A talky, boring TV show for the Kraft anthology series, "The Deep End" gave me warning of crap to come in the opening credits, as director Francis D. Lyon was a B-movie director whose work was consistently lousy, with the exception of "Cult of the Cobra" which I enjoyed as camp when I was young.
This is a mediocre murder mystery, very dull with 1-dimensional characters doing walk-throughs rather than acting. The violence is played down and unthrilling, and the plot twists basic and unsatisfying. The ending is particularly poor and convenient.
It's a lily-white cast, the lack of even a teeny it of diversity rather glaring to watch nowadays when minorities have belatedly been given some, but not enough, recognition by Hollywood casting directors.
Good actors each pick up a paycheck -Gulager a particularly lifeless hero (the only laugh in the whole show is when Aldo Ray off-handedly compares him to James Bond), Ray miscast as the red-herring "bad guy" who isn't, Whit Bissell as a weasel, etc. Two fabulous leading ladies are thoroughly wasted: Ellen Burstyn in a dual role of zero impact -clearly no help in getting her career in gear so she'd have to wait half a dozen years or so for a break, and especially Tina Louise, setting off zero sparks in what could have been a juicier part in a salacious film rather than G-rated TV of the era.
What's wholly missing is some dramatics, some colorful dialogue, some sleaze and some red-blooded scenes of violence/sex/emotion. I could almost imagine director Lyon saying to his cast after a scene: Let's do another take -please tone it down - give me less!
This is a mediocre murder mystery, very dull with 1-dimensional characters doing walk-throughs rather than acting. The violence is played down and unthrilling, and the plot twists basic and unsatisfying. The ending is particularly poor and convenient.
It's a lily-white cast, the lack of even a teeny it of diversity rather glaring to watch nowadays when minorities have belatedly been given some, but not enough, recognition by Hollywood casting directors.
Good actors each pick up a paycheck -Gulager a particularly lifeless hero (the only laugh in the whole show is when Aldo Ray off-handedly compares him to James Bond), Ray miscast as the red-herring "bad guy" who isn't, Whit Bissell as a weasel, etc. Two fabulous leading ladies are thoroughly wasted: Ellen Burstyn in a dual role of zero impact -clearly no help in getting her career in gear so she'd have to wait half a dozen years or so for a break, and especially Tina Louise, setting off zero sparks in what could have been a juicier part in a salacious film rather than G-rated TV of the era.
What's wholly missing is some dramatics, some colorful dialogue, some sleaze and some red-blooded scenes of violence/sex/emotion. I could almost imagine director Lyon saying to his cast after a scene: Let's do another take -please tone it down - give me less!