Thu 5 Jul 2012
A TV Review by Michael Shonk: HARRY O in San Diego.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[32] Comments
HARRY O in San Diego
September-December 1974; Thursday at 10-11pm. ABC / Warner Brothers. Cast: David Janssen as Harry Orwell, Henry Darrow as Lieutenant Manuel “Manny†Quinlan. Recurring Cast: Tom Atkins as Sgt Frank Cole, Mel Stewart as Roy Bardello. Created by Howard Rodman. Executive Producer: Jerry Thorpe. Producer: Richard E. Thompson. Associate Producer: Rita Dillon. Executive Story Consultant: Robert Dozier. Theme by Billy Goldenberg.
While the two pilots Such Dust Dreams Are Made On and Smile Jenny, You’re Dead were set in Los Angeles, the first thirteen episodes of Harry O were set and filmed in San Diego. ABC was last in the ratings and decided to try a “non-L.A. look†with some of their new shows. Seattle and Hawaii were considered, but San Diego was finally chosen (Television Chronicles #10. Thanks to Randy Cox for sending me Ed Robertson’s wonderful article.)
When we last left Harry O, we had seen the series first episode, “Gertrude†and had visions of Rockford Files dancing in our head. Those visions disappeared with the next episode “Admiral’s Lady†as Harry O quickly returned to the dark depressing dramas found in the pilots.
Where “Gertrude†was a mystery with eccentric characters and humor, what followed in the next several episodes were stories focused on damaged people with troubled souls.
The mystery mattered less than its effects on the characters. Harry’s narration was used for his introspective thoughts rather than exposition of the plot. Humor was as rare as hope in these early episodes, while it would slowly resurface over time it did not returned to the levels of the episode “Gertrude.â€
The drama was strong and thought provoking, and there were no happy endings, only people left trying to recover and make it through the day.
In the series second episode “Admiral’s Lady,†a much-honored Admiral, (Leif Erikson) refuses to believe his missing young wife (Sharon Acker) is dead and hires Harry to find her. Harry discovers a killer may be looking for her as well. This is more than just another episode about a serial killer on the loose. It is a story about the pain caused by love and betrayal.
Next, “Guardian At The Gates†features brilliant architect Paul Sawyer (Barry Sullivan) who is a monster as a human being. Harry is hired to find out who wants him dead. During the case Harry falls for Sawyer’s emotionally abused daughter, Marian (Linda Evans). The story is less a mystery than an examination of a genius without humanity, the price of such genius and the suffering it causes others around him.
“Mortal Sin†is about two men’s loss of faith, one a priest and the other a killer. Father Paul Vecchio (Laurence Luckinbill) and Harry are friends and have discussed the priest’s growing doubts. So when a man confesses that he has killed and will kill again, Father Paul turns to Harry, but then refuses to break the rules of the confessional. It is up to Harry to find the killer, and the priest to find his place in the church.
“Coinage of the Realm†offers a rare appearance by Harry’s car. The car repeatedly breaks down and is used as comic relief from the darkness of the story of a dying child (Dawn Lyn) who needs her father, Don (Kenneth Mars) to donate his kidney to save her life. The problem is he is on the run from the mob and has disappeared. Two gay hitmen (David Dukes and Granville Van Dusen) are hoping Harry will lead them to Don.
In “Eyewitness,†the nurse (Rosalind Cash), who had helped Harry recover from the shooting that left a bullet in his back, needs his help. Her son has been arrested for murder. Harry returns to a primarily African-American neighborhood where he had once worked as a cop. Not much had changed with old friends still just trying to survive the day. One of those friends is now drug free hooker (Margaret Avery) trying to raise her blind teenaged brother who may be the only witness to the killing. This has a typical Harry O ending, the bad guy is stopped but the victims are left with little hope of life getting better.
In “Shadows At Noon,†Harry comes home to find a woman named Marilyn (Diana Ewing) hiding in his small beach house. She has escaped from a mental hospital but claims to be as sane as he is. Mystery plays a minor role in this psychological drama about what is sanity. Harry poses as a patient in the mental hospital to find out if the girl is telling the truth. When he is betrayed and trapped there, Harry fights to keep his own sanity. The bad guys are caught in almost a dramatic afterthought as the story focused on the terrible cost to the girl and to Harry.
In “Ballinger’s Choice,†Margaret (Juliet Mills) hires Harry to find Paul, her cheating husband (Paul Burke). Harry shifts through all the lies from everyone and uncovers a disturbing twist and then murder. The mystery plays a more typical role in the plot of this morality play.
