Burt Reynolds had nothing good to say about his first real acting job, as pilot of the titular RIVERBOAT that charming gambler and active captain Darren McGavin won in a card game... according to a bitter Burt his character just stood there looking dumb and muscular...
The irony is that Burt got to be substitute captain for three consecutive episodes, the first with a similar plot-line as THE FAITHLESS titled WITNESS NO EVIL where a pretty mother with a child falls for a criminal...
Vincent Price, however, actually was a criminal while an idealistic and falsely-accused Richard Carlson (resembling a grungy McGavin) has been set up... a prisoner treated as cargo on board where a surly Bert Freed has it in for him...
The second Reynolds-as-captain episode, NIGHT AT TRAPPER'S LANDING, has more action (and ironically involves Indians, as he'd play half of one on a few seasons of GUNSMOKE) while this is a kind of slow-burn mystery about that prisoner...
Allowing Burt to stretch out despite being as serious as he would be for the next decade, until his last early TV-series DAN AUGUST... until learning to be both perfect-looking and funny on Johnny Carson, wherein his acting improved considerably, and of course before DELIVERANCE proved his entire worth...
He's not bad here but he does do what he claimed in that book, only it's nobody's fault but his own given that he had three entire episodes all to himself, and he just kind of handsomely broods around...
Yet they're all good episodes and it's always fantastic seeing Burt Reynolds in his Marlon-Brando-looking youth: before that inevitable mustache (that he grew because of his Brandoness) owned him.
The irony is that Burt got to be substitute captain for three consecutive episodes, the first with a similar plot-line as THE FAITHLESS titled WITNESS NO EVIL where a pretty mother with a child falls for a criminal...
Vincent Price, however, actually was a criminal while an idealistic and falsely-accused Richard Carlson (resembling a grungy McGavin) has been set up... a prisoner treated as cargo on board where a surly Bert Freed has it in for him...
The second Reynolds-as-captain episode, NIGHT AT TRAPPER'S LANDING, has more action (and ironically involves Indians, as he'd play half of one on a few seasons of GUNSMOKE) while this is a kind of slow-burn mystery about that prisoner...
Allowing Burt to stretch out despite being as serious as he would be for the next decade, until his last early TV-series DAN AUGUST... until learning to be both perfect-looking and funny on Johnny Carson, wherein his acting improved considerably, and of course before DELIVERANCE proved his entire worth...
He's not bad here but he does do what he claimed in that book, only it's nobody's fault but his own given that he had three entire episodes all to himself, and he just kind of handsomely broods around...
Yet they're all good episodes and it's always fantastic seeing Burt Reynolds in his Marlon-Brando-looking youth: before that inevitable mustache (that he grew because of his Brandoness) owned him.