Reviews & Ratings for
"McCloud" Give My Regrets to Broadway (1972)

Bullets On Broadway, 31 October 2012

Author: Henry Kujawa (hkujawa@comcast.net) from Camden, NJ (The Forbidden Zone)

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

The night Sam swaps duty with another officer (he wanted to see the football game, which did not thrill his date Chris Caughlin one bit), the man who took his place gets killed during a "routine" investigation. Sam, feeling guilty ("It should have been me!") gets depressed and begins to think maybe it's time he went back home to Taos.

But then he receives an anonymous note indicating the killing wasn't random, and wasn't an accident. Before long, he's looking into it, and discovers that Det. Arthur Franz, who'd been investigating Broadway producer Malcolm Garnett, abruptly closed the file on the case, shortly before his daughter was offered the lead in Garnett's next show. VERY suspicious!

The trail also leads to Louise Blanchard, an apparently wealthy widow whose husband was swindled by Garnett. She seems very nice on the surface, and appears to find Sam very attractive... until we find out that she's also having an affair with Julian Franco, the man suspected of KILLING Det. Franz! Before this complex web plays out, nearly everyone involved winds up being guilty of something, whether it's bribery or conspiracy to commit murder.

Topping the guest cast this time out is Milton Berle as "Malcolm Garnett". Though famous as a comedian, Berle has repeatedly proved over the years he can do straight drama as well, and be very convincing at it. Barbara Rush (PEYTON PLACE) is "Louise Blanchard"; Rush reminds me a bit of a 60's version of Dana Delany, in that I rank her as one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood, but she always seems to be playing very disturbed or corrupt characters (as seen in her guest-shots on THE OUTER LIMITS, BATMAN, or here). Arthur Mallet (YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, HALLOWEEN, a guest-shot on WKRP IN CINCINNATI) is "Leonard", one of Louise's rich friends who married a wife much younger than he is. Reginald Owen (whose career goes back decades) is "Orville", another of Louise's friends. Vic Tayback (STAR TREK: "A Piece of the Action") is "Thomas", Garnett's bodyguard. Jeff Pomerantz (founder of "Hollywood Says No To Drugs") is "Julian Franco", the painter-sculptor boy-toy of Louise who looks like a porn star and is easily talked into committing murders for her. Lane Bradbury (several episodes of GUNSMOKE and a long list of other credits) is "Carol Harrington", the sweet, talented dancer who's shocked to learn her father may have accepted a bribe to get her a career break. (She was also the wife of actor-turned-director Lou Antonio, who helmed this episode.)

Between the film montage of McCloud roaming around NYC to the tune of Dennis Weaver warbling the song "Another Way", the scenes at the beginning and end of Sam & Chris having dinner together, and an extended "rehearsal" sequence in the theatre, this episode feels very much to me like it was written for the one-hour format of the previous year, but painfully padded out to fit the 90-min. slot.

Also, while the climax, with Sam getting the drop on a killer who was waiting to take him out, was clever, with the 2 main plots, both of which end in rather downbeat fashion, this episode may be my least-favorite of the season. Oh well. Things would change-- BIG-time-- the following year.

not one of the best due the use of 2 songs, 15 October 2012

Author: trashgang from Midian

McCloud is again, the playboy in New York. Every women, young or old falls for his way of life. And again, he has a fight going on, something new in the series. But it was the last episode in season 2 and it shows that they had to add a kind of compilation in it. They did it in the way that McCloud became a bit depressive when a colleague of him and is walking through New York. They used a country song and played it completely to use the compilation. Some shots were new others I had seen throughout season one and two. But again it's clearly to see the new build WTC as a skyline when McCloud is on a ferry. January 1972 was the first time the building came in use.

It's always weird to see the way of living back then. In one of the episodes you could see an airplane were they could smoke and didn't had safety belts. Here we can see that it was possible to smoke in a hospital.

The story itself is typical McCloud. Not that much of action. Still, by not using that much of action it is still watchable. But being a bit of a weak script it is not one of the best. The use of a whole country song and McCloud watching a repetition on stage with another whole song takes almost over 10 minutes of the episode.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Story 3/5 Effects 0/5 Comedy 0/5

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