“Second Sight†has another damaged broken person enter Harry’s life. After an automobile accident turned Fay Conners (Stefanie Powers) into a blind psychic, she wrote three mysteries where the details of the crimes would later come true. She had warned a Doctor he was going to be killed. The doctor turned to Harry to be his bodyguard and Harry said no. When the doctor is killed, Harry feels guilty and tries to find who killed the Doctor and why. This is Harry O, so “why” is more important than “who.” Harry’s humor is beginning to surface again.
“Material Witness†begins when Dr. Noelle Kira (Barbara Anderson) sees mobster Joe Kiley kill a man. But witnesses against Kiley have a habit of dying or refusing to testify. Captain Jaklin (James Olson) is convinced someone in the department is tipping off Kiley about where the witnesses are being kept. He asks Harry to be the Doctor’s bodyguard for 24 hours until he can get men he trusts in place. The series is beginning to shift to more typical TV crime stories. This episode has some interesting twists and a more typical TV PI show ending.
“Forty Reasons To Kill – Part One†begins with a friend of Harry and a Harvard graduate lawyer turn Hippie, George found dead with cocaine on his body. The cops think it is a drug deal gone wrong. Harry’s search for the truth takes him to small Vardero County where he meets rich spoiled Glenna (Joanna Pettet) who becomes his lover. She had sold George 40,000 acres of land. It was a tiny piece of what she owns but it upset her over protective “uncles†(Broderick Crawford and Craig Stevens) who control the land trust and source of Glenna’s wealth. Harry is beaten up, bribed, and then framed for the murder.
“Forty Reasons To Kill – Part Two†has Manny arriving to help Harry. The audience knows something Harry doesn’t, who is behind it all. Glenna pays his bail and Harry is out and quickly learns what is behind the plot and murder. Now Harry has to stay alive long enough to prove it. The episode suffers from too much padding for a story that would have worked better as a single episode.
“Account Balanced†was the last episode shot in San Diego. An ex-girl friend (Linda Marsh) comes to Harry to find out if her husband (Robert Reed) is cheating. Harry is unhappy when he discovers the husband with another woman. But when that woman is found dead the next day of an apparent suicide, Harry realizes the husband’s secrets may be even more serious. It also featured some funny character byplay between Harry, Manny, and Manny’s less than bright assistant Sgt Cole (likably played by Tom Atkins).
Harry Orwell is a romantic seeking true justice with all wrongs corrected and the guilty punished. The resulting disappointments caused by reality has left Harry a weary grumpy man with a sardonic sense of humor.
He is honest and blunt to the point of rudeness. Harry is introspective and private, content to be alone with his thoughts. Harry admits that he hates to talk about himself or his past. Once a client caught him alone singing and playing his banjo and he reacted shyly as if she had discover a hidden secret of his.
He has little interest in material things or wealth. He may have wine but no wine glasses when paper cups will do. He dislikes mystery fiction and guns, and enjoys fishing and running on the beach alone. Little is known about his past beyond an ex-wife and that he was a Lieutenant on the San Diego Police force and has some experience in the homicide department.
Harry’s primary motivation to get involved is not money but a sense of responsibility, duty, and/or guilt. In “Material Witness,†when the Captain asks him to protect the witness, Harry asked if this was a paying job or a favor to the department. The Captain wondered what was the difference. Harry replied he could turn down a job.
Janssen is a joy to watch act. Perhaps the best example of his talents is in the jail scene from Part Two of “Forty Reasons To Kill.†Harry, who has been framed for murder, is laying face down on the cell cot when Manny enters.
Usually this is a scene that calls for anger and great emotions. Janssen plays it with an understated whimsy that was as entertaining as it was surprising. Henry Darrow followed Janssen’s lead and played his normally under control stern cop Manny with a lighter touch. Harry and Manny are friends and trust each other. This scene showed it without the need to say it.
Lieutenant Manuel “Manny†Quinlan is a career cop, and little is known beyond that. Not unlike Harry, Manny never discusses his personal life or past. He is a tough no nonsense boss to all he commands, which made dealing with independent Harry difficult for Manny.
The ratings were mediocre at best but good enough for ABC who had bigger problems with its schedule (it cancelled six shows and moved four more at midseason). Harry O was given the go ahead to shoot the rest of the first season’s episodes, but both ABC and Warners wanted changes.
The series with its slow-paced inner conflict drama and its fatalistic view of social injustice was not the action PI with car chases ABC wanted.
San Diego gave Harry O some wonderful background scenery especially the view of the ocean and city skyline from Harry’s small beach house, but the cost overruns from filming on location and the series’ ratings (not a hit like Streets of San Francisco) made Harry O’s move to Los Angeles necessary.
