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Post by topbilled on Dec 1, 2023 15:19:22 GMT
I'm excited about this month's theme. First, Jlewis and I decided that it's become predictable covering holiday movies in December (though we could always return to that idea next year). Instead, we wanted to shake things up by focusing on crime stories, especially ones that aired on TV.
I was born in the 1970s and 'came of age' in the 80s, so 80s TV has always been important to me. One show that I remember watching first-run on NBC, on Saturday nights, was Hunter starring Fred Dryer & Stepfanie Kramer. About ten years ago I bought the complete DVD set for Hunter and I was surprised how well the stories held up. Recently, I started reviewing certain episodes again on freevee, and I was still impressed with the quality of the show.
Jlewis had never watched Hunter back in the day...so I think you will find his reviews rather interesting.
I will lead things off today by posting an overview of the series, and then tomorrow I will post Jlewis' review for a special three-part episode that originally aired in 1987. In subsequent weeks, there will be reviews from both of us on the rest of the episodes that were chosen to highlight this month.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 1, 2023 15:51:21 GMT
The series, which aired from 1984 to 1991 on NBC was never a top 10 hit, but it did well on Saturday nights and retained a loyal following which kept the network happy. Hunter attracted a larger following overseas when it was syndicated in Europe and Asia. It was massively popular in Japan.
The first season’s episodes are perhaps the weakest, as the series was still finding its groove and relying on rapid gunfire, explosions and special effects instead of good solid storytelling. Hunter did not begin to hit its stride until the second year when former pulp writer Roy Huggins took over. Huggins had successfully helmed two James Garner shows— Maverick and The Rockford Files. Under Huggins’ guidance, the two main characters, Detective Rick Hunter (Fred Dryer) and Detective DeeDee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer), were fleshed out and their interplay provided sparks. John Amos had a short run as the captain, before the role of a gruff but compassionate boss was taken over by character actor Charles Hallahan.
Fred Dryer had been a former pro football player, and he is well suited to playing the title character, a by-the-book cop with a heart of gold. He shares considerable chemistry with Stepfanie Kramer and in one episode we do learn their characters slept together (something the audience had been wanting), but then they decided to remain platonic.
Stepfanie Kramer (born Stephanie but the spelling had to be changed because the Screen Actors Guild already had a Stephanie Kramer) was the daughter of a violinist. She had a background in music and theater and was more a singer than an actress when the show started, but she grew in the role and made it her own.
Ms. Kramer left at the end of the sixth season in 1990, with her character getting married and leaving the police force. Though Kramer was still friends with Dryer, she was a bit unhappy about how her character had become less relevant in the later seasons. Off screen Dryer had become one of the producers and with his increasing clout, the stories began to focus mainly on him and less on Kramer’s character. She was especially sidelined in the sixth season, and she quit to pursue other interests. Kramer would return later for the TV reunion movies and a short-lived reboot series that followed in the early 2000s.
During the seventh and final season of the program’s original run on NBC, Kramer was replaced by Darlanne Fluegel who was abruptly fired after 13 episodes, who was then replaced by Lauren Lane. Sensing the end was near, the writers introduced Lane as a cop who had a romantic history with Hunter, and in the last few episodes, they become a proper couple with Hunter playing “stepfather” to Lane’s little girl. This was meant to bring Hunter full-circle as a loner who had now settled down and found some domestic happiness.
The episodes we’re reviewing in December are the most famous ones from the show’s long run, and they tend to come from the later seasons.
