Tag Archives: Dean Martin

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Airport (dir by George Seaton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1970, Airport is a real time capsule.

As one can guess from the title, it takes place over 12 hours at an airport.  The airport in question is a fictional one, Chicago’s Lincoln International Airport.  Over the course of one night, almost everything that can happen does happen.

A sudden snowstorm causes almost all of the other airports in the midwest to shut down for the night.  On Lincoln’s Runway 29, one of the airplanes gets stuck in the show when it lands.  No one is hurt but, until Joe Patroni (George Kennedy) and his men can dig out and move that plane, no one is going to be able to land on 29.

Runway 22 is still open but the homeowners association is currently picketing the airport to protest the amount of noise pollution that is caused whenever airplanes use Runway 22.  Using 22 in the middle of the night is sure to prove their point and make trouble for the airport.  Mel Bakersfield (Burt Lancaster), the airport manager, thinks that the only solution is to buy up all of the land around the airport but the Board of Commissioners disagrees.  Mel says that airports have to adjust to changing times but no one is willing to put up the money.

Mel is unhappily married to the wealthy and socially ambitious Cindy (Dana Wynter), who is not happy to learn that, due to the storm, Mel is going to miss an important dinner party.  Tanya Livingston (Jean Seberg), head of customer relations for Trans Global Airlines, is in love with Mel but Mel isn’t the type to cheat, even if his marriage is troubled.

On the other hand, Mel’s brother-in-law, pilot Vernon Demerest (Dean Martin, the hippest pilot in the sky), has absolutely no problem cheating on his wife (Barbara Hale).  Vernon is currently having an affair with flight attendant, Gwen Meighen (Jacqueline Bisset).  When Gwen tells Vernon that she’s pregnant, Vernon says that “it” can be taken care of in Sweden.  Gwen says that she wants to have the baby.

Meanwhile, Ada Quonsett (Helen Hayes, who won an Oscar for her performance here) is an elderly woman who has developed an addiction to stowing away on flights.  She manages to sneak onto a plane flying to Rome, the same plane on which Vernon is the co-pilot.  (Technically, Vernon is on the plane to evaluate the captain, who is played by Barry Nelson.  Yes, the same Barry Nelson who played Jimmy Bond in 1954’s Casino Royale and Mr. Ullman in The Shining.)  Ada ends up sitting next to a nervous man named D.O. Guerrero (Van Heflin).  Having failed as a businessman, Guerrero has a bomb in his briefcase and is planning on blowing himself and the airplane up so that his wife (Maureen Stapleton) can receive an insurance payment.

Seriously, that’s a lot of drama!  It seems like this airport has a little bit of everything!  But you know what this airport doesn’t have?  It doesn’t have the TSA groping people and telling them what they can and cannot take on the plane with them.  It doesn’t have the endless lines full of tired travelers who just want to be allowed to get on with their business.  It doesn’t have the suspicious atmosphere that has become a part of modern air travel.  Compared to the average airport experience of 2026, the movie’s airport is a paradise, full of people who are working hard, who are polite to each other, and who all seem to know what they’re doing.  I’d take the drama of 1970’s Airport over the reality of a modern airport any day.

Airport is very much a celebration of competent people getting the job done.  On the whole, we really don’t learn much about the characters played by Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg, Barry Nelson, and George Kennedy but we definitely learn that they’re all very good at their jobs.  Even Helen Hayes’s stowaway is meant to be likable precisely because she is so good at stowing away.  The only person who is portrayed as being a failure as Van Heflin’s D.O. Guerrero and he’s so upset about not being good at his job that he decides to blow himself up.  Though the film is full of split screens and dialogue that was probably risqué by the standards of a 1970 studio film, one gets the feeling that Airport probably felt old-fashioned even when it was first released.  One can only imagine what George Kennedy’s hard-working Joe Patroni would have thought about the characters in a film like Easy Rider.  About as close as Airport gets to the counterculture is Dean Martin mockingly calling Burt Lancaster “dad” while telling him to get his favorite runway cleared.  This is a film where even Dean Martin is a stickler for regulations.