The Harry O episodes in San Diego (minus “Gertrudeâ€) surprised me by their darkness. The mysteries were less about who did it than the cause and effects of the crime on the characters. Every day was a struggle to survive not only from the outside forces of our lives but the inner demons those forces leave behind.
I have over thirty hours of the series left to view, so while I will be reviewing other shows these coming weeks, I will return to Harry O as soon as possible. Next in this series of reviews on Harry O I will examine how the series changed after the move to Los Angeles.
July 5th, 2012 at 9:36 pm
Michael:
You make the series seem wonderful, which is exactly what I thought at the time.
July 5th, 2012 at 10:46 pm
This is an excellent series which I watched back in 1974 and rewatched recently on bootleg dvds. It deserves to be officially released on dvd in a box set.
These early episodes are indeed dark and show the effect of crimes on the characters. They remind me of the Lew Archer novels by Ross Macdonald. I bet he had a big influence on the atmosphere of the series.
July 5th, 2012 at 11:18 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Barry.
Walker, I probably will never do another review in progress like this. I have since found a copy of the original pilot and Randy sent me that article from TV Chronicles which tells the behind the scenes story of the creation of HARRY O.
I plan to post about that in the last of this series on HARRY O. But the highlights were Warners hired Howard Rodman to develop Harry Callahan (DIRTY HARRY) as a TV series. Rodman used a no-name salesman character from Nathanael West’s DAY OF THE LOCUST as the visual model for Harry.
Once Janssen was cast (and he was not first choice), both Rodman and producer Jerry Thorpe agree that Harry Orwell became David Janssen. Whenever Janssen questioned anything the writers wrote that Harry did, it was changed to the way Janssen wanted it.
Janssen said Harry was a man who belonged in the 1940s not the present (1970s).
I got the impression the writers were writing dramas not mysteries. It has been a long time since I have read Macdonald’s Archer books, you could be right.
July 5th, 2012 at 11:24 pm
And for those who missed the comments in the MAN CALLED SLOANE review, Warners, reportedly, has announced on their Facebook page awhile back that they hope to have HARRY O out on official DVD sometime this year.
I have had my heart broken before, so I will believe when I see it for sale as Amazon.
July 5th, 2012 at 11:56 pm
Thanks, Michael. After your first Harry O review I had been eagerly awaiting this one. You did not disappoint. I loved your description of Harry, and I definitely agree that “Janssen is a joy to watch act.” To me, when the cameras rolled, DJ became the young RD, the 30 something RK, and the older Harry O. I think there was some of him in each character at each stage of his life, and we really believed DJ was that person. Your comments about the series in your 2nd & 4th paragraphs from the end made me realize I did not want Harry O to be an “action PI with car chases.” That would be such a waste of DJ’s talent. I wanted it to be about relationships, about “cause and effects of the crime on the characters”, and about the daily “struggle to survive.” Even so, the stories don’t have to always be “dark.” I wouldn’t want that. I am really looking forward to the rest of your Harry O reviews and hearing how the remaining episodes compare to the series up to this point.
July 6th, 2012 at 12:04 am
michael, you make Harry O sound RATHER noir , especially for the ’70s.
Hereabouts, it was only broadcast by a small network, repeated something like once, and I don’t remember ever having actually SEEN it, although I’ve read about it a thousand times.
As for seeing something of high quality on sale, just go to a bookshop, and see what THEY constantly have on their ‘has to go’ tables at $1 something.
The Doc
July 6th, 2012 at 12:29 am
I asked Warner Archive Collection in a private message on their FB page 2 months ago about releasing Harry O on DVD. This was their reply: “There is not much more to add at this juncture save that we hope to release both series and original pilot – stay tuned!” After that I asked for an update and got: “Most recently on May 25 – We’re working on Season One of HARRY O right now. Hopefully we should have it ready in the next few months. Season Two will follow shortly thereafter. So, we hope this news alleviates some of your concerns!” This was followed by the comment: “Harry will be here sooner than later, do not fear!” I’m not holding my breath.
July 6th, 2012 at 7:45 am
Michael, the no-name character from The Day of the Locust after whom Rodman claims to have named Harry O actually does actually have a name, and it too is Harry — Harry Greener, a onetime vaudevillian who has been reduced to selling “magic potions” door to door to Beverly Hills housewives. However, in published accounts, Rodman is quoted evoking a scene from the book as inspiration for the character of Harry Orwell that actually doesn’t exist in either the book or film version of Locust, so in fact it was more of an impression that the character created in Rodman’s mind — that of a tired door-to-door salesman with his sport coat flung over his shoulder, perspiring as he goes door to door (or something like that).
