Reviews

"Beach Blanket Bingo" is the best of the Frankie Avalon and Anette Funicello beach movies.

The surfers want nothing more in life than to kiss, hug, surf and disport themselves half-naked in peace.

This time around their serenity is shattered by sky-divers, a sleazy promoter with a new singer he's peddling (Linda Evans) and a mermaid (Marta Kristen, "Lost in Space").

The songs aren't important but they aren't egregious. The best belongs to Harvey Lembeck's Eric von Zipper and his Rats.

Paul Lynde, as the promoter, is extremely funny as usual. The cross-talk between Lynde and Lembeck, two comic pros, must be heard. Lynde rises far above his material. He's great.

As usual, pretty girls fill the background (such as Patti Chandler and Playboy's 1960s playmate Donna Michelle).

After this one, the beach movies went into a nose-dive. But one day set an afternoon apart to watch "Bikini Beach," "Beach Blanket Bingo" and "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini," with Dwayne Hickman replacing Avalon (Hickman and Avalon later went on to co-star in the cult classic buddy movie "Doctor Goldfoot and His Bikini Machine" with Vincent Price). A trilogy worthy of Eastwood "Dollars" trilogy. Right.

Oh, the legendary Buster Keaton gets a chuckle or two, but he's mostly wasted. But thirty-seven years after the Silent era he still moves his body wonderfully.

"Bikini Beach" is not the first Frankie and Annette Beach movie but it does kick off a trilogy (Bikini Beach, Beach Blanket Bingo and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini) where the Beachers are beset by men in gray suits.

This time around, it's Keenan Wynn, who wants to prove surfers have the I. Q. of an ape (which they keep referring to as a monkey). No argument from me. But what is his ulterior motive?

Like Alec Guinness or Peter Sellers, Frankie Avalon essays two roles in this one. See if you can guess which.

Is this trilogy up to, say, the original "Star Wars"? Let's not be silly. But it is fun from the days when young people liked having fun. Why did fun die? If you enjoy watching half-naked twenty-somethings playing teenagers disport themselves surfing and making sport of their elders, this is for you.

No bad language, no sex (despite lots of talk) no nudity you wouldn't see at your local beach. It doesn't have 'bikini" in the title for nothing. The songs aren't great, but the plot is thin in the ground.

Then there's chunky, forty-ish Harvey Lembeck, hilariously playing biker "Eric von Zipper." This old pro steals every scene he's in.

And there's a trick ending with a very special guest star whom young people today won't know. What a shame.

A recent reviewer for a (legitimate) national magazine recently compared "Oppenheimer" to a Frankie & Annette Beach movie. He said what they revealed was important but what they concealed is more important. In this case what they conceal, apparently, is Annette's pregnancy.

Meanwhile, Frankie's out of town, having a ball in short cameos on a Pacific island with nothing but beautiful women and Buster Keaton. I wouldn't mind that, myself.

How do you replace Frankie? Easy. Call for Dwayne Hickman (Dobie Gillis). He's a better actor, anyway. Avalon and Hickman would go on to co-star in the cult classic buddy movie "Doctor Goldfoot and His Bikini Machine" with Vincent Price. Good stuff. Unfortunately, fine as he is, in the later flick Hickman would prove to have better chemistry with Frankie than he has here with Annette. The two are a far cry from the rapport of, say, Rick and Ilsa in "Casablanca."

Yes, Annette *is* there and much in evidence, but because of her condition she's on low mobility and mostly in close-ups. She seems to be less important to the bike race climax in this movie than she was in the skydiving or race cars of the previous outings.

However, Frankie and Annette proved they aren't necessary. The movie has lots of nearly-naked young people; and an extended role for Harvey Limbeck's biker, Eric von Zipper (be honest: hands up who watch these flicks more for von Zipper). The movie is full of music and I like the bikers' songs best.