Based on a best-selling novel, Airport is often listed as being one of the worst films to ever be nominated for best picture.  And …. well, okay, it’s definitely not a great film, especially when compared to some of the other films of the early 70s.  The film was the highest grossing film of 1970 and that, more than anything, probably explains why it was nominated.  Airport moves at a very deliberate pace and and visually, it is pretty flat.  It looks like a competently made television pilot.  When I first did a capsule review of Airport in 2010, I was fairly harsh towards it.  I have to admit, though, that when I recently rewatched the film, I actually kind of liked it.  Compared to today’s world, there’s something comforting about the competence of the characters in Airport.  Airport has its flaws and it definitely should not have been nominated for 11 Oscars but it presents a world that seems almost cozy compared to what we have to deal with nowadays.

Dean Martin as a pilot?  Helen Hayes as a chatty stowaway?  George Kennedy chewing on an unlit cigar and complaining to Burt Lancaster about how incompetent the TGA pilots are?  Hey, why not?  If it means not having to deal with the TSA and knowing that everyone is dedicated to getting me to where I’m going in comfort, I’m all for taking my next flight out Lincoln International.

Song of the Day: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! by Dean Martin

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

My friends, it is 29 degrees this morning in Dallas!  My fingers are freezing just trying to type this.  So, as I jump back under the covers and try to stop shivering, let’s turn things over to the great Dean Martin with today’s song of the day!

Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
But the fire is so delightful,
And since we’ve no place to go,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It doesn’t show signs of stopping,
And I brought some corn for popping;
The lights are turned way down low,
Let it snow, let it snow.

When we finally kiss good night,
How I’ll hate going out in the storm;
But if you really hold me tight,
All the way home I’ll be warm.

The fire is slowly dying,
And, my dear, we’re still good-bye-ing,
But as long as you love me so,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

When we finally kiss good night,
How I’ll hate going out in the storm;
But if you really hold me tight,
All the way home I’ll be warm.

Oh, the fire is slowly dying,
And, my dear, we’re still good-bye-ing,
But as long as you love me so,
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Songwriters: Josef Larossi / Andreas Romdhane

Song Of The Day: Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow! by Dean Martin

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

We woke up to glorious snow this morning.  It’s pretty, even if it’s not quite the blizzard that we were promised by the weather service.  That said, it’s 11 degrees outside and I’m looking forward to spending the next few days cuddled up inside.

In others words, let it snow!

Here’s Dean Martin expressing the thought perfectly in today’s song of the day.

Oh, the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we’ve no place to go
Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Man it doesn’t show signs of stopping
And I brought me some corn for popping
The lights are turned way down low
Let it snow! Let it snow!

When we finally kiss goodnight
How I’ll hate going out in the storm
But if you’ll really hold me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm

And the fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
But as long as you’d love me so
Let it snow! Let it snow and snow!

When we finally kiss goodnight
How I’ll hate going out in the storm
But if you really grab me tight
All the way home I’ll be warm

Oh, the fire is slowly dying
And, my dear, we’re still goodbying
But as long as you’d love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Songwriters: Jule Styne / Sammy Cahn

Remembering Actor Earl Holliman (1928 – 2024) – 3 things I’ll remember him for!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

I saw that actor Earl Holliman passed away on November 25th, 2024 at 96 years of age. For someone who loves movies as much as I do, Mr. Holliman has been a pleasant part of my life over the years, and it makes me sad that he’s gone.

I first really noticed Earl Holliman as one of the sons of Katie Elder along with John Wayne and Dean Martin. I like John Wayne movies so I’ve watched it quite a few times over the years. There’s just something about Holliman that appeals to me, and his fate in the film still makes me sad. Later, in 2006, I acted in the Southwest Arkansas Arts Council production of THE RAINMAKER in Hope, Arkansas. The 1956 movie version stars Burt Lancaster, Katherine Hepburn, Lloyd Bridges and Earl Holliman. I played the Lloyd Bridges part, so I watched the movie several times to help me get into my character. Holliman was just so good in the movie. He won a Golden Globe for his performance in the film, and it just made me notice him that much more. Finally, as part of the THIS WEEK IN CHARLES BRONSON podcast, I had the opportunity to interview actor Jordan Rhodes who had worked with Charles Bronson in MR. MAJESTYK and THE INDIAN RUNNER. As part of the interview, Jordan told us some of the things that made him proud over the years during his time in Hollywood. He told us about the time that his mom was visiting him in Los Angeles, and how proud he was to be able to introduce her to Earl Holliman who was working on POLICE WOMAN with Angie Dickinson at the time. His story was complimentary of Mr. Holliman and just another really nice thing to hear. 

