User Reviews

Joe is hired to look into a fake bomb that turns into a real bomb that almost killed the client-to-be (and Rona Barrett and Army Archard). Everyone thinks it is publicity for a new tell-all book the actress-client Anne Marion (Jan Sterling) is writing but the actress says it isn't. The book will be based on a diary. Another bomb attempt even gets Joe to consider it is more than a stunt. Joe meets the secretary, Ida Colby (Marian Seldes), the agent Otto Waldis (Otto Trenck), and the daughter Carol (Barbara Hunter). All could be the killer wanting to knock off the pain in the butt actress. Joe has to meet the three ex-husbands who don't want the book written. One (Douglas Henderson) admits to making a fake bomb. The second (Lee Bergere) gets in a fight with Joe. The sword play leading up to it is well done. The third husband (Quinn Redeker) has two hoods beat Joe up. Joe gets revenge on one of them later. Joe gets the daughter to steal the diary. Joe calls the three husbands to tell them the diary is for sale. Henderson and Bergere show up, but Joe gets the best of them and throws them out of his place. Meanwhile the daughter and the secretary have a heart-to-heart talk where the Carol confesses that she gave Joe the diary. Joe gets a visit from the third husband and his two henchmen. Joe outsmarts them with a nice trick and takes them prisoner. The daughter shows up and Joe leaves with her. Joe is convinced the diary is not the McGuffin here. The pair leave to find Anne. While enroute, the killer, Ida Colby, goes for Anne with a gun. A fistfight ensues between the two women and when Ida gets the upper hand, Joe shows up just in time. Seems Ida wanted to get Anne out of the way to help Carol grow up. Ida also admits she is dying. Anne is only concerned with how this turn of events will affect her. Disgusting to the end. A nice touch by the writers. Many times, these stories end with the character seeing the light and reforming. Glad it didn't happen here.

Can't believe Joe is beat up and left on the lawn and nobody comes looking for him. Also, one of the other Intertect operatives sees someone taking a beating on the lawn and does nothing. Even if he didn't know it was Joe, he should have called the police.

Good cast. Henderson and Bergere would be back for future episodes. So would Rona Barrett. Dick Miller is making his second appearance here and played a photographer both times.

Joe gets into a lot of physical stuff in this outing. A fast paced episode that keeps the viewer involved. Well worth your time.

I literally don't have a clue why the mother/daughter pairing on this episode makes me think of "Mommie Dearest". I've never read the MD book but the few pieces of the movie makes me think Christina Crawford really caught it. You have the mother/daughter relationship in this episode and in some ways it's like the writers couldn't figure out exactly how they wanted to paint the relationship? You can have one scene where Ida's basically pointing out that the mother wants to keep the daughter a child and then there's other scenes where Ida also asks if the mother knows just how many times she hurts her daughter's feelings. Mom flies off the handle because the daughter is in her room because Mannix asked her if her mom had a diary. The daughter gets the diary out of the room but also had the sense to grab a broach and she shows that's why she was in the room when mom catches her. Even calls her daughter a thief. She just flew off the handle to the point where I'm glad wire hangers weren't brought up.

The reveal of the mystery tends to be a bit of a jumble. Ida seemed like a very compassionate lady and was more of a mother figure to the daughter than her actual mother. Instead of going the murder route, why not sit and have a chat with the daughter and explain to her that her mother's not gonna change unless she starts standing up to her? Yeah, I realize we wouldn't have an episode if everything could be solved with a chat. ;P

I thought the daughter had excellent chemistry with Mannix. And Jan Sterling really knocked it out of the park with just how obnoxious her character could be. You'll definitely see that in the end part where Jan's charactering is pondering who will take care of things since Ida's dying. That's her only concern.

Want to target something else for this season and it involves looks. I can't get over how well Mannix is dressed in this season. They really should've kept this designer for the outfits. And I'd also like to mention Jan Sterling's looks. It's all a matter of opinion so I'm not trying to take anything away from people that think she looks older than her age. Everybody's got the right to an opinion and my opinion is she looked very nice in this episode. I loved her clothes and think she had an excellent figure to pull them off.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable episode and would highly recommend it to people just starting to watch Mannix for the first time or to people that are fans of any of the guest stars. It will keep you entertained imo. It's not gonna be something that you have to fast forward through just to see the person you're watching for.