This movie also has Mickey Rooney (overacting) and Brian Donleavy (a long way from "Beau Geste"). Len Lesser is an adequate replacement for Timothy Carey (though previous guest stars like Paul Lynde and Don Rickles are sorely missed).

While not as good as "Bikini Beach" or "Beach Blanket Bingo" (which is sort of the "Citizen Kane" of Beach movies) "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini" both signaled that genre was over (audiences do grow up and change in generations), and made a fitting capper to that "Beach Movie" trilogy (actually, they made more movies in the series than those three, but ignore them: only these three are worth your time).

So, overall, how does "How To Stuff A Wild Bikini" stack up, if I may phrase it like that? I wouldn't class it with "Star Wars," 'Lawrence of Arabia" or . . . Well, lots of other things, so I'll borrow a few words from Douglas Adams and say it's 'mostly harmless."

BTW, stay til the bitter end. The closing credits have some interesting music.

After seeing a UFO, Ritchie Cunningham receives a visit from perhaps the strangest space alien in the galaxy, Mork from Ork.

If "Happy Days" hadn't jumped the shark when Fonzie jumped the shark, it might well have with "My Favorite Orkan."

The "flying saucer" setting is perfect for its time. It's just the sort of thing that would have happened circa 1960. But an actual visitation by outer space beings seems a far cry from the show's first couple of seasons. And the challenge match of Mork with Fonzie (Henry Winkler) is embarrassingly bad.

What saves this episode from being a total disaster is a bravura performance by rising talent Robin Williams. And the writers give him some good lines, such as when he's watching television.

In retrospect, however, this episode is only worthy as a kick-start to Williams' career. In 1978 no one had seen anything quite like him (not even Andy Kaufman was this nuts). If it hadn't been for the casting of Williams this episode would have been just another milestone marking the decline of the once-great "Happy Days." It's almost always true that a performer is only as good as his material. Williams rises above the material and deservedly earned his own show.

"Love, American Style" was one of the biggest con jobs ever perpetrated on the American people by the major networks (outside of the news).

With links provided by the like of Stuart Margolin, James Hampton and Phyllis Davis, this anthology show became a dumping ground for unsold pilots, which helped it attain the lustre of a genuine all-star cast every week. (Though the only episode I know of where a dumped pilot was picked up became "Happy Days." So some good came of it).

A time capsule for late 1960s and early 1970s sexual mores, as is the case with every other anthology series the episodes vary in style and quality. One can see why lots of these thwarted pilots weren't picked up. But it's worth watching for the real gems, and for seeing big stars of the past (who were current when I was a kid).

Based on a touching but funny "pilot" on the show "Love, American Style" (one of the better episodes of that series) "Happy Days" was picked up as a show about a 1950s family, the Cunninghams, starring Ron Howard as the leader of a group of high school boys.

A minor character was Fonzie (Henry Winkler), the biker, who became amazingly popular. To keep him closer, at the beginning of season three, Fonz moves into the room above the Cunningham's garage.

That's not the only change. They'd experimented with filming the show before a live audience (before, the show had been filmed and looked pretty good). I never took to shows performed before a live audience, as most of the shows done that way look stagey. But while "Happy Days" traded some its charm and the acting was lots broader, it became funnier. And the live audience laughter, while raucous, fits "Happy Days" better than the laugh track underscoring unfunny lines in the classier first two seasons.

This episode, where Fonz moves in, is very funny. It's a good start to their new look.

"Happy Days" is a long-running sit-com of how an average American nuclear family was overcome by a "greaser."

When I saw an episode of "That '70s Show" I asked: where's the 1950s? Because the 1970s kids were obsessed with the 1950s. I myself wailed a saxophone in a late-1970s "1950s" band.

George Lucas caused a long-time obsession with "Star Wars" but in "American Graffiti" he first touched a public nerve among kids like me with 1950s "nostalgia" for a time we never lived in. And a good thing, since the actual styles of the 1970s were the pits.