Small Screen Noir: Hunter
December 2: HUNTER: CITY OF PASSION (1987)
December 9: HUNTER: HEIR OF NEGLECT (1988)
December 16: HUNTER: THE LEGION (1989)
December 23: HUNTER: THE FIFTH VICTIM (1989)
December 30: HUNTER: FATAL OBSESSION (1991) |
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Post by topbilled on Dec 2, 2023 14:09:08 GMT
“HUNTER: CITY OF PASSION” Episodes 71-73 (Season 4)
TopBilled:
This feature-film length three-parter is often cited as the best of Hunter. Brady Bunch dad Robert Reed taps into his more villainous side as the leader of a Satanic cult. The main plot involves a mysterious serial rapist who may or may not be Reed’s character.Jlewis:
Robert Reed a.k.a. Mike Brady of Brady Bunch fame took on some interesting, challenging roles late in his career as a way to, perhaps, not be completely identified and remembered as just a TV sitcom dad. He only appears in a couple key scenes of this 3-part saga but makes the most of it, accompanied by the usual cast members of this popular crime series…Fred Dryer is the frequently scowling investigator Rick Hunter (call it the Jack Lord effect that started back in 1968 with Hawaii Five-O, Fred being no different than so many others of this genre). Meanwhile Stepfanie Kramer does what all women are supposed to do in these stock crime shows by appearing more light-hearted in the opening credits with even her name of Dee Dee McCall as slightly comical. And Charles Hallahan’s Capt. Charles Devane acts as the ground center to the activities on screen. Erik Estrada of the previous decade’s ChiPS is a guest star here, as fellow cop investigator Brad Navarro. He’s domesticated with a frequently complaining wife Cathy (Gail Youngs) who attempts a lawsuit against the LAPD for supplying her husband with too many sexy co-workers for her to compete with. Shelly Taylor Morgan does not get prominent billing in the credits but she is also a key player here as Sgt. Kitty O’Hearn, also quite attractive, and looking like Kramer with her make up all finely placed. Then again, this is 1987 when the ladies in crime shows must look as good as the ladies in Dynasty and Dallas, so we have that wonderful retro charm here.We start out with a woman (Barbara Treutelaar) attacked in her home, assaulted in as much graphic detail as prime time TV could show at the time. Unlike another victim we see a short time later, she survives but is traumatized and moves out of her house, no longer feeling safe in her life. Later revelation: homes bought by her and other victims have some sort of key/management connection. We then follow with Robert Reed as Judge Unger who picks up a “lady of the evening” who is actually Dee Dee merely posing as one but out to nab those soliciting for sex. Right away, politics gets dragged into this scenario since we all know how the mighty involved in our justice system all have secrets they are trying to hide from the public. As expected, Dee Dee’s job is under fire for arresting the wrong man in power. A third character comes into our story, who mysteriously breaks into Dee Dee’s house and calls her at the office. Nicknamed “Bigfoot,” he is revealed later as Lloyd Fredericks (Frederick Coffin). Part 2 involves three women under attack, including another lady-of-the-evening named Stacey (Lezlie Deane) and Dee Dee herself. One amusing highlight that I enjoyed, among all of the dark drama, was Hunter and Dee Dee’s trip to an “occult” gift shop that resembled something out of a Witch Hazel Looney Tune. No… I did not buy that as a convincing occult shop.By the third act (spoiler alert!), the villains of our saga boil down to Lloyd Fredericks, who gets shot by his wife (Meg Gibson) after an earlier aborted attempt by Dee Dee (in angry response to her own earlier assault), and the mighty judge Unger himself. “Scar Face” (Hank Stone) is another questionable suspect who gets shot in the leg by an over-eager Hunter. As directed by James Whitmore Jr., this reminded me of the Val Lewton produced film THE SEVENTH VICTIM that we reviewed two months back, sharing the same Judaeo-Christian paranoia about “alternative” religions. Intriguingly we don’t see much of the cult and its activities apart from very fleeting dimly lit flashback glimpses and so much of this story angle is kept rather nebulous. However, the word “Satan” is emphasized in the shop to add a sense of dread with a menacing stuffed werewolf-of-sorts that Hunter bravely traces his hand against.The 1980s were much like the 1940s in this regard, as dominated by Jerry Falwell and company at war with everything “progressive” and parental groups and churches alike up in arms over “Dungeons and Dragons” and heavy metal rock. TV shows always reflect the times in which they were made and this show certainly does. Personally I favored the Castevets in ROSEMARY’S BABY better since they at least displayed a sense of humor and that movie was less judgmental than THE SEVENTH VICTIM and these CITY OF PASSION episodes. On the plus side, there are bonuses galore here for history buffs and the nostalgic alike in the many scenes of ladies’ shoulder pads, typewriters in offices, land-line telephones and boxy automobiles with rectangular headlights.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 9, 2023 17:32:29 GMT
