Mysterical-E

I Like 'Em Tough

THE EYES OF VIDEO ARE UPON YOU

By Jim Doherty

   Your hard-boiled sleuths come in a variety of flavors.

   There are hard-boiled cops for those who (like me) prefer police procedurals.

   There are hard-boiled secret agents for those who enjoy cloak-and-dagger yarns.

   There are hard-boiled newspapermen (though they’re becoming more and more of an anachronism as newspapers in real life fight for survival and cut little things like investigative reporting in an effort to trim expenses).

   There are hard-boiled crooks for those who like crime stories from the bad guy’s point of view.

   There are even hard-boiled amateur detectives.

   But for most people, the type of detective who best exemplifies the hard-boiled form is the hard-boiled private eye. Indeed, “hard-boiled” seems like a redundant modifier when it precedes “private eye.” Just say “private eye” and most will assume that you mean hard-boiled and, a few exceptions like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot notwithstanding, that assumption will generally be correct.

   I certainly grew up believing that a private eye was the kind of tough, sardonic, colloquial character celebrated in hard-boiled crime fiction. Those privately employed investigators who wore deerstalker caps or talked in funny accents about their little grey cells may have been detectives, and they may have been working for private clients, but they weren’t “private eyes” as I understood the term.

   It recently occurred to me that I came to understand that term, not through books or stories, though the hard-boiled private eye first appeared in prose fiction, nor in movie theatres, though some of the best films ever made feature private eyes, but on television. It was on TV that I first heard the term “private eye.” It was on television that I first saw gun-toting, fist-swinging, wisecrack-spouting PI’s personally fighting for justice on America’s mean streets (or at least as mean as they could be depicted on a medium intended for middle-class viewing).

   It is said that there are two kinds of people. Those who make “ten-best” lists, and those who don’t. I fall into the former category and what follows is my list of the ten best private eye television series.

   I placed a single limitation on myself. The only shows on this list are those that were created especially for television. This leaves out a lot of private eye shows that were not only very good, but even historically important to both the television medium and the private eye genre. 77 Sunset Strip, for example, was the first hour-long crime show to feature continuing characters that was ever broadcast, but it wasn’t considered for this list because its lead character, Stu Bailey, originally appeared in one novel, The Double Take (Morrow, 1946), and three short stories, all by Roy Huggins. Similarly, Mike Hammer, both the Darren McGavin version from the ‘50’s and the Stacy Keach version from the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, wasn’t considered. Philip Marlowe – Private Eye, one of the first series made originally for cable and featuring Emmy-winner Powers Boothe as the most iconic of all eyes, as well as an earlier, almost forgotten version from the ‘50’s with Philip Carey as Chandler’s hero, were both, by my self-imposed rule, rendered ineligible for consideration.

   So were many of the first PI shows ever broadcast on TV, such as Martin Kane, Charlie Wild, and Man Against Crime, which all began on radio before switching mediums.

But, with so many shows to choose from, I felt the need to limit eligibility, and, since this was to be a list of the best TV shows featuring private eyes, it seemed appropriate to limit the list to characters created especially for that medium.

   Here, then, are the ten best private eyes created especially for TV:

1)   Peter Gunn (ABC, 1958-60; NBC, 1960-61)
Film noir in miniature. Craig Stevens as suave, sophisticated cool-jazz lovin’ PI Pete Gunn was the ultimate eye. He operated in an unnamed city where it always seemed to be night, where it had always just rained so that the street lights caused an eerie reflective glow from the street, and where his every move was punctuated by kick-ass background music provided by Henry Mancini. Great supporting case included Herschel Bernardi as Gunn’s cop buddy, Lt. Jacoby, the best cop buddy of ‘em all, tough enough, smart enough, and a good enough detective in his own right that he could have rated his own show; Lola Albright as Gunn’s squeeze, jazz thrush Edie Hart; and Hope Emerson (later replaced by Minerva Urecal) as Mother, who owned the nightery where Edie sang. Great in every way. Often imitated, never equaled.