The father and mother are played by Tom Bosley and Marion Ross, who'd bopped around TV shows a while. Ron Howard ("The Andy Griffith Show") was one son. The fact that he was a grade-schooler in his first show and a high-schooler in his second gave him a unique progression in American homes.

Another son vanished without a trace, in some sort of television Bermuda Triangle. Erin Moran is the daughter.

But a "greaser" (the term for guys who put "greasy kid stuff" on their hair) named Arthur Fonzerelli (Henry Winkler) started out as a minor character, became incredibly popular, and eventually moved in with the family, in effect becoming the lost or misplaced other brother. It's impossible to overestimate the popularity of "The Fonz." Every school had a kid with that nickname. The term "jump the shark" derived from something Fonzie did.

The important thing to remember about "Happy Days" is that it's not really a show about the 1950s, but a show about the 1970s with a 1950s veneer. When I see it, it doesn't make me nostalgic for the 1950s but the 1970s.

Was it funny? Not particularly. But all the characters are incredibly likeable, and that carries the day.

Whatever happened to the intelligent "adult" comedy movie? Well, my theory is that they made one too many like "A Man Could Get Killed."

The movie starts out well: Garner is a banker examining some sort of prospects near Lisbon (that part doesn't matter in the slightest, it's just an excuse to get him there) and from the moment he disembarks from the airplane it's assumed by everyone he's an American spy and no one will listen to the truth, thinking it's a clever cover story.

This includes the dunderheads at the British embassy (Robert Coote, Cecil Parker) an American smuggler posing as Portugese (Anthony Franciosa) and a collection of spies working in groups of twos and threes who are more like Keystone Kops.

Garner plays "comically frustrated" as well as or better than anyone in the business and I've never seen Franciosa better. And the movie has some fine comic moments. I even laughed out loud and I'm pretty jaded.

But as the movie drags on it seems to run out of ideas. It gets bogged down in fish and rice scenes (if you must know what that means, see the flick). Though it does keep trying new (rather, familiar) plot twists right up to the climax, i'd trade a plot twist or two for something funny.

In fact, one of the best things about "A Man Could Get Killed" is a trial run of music for what became "Strangers in the Night," a chart-topping hit for Sinatra in the age of the Beatles. It's lovely.

If the writers (or whomever) had been able to sustain the ideas and energy propelling its first half-hour "A Man Could Get Killed" might've been a spy-spoof classic. Garner is certainly good enough and has range enough as an actor to carry it off, as he did in the comic-western "Support Your Local Sheriff " But at some point someone decided the way to proceed was with boring scenes of fish and rice and that's what we're left with.

(James Coburn's unfortunately dated spy spoof "The President's Analyst" nailed the genre better and despite a third-act lull ultimately sustains itself to the end.)

I like Sandra Dee but she's just awful. Rumor is, she didn't want to go to Lisbon and was forced to do the movie contractually. I never "got" Melina Mercori and that's probably my own blind spot, but I can provide, under separate cover, a list of actresses I'd prefer cast as the women who bedevil Garner and Franciosa (as if Coote, Parker and the spies didn't bedevil them enough).

Overall, a worthy try until it runs out of steam. Despite a wonderful title, good music, and fine performances by Garner and Franciosa, "A Man Could Get Killed" is not a must-see classic you've missed all your life. Too bad.

Rex Stout's GAMBIT, featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, concerned a suspicious death in a chess club. The daughter of the man arrested for the crime hires Wolfe to investigate over the objections of everyone else: the man's lawyer, his wife and his friends and associates. Why does everyone object so strenuously to Wolfe's involvement?

The "Gambit" episode of the Nero Wolfe show is about a lone electronics genius with a grudge against Wolfe dating back to the Second World War who booby traps Wolfe's entire house. The idea was later recycled in an episode of "MacGyver."

Perhaps the idea of chess (actually, a popular game in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I was in a tournament myself) was too outre, or too nerdy, or just too darn dull to hold a TV audience, and they were right. One thing they kept from the original story was the cutey-of-the-week.

