn't a priority at the time. Nowadays it might be fun to watch (except it turns out it's not on a streaming service so we'd have to buy it).
Episodes of Colombo entertained us for a good long while. The show definitely made Peter Falk's career - who could forget him turning around on his was out the door saying "Oh, just one more thing.." I wonder how much of his dialog was scripted back then and how much Falk adlibbed. Anyway, when I read further I happened to see the Columbo character was largely inspired by the shabby inspector, Albert Fichet, in a movie we did see - Les Diaboliques (1955).
Jim Hutton and David Wayne were great protagonists in Ellery Queen. The father-son relationship worked well as did the usual supporting cast - Velie and the unforgettable Simon Brimmer. Watching him was much like seeing Hamilton Burger. It was pretty cool that near the end of every show Ellery would break the fourth wall to ask the audience if we'd solved the mystery.
I've only ever seen a couple of episodes of Murder She Wrote but it was one of my mother's favorite shows. Angela Lansbury made a fine 'cozy' detective. It sounds like the one you described with Jose Ferrer getting murdered was worth seeing. (Why do I think someone was ony pretending to be hypnotized?)
It was sad to read that Richard Levinson had died so young.
Yeah, they'd been friends back in Philly, apparently. They both moved across the country and wound up collaborating for what looks like about 30 years. It's a very cool story.
When you mention seeing something at your parents’ house I can picture the room you would have seen it in. Don’t know if your paintings were up on the wall yet, but they were very striking. Anyway, there seem to be some episodes on Dailymotion now, which isn’t as crazy intrusive with ads as it used to be.
I’ve read that Peter Falk made up the “just one more thing” move himself, and by accident. He’d gotten through a scene with the suspect but remembered at the last minute that he’d forgotten to ask something, so he shoehorned it in before they stopped filming. Given the fact that he played it much more as a traditional cop in the first movie it seems to have influenced his characterization from there on out. They saw the happy accident for what it was. I’m still very much enjoying the good lieutenant.
With Ellery Queen they really nailed the look of old mystery movies translated into color TV terms. The fourth wall break was sort of like what you might hear on a radio show. Hutton and Wayne and Tom Reese (Velie) had great chemistry together, along with John Hillerman. I wonder if the character had extra resonance for Levinson and Link because he was made up by a couple of Jewish cousins (though one converted to Anglicanism.)
TV is one area where I tend to prefer the 70s to the 80s. For example Night Court was created by some of the people behind Barney Miller but never tickled me as much. But MSW was well-made all things considered. (Good educated guess. Fun to find out who, too.)
Yeah, he was about the age I am now. Sad, if quite accomplished.
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