2)   Mannix (CBS, 1967-75)
This could almost be considered two great shows, since the format during the first season was very different than it was during the remaining seven. Originally conceived by series creators Richard Levinson and William Link (Columbo, Murder She Wrote, Tenafly, etc.) as “Sam Spade at a huge corporation,” it featured Mike Connors as Joe Mannix, a tough, old-fashioned, ruggedly individualistic detective who worked for Intertect, a high-tech, by-the-numbers, wholly computerized security and investigtive company. Not a match made in heaven, but Mannix was Intertect’s best operative. His boss, Lew Wickersham (Joseph Campanella), was also his best friend, but the relationship, though warm, was prickly. After a season of bumping his head against the corporate wall, Mannix quit Intertect and, in the second season, opened his own one-man agency, assisted only by his secretary, police widow Peggy Fair (Gail Fisher). In this more traditional format, the show lasted another seven years. During its entire eight-year run, it provided more action that just about any other five PI shows combined. Mannix was, in its time, perhaps the most violent show on the air. But it was violence backed up by solid script-writing and fine acting.

3)   Man in a Suitcase (ABC, 1968)
The only British show on the list, it nevertheless features an American character. Originally broadcast over the UK’s commercial network, ITV, the show featured Richard Bradford as McGill, a disgraced agent of US Intelligence, forced to resign because he was suspected of treason. The suspicions were apparently strong enough to force him to quit, but not quite strong enough to convict him, because McGill is still free (and, improbably, still allowed to carry a gun). With nothing to make a living on but his skills as a secret agent, he settles in London (if you can call moving from one rented room to another settling) and hires out as a private eye, taking cases all over Europe, some of them espionage-oriented. A classy, atmospheric, action-filled show, with a cool, moody hero, Man in a Suitcase deftly combined elements of the PI story with those of the international espionage genre that was still ultra-popular (thanks to the Bond craze) in the 1960’s. As we’ll see, some devices in this series seemed to have been recycled into a currently popular TV Eye show.

4)   Cannon (CBS, 1971-76)
A Quinn Martin production in which long-time heavy (in both senses of the word) William Conrad finally got to play the good guy. Blessed with a deep authoritative speaking voice, Conrad’s build (let’s not mince words; he was fat) was a bar to his playing heroic roles. It was his looks, more than anything, that had kept him from playing US Marshal Matt Dillon on the TV version of Gunsmoke, despite his having expertly created the role on the radio version. By 1971, however, Martin was willing to gamble that audiences would accept a fat hero. And his gamble paid off. Cannon, like a latter-day Continental Op, did not let his girth interfere with the physical aspects of his profession. He didn’t go out of his way to exert himself, but when fisticuffs were called for, he gave as good as he got; when shootouts occurred he was as quick on the trigger as his slimmer, trimmer counterparts; and, he had a presence that filled the screen no matter who else was on. Aside from Conrad’s size, the show was refreshingly gimmick-free. There were no secretaries, no regular police contacts, no quirky buddies. Conrad carried the show all by himself. But he was up to the task. Like all QM series, Cannon was a high-class operation, with top scripts, top guest stars, and top production values.

5)   Banyon (NBC, 1972-73)
During the ‘70’s there were three different shows that attempted to return the private eye to his 1930’s roots. None were long-lived. One was The Manhunter (CBS, 1974-75), a QM production in which Ken Howard played a former Marine-turned-farmer who supplemented his agricultural income by working as a part-time “licensed investigator” specializing in tracking down rural Depression-era outlaws of the “Pretty Boy” Floyd variety. Another, and the favorite of many, was City of Angels (NBC, 1976), in which Wayne Rogers played a LA-based shamus named Jake Axminster who fought municipal corruption as much as he did street crime. My buddy, Max Allan Collins, has called City of Angels “the greatest of all PI series,” and I suspect that the three-part pilot episode, based on real-life Marine General Smedley Butler’s claims of a fascist plot to overthrow the government, might have been part of the inspiration for his Nate Heller private eye novels. Nevertheless, in what I’m aware is a minority opinion, my favorite of the three is the first, Banyon, another QM production that featured Robert Forster as the epitome of Chandlerian knighthood. Miles Banyon was a 30-ish, unmarried, male, American, ex-cop, working out of a large US city (Los Angeles), running a one-man agency, and telling his stories in the first person (via voice-over narration). I found the notion of a farmer/private eye a bit much to swallow (although, in fairness, the real-life Erv Kelley, who was killed trying to apprehend “Pretty Boy” Floyd may have been the model for Howard’s character), and City of Angels, following so closely on the ultra-successful private eye film Chinatown (Paramount, 1976), and even featuring a detective named Jake, was tainted for me by seeming too obviously derivative. Nevertheless, much as I like Banyon, it was not without its faults. There were too many gimmicks (the hero liked to play with Erector sets and he got a new secretary every single week, free of charge, courtesy of the secretarial school next door, to the students of which he had an arrangement to provide a week’s worth of practical experience one by one). And, while the period details were convincing (particularly the Bradbury Building, where Banyon had his office), they were little more than background. As often as not, one of Banyon’s cases could just as easily have taken place in the present day as in the Depression, something you certainly couldn’t say about either The Manhunter or City of Angels. Finally, Banyon’s rigorous adherence to what I’ve called elsewhere “The Marlowe Paradigm” seems too studied and deliberate, and thus artificial and unoriginal. Nevertheless, Banyon gets points for being there first, for having solid, well-constructed scripts, for the standard-issue QM production values, and for its solid supporting case, which included Joan Blondell as the proprietress of the secretary’s school and Richard Jaeckel as Banyon’s old buddy on the LAPD.