“HUNTER: HEIR OF NEGLECT” Episode 88 (Season 5)
TopBilled:
This is the season 5 opener of Hunter and is one of my favorite episodes of the entire series, definitely my favorite episode this season. Executive producer Roy Huggins had retired at the end of season 4, but his successors have taken over without missing a beat. There is no lengthy prelude like we see in many of the show’s episodes, for as soon as the opening credits end, we are plunged right into a robbery-slash-homicide that has occurred at the home of a wealthy couple.Officers Rick Hunter (Fred Dryer) and DeeDee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) quickly take stock of the situation after they arrive at the couple’s mansion and find a teen boy (Chad Allen) who is said to have been asleep when his parents were confronted by a robber. Initially, we are told the kid found his dad’s gun and used it on his folks, mistaking them for robbers. But there’s more to the story. Much more.While Hunter and McCall carry out their investigation, they gather information to make sense of several loose ends. Primarily, who was the intruder and what happened to them? During this time, Hunter gets personally attached to the kid since the boy’s father is now dead and his mother is comatose, still fighting for her life in the hospital. With few leads to go on about the home invasion, Hunter thinks answers can be found by getting the boy to open up and remember what happened. As a result, there is a fair amount of psychotherapy in this episode.This was one of the show’s more shocking plots, for we gradually learn the boy didn’t shoot his parents by mistake, but that it was premeditated. His motive for wanting them dead is both chilling and sad. No other TV crime series had featured an underage child as a killer and in fact it was rare for any crime show in the 70s, 80s or 90s to depict patricide. The scene where the boy confesses the truth to Hunter at the end is one of the program's most devastating moments.The reason why this is one of my favorite episodes of Hunter is that it works against our expectations. We expect the kid to be innocent. We expect his mom to wake up from the coma and for there to be a happier ending. We don’t expect a fourteen year old to be one of the more coldblooded killers that Hunter and McCall have ever encountered on the job.Guest star Chad Allen typically played wholesome characters. He had a recurring role on St. Elsewhere as an autistic lad. He played Wilford Bromley’s likable grandson on the family show Our House. And his most well-known TV role would come as Jane Seymour’s son on the hit 90s western Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman. But here, for a brief moment, he shines as a twisted adolescent with severe emotional problems.***Jlewis:
 I did not watch Hunter back in the day since crime shows had little interest to me at the time, but watching these today does bring back memories of that particular era of TV with its antiquated fashions and emphasis on dramatic cliff-hanging. The CITY OF PASSION episodes were fascinating in a prime time soap sort of way with women getting all dramatic with guns and so forth. It did stretch longer than necessary, while this episode accomplished a lot more in under an hour and displays a bit more realism in its characterizations.Directed by Alexander Singer, this dates a full year later (October 29, 1988) but our central cast is the same with Rick Hunter (Fred Dreyer), Dee Dee McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) and Capt. Charles Devane (Charles Hallahan). The former two offer emotional support to co-worker and expecting daddy Jimmy (Yuji Okumoto) who is planning an underwater birth with his wife. This leads into our episode’s theme: parenthood.Hunter and McCall arrive at a plush home where reports of violence are detected by the neighbors. There, they find a blond teenage boy, Danny Sanderson (Chad Allen), standing over his shot mother, although she appears to survive in critical condition. His father is dead, although I was a bit confused about this at first since there isn’t much discussion of it initially and we see no corpse.
