Bosley, it is upto you to talk to Charlie", says Sabrina, wagging her finger.
"We don't want her, and we don't need her", adds Kelly, getting right into Bosley's face.
"It's nothing personal, we don't need anybody", continues Sabrina assertively.
"That's right, whoever she is", says Kelly.
"Charlie knows what he's doing", is Bosley's only response, "trust Charlie".
The Townsend agency door bell rings, and in she walks, wearing a figure-hugging shiny black track suit.
"Hi", she says with a big grin, "I'm here".
Kelly and Sabrina look confused
"It's me, Kris...Kris Monroe"
"As in Kris Monroe, Jill's younger sister, pigtails and braces", enquires an open-mouthed Sabrina - suddenly the penny drops, and all three of them run upto one another and hug excitedly.
It's often forgotten in this legendary opening scene, in which Kris (Cheryl Ladd) introduces herself, just how good Kate Jackson (as Sabrina) and Jaclyn Smith (as Kelly) are; pacing up and down behind Bosley, knocking into each other, angrily expressing their opposition to having to work with someone new... before Kris comes bouncing in.
This opening is just one of a number of good scenes in both parts 1 and 2 of 'Angels In Paradise'. There are some great guest actors too.
I particularly like the Hawaiian native Kona (played by Pat Suzuki) of Kona's Massage Parlour, who Kelly visits to glean information.
"We got nothing to say to nobody about nothing, sister... ain't got nothing to say, nooo kind of way, too easy be dead".
Kona asks Kelly if she's 'in the business', and when Kelly says no, Kona tells her, "Big shame, girl, could get rich, sister" (the last episode of the 1st series, titled The Blue Angels, centered around brothels masquerading as massage parlours, and here we are again, straight into the 2nd series and there's a massage parlour/brothel - albeit with a lot more humour than those places probably possess in real life).
Alan Manson as a crooked lawyer is a another well- acted comedic bit part. He tells Bosley, "you may have some ilegal enterprise in mind, but lawyers shouldn't know about things like that, should they?". So when Bosley asks him if his client, Leilani, happened to mention that Bosley needed a layout of the state prison, the lawyer replies, "No, but I happen to have a complete ground plan of that establishment right here, isn't that a coincidence?", and he hands Bosley a brown envelope.
"Ah yes, amazing coincidence", says Bosley, "you know, for an honest lawyer that doesn't know what's going on, you're just a bundle of help".
Unfortunately for this charmer though, when he later asks Sabrina out for dinner, after, by coincidence, he just happened to have right there all the information and diagrams of a boat Sabrina had asked about, Sabrina turns him down on the principle of, "I don't dinner with crooked lawyers".
Leilani herself is brilliantly played by 38 year old France Nuyen, who first appears by emerging from the sea in a bikini. Leilani's sister-in-law describes Leilani to Kris as "charming, greedy, aggressive, educated, bloodthirsty... and arranges the best dinner parties this island's ever seen".
The sister-in-law (played by Lydia Lei) is dressed in a smart khaki blouse and long skirt, but as she's talking to Kris, a bell rings, and she suddenly lets her hair down and starts undoing her blouse. "Surfs Up", she says, and the camera turns to show lots of young men and women running out of some kind of college building, stripping off their tops and trousers as they do so. As the camera goes back to the sister-in-law, she's already taken off her blouse and is in now in the process of, rather sexily, removing her skirt, to reveal another stunning body in a bikini - can't think why Charlie's Angels was so popular!
In complete contrast to everyone else on the island, who generally wear Hawaiian tops and shorts, Mr Blue, a gangster from Chicago who's moved in on the Hawaiian smuggling scene, always wears a jacket, and first appears in a suit and tie when he meets the three Angels. Played convincingly, and amusingly, by Art Metrano, Mr Blue complains throughout about every aspect of the island, "the restaurants here are lousy, they serve pork and poi - that's purple stuff that tastes like Elmer's glue".
When Charlie and Mr Blue are having a conversation over cocktails on Mr. Blue's boat, the kidnapped and his kidnapper getting on well, Mr Blue states how much he misses the smog of Chicago, and how, "I can't drink the local garbage round here with all these funny colours, the banana, the pineapple, the little umbrella stuck in the glass". When Charlie asks why he came here then, Mr. Blue explains that, "once in a while a guy in my business gets a little heat occasionally, so I had to leave Chicago and this is as far as I can get and still be in The States". Mr Blue expresses his admiration for James Bond movies. Of course, we only see Charlie's back and the sleeve of his pink jacket as he sips his drink, but thinking about it, Charlie from Charlie Angels, is actually the USA's closest answer to James Bond - women and cocktails wherever he goes, even when kidnapped!
We think Charlie is dead as part 1 ends in suspense, but that is quite tamely resolved at the very beginning of part 2 as it turns out the dead body in the morgue, which had Charlie's wallet in its pocket, is the corpse of a known drunk and thief who must've stolen Charlie's wallet before meeting with his fate, although there is an intentionally amusing element to this scene as the three Angels are called to the morgue to identify whether the body is Charlie's or not, when actually none of them have ever ever met Charlie and have no idea what he looks like!
Given that Charlie's kidnapping is the whole premise of the episode, and the reason why the Angels are in Hawaii, he has a more prominent role than usual, but is treated incredibly civilised by both sets of his kidnappers. "Do you mind if we put the chains back on", Mr. Blue politely asks Charlie once their cocktails and conversation are over.
"Do you mind if I finish my drink first", says Charlie, who later, in true James Bond style, manages to escape by opening the padlock on the chains with a cocktail stick!
I like the scene where Sabrina gets angry with Kelly for walking in and creeping up on her while she's practising her 'figure of eight'/gyrating hips Hawaiian dance in the mirror. Kate Jackson by the way, as well as sporting a new shorter bob haircut for the new series, looks as if she has lost a little bit of weight around the waist. She's incredibly slim. But still incredibly beautiful.
Not content with putting Cheryl Ladd in a bikini for her Charlie's Angels debut, she also has to go nude on a beach, covered only by palm leaf, to talk to an eccentric nude psychiatrist, played by Norman Fell, who tells her that Mr Blue suffers from 'Dislocation Anxiety' - "he hates the good climate, he despises beauty and nature, he hates pineapple". Ladd's natural comic timing comes out, as it will in future Charlie Angels episodes, but actually, despite the furore over her (and Kelly) in a bikini, it's in the scene where she's wearing a pair of tight orange shorts and matching orange crop top that I think she looks the sexiest.
There is so much humour in Angels In Paradise, some of it quite risque and adult, and the whole thing ends with the three Angels and Bosley joining in with somesort of Hawaiian beach party festival, all four of them doing over the top silly dancing, and all looking radiant and happy.
Farah who?
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