The Silver Screen Oasis

Sorry, Miss G. Glad to read that you have gotten the move over. Hope the new place is pleasant and homey. What is that image in your avatar this week? Is it from Stagecoach (1939)?

moirafinnie wrote:Sorry, Miss G. Glad to read that you have gotten the move over. Hope the new place is pleasant and homey. What is that image in your avatar this week? Is it from Stagecoach (1939)?

thanks, moira. i especially miss M*a*s*h* as i was just getting into it and it's not available at Netflix, either.

the avatar image is actually from my darling clementine.

I just watched my favorite guest star on Columbo, the marvelous actor Jack Cassidy. He played "The Great Santini", magician with a deep dark secret. He and Peter Falk were perfect adversaries, at least their characters were. Though the actors were nothing alike, they somehow connected brilliantly on this show. It's such tremendous fun to watch them spar and drive one another to even better acting...though neither was a slouch in that department outside the series either. I remembered whole sections of this particular episode, having seen it when these mysteries first aired, and in rerun which I watched over and over throughout my youth. Somehow Falk and Cassidy generate an excitement I don't feel quite as much with any of the other guest murderers though several come close. Though the bloom is off the rose as far as the actual mystery is concerned, I still find the acting top notch. A nice legacy for Cassidy, who certainly had his secrets and demons in real life.

I believe I remember Falk discussing Cassidy on a talk show once, saying that none of the crew or actors understood Cassidy... he was an odd duck... but they loved having him on the show because he always came up with fascinating characters.

i remember that episode and another one where i believe he played a writer who knocked off his co-author (Martin Milner).
i'm still waiting to see the one again with Barry Foster (Frenzy)...i thought that was a memorable pairing as well.

TWC is coming out tomorrow to see why we haven't been getting the Me-TV channel. It turns out we actually do have the plan that includes it. I don't think I could have taken another week without it!

Oh, I do hope you get your Me TV back soon, MissG! I don't know what I would do without classic film and classic TV. I remember the other episode with Jack Cassidy, I think he was rather tweedy in that one, and was minus his moustache?

I'm just happy I found Columbo tonight, and Kojak was on right before. I will have to remember to watch again on Sundays, that is if there's nothing on TCM....

Yes, come to think of it he was very much dressed the part of the "successful author" of a mystery series (a la Miss Marple)...and that was the thing, he didn't really do much of the actual writing, his partner did, and he was jealous of that. When his partner threatened to go off on his own that's when the "fun" began, ha ha.

Sundays have my favorite lineup from afternoon until the wee hours. All the detective and mystery shows!

I hardly ever get the tv on the weekends, so I had no idea the lineup was so good. The show I'd really like to go back and see now is Cannon, with William Conrad. I never watched it at all when I was a kid, now it seems like something I would enjoy, since Conrad was such a good presence. Now I know he directed too, I am very curious about what the show was like, even if he didn't direct episodes. Do you know if anyone shows this series?

"Cannon" didn't strike me as too different from all the other detective shows from that time. They were like 50's westerns in that they were all over the tv.

I looked on imdb and after Conrad doing 120 episodes the next most frequent actor was only for 8 shows so it's going to rely almost completely on him.

I missed THE FUGITIVE last night. I hope it wasn't the last episode!

"Cannon" is part of Me-TV's Sunday line-up. I am not sure what time---I think the detective shows start at 1:00 and run through 8 p.m. so Conrad is in there somewhere. My mom liked his show so I remember it being on TV when I was little, but the individual shows are still "new" to me.

Thanks Chris, I'm really curious about it now. I don't expect anything different, but I would like to give it a go. And MissG, thanks for telling me about the lineup on Sundays... I'll have to snag the TV early!

you'll never guess why we haven't been getting MeTV...the dumb TWC people had assigned us to a Spanish version of the package which is supposed to include this channel. Ay yi yi!!

Oh lordy. Well, I'm glad it's resolved. Unless of course they now have you signed up for another wrong package deal....

Richard Kimble falls for Janice Rule, who is, of all things, A FUGITIVE! And she worries she's not the woman he thinks she is. Got to love the irony! This is exceptional TV, and pure pleasure to watch. I'll be sorry when it's over, though there's no reason I can't start the cycle again.

Dang! That sounds so good and I missed it. I forgot completely about the Sunday lineup last weekend.