Thanks, Earl Holliman, for adding joy to my life over the years through your performances on TV and in the movies. Much love and respect for a job well done, sir. Rest in peace. 

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson 1.9 “Beverly Hills Princess”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Half Nelson, which ran on NBC from March to May of 1985. Almost all nine of the show’s episodes can be found on YouTube!

Today, we close the book on the adventures of Rocky Nelson in Beverly Hills.

Episode 1.9 “Beverly Hills Princess”

(Dir by Bernard McEveety, originally aired on May 10th, 1985)

The hottest new thing in Beverly Hills is a movement called Emotional Awareness.  Led by the slick Dexter Breen (played by Marjoe Gortner, who was himself a former child evangelist) EA is a self-improvement cult that definitely should not be mistaken for Scientology.  Not surprisingly, EA is a scam.  Dexter and his people encourage the rich and the powerful to confess all of their secrets during “Awareness Sessions” and then use those secrets to blackmail their followers.

Businessman George Farrell (Dick Van Patten) is sick of being blackmailed.  However, when George tries to confront Dexter, he gets into a struggle with one of Dexter’s goons.  The goon has a gun, which goes off.  Fear not, George is not wounded.  However, he is arrested for murder when the goon drops dead.  Because George doesn’t want to admit that Dexter was blackmailing over him over an affair he had with a congresswoman, George finds himself sitting in prison.

Fortunately, George Farrell is a client of Beverly Hills Security!  After being approached by George’s 14 year-old daughter, Leslie (Sydney Penny), Rocky (Joe Pesci, who was shorter than Sydney Penny) makes it his mission to prove that George didn’t mean to kill anyone.  To do this, he’ll visit two more of Dexter’s victims (played, in this week’s cameos, by Rich Little and Lyle Waggoner).  He’ll also steal several cars, including a police car.  Why is Rocky stealing cars?  Because he keeps wrecking them, of course!  Detective Hamill (Gary Grubbs) isn’t happy about all of the wrecked cars.  When he demands to know why Chester (Fred Williamson) keeps Rocky employed despite all of Rocky’s mishaps, Chester replies, “Because he cares!”

As usual, Rocky recruits Beau (Dick Butkus), Kurt (Bubba Smith), and Annie (Victoria Jackson) to help him out.  When Rocky discovers that one of Dexter’s victims is holding auditions for a drag revue, Rocky decides that Annie should audition.  “But I’m a real woman!” Annie replies.  At this point, I was expecting thing to get pretty cringey but, by the standards of when the show was produced, the whole drag revue subplot was handled with maturity and with a relative lack of cheap jokes.  I sat there dreading the moment that Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus would put on ball gowns and start speaking in falsetto but it didn’t happen.  Instead, they just mentioned how talented all of the performers were.  It was pretty clear that the director of the revue was being blackmailed because he was gay but, again in contrast to a lot of shows and movies from the period, both the show and Rocky treated the character with respect.  It was an unexpected moment in a show that many would probably dismiss as just being another generic detective series.

While Rocky is stealing cars, Dean Martin is searching for his.  No, Rocky didn’t steal Dean’s car.  According to Dean, Sammy Davis, Jr. stole it.  In this episode, Dean shares all of his scenes with Fred Williamson.  Because this was Half Nelson‘s final episode, this was also Dean Martin’s last onscreen moment.  Dean passed away ten years later.

Yes, this was indeed the final episode of Half Nelson.  In fact, towards the end of the episode, Rocky crashes Chester’s car and then comments that he’s probably going to get fired as a result.  Since this was the final episode, I guess we can assume that, once George got out of prison, Rocky was unemployed and on the next flight back to New York City.  I hope he got to take the dog with him.