6)   Harry O (ABC, 1974-76)
David Janssen, whose first regular TV role has been as a private eye on the video version of Richard Diamond (he’d been the personal choice of Dick Powell, who’d originated the role on radio), returned to the genre in this top-notch series. Like Miles Banyon, Harry Orwell was the quintessential hard-boiled PI, hitting every aspect of “The Marlowe Paradigm.” A late 30-ish/early 40-ish, male, American, unmarried (divorced) ex-cop (forced to retire because a bullet lodged near his spine rendered him unfit for duty), who works out of a large US city (San Diego during the first half-season, Los Angeles afterwards), operating his own one-man business, and telling his stories in the first person (in this case, as with Banyon, via a voice-over narration, but moodier, and better-written). But in Orwell’s case, this seemed less deliberate and more organic, perhaps because the show was, at least at first, less gimmicky. Orwell, for all that his era was far more prosperous than Banyon’s Depression, was a far more tragic figure. Like all hard-boiled PI’s, he had more than his share of physical courage, but his real courage was his capacity to endure. Life had thrown him a lot of bad hands, but, uncomplainingly, Orwell played the cards he was dealt and did his best. But, all too often, his best wasn’t good enough.   His car never worked, no matter how much he babied it. He never managed to get the slug removed from his back. His best friend got murdered half-way through the first season. And all Harry could do was try to change what he could, and accept what he couldn’t change.

7) The Rockford Files (NBC, 1974-80)
Widely regarded as the best PI series of them all, it was certainly one of the most successful and critically regarded, and it was the show that made writer-producer Stephen J. Cannell (who co-created the series with Roy Huggins) a powerhouse in the TV industry. James Garner had apprenticed in the private eye genre the best way any actor could, by playing the king of private eyes in Marlowe (MGM, 1969), a film version of Chandler’s novel The Little Sister (Houghton, 1949), and the title character of this show, a sort of synthesis of Marlowe and Garner’s famous western TV character, Bret Maverick, fit him like a glove. The premise was that Rockford was an ex-con, wrongfully convicted, and pardoned when evidence of the miscarriage of justice was uncovered. Settling in a house trailer, he sets up as a PI specializing in inactive police cases. That aspect was dropped rather soon, and Rockford’s cases were more often standard-issue private eye assignments than cold police cases. Other aspects seemed to have been recycled from earlier shows, particularly making the hero a wrongfully convicted ex-con, which was also the backstory of Dave Ross, the hero of another Huggins-created PI series, The Outsider (NBC, 1968-69), an excellent show that starred Darren McGavin. Original to Rockford was the array of wonderful supporting characters. Noah Beery, Jr., as Rockford’s dad (how many PI’s had parents before Rockford?); Stuart Margolin as his annoying former cellmate, Angel; Gretchen Corbett as his attorney, Beth Davenport; and Joe Santos as Rockford’s best bud, LAPD Sgt. Dennis Becker. Add to that wonderful cast some of the best-written scripts in the history of the medium, and how could you not have a major success?

