Mannix (TV Series) With Intent to Kill (1971) User Reviews

Irate Ira

[pkfloydmh · 9/10 · 10 August 2021]

This one is about Joe and Lt. Deegan (played by Dane Clark) butting heads while they're both investigating the same case. This is the third and final appearance by Dane Clark as Lt. Deegan and he really goes out with a bang.

This is a really good episode and one of the best of the season. It has some nice twists and fine performances by the entire cast. The scenes between Deegan and Joe are really good. I really like how Deegan, unlike Malcolm, Tobias, and Kramer, doesn't cooperate with Joe and actually despises him and constantly trashes him. It's a nice change of pace and he'll be missed.

Malcolm finally returns but he's clearly playing second fiddle to Deegan, who is the real star here. This is quite a humiliation for Malcolm - being second banana to someone he and the entire department hates. That's quite a putdown. He's obviously still in the doghouse over the Jerry Douglas fiasco and the department is really making him pay for that mistake by forcing him to take a back seat and watching Deegan take all the glory here. And speaking of humiliation, how about when Deegan finds out his wife hired Joe, a guy he despises, to follow him and watch out for him? That's a real slap in the face and Deegan certainly lets Joe know it.

Woodrey Parfrey appears in one scene as (what else?) an ex-con and proceeds to mess up Nicky's name and calls him Micky at one point. All that jail food must have given him food poisoning and it's messing up his mind.

For the third straight episode, Joe gets hit by a car but recovers nicely and ditches the ambulance that was taking him to the hospital. He doesn't get thumped in the head in this one but nearly gets clobbered by a shovel at the end.

There's an obvious plot hole at the end when Joe confronts Wallach when he had NO WAY OF KNOWING where Wallach was, so I'm deducting a point for that, but beyond that this is a great episode.

Dane Clark's episode

[Guad42 · 8/10 · 27 October 2021]

Dane Clark is making his third and final appearance as Lt Ira Deegan and it is a good one. The plot has been covered by others so a few comments. Deegan is extremely unlikeable as a cop under intense pressure to solve a crime while someone is trying to kill him. Most actors wouldn't play it so raw like that as they would want the audience to have a little sympathy for the character but Dane Clark doesn't take any shortcuts. You won't like the guy. With the final twist at the end and Deegan seeing some of the errors of his ways, it would have been interesting to see his character in later Mannix episodes but it was not to be. Too bad. I would have liked to see if the character evolved.

It seems strange the police wouldn't have put some protection around Deegan once it was clear someone was trying to kill him, despite his protests. Woody Parfrey always plays a lowlife kind of guy. He is good at it. The rest of the cast performs well but Clark is the star here.

Joe gets rough up but gets the bad guy(s) and gets paid. A good outing for him.

THE BAD GUYS ARE REALLY BAD HERE

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 26 July 2022]

Veteran Dane Clark makes another guest appearance, this time playing a police lieutenant (Deegan) who's life is in danger as he's getting too close to solving a murder investigation. The twist is he seems to resent having Mannix around, all the while his wife (played by Joan Hotchkiss) called for his help. Hotchkiss was also appearing in THE ODD COUPLE at the time.

Clark was a welcome regular on detective shows as he fitted the bill and looked the part of a cop. He was a prolific actor, starring in many classic war films in the 1940s, and the casting people must have been big fans. Note; the production crew is again well at work with yet another garage explosion, and if you look closely its the same garage that's used on MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. Rebuild, rebuild, rebuild.

Woodrow Parfrey (as Pete) also guest stars, lots of fun as quirky, slippery characters. Movie and tv producers used him on a steady basis, one of his standout roles was as a prisoner in PAPILLON, opposite Steve McQueen. Parfrey was a WWII hero in the famous Battle of the Bulge, and was captured by the Germans.

Directed by Nicholas Webster who was behind SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. Ed Adamson wrote this solid episode, many others, also connected to MISSION IMPOSSIBLE. He may have been the "brains" behind all the garage explosions in the first place!

Keep the late night coffee brewing for this one. SEASON 4, EPISODE 17 remastered CBS/Paramount dvd box set.

Enjoyable enough, but a rather weak episode.

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 2 September 2014]

In this episode, familiar actor Dane Clark guest stars. I like Clark and seeing him was nice, though I was NOT impressed with his character-- he was a one-note sort of guy and difficult to believe.

When the show begins, Lt. Deegan receives yet another phone call threatening to do SERIOUS bodily harm to him unless he drops a case on which he's been working. Oddly, Deegan isn't particularly concerned. Even odder (and impossible to believe), he STILL is apparently unconcerned when only moments later, someone blows up his garage--and he could have been in it! Not surprisingly, Deegan's wife contacts Mannix and she wants him to find out who is behind all these threats before it's too late.

When Deegan realizes Mannix is watching him as well as trying to solve Deegan's case for him, Deegan becomes incredibly nasty and defensive. Although Mannix is there to help AND someone is trying to kill him, Deegan is more upset about Mannix! This makes no sense--nor did his character overall. The guy's wife loved him but as I watched, I wondered why--why would ANYONE love this jerk?! The ending is improbable as well--and overall it's a very weak episode. Enjoyable...but weak if you think about the characters.

By the way, through season one and two, Mannix was routinely bashed over the head and knocked out. In real life, such a person would have tremendous brain damage or would be dead. The folks who made the show seem to have noticed this and in season three and much of season four, Mannix's cranium is relatively unscathed. However, in a return to old form, episodes 4.15, 4.16 and 4.17 have Mannix getting bashed in the skull once again!!