As for the episode itself, it wasn’t a bad way to wrap things up.  Everyone got to do something.  Chester defended Rocky, for once.  Victoria Jackson got to sing a song.  Joe Pesci got one final chance to make a joke about his height, snapping that he was “5’4,” when he heard a report that a car had been stolen by a man standing “5’2.”  Dean Martin was clearly unwell during filming but he still had a devilish twinkle in his eye.  As always, Marjoe Gortner was a good villain.  On the negative side, Rocky didn’t so much solve the mystery as he just stumbled into solutions and Detective Hamill’s intense dislike of Rocky never made any sense.  As well, Hamill and Annie were dating in the previous episode but they barely even acknowledged each other in this one, which leads me to suspect that this episode was originally meant to air earlier than it did.

Having now watched the entire show, it’s easy to see why Half Nelson failed to attract a regular audience, despite it’s strong pilot.  The show never really found the right balance between comedy and drama and, far too often, it turned into a retread of Beverly Hills Cop.  The ensemble often felt underused, with Jackson and Williamson spending far too much of their time sitting in the office.  The show had a great star in Joe Pesci but many episodes got bogged down with the antics of Bubba Smith and Dick Butkus.

Here’s the thing, though.  The show was always interesting, specifically because it did star Joe Pesci.  There was something undeniably fun about having stolid TV actors — like Robert Reed and Dick Van Patten — appearing opposite a combustible force of nature like Joe Pesci.  Though there were a few times that Pesci did seem a bit bored with going through the detective show motions, he was still a force of chaos and, by his very presence, he made Half Nelson into something more than just another generic crime show.

Next week, we start Freddy’s Nightmares!

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson Episode 1.8 “Malibu Colony”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Half Nelson, which ran on NBC from March to May of 1985. Almost all nine of the show’s episodes can be found on YouTube!

Last week, I took a look at the sixth episode of Half Nelson, which was called Nose Job and which featured Rocky (Joe Pesci) dealing with an obsessed plastic surgeon who was stalking a former girlfriend.  That episode featured not only two villains (it turned out that the plastic surgeon wasn’t the only homicidal stalker in Hollywood) but is also ended with Victoria Jackson’s Annie O’Hara starting a romantic relationship with Gary Grubbs’s Detective Hamill.

Nose Job was followed by an episode called Chariots For Hire.  It apparently aired on April 26th, 1985 and that’s really all I can tell you about the episode.  Chariots For Hire is the only episode of Half Nelson that has not been uploaded to YouTube.  I can’t even find a plot summary for it on the imdb.  Chariots For Hire is apparently the lost episode of Half Nelson.

Fortunately, the eighth episode of Half Nelson is on YouTube.  So, let’s pick up the adventures of Rocky Nelson in Malibu Colony!

Episode 1.8 “Malibu Colony”

(Dir by James Sheldon, originally aired on May 3rd, 1985)

Rocky, Annie, Beau (Dick Butkus), and Kurt (Bubba Smith) have been assigned to guard what Rocky claims is “one of the most valuable art collections in the world.”  Fortunately, this job means that they get to spend a few days hanging out in a fabulous beach house in Malibu!  Standing out on the deck of the beach house, Annie looks out at the ocean and says that she can hardly believe that China is on the other side of it.

“I wonder how the egg rolls stay fresh crossing over from that far,” Kurt says.

Before anyone can ponder that question for too long, a half-naked woman runs screaming down the beach while being pursued by two thugs in suits.  Rocky saves the woman from the thugs and sends her into the beach house so that she can borrow some clothes from Annie.  Once dressed, the woman explains that she’s Nancy Norton (Shari Shattuck) and that she was fleeing from a nearby yacht club.  She claims that the owner of the club has some naked pictures of her and she needs to get them back.  Rocky, deciding that the art can protect itself, helps Nancy sneak back into the club so that she can retrieve her photographs.  However, when she sees the club’s president, Crane (John Beck), she suddenly holds up a gun and shoots at him.  Rocky is able to push Crane out of the way of the bullets and then he chases after Nancy.

