Sun 12 Jul 2020
A Private Eye TV Episode Review: FRANKIE DRAKE MYSTERIES “Mother of Pearl†(2017).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[17] Comments
FRANKIE DRAKE MYSTERIES. “Mother of Pearl.†CBC, 06 November 2017 (Season 1, Episode 1.) Lauren Lee Smith as Frankie Drake, Toronto’s first female private detective (in the 1920s) and the owner of Drake Private Detectives, Chantel Riley as Trudy Clarke, Frankie’s partner; Rebecca Liddiard as Mary Shaw, a morality officer in Toronto’s police force who often helps Frankie; Sharron Matthews as Flo Chakowitz, a pathologist at the Toronto City Morgue. Recurring: Wendy Crewson as Nora Amory, Frankie’s mother and a con artist; Steve Lund as Ernest Hemingway, a reporter for the Toronto Star. Director: Ruba Nadda.
You can’t tell the players without a scorecard, especially when there are as many players as this. Thanks go to Wikipedia for providing all the names above and who they are. This first episode shows exactly how a pilot should be done: introduce the characters while at the same time building a story around them doing just that and managing to be entertaining on its own.
In this case, the story begins with a valuable diamond necklace being stolen from the hotel room of a wealthy steel magnate visiting from Pittsburgh. Curiously the thief leaves in its place a single duck’s feather – or more specifically, a drake’s feather – somehow bringing suspicion directly to Frankie’s door.
This may be more than I’d usually tell you in a review, but things do get complicated from this point on. It seems that the steel man’s wife is none other than Frankie’s mother, who abandoned her and her father when she was but a child. As the story progresses, Frankie Drake (a shortened version of Francis Drake) learns more about her father as well.
The tone is definitely light-hearted. I don’t believe that “dark streets” is anything close to what the producers of the show have in mind. The reception to the series has been such (quite favorable) that it is scheduled to start its fourth season next year. The ambience is everything it should be, the acting, so far, is adequate. Frankie herself seems, unfortunately, rather plain and and ordinary, especially compared to her flamboyant mother and her young sassy assistant.
I’d have to see another episode, one that involves a much more ordinary, less personal case, to be able to say more. Based on this, the first installment, I found it entertaining enough to say that I will.
July 12th, 2020 at 10:32 pm
For a definitely antipodal point of view on this series, check out Kevin Burton Smith’s essay over on his website:
https://thrillingdetective.wordpress.com/2018/10/06/frankie-drake/
July 12th, 2020 at 11:48 pm
Might be okay in a pinch, though I agree with Kevin Burton Smith about some of this stuff being scrubbed too squeaky clean for anyone’s good. There has to be a difference between wallowing in it like the new Perry Mason and pretending 1920 is 2020.
July 13th, 2020 at 5:54 am
Not for us. We tried one episode and couldn’t get interested enough to keep watching. I should add that, as a rule, we don’t care for many of these period shows.
July 13th, 2020 at 5:58 am
But I supposed I should add, we don’t watch Miss Fisher either. Kevin makes the relevant point – it is all cars, costumes, sets. Write a believable story and a decent script.
July 13th, 2020 at 11:02 am
Thanks for bringing up MISS FISHER. It’s a show I haven’t caught up with yet, but I’ve been planning to. They definitely sound very similar. Fans of one really ought to know about the other.
And by the way, I did learn something by watching this first episode of FRANKIE. I did not know that Ernest Hemingway ever worked as a reporter in Toronto, but I looked it up, and sure enough, he did. I can’t imagine he looked anything like the fellow he plays him, badly, but I could be wrong about that.
July 13th, 2020 at 12:16 pm
I liked the show. It reminds me of the cotton candy, blue sky, fantasy world on TV light crime drama of 20th Century. Let’s discuss the realism of MURDER SHE WROTE.
As such it is a breath of fresh air in the endless gritty realism set in modern TV crime dark sewers of 21st Century.
Question, what is the future of gritty TV Cops such as LUTHER after recent events in the real world?
FRANKIE is a passable way to turn off the brain and kill sixty minutes of your leisure time. I saw it on Prime (Amazon) and watch it the next time I am bored and my brain is on vacation.
Is it good, not really. Does it offer an alternative to most current mystery crime drama, yes it does.
July 13th, 2020 at 12:36 pm
The little I have seen of this, and I have no interest in seeing more, left me both dramatically empty, and annoyed with the pretend aspects of period detail. Just terrible, a reminder of how good early fifties television drama was, despite the lack of production value. As for Miss Fisher, it is much better, but empty as well.
July 13th, 2020 at 2:30 pm
I had to look up “antipodal”–i thought it might mean “before one had feet” but I stand by my original assessment of FRANKIE DRAKE.
Granted, I’m nobody’s idea of a cozy fan, but I can still enjoy an occasional MISS FISHER or even MURDER SHE WROTE–FRANKIE makes them both look grittier than a month of Sunday morning NOIR ALLEYs.
