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Mill Creek Entertainment The Rockford Files
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Adam H. Kerman
Nov 3, 2023, 2:12:50 AM11/3/23
to
I'm crossposting.
Menards is a home improvement store that sells oddball merchandise. They
get DVDs at times. They're cheap.
I think I paid $5 or $10 for the entire run of The Rockford Files. Of
course it was from Mill Creek entertainment, so I likely overpaid.
I'd gotten certain seasons but was missing a couple of seasons so I
figured the box set couldn't hurt.
While I've watched the other DVD set of The Rockford Files, I never
opened the Mill Creek Entertainment package.
Smallish box with 22 discs crammed in using cardboard sleeves, not jewel
boxes. But MCE drops the transfer rate to cram more episodes onto a
disc. The transfer looked like the master was a VHS tape.
I put in the pilot episode. Uh oh. "Backlash of the Hunter".
No, the episode has no title. That title was used for the VHS sold in
home entertainment.
Worse still, it's in two parts, which means it's the syndication version
and not the original pilot.
The pilot is slow paced and the villains don't have much life. But
because it's 90 minutes stretched to two one-hour episodes, there's even
more padding added to it.
As we know, Noah Beery wasn't available to play Rocky. Robert Donley's
performance is different. Sometimes I think he's too mean to Jimmy, but
I guess his performance has grown on me. He's quite sympathetic at the
end of the movie, explaining how he had to hock his truck to pay Jim's
legal fees to get him out of prison.
Hey! It's the Bionic Woman! Broke 24-year-old Lindsay Wagner who owns a
tiny bikini shop (alas she doesn't model one) hires Rockford by writing
a bad check. Rockford doesn't trust her and runs her credit. The setup
in which he discusses actual business with the client was a nice touch,
which we almost never got on tv detective shows.
Garner and Lindsay have nice chemistry together despite the age
difference. I always found her to be quite appealing. Always loved the
story that she was a contract player when she first played the Bionic
Woman on The Six Million Dollar Man. The character was killed off and
she got fired from her studio contract.
Whoops.
That episode was so highly rated she got resurrected for a separate tv
series and her agent negotiated a very nice salary for her indeed.
Ubiquitous tv actor Bill Quinn (who will appear on Rockford several more
times) gets murdered. He's taken the bus to the beach, the end of the
line. He's drunk but is dressed nicely, so he hasn't been a drunk all
that long. In a scene copied from Strangers on a Train, we see two sets
of feet. The murderer is wearing a loud outfit, loud even for the early
'70s. Quinn is there to meet someone and gets strangled under the peer;
the murderer gets a thrill out of it.
Bill Quinn became a drunk after the death of his wife; he's Lindsay
Wagner's father. Dennis Becker (Joe Santos) is ordered not to
investigate. Becker tried to push for an investigation because the guy
obviously wasn't an ordinary wino as he wore an expensie ring. I never
heard the name of Dennis's chief.
An establishment shot of a police station that's about 10 years old is
used that was never used again in the series, but the inside doesn't
match the outside, run down municipal building set that looks like sets
used since the 1930s.
There's a nice moment with Garner and Lindsay Wagner at an outdoor
restaurant. There's Muzak playing. Why, it's highly reminiscent of
Susan's theme by John Williams from The Paper Chase! She would have done
that movie earlier that year.
She takes him to meet her obnoxious brother. It's Will Robinson! Somehow
there's this wealthy woman who gets prescription drugs from his
pharamcy, 20 miles away, who wants to pay his medical school tuition.
He checks out the wealthy woman. She married a wealthy man in Vegas but
quickly became a widow. Police had treated her like the prime suspect in
the murder but the finding at autopsy was serious heart disease, that
the doctor said was confirmed by additional doctors hired by a cousin
who wanted to inherit the estate. The doctor seems pushy but allies
Rockford's suspicions. Nevertheless, the doctor, who was sympathetic to
the widow and wants a date, gives her a head's up about Rockford.
The William Smith character hurts this. Yeah, they needed a big guy who
could fight -- actually kung fu but they claim it's karate -- for
Rockford to outsmart. He doesn't exactly drive the plot, he pushes the
plot, bringing himself to Rockford's attention by unsubtly following
him. Rockford was convinced to drop the case by the doctor! So I'm not
blaming his acting ability, which isn't much.
But the pilot's great scene is Rockford outsmarting him in the bathroom
by soaping up the floor. That scene is what convinced audiences to stick
around for the series.
Because this was from the edit for syndication, the break between part 1
and 2 is in the middle of the fight scene, sigh.
Huh. The dialogue is reminiscent of the Winslow Wong scene in Marlowe.
"Just a little bit gay?" Bruce Lee wanted Smith for Enter the Dragon but
he was doing something else.
The ending... was worse than I recalled. Yes, Rockford makes the
impossible gunshot that brings down the plane... as the plane is no
longer directly overhead but quite some distance away. No handgun could
have made that shot.
But I'd forgotten that Rockford never got to talk to the minister at the
quickie wedding chapel whose evidence Rockford needed to confirm his
theory. Rockford just gives Lindsay Wagner the unconfirmed solution.