Fortunately, both Rocky and Nancy make it out of the club without anyone realizing that they’re together.  Despite the fact that she nearly made him an accessory to murder, Rocky still wants to help Nancy.  Nancy explains that there are no pictures and she wasn’t trying to kill Crane.  (“I just wanted to scare him.”)  Nancy’s father lost a lot of money while playing poker with Crane and now Crane is threatening to kill him if he doesn’t pay.  But Nancy is convinced that the poker game was rigged.  The reason she was in club earlier was to take a look at Crane’s cards.

(For some reason, she thought it would be smart to do that while wearing a bikini, the top of which was somehow lost while she was fleeing Crane’s guards.  That explains that partial nudity, which I am sure was definitely viewed as being important to the plot and not just as an attempt to boost the show’s ratings.)

Having saved Crane’s life, Rocky is able to get Annie, Kurt, and Beau jobs at the club.  Annie models clothes.  Kurt and Beau work as waiters.  Rocky’s boss, Chester (Fred Williamson), shows up at the club with Dean Martin and is shocked to see all of his employees working there.  Dean demands that Chester give them all raises so that they can quit their second jobs.

Eventually, Rocky finds his proof that Crane is a criminal and, with Chester’s help, he takes Crane down.  After being stuck in the office for the past few episodes, Chester actually gets to do something in this episode.  It’s always nice to see Fred Williamson in action and making it even better is that he smokes a big cigar while he’s taking down the bad guys.  Finally, after eight episodes, Half Nelson reminded everyone of why Fred Williamson was so cool to begin with.

This episode definitely earns some points for allowing the entire supporting cast — from Fred Williamson to Victoria Jackson to Dean Martin — to play a role in solving the case of the week.  One of Half Nelson‘s biggest flaws was that the appealingly quirky supporting characters often felt underused and Malibu Colony finally gives them a chance to show what they could have done as an ensemble.  The mix of Pesci’s wise guy nerve, Jackson’s spaciness, Williamson’s effortless coolness, and Butkus and Smith’s comedic relief is actually pretty entertaining.  Unfortunately, as good as the heroes are, Crane is pretty boring villain and the case of the week isn’t particularly interesting.  In particular, Nancy’s actions never really make that much sense.

Oh well.  This was a flawed episode but it still offered up a hint of what Half Nelson could have been.  Next week, I will be reviewing this show’s final episode.  Until then, L.A. — you belong to me!

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson 1.6 “Nose Job”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Half Nelson, which ran on NBC from March to May of 1985. Almost all nine of the show’s episodes can be found on YouTube!

This week, Rocky gets involved with a case that’s all about obsession!

Episode 1.6 “Nose Job”

(Directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman, originally aired on April 19th, 1985)

Way back in March, when I watched the pilot for Half Nelson, one thing that I immediately noticed was the chemistry between Joe Pesci and Victoria Jackson.  In the pilot, it was pretty clear that Annie O’Hara (played by Jackson) had a crush on Rocky (played, of course, by Pesci) and it was actually kind of cute.  The streetwise Rocky and the spacey Annie seemed like they could be an interesting couple and I was actually looking forward to seeing how that storyline developed.

Unfortunately, it didn’t develop.  In the episodes immediately following the pilot, both Annie and Rocky’s boss, Chester (Fred Williamson), were sidelined so that the show could focus on Rocky interacting with Beau (Dick Butkus) and Kurt (Bubba Smith).  Annie was relegated to staying at the office and answering the phone while Rocky flirted with each week’s guest star.  That was definitely a missed opportunity.  While Smith and Butkus both provided adequate comedy relief, it’s still hard not to feel that the show often focused so much on them that performers like Dean Martin, Fred Williamson, and Victoria Jackson were pushed to the side.

In this week’s episode, Detective Hamill (Gary Grubbs) asks Annie to go on a date with him and Rocky encourages her to accept, so I guess the potential Rocky/Annie romance is officially dead.  At first, Annie doesn’t want to date Hamill because she thinks he’s “a jerk.”  (Gary Grubbs, who is one of those actors that most people will immediately recognize even if they don’t know his name, has such an amiable presence that it’s hard to understand where Annie got that idea from.)  However, in return for Hamill helping him out with this week’s case, Rocky convinces Annie to give Hamill a shot.  Annie and Hamill are a couple by the end of the episode.  Yay!  Who doesn’t love a romantic ending?