Again, William Conrad has Wolfe's girth and commanding presence and voice, though he seems a trifle short when sized up against the rest of the cast. Lee Horsely ain't the sassy Archie Goodwin from the books, but he's good and terribly likeable (his pilot episode for his later series, "Matt Houston," is still my favorite pilot episode of all time, just barely edging out "Moonlighting.")

I tend to agree with the other reviewer about this episode. But what makes it watchable if at all (I knew a guy who set a chair outside to watch an imminent train wreck--well, there was nothing he could do to stop it so he might as well watch) is Darrin McGavin's performance as Wolfe's persecuter. He does demented as well as anyone, and better if, like me, you prefer funny-scarey.

Significant story changes make this a "Speckled Band" like you've never seen before.

Author John Buchan, after viewing a Hitchcock movie based on one of his novels, remarked on the odd experience of sitting in the theatre, wondering how it would come out. Arthur Conan Doyle would have a similar experience watching this "Speckled Band."

The curious thing is, it's not bad for an all-new yarn. The story elements salvaged from the original are presented in graphic detail and though it defies all logic to show up front how the crime was committed, we do gauge the full horror of Julia Stoner's death.

And Victoria Tennant looks lovely in bed.

Unfortunately, these Sherlock Holmes stories are shortchanged as they are only half-hour (in fact, a few minutes less). It's difficult to do a truly mysterious mystery in that length of time as it's usually obvious who the culprit is--in fairness, they won't introduce a new character in the last five minutes. It's a shame, as the series (largely not based on Arthur Conan Doyle) shows promise, without all the shouting from its forebear, the Howard/Holmes series, which they probably did back then to compensate for shoddy early TV sound equipment.

The casting makes this series worth watching for the Holmes compleatist. Before the Brett/Holmes series cranked up a few years after this one, Holmes TV shows and movies were weak either in Holmes (Roger Moore? Robert Stephens? Good actors, yes, but . . .) or (more often) Watson (with notable exceptions like Colin Blakely or, like him or hate him, the cuddly Nigel Bruce) or (most likely) Lestrade. While no one touches the early Brett/Holmes episodes, they were Canon. These mostly "made-up" tales are a different animal altogether.

Patrick Newell ("Mother" on "The Avengers," who went on to feature in one of the tip-top early Brett/Holmes episodes) is a more than adequate Lestrade, if a little too slow for comic effect.

Donald Pickering is a first rate Watson and his name must not be overlooked in the Pantheon of Watsons.

This time around the weak link is Geoffrey Whitehead as Holmes. He's tall and gaunt but his voice, which I've heard without offense on numerous BBC radio shows (try "Rigor Mortis" for one) is too high and slight for Holmes fans accustomed to the more careful or sharper voices of, say, Rathbone, Gielgud, Hobbes or Brett. His Holmes, IMHO, lacks authority. But if you disagree I won't be offended.

Also, since the Brett/Holmes revolution was still in the offing, Whitehead is lumbered with the deerstalker cap, cape and pipe in downtown London. Don't get me wrong, that look was what enticed me to read Holmes stories in the first place, and half a century on I still wear my own deerstalkers with pride. And the casual (i.e., non-obsessive) Holmes-watcher won't care. I have a cousin enjoying a more modern Holmes series who never heard of Jeremy Brett, and he's my age.

Just be aware that while Newell and Pickering are just fine, Whitehead, whatever you think of his tone, plays an unreconstructed Holmes.

One delightful thing is the pizzicato incidental music. Violin music is a must for Holmes shows and I wonder why I've never heard that sort of background playing before. And though Arthur Conan Doyle's stories could be bleak, these episodes have scattered touches of humor. I just wish the episodes had more elbow room to develop.

Hey, kids, I have an idea! Let's take a beloved novel, generally deemed a classic of it's genre, and make it into a movie making fun of it and all it stands for and undermining everything its readers love about it!