One striking characteristic I noticed in both this and last week’s episodes is that virtually all of the homes depicted in this series have solid white walls, this being common in countless TV shows and movies but especially those involving crime scenes. White represents a certain cleanliness, hospital style, and the use of guns and blood add to a certain psychological UN-nerving of the viewers.Lt. Lianna Curry (Lucy Butler) is a psychologist investigator also involved in this case. Like others, she is not jumping to any conclusions that Danny was involved. If he pulled the trigger, it was accidental since he claimed their home had an intruder. We don’t learn much about Danny’s parents and his upbringing but a related friend Claire Siebert (Michele Marsh) gives McCall a few tidbits on his lonely solo-child status and some of the wealth involving his father, while Curry claims his teachers say he struggles in school despite bright intelligence.Apparently the writers goofed with their paleontology facts as Hunter sees Danny a bit later under psychological investigation while putting wooden dinosaur skeleton models together. Both Danny and Hunter misidentify a Dimetrodon (not a dinosaur) as, first, a Tyrannosaurus and, secondly, a Stegosaurus. I am sure that, had this followed JURASSIC PARK, such boo-boos would not have been made but the 1980s was not a time when TV writers considered dinos important enough to fact-check for small screen entertainment. Or maybe…I will say the writers are on to something here. (See my note at bottom *)Nonetheless, Curry is impressed with the way Hunter relates to Danny as a surrogate father figure. They later make a trip to an air and space museum and are a bit more accurate in their observations of the airplanes on display. Seeing how these two bond gives viewers a false sense of a potential happy ending at the end of this…I got lost in a few details of the plot here due to ol’ me not being good at watching detective who-done-its properly, but it appears that we get the usual “red herrings” among suspects. Hunter and Danny deal with muscleman Rockne Waters (Rick Lieberman) in the wine cellar of Danny’s deceased father’s (an accountant) complex, but cross-questioning rules him out of any foul play. The partner of Danny’s father, Arthur Ligget (David Spielberg), is falsely arrested for possible involvement. Meanwhile, mother wakes up after her coma and reveals further details of importance…I will allow TopBilled to decide what details of these to spoil here. Let’s just say that the title of our episode sums up a personality quite well.*Maybe Hunter is just naȉve about such things and Danny is a skilled distorter of facts? The little detail about Danny getting the tail portion upside down and Hunter observing the obvious suggests that Danny is merely pretending to be an expert in dino-models for appearance sake. Just as Danny pretends at a lot of other things!
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Post by topbilled on Dec 16, 2023 14:50:30 GMT
“HUNTER: THE LEGION” Episodes 114-115 (Season 6)
TopBilled: The show continued to evolve in the post-Roy Huggins era. And while season 6 wasn’t quite as sharply written as the seasons that immediately preceded it, there were still some notable episodes. Like this two-parter from early in the sixth season, that is a bit more sensationalistic than other installments, but still riveting.The first plot involves a violent white supremacist (Richard Lynch in scene stealing mode) who escapes from prison and remains at large. One thing I love about crime shows from the 70s and 80s is that they typically have some of the most memorable villains on TV. In this case, Lynch’s character is completely deranged and out of control. At the level of a Batman supervillain. We don’t really know much about what makes him tick, except he’s a huge bigot and he’s definitely not keen on improving race relations in Los Angeles.Jerry Douglas, who at the time was in the midst of a long-running role as a doting patriarch on CBS’ soap opera The Young and the Restless has a supporting role as the prison warden who’s in cahoots with Lynch. Part of the story has Douglas helping to spring Lynch and then after Lynch is out, to help Lynch and Lynch’s cohorts with some sort of criminal exploit. Douglas rarely did these types of roles, so it’s a chance for him to stretch his acting muscles.While the plot with Lynch and Douglas is certainly engrossing, I found the the other main plot much more interesting. It involves an old mentor of McCall’s (Stepfanie Kramer), played by Claude Akins, who turns up for an unexpected reunion. We learn Akins’ character had retired from the force and moved to Washington state but he didn’t get along with his daughter and felt aimless. He comes back to L.A., looks up McCall and quickly decides to make himself useful by helping her and Hunter chase down the supremacist group.A good twist has Akins’ character going too far in his zeal to nab the bad guys. As a result of exercising poor judgment, he faces obstruction of justice charges. McCall is obviously torn, because she’s fond of the old geezer but she also knows he no longer plays by the rules. There are some wonderful character-driven moments in this plot, and the final scenes of part one where McCall learns Akins threw in the towel and committed suicide are very powerful to watch.The second part has McCall on her own mission to bring down Lynch and the other cons. She is still grieving the loss of her mentor Akins, and she makes a few errors in judgment herself. We see McCall putting herself at risk, then getting kidnapped and held hostage by Lynch’s gang. Though part two goes a bit over-the-top, this is still a very gripping double episode of Hunter with smart performances from Lynch, Douglas, Akins and Kramer.***Jlewis:
 Another year (1989) and another season of Hunter (up to 6) with the opening credits getting livelier as we progress through the years. Corey Allen is director in charge here. We open with quite a bit of action: Frank Lassiter (Richard Lynch) is an inmate who overtakes his (darker skin-toned) guard and escapes the pen in an all-white mini-van to work with his gang, co-headed by his much younger hot tempered brother Rudy (Richard Lineback). He makes no hiding of his ideologies with a swastika tattooed on his shoulders; although the bleached blonde hair may be too blatant. However he isn’t too much of a racist not to allow the darker-toned John Masters (Ken Foree) as a cover “boy” for their secretive crimes.Andy Polanski (Claude Akins, a familiar face in Hollywood screens for over four decades), nicknamed “Ol’ Blind Bear,” is an ol’ chum of Dee Dee visiting from Seattle. He has a history dealing with far-right ideologists, dubbed “white supremacists” at a time when it wasn’t considered offensive to far-right news commentators. Hunter views him as competition of sorts despite Andy being semi-retired at his age. Andy’s battle with a car salesman with possible connections to Frank and Rudy blows a possible witness Hunter hopes to use in the future and he is not subtle in his reprimanding. For his part, Andy wants to be back doing what he loved in the past despite nobody wanting him to help them now.There are some important themes here regarding how society treats those over-the-age, Andy may be getting old but he still has some tricks up his sleeve and many years of experience that should not be ignored. That is, until his accidental shooting of another suspect prompts Hunter to consider him more of a liability than an asset. This episode showcases Fred Fryer playing our lead as more impatient than usual, even getting angry at Dee Dee frequently as a sign that his job is getting too frustrating for his patience level with everybody floundering on their investigations.Spoiler alert: Andy commits suicide at the close of Part 2 and Dee Dee is emotionally impacted, making her self-search her own life and occupation taking its toll. This starts up conflict between her and Hunter who is obsessed too much on The Job for job’s sake. This is an aspect to this episode I like over some of the others being viewed this week: it adds extra layers to the characters and, again, demonstrates that this is no glamour job people enjoy doing. Julie Parrish has an interesting minor role here as Andy’s daughter who shows up at the funeral and Dee Dee is super critical of her for being a daughter lacking understanding. After all, we sense that Dee Dee viewed Andy as a father figure herself.We see the gang out in the streets gunning down an innocent store-owner after robbing him. It is not clear as to why such petty crimes are committed when the long goal is not much financially, except maybe to exploit their ideologies. We do learn later that five million dollars are at stake even though it isn’t spelled out specifically where it was stolen from. Inevitably, Rudy is hospitalized from a gun battle and his wife Rita (Jacqueline Schultz) becomes another witness with plenty of tearful confessions.Of course, we need still more action to keep viewers motivated in this episode so Dee Dee is dramatically kidnapped by The Gang after deciding briefly to leave her job. This plot gets…well, too far fetched at this point for me but I at least understand the reasoning behind it in the context of late eighties small screen entertainment that needed to keep viewers glued between commercial breaks. Adding to the subtle silliness is the image of Dee Dee handcuffed to a big bed with fellow member…is it Bass? (Paul Kaslo)…I am getting some characters confused here… ready to take advantage of her before she kicks him in the groin. The remainder of the show involves Hunter trying to get her rescued despite reservations by bosses Mike Murdoch (Jerry Douglas) and Capt. Devane (Charles Hallahan).I do feel that this episode gets a little lost trying to figure out how villainous its villains are. For his part, Rudy tries to escape his hospital confines in an echo to how his big brother escaped prison and the images of him sporting a gun while in his hospital gown is an interesting sight. Hunter also soon realizes that he is making some of the same mistakes with his trigger-eagerness as the deceased Andy whom he often criticized. Meanwhile, there are some interesting discussions between the captive and her captor Frank that make for good confessional TV drama.Regardless of my criticisms, it is still an highly entertaining ride with plenty of the (as reviewers of this episode colorfully label) “cat and mouse” play before its expected ending of the good guys winning in the end. Cue the usual gun battle on top of buildings we have all grown to love over decades of cop entertainment and a villian’s literal “fall” through window glass.