As for this episode itself, it opens with Rocky, Beau, and Kurt providing security on the set of a film.  The film appears to be about a revolution in Latin America.  April Gray (Mary-Margaret Humes) is playing the lead role, a revolutionary who wears a red beret.  (Seriously, it looks like a great film.)  When April is nearly run over by an out-of-control truck, Rocky becomes convinced that someone is stalking her.  When he discovers that the truck’s accelerator was rigged with surgical string, he decides that a plastic surgeon, Dr. Jonathan Gaines (Jon Cypher), is trying to kill her.

However, before he can accuse Dr. Gaines, he has to find out if April has actually had plastic surgery.  As opposed to just asking her, Rocky takes her out on a date.  (Beau and Kurt come along as well, so that they can check out the other actresses in the cast and see if any of them had plastic surgery as well.)  The only way that Rocky can convince her to go out with him is to take her to an exclusive club.  But how can Rocky get reservations!?  Fear not, it’s Dean Martin to the rescue!  It turns out that Dean is co-owner of the club so he puts down his martini glass for a few minutes and makes a phone call.  It’s kind of nice that Dean actually got to be involved in the case this week.  Dean’s appearances on this show never last for more than a minute or two and it’s obvious that he wasn’t in the best shape when he filmed them but still, it’s fun to watch him and Pesci act opposite of each other.  Pesci always seem to be in awe of Dean.

Before the date, Rocky has to teach Beau and Kurt how to discreetly look for surgery scars.  This leads to him showing them how to peak behind someone ears while dancing with them.  With the help of Annie, he shows how pretending to lose a contact lens can provide a chance to get on the floor check out someone’s legs for scars.  (Unfortunately, the scene is rather awkwardly blocked and framed and, in a few shots, it appears as if Rocky is basically looking straight up Annie’s skirt.)  Beau and Kurt are impressed.  Chester is less impressed, especially when he catches Rocky crawling around Annie’s legs.  Chester yells at Rocky and then goes in his office.  And that concludes Fred Williamson’s role in this episode.

During the date, Rocky spots the surgical scars behind April’s ears, indicating that she’s had plastic surgery.  It turns out that April not only got a nose job from Dr. Gaines but she also briefly dated him.  Rocky realizes that Gaines is now trying to kill her but, as always, everyone tells Rocky that he doesn’t have enough evidence to prove anything.  Let’s see.  Gaines was on the set when the truck went out of control.  The truck’s accelerator was tied down with surgical string.  Gaines was the only person on the set with a job that would give him easy access to surgical string.  It’s hard not to feel that everyone’s being too quick to dismiss Rocky’s suspicions here.

In fact, Dr. Gaines is so obviously guilty that it’s also pretty obvious that there has to be someone else involved as well.  About halfway through the episode, we learn that the film’s director (played by Timothy Bottoms) also used to date April!  In fact, he’s the one who paid for her nose job!

Half Nelson really has not turned out to be the lost classic that I was hoping it would be.  The pilot was strong but the episodes after that have struggled to really establish a consistent identity for the show.  Watching this show, one gets the feeling that the show’s producers couldn’t decide if they wanted to do a comedy or a drama.  As I already mentioned, the focus on the antics of Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith pretty much left the rest of the talented cast with little to do.  It’s easy to see why Half Nelson did not last longer than two months.

That said, this was actually a pretty good episode.  Yes, there were plenty of detective show clichés but both Jon Cypher and Timothy Bottoms were convincing as the show’s two villains and Joe Pesci’s New York persona provided a nice contrast to the sleek phoniness of Hollywood and Beverly Hills.  There was even an exciting car chase, which was entertaining even if it was ultimately a bit superfluous to the plot.  Plus, the episode featured Rocky throwing a bomb more seconds before it exploded.  This is what the explosion looked like:

Seriously, did Rocky just nuke L.A.!?

This was an entertainingly melodramatic episode.  You could see hints of the show that Half Nelson could have been if only it could have maintained a consistent tone.

Next week, Rocky meets Marjoe Gortner!

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson Episode 1.5 “Diplomatic Immunity”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Half Nelson, which ran on NBC from March to May of 1985. Almost all nine of the show’s episodes can be found on YouTube!

L.A. …. you belong to me….