How's that for a winning combination?

It's not the only book Hollywood bought to undermine. P. D. James' THE CILDREN OF MEN, intended to show the bleak consequences of left wing anti-child social policies (she was "conservative") was turned into a screed against President Bush. Well, at least the movie was kept bleak.

An omnivorous reader of whatever was in my school libraries, I read lots of Heinlein at one time. Admittedly, I was no fan of STARSHIP TROOPERS. A rather raving, anti-military leftist at the time, though the son of a proud Navy veteran of the Korean conflict, I saw in STARSHIP TROOPERS the reason why I'd never serve. I was too free-thinking at the time and still am. Which is why Democrats despise me and others are wary: I decline to follow a party line. Anyhow, I stopped reading Heinlein in favor of genuine literary classics. Whereas Hollywood these days can't seem to read anything above comic-book level (no insult to comic books: I still have all mine from the 1970s by the hundreds and revisit them).

But friends of mine loved STARSHIP TROOPERS (the book) and even decades after reading it they were excited by the idea of a movie about it. They were sadly disappointed.

So, if you love the book, stay away. Or if you hate the book (as I did) yet don't want to see a classic of its genre turned on its head when the lazy scoundrels in Hollywood might have developed a whole new idea (A new idea? Hollywood? Now, that is a laugh!) don't waste your time or money.

Vincent Bagetta, more accustomed to playing scum, often "connected," is the good guy this time around, a lawyer taking cases his boss (Ken Swofford) doesn't want, or doesn't want done that way. It's like a police show where the policeman bucks his superiors (or Kolchak without the panache or the ghoul-of-the -week or the incredibly talented Darrin McGavin).

They gave Bagetta's Capra all the usual baggage: a secretary like Perry Mason's Della Street, a kid assistant who'd been fired from the firm yet still did Capra's leg work, etc. . . . But somehow, the show didn't gel.

Capra was more detective than lawyer, determined to find his clients innocent before trial to avoid public confessions as in "Perry Mason."

Eddie Capra was so up to date to the late 1970s it looks like an antique today. As opposed to another short-lived show, "Ellery Queen," which had a period late-1940s setting (though with 1970s sensibilities and stars) and so doesn't look these days like a relic of its time.

Frankly, I came of age in the 1970s. I was a Junior in high school when this show aired and had other things on my mind than sitting home watching TV. I didn't like the 1970s then and I have no nostalgia for it. But these days I try to catch up on things I missed and Eddie Capra fell into my lap accidentally after 45 years of never hearing about it. It's worth watching once, but despite a lot of promise I thought the show was ultimately special. Sorry.

Peary v. Cook. Which of those former colleagues turned bitter rivals reached the North Pole first? Well, this TV movie shows Cook reaching the Pole while Peary is presented as confused, arbitrary, deceptive and downright mean.

Since this movie came out several books have been published purporting . . . What is probably the truth . . . Neither man went anywhere near the Pole. And they used basically identical evidence against each other except Peary had the backing of the uber-influential National Geographic Society. I haven't taken their word for anything since.

But who cares about facts? What about the movie? It's well-made and watchable. Richard Chamberlain gives one of his patented "gee, I'm really caring" performances while Rod Steiger is blustering and boggled.

Just beware that it's probably historical garbage.

An amnesiac (Richard Chamberlain) trying to learn his identity doesn't particularly like what he finds. Along the way he picks up a beautiful companion (Jaclyn Smith) who doesn't like him, but he grows on her.

To be honest, THE BOURNE IDENTITY is the only Ludlum I've read. I'd like to read more but he does write long.

This miniseries is quite a good adaptation (unlike the children's version done later that ignores Ludlum's subtletie). Chamberlain has long been one of my favorite actors and while Smith was my second favorite Charlie's Angel, she has a larger range than my no.1 (perky Cheryl Ladd) and I always enjoy watching her.