But consider the source. As a (displaced) Canadian, I hope I’m allowed to say “F**kin’ Toronto!â€
Saddest part is, they could have really done something with the premise, something smarter, more realistic, and genuinely interesting, instead of creating some bullshit utopian revisionist Hallmark Channel-ready past that never existed… and still doesn’t.
The dishonesty of its portrayal of Canadian history just burns me right to the core.
But the cars are shiny, and the costumes were seemingly all sown yesterday (don’t get the Girl Detective ranting on the inappropriateness of Frankie’s wardrobe!).
It’s like visiting a museum diorama; it’s all about as realistic as a wax banana.
Hmmm… after all this ranting, maybe it’s time to watch another episode. Honey? Start sharpening the knives…
July 13th, 2020 at 3:01 pm
Kevin, I was born in Kansas so the Canadian realism is not a big deal with me.
I can’t argue with any of your thoughts because you are correct. But considering what reality is like today I can understand why there is a growing audience for Hallmark junk food like this.
Hallmark (and shows like FRANKIE) has its formula and quality drama enlightening the masses in its search for truth is not in the formula. Check out Hallmarks SHERLOCK HOLMES and wonder why it was made but to feed the hunger of the unwashed masses and ME-TV fans.
July 13th, 2020 at 3:23 pm
Steve, yes, I knew. I’ve read a lot of Hemingway and more about him, including a fat collection of his newspaper stories written during his year (?) or so in Toronto.
July 13th, 2020 at 7:17 pm
Miss Fisher, often based on the very good books, does deal with things like race, politics, and sexism, and often cleverly. Miss Fisher frequently outrages everyone around her with her manners, dress, and insistence on being her own woman, and many episodes deal seriously with men confronting the new freedom women were finding, including a continuing character who is a lesbian doctor who dresses masculine, but isn’t quite “out.”
Yes, it is fluff, but it doesn’t ignore the reality of the time and it does deal with some serious issues. Miss Fisher takes Chinese and Black lovers in the course of the series and is sexual in a very shocking way for the times, but not without actual models from the era like Lady Diana Duff-Cooper, Lady Sylvia Ashley, and her sister Lady Edwina Mountbatten.
But, yes, much of the fun is classic cars, clothees, planes, and trains, just done with style, class, and some recognition of reality.
GRANCHESTER, also based on books, is another series that balances the nostalgia for the Post war era with serious issues like repression of homosexuals and race a bit more seriously, but without too much preaching.
July 13th, 2020 at 8:03 pm
David, I was unaware that Sylvia Ashley and e
Edwina Mountbatten were related, much less sisters.
And while Edwina did have her affairs with men of color, at least one was mighty distinguished, this was no Nancy Cunard. Nor was Sylvia, who married two kings, in a manner of speaking.
July 13th, 2020 at 8:10 pm
FRANKIE DRAKE can be pleasant light entertainment. It’s “fun”, in short.
I didn’t like the first two episodes, including this one. But then it started getting everything together.
Watching a show with four women solving mysteries and being friends is enjoyable. It’s not what one usually sees on TV.
July 14th, 2020 at 6:01 pm
Thanks for all your comments, everyone. No one can read down through them and get to this point without knowing if this is a series that you might want to watch, if you haven’t already, or not.
I haven’t gone on the second one myself, but I still intend to, as soon as I can get to it.
After that, as they say, we shall see.
PS. No one thought I’d leave this post with exactly 13 comments did they?
July 14th, 2020 at 10:16 pm
Well, I did like Miss Fisher, and Murdock, and Grantchester, so I’ll give this a try.
July 15th, 2020 at 8:05 pm
Barry,
My great grandmother was a cousin of the Ashley’s. Sylvia along with Diana Duff-Cooper and a few others were the models for Hemingway’s Lady Brett in THE SUN ALSO RISES.
I didn’t mean to imply they were quite as advanced as Miss Fisher, only that they did have some famous affairs and marriages (Lord Mountbatten took some pride in his wife’s affairs — Nehru most famously when Mountbatten was Viceroy in India).
In that period after the First War when so many young men of their generation had died there seemed to be a slew or bright liberated British ladies who expressed that freedom carnally.
I met Lord and Lady Mountbatten when I was with the embassy in London, and she remembered my great grandmother who was somewhat older than she was. Lord Mountbatten was amused to find his wife had a distant cousin who had not only worked as a cowboy but also had Cherokee blood. He really did take quite a bit of pride in her.
Lady Sylvia as you know was married to Doug Fairbanks Jr. and Clark Gable at various times.
They were remarkable women, smart, independent, and determined to live life on their own terms.
July 15th, 2020 at 11:13 pm
David, Gable and Fairbanks were the two kings I had in mind. Your post is not only interesting, but warrants further development — on the other hand, were Sylvia and Edwina sisters? Not at all, other than in lustful, intelligent lifestyles.
As for Nehru, no problem, I am inclined to believe Louis Bromfield patterned two of his principal characters in The Rains Came, a helluva book and film, after that pair.
Re Bromfield. Malabar Farm is still open for business, at least as a tourist attraction because back in 2000 we had a meal there after a visit to friends at Kenyon College. Wish I could do it again.