8)   Magnum – PI (CBS, 1980-88)
If a show can be criticized for having too many gimmicks, I suppose that’s a criticism that could certainly be leveled against this series. The hero was so good-looking he was almost a parody of handsomeness. He drove a Ferrari. He lived in a palatial estate on Oahu free of charge. He hung out with his buddies, service comrades from their shared days in Vietnam. To provide comic relief, he had a love-hate relationship with the major-domo who ran the estate. But between all the gimmicks were details that humanized the character. Tom Magnum (played by Tom Selleck in a star-making turn), was an Annapolis grad, the third generation in his family to make the Navy his profession. But he’d left a promising military career when, as he put it, he’d woken up one day to find that he was 32 and had never gotten the chance to be 22. Now he was living like a responsibility-free adolescent, indulging his private eye fantasies by getting a license to run an investigative business in Honolulu. Only it happened he was a good enough detective that he actually could sustain the fantasy.   Little by little, facts about his past came out. He’d been a POW, a searing experience that still affected him. Good-looking though he was, he couldn’t seem to connect with a woman, because it turned out he was a widower, still haunted by the death of his Vietnamese wife. His dad had died when he was a child, and his younger brother had been killed in Vietnam. And it turned out his dead wife was still alive and married to someone else! All things considered, it was amazing that he was as well-adjusted as he was. The ingredients meshed well, and the resulting product clicked with the audience, which was loyal enough that show tried experiments. One episode had Magnum dreaming that he was a hard-boiled PI in 1930’s Hawai’i. Another that he was a PI character in a black and white ‘40’s film noir. Cross-over episodes were arranged with other CBS shows like Simon & Simon (1981-88) and Murder She Wrote (1984-96). One full episode consisted of nothing but Magnum treading water in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, while his friends desperately search for him, and he comes to terms with the trauma of his father’s death. Another ended with him murdering an enemy agent when no legal punishment for his crimes was possible. The show was so well-made that audiences bought the experiments, and Selleck, as Magnum, so essentially likeable and trustworthy, that audiences accepted the necessity for any extreme actions he took.   The regular supporting case, Roger E. Mosely and Larry Manetti as his service buddies who’d also settled in Honolulu, and Jonathan Hillerman as Higgins, the estate manager, a retired British non-com who had his own interesting backstory, were all top-notch. A show that deserved its long-lived success.

9)   The Equalizer (CBS, 1985-89)
Robert McCall called himself a “security officer,” and advertised in the security and investigative sections of the newspapers and yellow pages as “The Equalizer,” the man to call when the odds were against you. Prior to setting up business in New York, McCall (played by British actor Edward Woodward) had been the top agent of some unspecified bureau in the US Government. Exactly which agency was never really made clear (in various episodes, the agency performed functions that in real life, would be performed by the CIA, the FBI, the US Secret Service, and the State Department Security Agency, so it was, essentially, whatever the writers needed it to be in a given script). In the first episode, McCall had gotten fed up after an operation left a man unnecessarily dead, and quit. Rich enough (thanks to savvy investing) that he didn’t need to work, he decided to use his skills to help people in need. Clients ranged from a kid needing to learn how to deal with some bullies at school, to a mother wanting her kidnapped son rescued, to a priest who knew a secret he couldn’t divulge because he’d heard it in confession. The premise was hard to believe if carefully examined, but the gritty NYC locations made it all convincing, and Woodward’s expert performance, and the solidly written, effective scripts carried the day. Like Man in a Suitcase, The Equalizer seems to have exerted some influence over the final show on this list.

10)   Burn Notice (USA Network, 2007- )
Mike Weston (Jeffrey Donovan) is a top covert ops agent in the CIA (they actually name it in this show) who gets fired right in the middle of a dangerous assignment. He’s not told why he’s been “burned,” but obviously the Agency believes bad things about him. When the CIA fires you, you don’t just go on with your life and collect unemployment until you can get another job. You live where you’re told to live. Your bank account is frozen. Proof of your identity is wiped from all official records. Mike finds himself in Miami without a sou, and no one who’ll even talk to him except a former lover who used to be an IRA terrorist (Gabrielle Anwar), and an ex-Navy SEAL who drinks too much (Bruce Campbell). Determined to find out who framed him and ruined his career, Weston sets up as an unlicensed private detective, and, with his two companions, takes on assignments from people who need help, using the fees to fund his own investigation into his “burn notice.” Stylish, and fast-moving, with twisty, well-written scripts that include lots of wry voice-over commentary about the spy business from Weston, and (a common quality in good PI shows) a great supporting cast, which also includes Sharon Gless as Weston’s mother. In recent seasons, Weston’s managed to uncover most of the answers as to how and why he was framed, and has worked his way, little by little, back into the graces of the CIA, which is now giving him assignments on a trial basis. This seems to be turning the show into less of a PI series and more of a spy series (though, as with Man in a Suitcase and The Equalizer the two sub-genres were deliberately meshed in this series). Probably the best of the secret-agent-turned-private-eye shows. Certainly the longest-lasting.

   So that’s my list. It’s only my opinion, of course. You’re free to disagree. And if you do, you will, as always, be wrong.