The movie is dotted with a few familiar faces (Denholm Elliot, Peter Vaughn, Anthony Quayle) but it's the Dick and Jackie show all the way and why not? They're fantastic.

The music is fairly typical for this sort of fare but it doesn't intrude.

Whenever silent movies or Vaudeville or Burlesque are recreated by more modern people, they do a shoddy job of it. In this episode an impresario is murdered while trying to revive a burlesque after World War II.

Two characters make this episode. First George Burns, who only appears briefly on film. Then Barbara Rhoades, who made lots of appearances on TV in the 1970s, from "Mannix" to comedies. Here, she plays a stripper and she's delightful as well as lovely to look at.

And who is the suspicious man who keeps trying to buy extra tickets?

The stage show is so bad, this episode is painful to watch. The mystery is no great shakes, either.

When a wealthy backer of Ellery's play (Edward Andrews) disappears, Ellery Queen (Jim Hutton) has to determine if he's dead or alive.

This is possibly the best episode of the series, coming as it does fron a genuine Ellery Queen story.

On a personal note, it's the first episode of the series I saw, finding it by accident when it first aired. So I do have a special affection for this episode that may be corrupting my judgment. But it's a solid mystery with a star-studded cast. And a literary subtext that tickles my fancy. And a shocking moment in the climax.

One disappointment: one of the joys of this series is Hutton's chemistry with David Wayne, playing his no-nonsense father. Unfortunately, Wayne is tardy about showing up for this episode.

In the immediate post-war period an undercover operative writes a book of memoirs. He also uses his secret files to blackmail people. When he's murdered, Ellery Queen (Jim Hutton) has an international list of suspects to choose from, including a Soviet Diplomat, an English antiques dealer, a French photographer and an Indian club steward.

As usual, the chemistry and by-play between Ellery and his father (David Wayne) is lovely. It's usually the best part of the show. Another useful additive is Gretchen Corbett ("The Rockford Files") as Ellery's latest girl friend who is gung-ho to find the murderer . . . Since she, too, is a suspect and needs to clear herself. She's a ball of fire.

I know they like to keep providing Ellery a new love interest each week (he's so absent-minded they probably get fed up with him!) but Corbett's so good and plays so well with Hutton and Wayne they should've made her a regular.

This episode has a star-studded cast and a good mystery. In a voice contrary to so many reviewers, this is one of my favorite episodes, and Corbett is one of the reasons.

Apparently perfunctory airline "disaster" movie following not long after "Airport." However, the subject of a "skyjacker" (as they used to call them) is treated seriously and the size of the airplane set provides a genuine feeling of claustrophobia. In this plane, there's nowhere to run.

While the magnificent spoof "Airplane!" knocked the struts out of this sort of feature so it's hard to take these sorts of movies seriously, this portrayal of an airline in trouble is no-nonsense. It has some stereotypical passengers, such as the pregnant lady (Mariette Hartley) . . . But you've got to have passengers and pregnant women do take airplanes. Duh. And Rosie Grier's jazz cellist is a new one on me.

The cast has familiar faces. Charlton Heston is the pilot (so you feel nothing too bad can happen--can it?). Walter Pidgeon is a Senator on a secret mission for the President (no party given). But the sets aren't fancy, the music isn't portentous, the story is straight-forward and not cloying (it's amazing how quickly they get in the air, rather than goofing around with lots of exposition--you get to know these folks as you fly with them) and if the plane blows up it's the end of the world only for the few mostly ordinary people trapped in the air, whose lives feel genuinely at risk.

The mystery is no great shakes, but that's a side issue. More troubling is: in an age when Communist terrorists hijacked airplanes to Cuba, why hijack a plane to Anchorage?

Jim Hutton plays the mystery character/author Ellery Queen in this series about kinder, gentler murders.

It's New Year's Eve shortly after World War II and Guy Lombardo (ubiquitous to New Years celebrations when the series aired) has a prominent, though non-speaking part.

