Tue 13 Dec 2011
A TV Review by Michael Shonk: THE DELPHI BUREAU: THE MERCHANT OF DEATH ASSIGNMENT (1972).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[21] Comments
THE DELPHI BUREAU: THE MERCHANT OF DEATH ASSIGNMENT. TV-Movie Pilot for the ABC-TV series The Delphi Bureau. March 6, 1972. Warner Brothers. Two hours. CAST: Laurence Luckinbill as Glenn Garth Gregory, Celeste Holm as Sybil, Cameron Mitchell as Stokely, Joanna Pettet as April, Bob Crane as Charlie, Dean Jagger as Keller, Bradford Dillman as Jamison. Written and Produced by Sam Rolfe. Directed by Paul Wendkos.
When surplus fighter planes begin to disappear, the President asks the top secret Delphi Bureau to find them. The Bureau is so secret it has no office, no record of existing, and, as far as its agent Glenn Garth Gregory knows, it has only two employees, him and his boss, Sybil, a Washington DC society hostess.
Gregory is a researcher with a photographic memory and a dislike for danger. So he is quite upset when, after he discovers how the planes were taken, a fake cop tries to kill him. Sybil is less than sympathetic, and once they figure out where the planes may be hidden, she sends Gregory there, a large experimental farm outside a small town in Kansas.
But first, Sybil tosses a party so Gregory, posing as an agricultural expert from the Department of Agriculture, can meet the prime suspect, Matthew Keller. Keller is a former arms merchant now an invalid and obsessed with farming and feeding the hungry, and surrounded by a mixed group of people. There is beautiful April who tries to warn Gregory away, the friendly therapist, terrified Jamison, and Stokely, a killer so cool he winks at Gregory when Gregory recognizes him.
“He didn’t do a very good job, did he?” she replies.
“He’ll know I’m not an agricultural expert.”
“Well, that’s only fair. You know he’s not a cop.”
Writer-producer Sam Rolfe (Have Gun Will Travel, Man from U.N.C.L.E.) deserves to be better remembered for his work in television. Rolfe’s Glenn Garth Gregory did to the spy genre what James Rockford did to the PI genre. Both series enjoyed twisting almost mocking the tropes of the genre.
Gregory was no dashing James Bond nor satirical Flint nor comedic Maxwell Smart. Glenn Garth Gregory was just a researcher. Granted a researcher with a photographic memory that gave him an encyclopedia in his head and the ability to escape traps that would rival MacGyver.
The plot was played basically straight but with Rolfe’s usual touches of humor in the dialog and characters. There was a better than average TV mystery solved by Gregory advancing through twist after twist, discovering clues along the way, and falling into and escaping trap after trap.
Luckinbill was convincing as the researcher forced to play spy to keep his job and its many rich benefits. Celeste Holm makes you believe her flighty society hostess character was also a tough spymaster as heartless as Bond’s M. Even the bad guys were fun, especially Cameron Mitchell’s remorseless killer Stokely and Brad Dillman’s neurotic Jamison.
Perhaps the most unusual part of the show was a running limerick that bridged commercial breaks, one line at a time until the end when the limerick would be completed.
To uncover some worms in a can…
So they con him – they frame him…
For murder they blame him…
In turn – he eludes them…
Pursues – then eschews them…
’Till he holds all the strings to the plan…
The end – more or less, Delphian!
The Merchant of Death Assignment would lead to the series The Delphi Bureau which premiered in October 1972 and shared a time slot with Assignment: Vienna and Jigsaw under the umbrella title of The Men.
The Delphi Bureau lasted only eight one-hour TV episodes. It was then, and remains today, one of my favorite TV series.
Neither the pilot nor the series is currently available on DVD or online. A very poor quality video of the opening sequence of the series can be found here on YouTube, while a two-minute segment from the pilot was posted there by Laurence Luckinbill a couple of years ago.
One can only hope Warner Archives, that has blessed us with Made On Demand DVDs of the TV-Movie pilots Probe (Search) and Smile Jenny, You’re Dead (Harry O) will do the same for The Merchant of Death Assignment (The Delphi Bureau).
December 13th, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Wow! I’ve been trying to remember the name of this series! Especially liked the tall thin blond in the picture with the throaty voice.
Off to IMDB to check out her name.
December 14th, 2011 at 5:03 am
Stan – that would be Joanna Pettet. I have an old VHS in a box somewhere – I taped this off of TBS/TNT and it’s very fun.
December 14th, 2011 at 7:32 am
This was one of my all-time favorite TV movies and I have remembered the poem ever since. I would love to have this on DVD.
December 14th, 2011 at 9:15 am
Tom
If you still have — and can find — that old VHS tape, let us know!
— Steve
December 14th, 2011 at 9:56 am
I still remember seeing the pilot when it was first broadcast. The scene which sticks out is the one where he remembers how to disable a combine harvester (he memorized its blueprints).
December 14th, 2011 at 10:44 am
Tom –
I must have videotaped the same showing on TBS THEATRE. Considering I had used a cheap Ampex tape the quality was good, and seeing old commercials and CNN2 news breaks with President Reagan still in office gives you that time travel feeling only old personal videotapes can give you. It is worth finding and watching again.
