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Reviews
Mannix: Wine from These Grapes (1971)
Apparently, you can go home again
Apparently, you can go home again
This is Joe's second trip home, and this time he is welcomed by the father from whom he was previously estranged at the start of Season 3's Return to Summer Grove. Mannix has returned at the invitation of a prominent Armenian defense attorney who is also a good friend. A beloved local labor leader, Juan Esparza, is accused of murder and the case against him looks grim. A 14-year -old boy, Jose Alonzo, hero worships Esparza and is also a surrogate son and vineyard helper to Joe's father. Jose's sister Maria had been brutally beaten and raped by the man whom Esparza was supposed to have murdered. Figure in the town's biggest grower and his hot-to-trot new wife and you've got a whole pool of suspects in a neighborhood where temperatures are running high. As usual, there's a lot to keep track of.
Before the first commercial, Joe has already confronted three angry young hoods who want him to go back to Los Angeles. In short order, he is shot at through the window of his father's house, nearly run down by two large tractors, and engages in prolonged hand-to hand combat with the dead man's brother. Plenty of action for those who like that. The small-town chief of police is on Mannix's side this time, though, and we are kept guessing till the end on the real murderer.
Victor Jory returns as Mannix, Sr and does very well. Look for a great bit by Marion Ross pre-Happy Days. The real charm of this episode is seeing Joe in his hometown - that picture on his father's mantel looks to be Mike Connors' own mother. Joe handles the brutal beating and rape of Jose's sister too casually for my taste, ("she's fine, Jose") but if you insist on modern sensibilities, you shouldn't watch 70's television. Instead of the usual anonymous hit men, we know who is trying to take Mannix out. This particular show is personal in many ways - it is rare to get any part of Joe's family backstory. This episode is part of the Mannix canon. Don't miss it.
Mannix: Fly, Little One (1970)
Brush up on your Peter Pan
A plot you could actually follow and a good performance by Pam Ferdin, who plays as a mentally disturbed child named Dana with a Peter Pan complex who floats in and out of reality and threatens to fly off balconies. She is being treated at a special school and is very close to her psychiatrist, who is about to donate a small fortune in bonds to the school. Dana overhears something she shouldn't about the bonds being stolen on the same day her doctor was murdered. Joe, working on behalf of the insurance company on this one, is assigned to investigate the whereabouts of the bonds. Proving he is catnip to kids as well as women, Joe instantly bonds with Dana, and he is convinced that her delusions about Captain Cook and the pirates contain strands of truth about what she saw and heard prior to the murder.
Ferdin had quite a few scenes and being an accomplished child actress was as self-possessed as any adult. The other costars seemed wooden in comparison and there is no mystery to solve in this one really. For those who like the action, there was a car chase along a windy road and the obligatory fight scene at the end. While it is watchable, as almost every episode is, it is nothing special. Other reviewers have commented on the real danger Ferdin was in during the balcony scene, and watching the episode makes you wonder who thought that was a good idea. In an ironic note - Connors' own daughter was named Dana and his son, now deceased, would be diagnosed with a mental illness a few years after this episode was filmed.
Mannix: A Day Filled with Shadows (1971)
Joe takes a dive ...or two
Joe takes a dive ...or two
A distraught father - on the outside a successful businessman but in reality a laundromat for mob money - hires Joe to find his son, a straight arrow college basketball star who has seen something he should not have seen. Papa wants Joe to find the son before the hoods do, but of course, doesn't level with Joe about why he needs his son found. Mayhem ensues. The plot on this was straightforward but there were nice touches. Mike Connors, a college basketball star himself, got to show his stuff on the same court as Lew Alcindor, better known as Kareem Abdul Jabar, and Gail Goodwin. Bing Russell (Kurt's father) makes a believable basketball coach. For those who love the action, Mannix gets tailed, beat up, etc, but the real fun was seeing Mike Connors, and it was Mike Connors, take three dives into the water and swim after the bad guys. I generally watch Mannix more for the character than the action, but I did enjoy the water chases. Those brief scenes alone should put to rest the rumor that Connors wore a toupee. He earned his money on this episode, hauling himself in and out of the water and playing the final scenes dripping wet.
There is some fun back and forth between Joe and Tobias at the beginning (they have good chemistry). The father, played with intensity by John Colicos in one of his many Mannix appearances, gets it before the end, thereby leaving Joe once again without a paycheck. It is a good thing Paramount paid him, as his clients rarely did. Arline Anderson of the sparkling blue eyes had a small part as an older college librarian who remembers Joe's glory days on the court. An interesting footnote - Anderson has a co-writing credit for the Mannix episode Once Upon a Sunday. Considering how very few women wrote for Mannix, that was a coup.
