Having purchased the complete series of "Thriller", I am trying to watch them in order and so far I am just staggered by the suspense and uniqueness of this amazing show. However....."K Is for Killing" is an extremely weak episode. Comedy and wit compete with thrills as two Carnaby Street sleuths are hired to protect a wealthy business man from an unseen assassin - and it just doesn't work!!
Sally and Arden Buckley (delicious Gayle Hunnicutt and dapper Stephen Rea) are a trendy husband and wife team of private detectives. She is vague and adoring, he has a passion for old movie quotes and does a mean impersonation of Humphrey Bogart - remember back to the early 70s, there was always someone ready to do cheesy impersonations (usually of James Cagney) and they were not always applauded. Anyway, they are hired by a dissolute playboy "Sonny" to look after his father (Peter Dyneley) after an attempt is made on his life.
This is were the show got quite interesting for me - the name Peter Dyneley rang bells and then I remembered... yes, he was the voice of Jeff Tracy in "Thunderbirds", but he was also in "The Manster". It was a really scary movie from the early 60s - he played an American reporter in Japan and when given an injection by a mad Japanese scientist turns into a horrible two headed monster with an eye growing out of his shoulder - I will always remember that eye!!!! In "K Is For Killing" he plays David Garrick, who has a few skeletons in his closet - a mad wife whose childlike devotion quickly turns to hate (Jean Kent, a beautiful star of British films of the 40s, plays her to perfection).
What is different in this particular "Thriller" is the obviousness of who the culprit was. There is not the characterization of minor player that has been such a standout in all the "Thrillers" I have watched so far. I wonder if that was because it was co-written by Terry Nation. The only suspicious character was Garrick's sour secretary - and she soon petered out. A very disappointing entry from a topnotch series.
Sally and Arden Buckley (delicious Gayle Hunnicutt and dapper Stephen Rea) are a trendy husband and wife team of private detectives. She is vague and adoring, he has a passion for old movie quotes and does a mean impersonation of Humphrey Bogart - remember back to the early 70s, there was always someone ready to do cheesy impersonations (usually of James Cagney) and they were not always applauded. Anyway, they are hired by a dissolute playboy "Sonny" to look after his father (Peter Dyneley) after an attempt is made on his life.
This is were the show got quite interesting for me - the name Peter Dyneley rang bells and then I remembered... yes, he was the voice of Jeff Tracy in "Thunderbirds", but he was also in "The Manster". It was a really scary movie from the early 60s - he played an American reporter in Japan and when given an injection by a mad Japanese scientist turns into a horrible two headed monster with an eye growing out of his shoulder - I will always remember that eye!!!! In "K Is For Killing" he plays David Garrick, who has a few skeletons in his closet - a mad wife whose childlike devotion quickly turns to hate (Jean Kent, a beautiful star of British films of the 40s, plays her to perfection).
What is different in this particular "Thriller" is the obviousness of who the culprit was. There is not the characterization of minor player that has been such a standout in all the "Thrillers" I have watched so far. I wonder if that was because it was co-written by Terry Nation. The only suspicious character was Garrick's sour secretary - and she soon petered out. A very disappointing entry from a topnotch series.