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Post by topbilled on Dec 23, 2023 15:08:28 GMT
“HUNTER: THE FIFTH VICTIM” Episodes 118 (Season 6)
TopBilled:
 In the middle of the sixth season of Hunter the writers went outside the box a bit and decided to do a story about a serial killer targeting gay men. This type of plot hadn’t really been done before, at least not on this program. And surprisingly for its time, it’s a very thoughtful and well-balanced treatise on the subject. Since this is a police procedural the writing connects homophobia with hate crime, specifically murder.One thing that happens in the beginning is that a culprit is nabbed and confesses to a bunch of these murders. However, as Hunter and another investigator (William Smith who had played a cop on the last season of the original Hawaii Five O) look at a board with the photos of five victims pinned to a board, they learn that the man in custody only killed four of the five. One victim’s assailant is still unknown, which means the investigation cannot be closed until the other killer is brought to justice.Hunter doesn’t have much screen time with McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) in this episode. She is mostly peripheral to the action, though Kramer does have a good scene with Smith when McCall accuses this other investigator of not doing his job well. He lashes out and makes derogatory comments about McCall always trying to act like one of the boys. Not sure if that’s supposed to be a muted comment about him referring to McCall being a bit butch as an officer, or if he’s referring to her always siding with Hunter and Captain Devane (Charles Halloran). At any rate, it’s a well-acted scene.Back to the investigation…in the course of hunting down leads about the elusive other killer, Hunter visits a gay bar or two. These scenes would obviously be staged differently now. It’s like the producers and director were a little too afraid to make the men in the working class bar a little too flamboyant or even sexual. But later when Hunter visits a posh hookup spot for gay men frequented by white collar homosexuals, there are some stereotypical references to these gay men liking Cole Porter songs played on piano…which I found a trifle amusing.During the course of Hunter’s visit to the piano bar, he discovers that the place is a hangout for a much respected cop on the force that Hunter must work with on the case, played by Rick Giolito. In a subsequent scene, the cop comes out to Hunter and admits he’s gay but feels he should keep his private life from their captain and the other cops at the station. It doesn’t even seem as if McCall or any of the female detectives knows about his preferences. To the show’s credit, most of the dialogue in this section of the story is realistically frank and progressive.Hunter is depicted as supportive and understanding towards the gay cop. By the end of the story, he has helped the guy come out to the captain who will still help the gay cop receive a promotion. Meanwhile, the unknown killer is ultimately tracked down and in the process Hunter uncovers a department leak and cover-up that’s been going on.My only slight criticism here is that while I think the script means well and it’s an interesting story about two killers targeting gay men, the casting feels off to me. The guest actor who plays the gay cop is a bit ‘too straight.’ In Hollywood there was a trend for gay actors to be kept in the closet and to play straight characters (Rock Hudson, Tab Hunter, George Nader and others); and a similar trend for straight actors to play gay characters when they would pop up (Jack Coleman on Dynasty comes to mind). It would have felt more authentic if a real-life out of the closet gay actor had played the gay cop. It would have been a bit more groundbreaking.***Jlewis:
 Aired December 9, 1989, this one arrived towards the end of a very dark decade full of homophobia cast under the shadow of the AIDS epidemic (considered by many incorrectly as “just a gay disease” back then). Although TV shows were making some ground with more sympathetic portrayals of gays and lesbians, the changes were still slower than in the way various ethnic societies, non-Caucasian races and non-Christian religions were portrayed. Nonetheless, a show like this deserves credit for the little steps forward it does make for its time.As expected, the term “homosexual” (it takes 22 minutes before the word “gay” is heard) is as blatantly spoken in 1989 as it was back in, say, 1967. The alternative term “heterosexual” (there are no “bisexuals” here) is never used since it is not necessary to define the mass majority by what happens involving them behind closed doors and with whom.Of course, a key reason we must hear this term is