The cast is interesting, if not particularly moving: old movie actor Farley Granger (from Hitchcock's "Strangers on a Train"); a pre-"Charlie's Angels" David Doyle; a pre-"Dynasty" (but still famous) Joan Collins; George Wyner; Ray Walston, Herb Edelmann . . . And they're all acting like crazy. Believe me, Hitchcock, this ain't.

Unfortunately, Jim Hutton's likeable Ellery absent-mindedly arrives late to the party. Part of the joy of this series is the chemistry between Hutton and David Wayne, who plays his father; and in this episode they only come together near the climax.

Some of the solutions in this series are silly but the fun is the journey, not the destination. This early in the series, they hadn't quite hit their stride. Better episodes lay over the horizon.

While some reviewers think of the series as old-fashioned, it *is* set in the 1940s. And when the series first aired it would evoke nostalgia, being no farther from its time period than we at 2024 are from the turn of the 21st century. And while they do a good job of evoking a stylized 1840s, the series has 1970s written all over it.

Still, weak "Ellery Queen" is better than most shoot-em-ups.

Jim Hutton (father of Tim) plays long-time mystery character/writer Ellery Queen in a curious start to a lovely series.

Based on an Ellery Queen novel (the rest of the episodes were based on short stories that fit the hour-length better), "Too Many Suspects" tackles a more serious tale than the rest (though they all involve murders).

Unlike the literary character, Hutton's writer is an absent-minded, easy-going, eminently likeable shaggy-dog type. Yet, he's capable of seeing what others don't and isolates the guilty from the merely suspected (and throughout the series, all the suspects are darned suspicious).

The cast is top-notch (for the mid-1970s), including Oscar-winner Ray Milland and a pre-"Magnum" John Hillerman (a recurring foe for Queen who isn't in the stories). This series may have kicked off the washed-up celebrity sort of show (cf "Murder, She Wrote"). Last chance to see your old big-screen favorites, now whittled down to TV size.

Ellery's father, Inspector Queen, is portrayed by old hand David Wayne. Hutton and Wayne have enormous chemistry.

Two things carry over from the Ellery Queen books: the "dying clue" (often a stretch in the books and stories and looking downright nutty on TV); and, mostly from the novels, a pause where Hutton breaks the "fourth wall" to ask if the viewer we've guessed the culprit.

Hutton (and, secondly, Wayne) carry us through some rank silliness by their excellent acting, likeableness and comeraderie. The pilot episode (originally presented as a movie on TV) was broken by commercials, which helped.

Certainly in this pilot, and throughvthe rest of the series, they did a good job on the period setting, though some of the asides (for instance, criticizing early television) sound a bit cutesy.

According to RSC director Trevor Nunn, every year he received requests from actors (some of whom were quite hopeless, though he didn't drop any names) who wanted to come to Stratford to play Hamlet. What Nunn does in this documentary is take a small selection of actors who played what he thinks were great Hamlets and interviews them about how they got under Hamlet's skin and what they found there.

Nunn's "great" Hamlets include Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Nichol Williamson, Ben Kingsley . . . And, rather surprisingly for non-English speakers, Maximilian Schell and Vittorio Gassman. For a joker in the deck, Nunn chooses one actor who HASN'T (yet) played Hamlet, but it planning to: American Mandy Patinkin ("My name is Hamlet. You killed my father. Prepare to die.")

Some of the moments are shocking, for those who love good acting. Richard Burton's cold recitiation of some of Hamlet's lines was phenomenal. Burton also points out something usually not considered for we who aren't actors: the audience is a different animal every night and before proceeding with one's interpretation one must gauge what sort of animal they'll be.

Listening to those great actors offer their insights is lovely. Naturally, everyone has their own idea of Hamlet. Hamlet is a mirror, not only of his age, but every age where he's been played, while also reflecting the actor playing him.