Jack Garner has a brief appearance but not yet Capt. McEnroe. Yes, he's
James' brother. And Luis Delgado plays himself in the wedding chapel
getting married, not yet Officer Billings. He's Roy Huggins' brother in
law and long time assistant to Garner.
Lindsay will return for another episode.
Stuart Margolin as Angel is in this playing a somewhat different character,
not the sniveling con man but Jim's ex cell mate who actually had committed
bank robbery. His brother in law owns a newspaper, which is mentioned on
another episode but dropped as a plot point. Angel is not used to find
clues for Jim in the newspaper morgue for the rest of the series.
Menards is a home improvement store that sells oddball merchandise. They
get DVDs at times. They're cheap.
I think I paid $5 or $10 for the entire run of The Rockford Files. Of
course it was from Mill Creek entertainment, so I likely overpaid.
I'd gotten certain seasons but was missing a couple of seasons so I
figured the box set couldn't hurt.
While I've watched the other DVD set of The Rockford Files, I never
opened the Mill Creek Entertainment package.
Smallish box with 22 discs crammed in using cardboard sleeves, not jewel
boxes. But MCE drops the transfer rate to cram more episodes onto a
disc. The transfer looked like the master was a VHS tape.
I put in the pilot episode. Uh oh. "Backlash of the Hunter".
No, the episode has no title. That title was used for the VHS sold in
home entertainment.
Worse still, it's in two parts, which means it's the syndication version
and not the original pilot.
The pilot is slow paced and the villains don't have much life. But
because it's 90 minutes stretched to two one-hour episodes, there's even
more padding added to it.
As we know, Noah Beery wasn't available to play Rocky. Robert Donley's
performance is different. Sometimes I think he's too mean to Jimmy, but
I guess his performance has grown on me. He's quite sympathetic at the
end of the movie, explaining how he had to hock his truck to pay Jim's
legal fees to get him out of prison.
Hey! It's the Bionic Woman! Broke 24-year-old Lindsay Wagner who owns a
tiny bikini shop (alas she doesn't model one) hires Rockford by writing
a bad check. Rockford doesn't trust her and runs her credit. The setup
in which he discusses actual business with the client was a nice touch,
which we almost never got on tv detective shows.
Garner and Lindsay have nice chemistry together despite the age
difference. I always found her to be quite appealing. Always loved the
story that she was a contract player when she first played the Bionic
Woman on The Six Million Dollar Man. The character was killed off and
she got fired from her studio contract.
Whoops.
That episode was so highly rated she got resurrected for a separate tv
series and her agent negotiated a very nice salary for her indeed.
Ubiquitous tv actor Bill Quinn (who will appear on Rockford several more
times) gets murdered. He's taken the bus to the beach, the end of the
line. He's drunk but is dressed nicely, so he hasn't been a drunk all
that long. In a scene copied from Strangers on a Train, we see two sets
of feet. The murderer is wearing a loud outfit, loud even for the early
'70s. Quinn is there to meet someone and gets strangled under the peer;
the murderer gets a thrill out of it.
Bill Quinn became a drunk after the death of his wife; he's Lindsay
Wagner's father. Dennis Becker (Joe Santos) is ordered not to
investigate. Becker tried to push for an investigation because the guy
obviously wasn't an ordinary wino as he wore an expensie ring. I never
heard the name of Dennis's chief.
An establishment shot of a police station that's about 10 years old is
used that was never used again in the series, but the inside doesn't
match the outside, run down municipal building set that looks like sets
used since the 1930s.
There's a nice moment with Garner and Lindsay Wagner at an outdoor
restaurant. There's Muzak playing. Why, it's highly reminiscent of
Susan's theme by John Williams from The Paper Chase! She would have done
that movie earlier that year.
She takes him to meet her obnoxious brother. It's Will Robinson! Somehow
there's this wealthy woman who gets prescription drugs from his
pharamcy, 20 miles away, who wants to pay his medical school tuition.
He checks out the wealthy woman. She married a wealthy man in Vegas but
quickly became a widow. Police had treated her like the prime suspect in
the murder but the finding at autopsy was serious heart disease, that
the doctor said was confirmed by additional doctors hired by a cousin
who wanted to inherit the estate. The doctor seems pushy but allies
Rockford's suspicions. Nevertheless, the doctor, who was sympathetic to
the widow and wants a date, gives her a head's up about Rockford.
The William Smith character hurts this. Yeah, they needed a big guy who
could fight -- actually kung fu but they claim it's karate -- for
Rockford to outsmart. He doesn't exactly drive the plot, he pushes the
plot, bringing himself to Rockford's attention by unsubtly following
him. Rockford was convinced to drop the case by the doctor! So I'm not
blaming his acting ability, which isn't much.
But the pilot's great scene is Rockford outsmarting him in the bathroom
by soaping up the floor. That scene is what convinced audiences to stick
around for the series.
Because this was from the edit for syndication, the break between part 1
and 2 is in the middle of the fight scene, sigh.
Huh. The dialogue is reminiscent of the Winslow Wong scene in Marlowe.
