Mannix (TV Series) Lost Sunday (1972) User Reviews

Small towns - bad

[Guad42 · 8/10 · 30 March 2021]

As with many PI shows, a journey to a small town is always problematical. Here the town and county is owned by Harry Townes and his son accidently shot a guy, maybe. We see the son shooting a rifle in a crazy manner at the gravel plant. Two guys show up and get the son to turn over his rifle and then they all find a dead guy who is shot. The two guys are deputies who help cover up the crime, for a price from Dad. The dead guy's sister hires Mannix and he flies in to help. It soon becomes apparent that a giant coverup is going on to protect the son and everyone is in on it. The two town deputies soon get Joe in jail on a frame job. Once there Tom Reese is the jail bully and Joe and him mix it up. Reese made a career out of playing tough guys like that. It turns out he is an okay guy who helps Mannix escape jail. Joe runs back to Dad and accuses him of running the coverup. Dad admits to paying half a million to the two deputies but he wanted nobody hurt. Joe goes from accusing the son to wondering about the story. A trip out to the gravel pit confirms the two deputies did the killing so they could blackmail the old man. The surprise is the sheriff (Kevin Hagen) is not in on it and he helps Mannix bring the two deputies to justice.

Good cast with Harry Townes and Kevin Hagen although neither one has a whole lot of screen time. A couple of clichés about bad small towns and crazy Vietnam vet. Since we never see the guy shot in the beginning, you know a twist is coming but it is worth the wait.

Joe gets slapped around but he does get paid. A good episode.

WHICH GUILTY LOOKING PERSON DO YOU TRUST?

[tcchelsey · 9/10 · 23 September 2022]

Ellis Marcus wrote this episode, and a tv veteran if there ever was one, who began his career with HIGHWAY PATROL. Marcus gives this story a rather nifty slant for all of us armchair detectives, the more remote the more mysterious.

Case in point, an eerie rock quarry on a lonely weekend that will keep your attention hands down. There's also lots of bullets flying around the place, special thanks to action director Reza Badiyi. He was the master. True... it's a cliquish western town with secrets, but the script moves. Outsider Joe jumps into this whodunit (accidental death?) and even gets thrown into one of those old dusty jails; campy entertainment. I remember seeing this when it first came and still love it.

Harry Townes gives an excellent performance as the town patriarch. To note, Townes at the time was studying to become a minister and was ordained a few years later. Also Michele Marsh does a fine job in her second tv role. She gained wide attention for her performance as Hodel in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. Look for Luana Anders (as Angie). For cult film followers, she appeared in EASY RIDER and creepy DIMENTIA 13.

The rock quarry is a terrific setting, for sure.

Get out the late night snacks. SEASON 6 EPISODE 12. Remastered color CBS/Paramount dvd box set.

Decent plot

[calvinboldjm · 7/10 · 12 April 2024]

To Zombiemocking, who inaccurately stated that the sheriff was corrupt when he wasn't even in on the blackmail scheme, if you don't like the episodes, then stop watching them, or at least watch long enough that you can review them properly. I agree that the plot was recycled, but Mannix still had a fight, got knocked cold, got shot at and still found some useful evidence that the world's dumbest blackmailers left behind. And the sheriff was clean for once, unlike previous episodes this season. I like the show and will keep watching. No detectives, no Peggy, but not bad. The car Mannix drove, looked like a Monte Carlo, wasn't his 'Cuda, but I like seeing any car from the 70s.

Another small-town setting with all the usual clichés

[pkfloydmh · 2/10 · 17 November 2021]

In this one, a guy is accused of killing another guy at a quarry but his girlfriend believes he's innocent and hires Joe to look into it. It takes place somewhere in northern California, so it continues the obvious trend this season of episodes taking place outside of Los Angeles.

There are all kinds of problems in this one, with the first being why doesn't the family put this nut in a mental hospital? Why do they allow him to go out every week and start shooting? Then there's the obvious contradiction where the family says the guy doesn't like guns but yet he's going out every week and shooting them. This exact same contradiction was seen in the season three episode A Chance at the Roses and was a major problem then and is again here.

Then in the fight scene in the quarry, when Joe falls down the stairs, it's inexplicably shown in slow motion, which not only ruins the excitement of the scene but also means you can clearly tell it's a stuntman going down the stairs, so just a bad decision all around by the producers.

This one has almost all of the clichés in the book. Joe gets clobbered in the head and shot at but not hit, the small-town police department is corrupt and hiding a secret and throws Joe in jail on phony charges and the big honcho in town buys off the county officials to keep quiet about his son. It's all recycled material that has been seen an endless number of times before.

It's also obvious who the killers are since they're revealed in the opening scene, so there's no mystery or suspense here.

The action consists of a fight scene in the jail and a brief fight scene at the end.

There's nothing original here. It's all just rehashed plot elements and clichés. This is a major flop.

How many times can we do the same story?

[zombiemockingbird · 1/10 · 2 July 2023]

I shut this off after 5 minutes. As soon as I heard the guy was a Viet Nam Vet (how many have we had so far? 10? 20?) I went and read the synopsis. Not only do we have the same old tired Viet Nam Vet story, we also have the same old tired small-town with corrupt sheriff who arrests Joe on trumped up charges story. Same story, different people. The writers have obviously run out of ideas, and honestly, they should have quit after season 5. So far, all of season 6 has been bad; I've shut a lot of them off halfway through for being boring, tiresome or ridiculously stupid. Hopefully season 7 is better, if I make it that far.