because all murdered victims in this situation were selected because of this, as concerning to both Capt. Devane and the highly opinionated Sgt. Sal Drasso (William Smith, whose loose drinking behavior later prompts trouble that Dee Dee confronts him on). The stakes are increased when a prominent business owner (“Mark Sanger” is the name heard on screen) is another victim. Not that viewers are expected to be all that concerned about the other victims since they were all “hustlers”. (Um…no comment here, but remember that this is still a backward attitude of 1989 when ladies of the evening tended to be shown more sympathetically in CITY OF PASSION.)Lipstick is applied to the deceased mouths in order to make some sort of statement about their masculinity. There is a girlfriend (Laurie Prange) of one suspect, John Calder (Michael Champion), who is interviewed since it is initially suspected that the killer is “straight.” Another character of interest is a prominent business owner named William Sedgwick (William Joyce).Again, this show is rather forward in its social commentary and we should compliment those aspects accordingly. The prominent victim’s former lover is a very mild mannered (a.k.a. not flamboyant) suited fellow named “Mister” Stansfield (Richmond Hoxie) and he is pretty open to Hunter that he is not embarrassed about his lifestyle. A gay bar, the Black Boot, is an interesting setting in one scene here, looking no different than any other average bar of any other kind. More importantly, detective Frank Buchanan (Rick Giolito) is open to Hunter, if not others in the force who would label him a “freak,” that he is gay and he becomes the central character involved here. Unfortunately, as expected in 80s TV, we will not see him in any further episodes unless there is a need to investigate anything “gay.” On the plus side, the good Captain is not judgmental of him and it is at least implied that he will be a regular on his unit.Won’t spoil the outcome but there is a slight gotcha at the end. For me, the most dated aspects of this show have to do with the settings. This is yet another show with a climax on top of a building roof and somebody…almost…falling this time. Yes, I understand that the construction business is a major component to our story but I feel that these cop shows were starting to fall into a predictable cookie cutter mold, not unlike B-westerns of previous decades.One bonus for movie fans like us: Dee Dee, Frank and Hunter all debate the plot of THE BIG SLEEP starring Bogie.
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Post by kims on Dec 23, 2023 15:42:36 GMT
I confess: who is jlewis? You mention jlewis often and I think I should know who you speak of.
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Post by jlewis on Dec 23, 2023 18:37:05 GMT
I confess: who is jlewis? You mention jlewis often and I think I should know who you speak of. I am here but have not been posting frequently enough. My specialty on the old Turner Classic Movie site that both topbilled and I frequently posted on in the past were old Hollywood short subjects. I had covered them studio by studio on that forum. |
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Post by kims on Dec 23, 2023 22:05:53 GMT
Thank you for explaining. I thought you might be Top's alter ego and I missed the back story.
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Post by jlewis on Dec 24, 2023 3:47:44 GMT
Thank you for explaining. I thought you might be Top's alter ego and I missed the back story. He worries about that with these essential commentaries. I used to comment on forums like this a lot in the past but sometimes our lives get too occupied on other matters. I don't even watch movies as much as I used to but try to make time for these each month, especially since a high percentage are titles that I have never seen before. These include next month's crop featuring director Joseph Losey whom I knew very little about, despite my own extensive readings in movie history.
PS: I just noticed that I even responded to a question of yours on another thread involving short films... so I am not TOTALLY invisible here. Ha ha! I probably should, when I have more time, start some "essentials" of my favorite "shorties" spanning the silent era through the golden age of 16mm, which at least lasted through much of the VHS era but officially bit the dust with the advent of both DVD and the internet in the 1990s. (Apart from specialized film festivals, many shorts began their lives "online" by the dawn of the 21st century.) The history of the short film is an impressive one stretching back to the Edison Manufacturing Company and its "actualities" (i.e. anything of interest worth shown in motion on a screen was documented for posterity).