Episode 1.5 “Diplomatic Immunity”

(Dir by Alan Cooke, Originally aired on April 12th, 1985)

Somebody is stealing luxury cars in Beverly Hills!  Detective Hamill (Gary Grubbs) is pretty sure that he’s caught the responsible party, a teenager who was seen near one of the cars when it was taken.  The teenager, who is in danger of losing his athletic scholarship, insists that he was just thinking about stealing the car but he didn’t actually do it.  Instead, the car was stolen by some guy who arrived on the scene via a limousine.  Why would a car thief be getting transported around in a limo?

That’s what Rocky Nelson (Joe Pesci) wants to find out!  Just as in the previous episodes, everyone tells Rocky to not get involved.  The police tell Rocky to stay out of the way.  Rocky’s boss, Chester (Fred Williamson), tells him that it’s not his concern.  Rocky’s landlord, Mr. Martin (Dean Martin), stops by the guesthouse to use Rocky’s phone and, though he doesn’t say not to get involved, it’s still pretty obvious that Dean Martin doesn’t care about the car thieves.

Only Rocky cares!  Actually, Kurt (Bubba Smith) and Beau (Dick Butkus) care as well.  In fact, in this episode, Kurt and Beau get almost as much screen time as Rocky.  They follow Rocky around, hoping to learn how to become better detectives.  As critical as I can sometimes be of Dick Butkus’s character on Hang Time, he was actually pretty funny on Half Nelson.  He and Bubba Smith made a good comedy team and they seem to be having so much fun together that it makes up for the fact that neither one of them had much range as an actor.  For instance, when Rocky goes to Beverly Hills High School to do some investigating, Kurt and Beau follow him.  Kurt and Beau claim to be two new teachers at the school.  “We got traded to this school from Harvard,” Beau says before Kurt explains that they got traded for another teacher and several draft picks.  It’s a dumb joke but Butkus and Smith sell it with their enthusiasm.

Eventually, Rocky figures out that the car theft ring is being led by a diplomat (John Saxon) from Central America.  Saxon pretends to be collecting money for charity but he’s actually just stealing cars and smuggling them out of the country.   Rocky’s investigative techniques are not particularly complex.  He “borrows” an expensive car from the studio and then hides in the trunk with his pitbull, Hunk.  When Saxon’s henchman (Lewis van Bergen) steals the car, Rocky and Hunk jump into action.  Hunk cripples the thief by biting his ankle and then Rocky and his dog run away as the car explodes.  “Run, Hunk, run!” Rocky yells.

Rocky, Kurt, and Beau manage to catch Saxon right before he boards a plane to leave the country.  The teenager is freed from jail.  As he leaves his cell, he complains about the incompetence of the cops.  Rocky yells at him for being disrespectful.  It’s the best scene in the show, just because it feels spontaneous.  It’s almost as if Pesci himself suddenly got mad and started yelling at the kid.

Rocky, Amanda (Victoria Jackson, who has been underused in every episode, with the exception of the pilot), and the rest of the Beverly Hills Security team throws a birthday party for Chester.  Dean Martin does not show up.  The end credits roll.

Half Nelson‘s main weakness is that, despite having an once-in-a-lifetime cast, the plots tend to feel somewhat generic.  It just doesn’t feel right to have actors like Joe Pesci, Fred Williamson, Dean Martin, and even Dick Butkus and Bubba Smith dealing with the type of boring cases that any 80s TV detective could have solved.  That said, compared to the previous episodes of Half Nelson that I’ve watched, this episode was okay.  Pesci got to show off his streetwise attitude and, as always, he seemed to be happiest when acting opposite Dean Martin.  John Saxon was stuck playing a one-note villain but it’s still always enjoyable to watch Saxon as he plots to do something bad.  This episode was enjoyable if not exactly memorable.

Retro Television Reviews: Half Nelson Episode 1.4 “Uppers and Downers”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a new feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Fridays, I will be reviewing Half Nelson, which ran on NBC from March to May of 1985. Almost all nine of the show’s episodes can be found on YouTube!

The adventures of Rocky Nelson continue!

