CHARLIE PARADISE. “The Tragic Flute.” An episode of Brenner, CBS, 19 July 1964 (Season 2, Episode 10). Ron Randell (Charlie Paradise). Guest star: Edward Binns as Roy Brenner, with Bob Pastene, Gerald S. O’Loughlin, Severn Darden, Rebecca Sand, Kathy Willard, Fred Gwynne. Story/screenplay: Peter Stone and James Yaffe. Director: Gerald Mayer.

   I’m listing this pilot for a proposed TV series the same way it is in the end credits. The opening title is for a series called Brenner (1959-64), with the name of the episode being “Charlie Paradise.” Edward Binns was the star of the series, playing a police lieutenant for the NYPD named Roy Brenner. Co-starring as Brenner’s son Ernie, a young patrolman for the department, was James Broderick; in the course of the series, they often found themselves working together.

   Son Ernie does not appear in this episode, however, the last of 26. When an old woman whom no one has seen in person for many years is found dead in her dilapidated apartment, Lt. Brenner, having no leads, essentially turns the case over to Charlie Paradise, the owner of a beatnik club in Greenwich Village, and the center of the bohemian art movement for the city, whether jazz, poetry or art.

   It’s an interesting story line, and Ron Randell fits his role well. The solution to the case is provided by an artist with integrity but living in abject poverty. There’s what’s essentially a dead man’s clue to the killer, which cleverly could be any of the suspects. I can’t imagine networks bigwigs relating much to either the setting or the characters living in it, however, and once and done was all they wrote for Charlie Paradise.

Note:   Based on what others have discovered about the series, all of the episodes were filmed in 1959, including this one, then spread out over the years as parts of summer replacement series. The 1964 date is the first and only time this episode was aired. Also, for more on the Brenner series itself, Ted Fitzgerald wrote up a review of it some seven years ago on this blog. Read it here.