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Post by topbilled on Dec 30, 2023 13:59:24 GMT
“HUNTER: FATAL OBSESSION” Episodes 143 & 144 (Season 7)
TopBilled:
This episode is from the middle of the seventh and final season of Hunter. I wouldn’t say the show was running out of steam per se, but it certainly lost something when Stepfanie Kramer left her role as Hunter’s sidekick DeeDee McCall at the end of the sixth season. Gone were the snappy one-liners between the two cops, who’d once slept together but became close friends. Gone also was the vivid fashion sense that McCall had while chasing down the bad guys.In short Kramer’s departure left a hole that would be hard to fill by any replacement. Fred Dryer and the other producers chose Darlene Fluegel to step in. Fluegel had already appeared in the short-lived drama Crime Story on NBC. This would be her first role as a detective, and she had enough sass to hold her own. Unfortunately Fluegel was a bit too temperamental, and instead of playing nice with Dryer and compromising on things like Kramer had done, she was much more vocal about the scripts and what she was expected to perform as officer Joanne Molenski.In fairness I think Dryer wanted this replacement to work, and he exercised a certain amount of patience to allow Fluegel to grow into the role and become more comfortable with the formulaic aspects of the job. However, Fluegel continued her outspokenness behind the scenes, and she continued to clash with Dryer. He finally pulled rank and convinced the other show runners and the network to fire Fluegel.As a result, Fluegel’s character barely lasts half a season on the program. She isn’t around long enough to make a huge impression on viewers. But in this memorable two-parter, her character is abruptly killed off and it is still shocking. Viewers at the time were probably not expecting a regular character to go down in a hail of bullets. Especially, not a female character. When Kramer left as McCall, her character was married off and given a happy ending. But not Fluegel. Her character was going to be given a very violent exit.Because the character of Molenski is going to die at the hands of a deranged person (Ellen Wheeler) in the line of duty, she will ironically become more heroic than even Hunter. The first part sets up Wheeler’s arrival in the area, and we learn she has killed a series of officers. So not only is she deranged, she’s a serial killer and more importantly to this show’s story, she’s a cop killer. Part one ends with Molenski pulling Wheeler over for a routine stop, and Wheeler firing a shot at her point blank. Molenski goes down and dies instantly.The second part begins with the solemn and reflective nature of Molenski’s funeral. Daryl Gates, who was then the real-life Chief of Police in Los Angeles, makes a camera during the funeral. The immediate aftermath of Molensky’s death is poignantly played by Fred Dryer, costar Charles Hallahan and the others. After the funeral, it is Hunter’s job to nail Molenski’s assailant. At the same time, we have been introduced to a new female cop, played by Lauren Lane, who will help solve the case. Lane would stay with the show the rest of the season until it went off the air. She’s given a backstory (translation: past romance) with Hunter, and unlike McCall and Molenski she has a daughter, so there are more domestic type scenes with her.***Jlewis:
 Hunter is working with two ladies in this episode: Joanne Molenski (Darlanne Fluegel), whom he’s been with for a few months, and Chris Novak (Lauren Lane), a single mother raising an elementary school daughter who had a romantic past with him. The latter is a new arrival who may or may not stay with the police force full time, after Hunter saves her life in a shoot-out climax.This 2-parter, shot under the direction of both Corey Allen and Winrich Kolbe, in 1990 for January ’91 broadcast is a curious one with two seemingly unrelated stories…well, slightly related with one minor supporting character. The first story doesn’t resolve all that well with college girls getting assaulted late at night and a recent one becoming a casualty from a hit and run driver. There isn’t a lot of investigation, with a professor (Ken Marshall) confessing to a drunk situation and getting blackmailed by one of his students. A couple loose ends with this story didn’t amount to much, in my opinion, but was probably needed as filler material to drag this story arc for two episodes.Key reason for it being a two parter is the unexpected killing of Joanne when she tries to stop a driver named Loreen (Ellen Wheeler), who is initially introduced early in the program as a sweet blonde cutie-pie boarding with a nice old lady (Frances Bay) and either dating and pretending to be married…or actually married…to an Elvis Presley-ish looking James (Jeffrey Combs). The couple comes off as adorable at first but he is a jewelry store thief and she has a reputation for killing cops and sometimes stealing their personal items. Loreen has an interesting backstory fleshed out in some dreamy flashbacks involving abuse from…is it her father?…ex?…dressed as a cop. I felt her character and James to be quite fascinating character studies who deserved more screen time but… * spoiler alert * … he disappointingly gets shot to death by Chris (I guess because he refused to listen to cop orders of coming out of the house with his hands up) and she seeks revenge by stalking Chris and daughter to their home and getting rubbed out by a curious Hunter himself.There are some pleasing touches here. I like the professor lecturing on the famous novel Heart of Darkness, a nice alternative title to FATAL OBSESSION. Then again, I was confused by the title used here since it did not seem like anybody was obsessing over anybody else. The funeral of Joanne was beautifully staged and Hunter does show his softer side dealing with that and the domestic situation of Chris and daughter.All in all, a fairly decent end note for our month’s sampling of a classic cop show of decades past.
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