"The Queen and I" (1969) TV series

User Rating:

5.1/10   

Seasons:

1

Release Date:

16 January 1969 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot Keywords:

Boat | Ship

Cast

Janet Clark	...	Mrs. Schager / ... (2 episodes, 1969)
Natalie Masters	...	Mrs. Bradford / ... (2 episodes, 1969)
Chet Stratton	...	Forsythe / ... (2 episodes, 1969)

Runtime:

22 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Quite mediocre at best - despite two pros in the cast

For some reason the two stars of this series were not listed in the cast on the main thread concerning the show: THE QUEEN AND I starred Larry Storch and Billy De Wolfe. For them I give it a "5".

Storch was a junior officer on a fabled, but aging, Atlantic luxury liner, who was usually involved in scams of one type or another. His nemesis is De Wolfe, the First Officer, who is highly suspicious of anything that Storch is involved in. In short, it is like Sgt. Bilko outside of the military.

I never watched it very much. I recall only one episode where Storch has gotten into a heavy poker game and lost. He cannot afford the $5,000.00 + cost of the poker debt, but the winner has an offer to make: let him have a free trip on the Queen in one of the expensive luxury suites on a major cruise. Storch agrees, but the episode follows him doing two things at once: he has to convince the man that he's getting that cruise, and he has to keep De Wolfe from finding that one of the deluxe suites is being used. For you see, the Queen is going anywhere right now - it's in dock for some repair work for two weeks (the time for the next cruise). The episode see - saws back and forth with Storch getting his poker acquaintance sick with a "mickey finn" type of drink, and then having the ship doctor quarantine him in a cabin that is under the water line, and then convincing the man that ship is on the cruise, even if he's stuck in his cabin. At the same time the crew is side-tracking De Wolfe from finding out what is going on in the cabin.

This forced story gives you an idea of what Storch and De Wolfe had to deal with in the handful of episodes THE QUEEN AND I actually aired. Storch had been lucky a number of years earlier as Corporal Randolph Agarn on the marvelous F-TROOP. De Wolfe had a chance for a good series a few years earlier, in the ignored and unlucky GOOD MORNING WORLD, and then got stuck on the dreadful THE PRUITTS OF SOUTHAMPTON. This was one more bad experience for him on television series comedies. Fortunately his friend Doris Day was about to have her successful series, and he finally got into a good series. As for THE QUEEN AND I, after half a season it sank without a trace.