Episode 1.4 “Uppers and Downers”

(Dir by James Sheldon, originally aired on April 5th, 1985)

When a burglar alarm goes off in Beverly Hills, it’s Rocky Nelson (Joe Pesci) of Beverly Hills Patrol to the rescue!  Reaching the mansion of a local businessman (played by Cliff Gorman), Rocky discovers that the alarm was set off by a racoon.

(“A racoon is Beverly Hills!?” Gorman’s wife says, in a tone that suggests that racoons are unknown creatures in California.)

Rocky also happens to spot the next door neighbor (Nancy Stafford) leading her personal trainer into her house, whispering that she’s going to show him her bedroom.  At first, Rocky is amused but, later that day, Rocky hears that the personal trainer has been found, floating in Stafford’s swimming pool.  Stafford claims that the trainer had a heart attack while swimming but, upon arriving at the scene, Rocky immediately figures out that the trainer died in the house and was then dragged out to the pool.  Stafford swears that she didn’t kill him and Rocky believes her.  However, when the autopsy report reveals that the trainer was dead before he was put in the pool, Stafford is arrested and charged with murdering him by hitting him over the head.

Despite being told by his boss (Fred Williamson) to stay away from the case, Rocky feels that he has to prove Stafford’s innocence.  Rocky’s first plan is to have his associates, Kurt (Bubba Smith) and Beau (Dick Butkus), disguise themselves as mortuary attendants and steal the trainer’s body from the crematorium.  Rocky then takes the body to a coroner who does a second autopsy and discovers that not only did the trainer have a heart attack but that he was also poisoned!  Someone slipped the trainer a pill that was specifically designed to cause a heart attack.  Now, it’s up to Rocky to discover who that person was and clear Stafford’s name before Stafford’s husband (Brett Halsey, a veteran of Italian horror and spaghetti westerns) files for divorce.

Rocky deduces that the trainer was probably targeted by a jealous husband.  Rocky decides to disguise himself as a physical trainer so that he can get close to all of the dead man’s former clients.  How does Rocky prepare for this role?  He does calisthenics with his landlord, Dean Martin.  When Rocky mentions that he needs someone to determine whether or not his clients are lying to him, Dean Martin suggests that he steal a lie detector from the set of “Burt’s new film.”  (I’m guessing that Burt was a reference to Burt Reynolds, Dean’s co-star in two Cannonball Run films.)  Rocky promptly goes down to the studio backlot and steals a bunch of Burt Reynolds’s property.

(The backlot was a prominent and amusing part of the show’s pilot but it was ignored during last week’s episode.  I was glad to see it back for this episode because Dean Martin instructing Joe Pesci to steal Burt Reynolds’s lie detector will never not be amusing.)

Rocky meets with all of the dead trainer’s clients and tricks them into hooking themselves up to the lie detector by telling them that it’s a instrument that will check their heart rate.  Rocky discovers that any number of people could have wanted the trainer dead.  However, those of us in the audience already knows that Cliff Gorman is the murderer because we witnessed Gorman gloating about it earlier in the episode.  Rocky eventually figures it out as well and tricks Gorman into confessing by pretending to take one of the heart attack pills while driving Gorman around Beverly Hills.

Thanks to the visit to the studio lot and Dean Martin’s eccentric performance, this episode was an improvement on last week’s.  That said, it still suffered from the fact that the murder itself wasn’t that interesting (with Gorman’s ruthless businessman not getting much characterization beyond being evil).  Despite being second and third-billed in the opening credits, neither Victoria Jackson nor Fred Williamson got to do much in this episode and considering that both of those performers had their own unique and eccentric style, it feels like a bit of waste to just have them sitting in the office and uttering just a handful of lines per episode.  The main appeal of the show continues to be Joe Pesci, who brings a lot of streetwise charm to Rocky.  In the episodes that I’ve watched so far, Pesci is likable and engaging as Rocky and I think his performance would surprise a lot of people who are used to Pesci playing killers with hair-trigger tempers.  Rocky is smart and tough but ultimately rather friendly.  In his performance in Half Nelson, one can see hints of his later performance in The Irishman,  I just wish the rest of this show was as consistently good.

Next week: Joe Pesci faces off against John Saxon!  That sounds promising!  We’ll see how it goes.