As a writer, I do miss a writers' perspective. I wish Nunn had lined up a few notable Shakespeare-loving writers to toss in a tidbit. Why does Hamlet delay? Well, of course, in the original sources, Hamlet is scared for his own life and so plays mad to plan his vengeance in safety. In Shakespeare, he's not sure whether the ghost is a demon trying to pull the rug out from under his own soul. But a writer's answer is, and it must have crossed Shakespeare's mind, if Hamlet plunged at once into his revenge we wouldn't have much of a play. The thing has to be strung out somehow.

Of course, one thing I've always wondered is, what happens to Hamlet between the time when he pronounces "My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth" and when he pops back up joking with the gravedigger (and the skull) and says, "there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow." What did these great actors bring to the role to interpret Hamlet in these questionable moments, and how did actually being Hamlet change their own perceptions? We don't get answers to all these questions. But hearing those who actually "fight the bull" (from the old poem by Domingo Ortega) is fascinating. They've done something most of us will never do: mount a stage and actually recite some of the greatest lines ever penned, offering the world (or, at least, the nightly audience) Hamlet the way we see him.

Hamlet is one of the greatest plays (arguably the greatest) play in the English language and certainly the greatest role. It's also a long, exhausting journey for any stage actor night after night. There's no "ultimate" Hamlet, there's only individual preference for how he's portrayed. It's good to hear some of those given the opportunity to play Hamlet to talk about it. This documentary is a must for any Shakespeare lover.

Once, when a diamond was being shipped to Britain for Queen Victoria, guards were put aboard the ship and elaborate precautions were laid. Yet that was all a ruse as the real diamond was boxed up and sent through the post office, who delivered it safely. True story.

This is kind if rhe same idea. While elaborate precautions are made for the shipping of a new weapons system that looks like an RV, the real one is . . . No, not sent through the US mail, but being driven across the country by Agency professional spy Lee Steton and his amateur sidekick, Mrs. King. Now, that's security.

Well, why not? Once, when I lived near a major freeway, one Sunday night I was up in the wee hours (pre-dawn) running when I saw about four black cars, then a covered flatbed truck, then another four black cars, driving under the speed limit equidistant from each other. At that hour they had the freeway to themselves. I'll never know what that was about but I went straight home and was gratified the FIB didn't run me in. If they read this, they still might.

This is one of the spookier "Scarecrow" episodes but it has an hilarious climax.

Dudley Moore, one of America's all time strangest movie stars, long before proving he could hold his own opposite Julie Andrews, displays his bag of tricks in this delightful (and extremely well-edited) tale of a 29-year-old composer who wants to hit it big and be married by the time he's 30, though he starts off with no prospects for either.

Naturally, it's wackiest up front, then settles in toward the hour mark as Moore loses and must find the woman he thinks he loves (Suzy Kendall, who actually was Mrs. Moore for a while. And who never looked better).

The music, by Moore, is pretty good. A delightful opening theme that gives one the mistaken impression it's going to be a knock off of "The Knack" and promises a superstitious theme it then forgets. Some excellent jazz (including a serious piece where Dud shows what he can do vis-a-vis a piano). Even a faux-madrigal where he gets to sing harmony with himself (I like early music, and it's not half-bad).

Some people think during this period Dud wasn't as good without his erstwhile partner, Peter Cook. And for someone who enjoyed Pete and Dud movies like "The Wrong Box" and "Bedazzled," one almost expects Cook to pop through a door at any given moment. But, genius though he was, Cook's career suffered worse, without Moore. (And don't judge this movie by what it isn't, but what it is).

Naturally, the sort of humor established early on can't be sustained. But this movie with the unwieldy title has some of Britain's familiar comic faces popping up for comedic turns, though it's worst crime may be the underutilizing of Eddie Foy, Jr. ("The Pajama Game"). The whole thing is refreshingly off-kilter without the more serious subtext that nearly upended "The Knack."