Mannix: The Color of Murder (1971)
Great fun if you don't try to follow the plot.
A reviewer in this space likens the plot of The Color of Murder to The Big Sleep in its complexity - and like The Big Sleep it is best just to hang on as best you can and go along for the ride. The episode is worth a look if only to catch Diane Keaton playing Annie Hall before she was famous. In a worthy aside, in her memoir Then Again, Keaton tells the story of the final scene in the warehouse, where she was supposed to break down. "Terrified, I burst into tears and asked to be let go," Keaton writes. "Connors ... asked everyone to leave the set and walked me through the scene as many times as I needed. I fell in love with him. Not every big star is kind enough to take the time with a frightened young actress."
But back to the show -- the plot circles back on itself numerous times and has enough characters to fill a two-hour movie. Not one murder but three. Not one PI but three (if you count the second PIs wife). Not one branch of the mob but two. Two females in need of protection, one an heiress who is a compulsive liar. Car chases. Gut punches. Get the idea? When the bad guy is finally revealed, which was before the actual end of the episode, there was so much going on in that scene that even Joe looked a bit confused. Peggy dazzles as usual - she should have gone into reference librarianship with her talent for finding answers - and we get to see Joe masquerading as a yacht salesman in a double-breasted navy blazer. What's not to like?
Mannix: Who Is Sylvia? (1970)
Joe plays marriage counselor
More than half a century ago, in the big city where I Iive, a sweet young girl from a close knit, ethnic neighborhood fell in with the wrong crowd. She was brutally murdered and dismembered, not for something she knew but for something her killers thought she knew about the location of a stash of drugs. The story in Who is Sylvia hit close too close to home for me to see plot holes.
It remains in my top ten episodes, though, because it starts with is a strong script that keeps you guessing. Jessica Walters, a fine actress, did a credible job as "Sylvia", the poor little rich girl. She portrayed a woman whose life with her banker husband, yet another war buddy of Joe's, was so empty that she invented a promiscuous alter ego who chased risk just to be able to feel. The supporting cast did nice work. Joe doubled as a marriage counselor as he listened patiently to both sides without rushing to judgment, then engineered the opportunity for them to reunite at the end. This was a damsel-in-distress episode where Joe 's heroism was on ample display; he saved both Peggy and "Sylvia" from an eye-patched assassin - and his powers of deduction were present in equal measure as he figured out why "Sylvia" was a target in the first place. One hopes his banker friend paid Joe for services rendered as he certainly had the means. Joe not only saved the banker's wife, he saved the banker's marriage. For me, Mannix is always at his best when he has the chance to display his character - and courage tempered with compassion is a great combination.
Mannix: Only One Death to a Customer (1970)
The one where Joe first met Hot Lips Houlihan
Somebody is trying to kill Joe. After the third attempt, even Mannix, at home with mortal danger, takes the hint. For those who tune in just for the action, it's all upfront in this episode. And those first hit men! Even in an era when men dressed every day, how fun to see paid killers stalking their prey in hats, coats and ties!
I enjoyed this one, but its flaws didn't escape me. Only two took me out of the flow -- first, the hole in Joe's reasoning about why someone was out to get him. The most likely suspect, Frank Bauer, is presumed dead at the episode's start, but Joe theorizes that he was fingered because he knew the secret location of a huge haul from a robbery Frank pulled. Although Frank was caught and jailed, no one ever found the stash. Why kill Mannix before he gave up the location? Mannix helped put Bauer away -- the vengeance motive was more than enough. The second? As others have cited, Frank could have killed Mannix many times over but rather allowed him to talk away until Mannix saw his moment and got the jump on him. Will these killers never learn?
The story was easy to follow this time, if you can get past Bauer's stupidity. He had the perfect cover, purportedly dying during a prison escape. Rather than seizing the moment to escape with the cash, Bauer pursed a vendetta when money would have been the better revenge. Joe didn't manage to save the two other victims in this episode, but while he didn't get to play the hero, he did save his own skin.
And Joe had good chemistry with a very young Loretta Switt, seen in her tv debut as the gangster's moll. (What with Larry Linville and Mike Farrell, Mannix's guest starts were a veritable "Who's Who" from MASH.) Switt refers to herself as a 'big girl' in this episode, and she was easily twice the size of Hot Lips Houlihan, her signature role. The scene with him fumbling around Switt's boutique is priceless. Joe is never above using his looks and charm to seduce females into giving him the information he needs. He always stays inside the line, though, and in this case, she was playing him as well, so it seems they were well matched. Except no woman is ultimately a match for Joe. She lingers wistfully at the end, trying to entice him back with the prospect of all that cash, but Joe doesn't buy it. He does turn her in, albeit gently, and you half expect him to say, "I hope they don't hang you precious, by that sweet neck...."