December 14th, 2011 at 10:54 am
I wish I could say I did, but I do not remember watching this series at all, nor either of the other two that were part of the overall “THE MEN” cycle of shows.
In 1972 I was in grad school, so the time I had to watch TV was extremely minimal. None of the three rings any kind of bell.
For so many of you to have remembered DELPHI BUREAU for so long, and so well, it must have been memorable, indeed.
December 14th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
The most interesting memory I have of The Deplhi Bureau requires a SPOILER WARNING:
That limerick that runs through the show refers back to the character played by Bob Crane, who improvises limericks every time he appears. Although he’s supposedly Gregory’s pal, Crane turns out in the end to be the boss villain. Possibly this is why limericks didn’t figure in the series proper.
Also, when Delphi went to series, Anne Jeffreys replaced Celeste Holm as Sybil Van Loween (I even remember that – God help me).
As for The Men, one factor that may have inhibited its possible success was that its member series were all from different studios: Delphi was made by Warner Bros., Jigsaw was Universal, and Assignment Vienna was MGM.
Being on against Ironside at that show’s peak of popularity didn’t help any either.
December 14th, 2011 at 4:32 pm
I wish I had a copy of any of the series episodes. I believe the limericks made it to the series, but Mike you may be right.
Oh, for those who curse Mike’s spoiler. The character was not the boss villain, there is a twist at the end that even surprises Glenn Garth Gregory.
THE MEN’s failure had many causes. It lacked the major hit show like COLUMBO for audience to be patient enough to watch the series they disliked. so they got the habit of watching the other channels instead. And ABC did not give it a chance. They aired only a few episodes of each in the rotating format. The series disappeared for a couple of months and was then aired in groups, with one series airing weekly until the episodes ran out and the next series taking over.
December 14th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
I’m not sure that this was ever broadcast in Britain. After these glowing recommendations I’d certainly like to see it, so here’s hoping that it eventually turns up on DVD. It’s a bit of a shock to realise that Bradford Dillman is now 81 years of age!
December 14th, 2011 at 6:04 pm
The problem that the wheel series always had was simply that some series, on their own, were more popular than the others.
On a week-to-week basis, Columbo always drew bigger numbers than the other shows in the rotation. This doesn’t mean that people necessarily disliked the Mcs, merely that Columbo was more of an “appointment” show. You’ll note that from season to season, NBC contrived to have more Columbos than any of the others.
December 14th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
Mike, the 70s was the beginning of the networks moving shows around. Quick cancellations, a rare occurrence when the advertisers ran the time slot, began to be common place ignoring the TV viewers were creatures of habit. NBC MYSTERY MOVIE, Wednesday version had two popular series and one that was not to miss TV, so it is not a real surprise that this version was the most successful “Wheel” series ever.
THE MEN, oddly enough, was three series each one hour long. Success in those days for an hour series was one hundred episodes so the studio could recoup its cost in syndication. Imagine how long it would have taken Warners to make a profit off DELPHI BUREAU with eight episodes a year.
The fact there is only ten total hours of DELPHI BUREAU programs makes a DVD less likely. Our only hope is the TV-Movie gets released as a Made-On-Demand DVD.
BRADSTREET:
Consider this American payback for us missing your shows such as THE SWEENY, SHOESTRING, etc
December 15th, 2011 at 11:55 am
If Warner still owns the rights then it may show up on Warner Archive – other TV shows have. Archive has been very successful.
December 20th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
I vaguely remember this. Gosh, I loved Celeste Holm. She would have been great in anything of this sort.
The only thing I know about Luckinbill is that he married Lucie Arnaz.
Oh, and that he starred in this.
December 20th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Yvette:
Surprisingly Celeste Holm was replaced for the series by Anne Jeffreys, who, if I remember correctly, also was good in the part of Sybil.
You also might remember Luckinbill in STAR TREK V as villain and Spock’s half brother. He has done a great deal of work on stage as well.
March 17th, 2013 at 4:44 pm
I have converted an old VHS tape of the pilot episode to an .mp4 file, complete but of course not the best quality.
I watch it often, it’s one of my all time faves.
March 19th, 2013 at 12:17 pm
Dave, we are lucky DELPHI BUREAU is from Warners as no studio is paying better attention to their archives than WB. I hope someday to get to see the weekly 60 minutes episodes again.
March 28th, 2013 at 1:45 pm
Dave! is there anyway I can get a copy of your pilot episode?
February 20th, 2014 at 6:17 pm
I have a copy of this pilot episode on 16mm that is currently listed for sale. It is a LPP film and has beautiful color… see the listing here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=151236883777&ssPageName=STRK:MESE:IT
March 11th, 2014 at 10:42 pm
Warner Archives has released the DELPHI BUREAU TV Movie pilot on DVD. Let’s hope the series will follow in the footsteps of SEARCH and HARRY O.
October 28th, 2019 at 6:03 pm
Wow! When I was 14 years old, in 1973, my mom, brother and I went to Japan for the summer. I watched this movie on the airplane. For the life of me, I have been thinking of this movie all these years but could not remember anything EXCEPT there was a silo in it. LOL. At last I have found it – and now I DO remember the limerick! I hope to purchase the DVD that Michael mentioned has been released by Warner Archives. Off to more Google searching …