In the two half-hour dramas from the "Insight" series (Paulist Productions), the talent of a long-departed actor was showcased, particularly, in his starring episode.
"The Man In The Cast Iron Suit" (1976) deals with the erosive effects of ruthless striving on a successful businessman named Walter, and his epiphany, thanks to his father-in-law, Marvin Donnelley (John McLiam), a former success who divested himself of worldly goods to seek spiritual considerations.
The businessman's older son, Steve (Michael Anderson, Jr.) is like his father, but his métier is sports - the dangerous ones feed his macho persona.
His girlfriend, Janet (Jamie Smith Jackson) fears his headlong bravado, especially because she is suffering from a heart condition requiring surgery.
The mother, Claire (Susan Brown), and youngest son, Billy (Bryan Scott) are both sensitive individuals, and Claire's father, Donnelley, finds the most receptive audience there.
Trouble brews when an acerbic young businessman, Keith Forman (Barry Brown) comes to the family's home to entreat Walter for a three-month loan extension on his electronics concern; otherwise, Walter will take over the business. When Walter refuses, the desperate young businessman storms out.
Behind the scenes, Donnelley speaks to the note's holder (an old business friend, Lionel Ordway), and asks him to extend it, causing Walter's plans to fail, infuriating him.
When Billy's pet turtle, Finnegan, is killed by a car, his older brother Steve ridicules him for grieving. When Steve's girlfriend Janet enters the hospital for surgery, the erstwhile tough Steve cannot reconcile his feelings of possibly losing her; his grandfather adjures him to examine his true sentiments.
Walter wants Donnelley to enter a retirement home. Donnelley relates how he, too, used to be like his son-in-law, losing so much of value by immuring himself, psychologically, within a "Cast Iron Suit."
Upon leaving, Donnelley gives Walter a sets of keys to remind him of how man may become slave to locks and other restrictions that preclude seeking a meaningful life.
In the second production, "The Pendulum" (1975) Barry Brown stars - and shines - as Brother Francis Jefferies, an idealistic young monk who wants to change the cutthroat world of advertising to conform with a Zenlike world view of existence. The results are comic, maddening, and touching.
The scene opens with Brother Francis seated on his bed in his cell at the abbey in a lotus position. The head abbot (Ford Rainey) enters, telling Francis of a telephone conversation with Francis's mother; she wants Francis to return to the family's advertising agency after his father's death. Francis is resistant, but the abbot urges him to take a year's sabbatical.
At the agency the reluctant Francis, with his mother Alice Jeffries (Edith Atwater) encounter a top executive, Gus Mangel (John Colicos) who is less than enchanted to have Francis back, owing to Francis's conflicts with his late father over company policy.
A young copywriter, Chris Timmons (Bill Vint) enters Francis's office (where he is again meditating, in the lotus position), and instead of discussing the advertising campaign, Francis digresses about haiku poetry (a fondness for both), then suggests the ad should emphasize positive attributes instead of appealing, negatively, to fear.
Gus Mangel storms into Francis's office, breathing fire over the possibly disastrous changes - until Francis hands him the phone. The executive of the other company is raving about the fresh, new approach to his product.
However, Francis's luck with the next account doesn't hold. A photo shoot for a car ad (using a sexy model to sell the car)causes Francis to convince the model she is being exploited. Gus nearly "loses it" when he enters Francis's office, and finds Francis and the model, Lorelei Ames (Katherine Justice) sitting together on the floor, lotus style, meditating.
Francis rewrites the ad campaign, using a mechanic to sell the car, and the campaign flops miserably; sex sells, not mechanics.
The big blowup occurs when Francis becomes confrontational with Winkler (Logan Ramsey), the representative of a lucrative account, Crawford Laboratories.
Their product, "Never Gain." is a diet pill which inhibits the production of digestive enzymes. Francis fulminates over the "immorality" of producing a diet pill, when 1/3 of the world goes hungry. Francis naively suggests that the company create a pill that improves nutrition for the world's hungry, Winkler huffs out in disgust and Mangel - beside himself - declares the misguided Francis to be "certifiable"...
At length, Francis's mother (and Mangel) pronounce the experience a brave (but futile) effort. When Francis tentatively suggests that their firm should have a "token mystic" as a consultant - Mrs. Jeffries fires Francis from the family company.
Francis returns to the monastery, expressing regret to his father confessor that he failed to change the world for the good, but the abbot lauds him for his efforts.
The heartwarming story ends when the abbot hugs the young man, telling him that he can utilize his advertising talents promoting "Brother Theo's Whole Grain Bread."
Barry Brown's sensitive performance in this short drama was unarguably one of his best.
He was so convincing as the good-hearted(yet woefully inept) young monk who (miscast in the high-powered world of business) trustingly tried to change that cynical environment to his vision of Paradise.
The tears that filled Brown's large, soulful dark-brown eyes at the end of the drama were genuine. He was a superb actor whose desideratum was acting; he invested every performance with his soul.
Tragically, the twin hells of depression and alcoholism racked the already tormented life of this handsome, highly intelligent young man, and what could have been a brilliant career was cut short by Barry Brown's tragic suicide in 1978 at the age of 27.
Of the two fine dramas, I enthusiastically recommend watching "The Pendulum" for an appreciation of the artistic giftedness of the late Barry Brown, and an intuition of the greatness that might have been...
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