"Just a little bit gay?" Bruce Lee wanted Smith for Enter the Dragon but
he was doing something else.
The ending... was worse than I recalled. Yes, Rockford makes the
impossible gunshot that brings down the plane... as the plane is no
longer directly overhead but quite some distance away. No handgun could
have made that shot.
But I'd forgotten that Rockford never got to talk to the minister at the
quickie wedding chapel whose evidence Rockford needed to confirm his
theory. Rockford just gives Lindsay Wagner the unconfirmed solution.
Jack Garner has a brief appearance but not yet Capt. McEnroe. Yes, he's
James' brother. And Luis Delgado plays himself in the wedding chapel
getting married, not yet Officer Billings. He's Roy Huggins' brother in
law and long time assistant to Garner.
Lindsay will return for another episode.
Stuart Margolin as Angel is in this playing a somewhat different character,
not the sniveling con man but Jim's ex cell mate who actually had committed
bank robbery. His brother in law owns a newspaper, which is mentioned on
another episode but dropped as a plot point. Angel is not used to find
clues for Jim in the newspaper morgue for the rest of the series.
shawn
Nov 3, 2023, 2:22:01 AM11/3/23
to
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/bionic-woman--907545762387494853/
Adam H. Kerman
Nov 3, 2023, 2:38:21 AM11/3/23
to
shawn <nanof...@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:
>Let me help with that:
>https://www.pinterest.com/pin/bionic-woman--907545762387494853/
Yeah, Lindsay looks great. Thanks. She always appealed to me. I found a
>Let me help with that:
>https://www.pinterest.com/pin/bionic-woman--907545762387494853/
picture of her from just a few years ago. I think she still looks good.
anim8rfsk
Nov 3, 2023, 2:57:44 AM11/3/23
to
Adam H. Kerman <a...@chinet.com> wrote:
cares she’s just another skinny broad with no tits”
That’s second only to the genius who went on record in a memo about Harlan
Ellison, saying “let’s screw over this little Jew and steal his idea“
Not only did he commit that to a memo, they archived the memo, and turned
it over during discovery, when HE inevitably sued them.
>
> Whoops.
>
> That episode was so highly rated she got resurrected for a separate tv
> series and her agent negotiated a very nice salary for her indeed.
>
little bit of narration at each commercial break. By the time they got to
the middle of the second episode, the narration had built up to the point
where he was saying “stay tuned for the second half of part two of the
return of the bionic woman on the $6 million man“
Must’ve been snickering in the recording booth at that point. :-)
> Ubiquitous tv actor Bill Quinn (who will appear on Rockford several more
> times) gets murdered. He's taken the bus to the beach, the end of the
> line. He's drunk but is dressed nicely, so he hasn't been a drunk all
> that long. In a scene copied from Strangers on a Train, we see two sets
> of feet. The murderer is wearing a loud outfit, loud even for the early
> '70s. Quinn is there to meet someone and gets strangled under the peer;
> the murderer gets a thrill out of it.
>
> Bill Quinn became a drunk after the death of his wife; he's Lindsay
> Wagner's father. Dennis Becker (Joe Santos) is ordered not to
> investigate. Becker tried to push for an investigation because the guy
> obviously wasn't an ordinary wino as he wore an expensie ring. I never
> heard the name of Dennis's chief.
>
> The ending... was worse than I recalled. Yes, Rockford makes the
> impossible gunshot that brings down the plane... as the plane is no
> longer directly overhead but quite some distance away. No handgun could
> have made that shot.
>
> But I'd forgotten that Rockford never got to talk to the minister at the
> quickie wedding chapel whose evidence Rockford needed to confirm his
> theory. Rockford just gives Lindsay Wagner the unconfirmed solution.
>
> Jack Garner has a brief appearance but not yet Capt. McEnroe. Yes, he's
> James' brother. And Luis Delgado plays himself in the wedding chapel
> getting married, not yet Officer Billings. He's Roy Huggins' brother in
> law and long time assistant to Garner.
>
> Lindsay will return for another episode.
just some random guy. That was always sort of strange.
>
> Stuart Margolin as Angel is in this playing a somewhat different character,
> not the sniveling con man but Jim's ex cell mate who actually had committed
> bank robbery. His brother in law owns a newspaper, which is mentioned on
> another episode but dropped as a plot point. Angel is not used to find
> clues for Jim in the newspaper morgue for the rest of the series.
>
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it is still on my list.
shawn
Nov 3, 2023, 3:37:32 AM11/3/23
to
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNlamxz5nKg
Ubiquitous
Nov 7, 2023, 7:18:00 AM11/7/23
to
In article <ui24gq$2lsqg$5...@dont-email.me>, a...@chinet.com wrote:
> shawn <nanof...@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:
To a newsgroup you never read.
> shawn <nanof...@notforg.m.a.i.l.com> wrote:
>>Let me help with that:
>>https://www.pinterest.com/pin/bionic-woman--907545762387494853/
>
>Yeah, Lindsay looks great. Thanks. She always appealed to me. I found a
>picture of her from just a few years ago. I think she still looks good.
--
Let's go Brandon!
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