The LA episodes are also very dark, but there is more humor because of the relationship between Orwell and Lt. Trench (Anthony Zerbe, who won an Emmy for the role), which is pretty hilarious. The LA eps also feature occasional appearances by Farrah Fawcett.
July 6th, 2012 at 10:11 am
Believe it or not, I’ve never seen a single episode of Harry O, but I feel as though I have been reading about it forever. I’ll look forward to the DVDs.
July 6th, 2012 at 10:19 am
#5 Pam, glad you enjoyed the post. I suspect my next HARRY O post will deal with the end of the first season. I am eager to get to Zerbe’s Trench vs Darrow’s Manny, as well as what happens to Manny. Once we get there discussions here should get even more interesting.
The San Diego episodes did offer some interesting moments.
After remembering Tom Atkins as one of the many cops mean to James Rockford, I was impressed how he pulled off the lovably stupid Sgt. Frank Cole.
Transportation for Harry is one of the things most remembered about the series. Yet in these twelve episodes Harry was indifferent to transportation. He rode the bus, took taxis, drove a rental car, rode with someone else or used his car. I can remember only one moment in the twelve episodes where the car was not comedy relief. For example, we see Harry driving along and we pull back to see the tow truck.
#7 So Pam, you were the one who asked the question that got the DVD fan side of the internet all excited. As I understand it they need to clear music rights. I still don’t get that excuse. Sure, MIAMI VICE and WKRP IN CINCINNATI used hit music, but HARRY O featured basic TV soundtrack with cues and a theme song, how much can that cost?
July 6th, 2012 at 10:26 am
#6 Doc, there was a sense of noir to HARRY O but it was not filmed that way. The closest example I can think of in comparison to HARRY O would be THE BIG SLEEP. All those screwed up characters and Marlowe trying to survive their mess long enough to find the answer, the truth.
July 6th, 2012 at 10:36 am
#8 David, TV CHRONICLES took a quote from a long interview of Rodman done for the book MURDER ON THE AIR (Mysterious Press, 1989) by Ric Myers. I don’t have the book, so thanks for filling in the blanks.
Another part of HARRY O most remember is the gorgeous female neighbor. In the San Diego episodes she did not exist, instead he lived in a neighborhood on the beach. Harry got involved in “Guardian At the Gates” when one of his neighbors asks him to talk to his genius neighbor Paul Sawyer who had a habit of walking through people’s property as if he owned it.
July 6th, 2012 at 10:41 am
9. Randy, that is what frustrates so many of us who watched it during the 70s. I can’t think of any series from the 70s better than HARRY O that does not all ready exist on DVD.
July 6th, 2012 at 11:02 am
I don’t know if I should hold this until the next installment, but I’m remembering things in sequence, so here goes (you may consider that a SPOILER WARNING if you like):
Back in the ’70s I used to read weekly Variety in order to find out what was happening in TV programming (our award-winning newspaper critics here in Chicago couldn’t have cared less).
When it came to announcing the changes that were coming to ABC in that messy midseason of ’74-’75, one story caught my eye, as much for its emphasis as for its info:
ZERBE JOINS ‘HARRY O’
As you see, the Variety reporter felt that the most important part of the story was that Anthony Zerbe was now going to be on the show; the change of locale was also mentioned, but it was treated as secondary.
Remember, this is before anyone would have seen what Zerbe’s new character would be like; He’d never had a regular role on a series before this, and was mainly known for playing heavies on all the other shows.
Equally significant was what happened at season’s end. Variety had a follow-up article that noted Harry O‘s newly-found success – and gave practically all the credit to Anthony Zerbe and how well he played off David Janssen (the locale change was mentioned in passing).
The producers noted this too; note how the titles for the second season call more attention to Zerbe than those in season one.
I just did the math in my head and realized that all this happened nearly 40 years ago. My reading Variety back then was purely out of my own curiosity about TV. That I remember this much of it after all these years is as much a surprise to me as it may be an annoyance to all of you.
But I’m stuck with it, so there too.
July 6th, 2012 at 12:38 pm
#14. Mike, it is hard to talk about a series you remember from almost 40 years ago without it all bunching together. It is hard to remember HARRY O without Zerbe. It was the yin and yang relationship between Trench and Orwell that took a good series and made it one of TV’s most unforgettable. I really look forward to reading all the Zerbe comments in my future looks, maybe I will be able to trigger a memory or two.
While San Diego did offer some nice locations visually, the settings played no role in the stories. All of the San Diego episodes could have been done in Los Angeles and lost nothing important. Imagine HAWAII FIVE-O or STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO filmed in Los Angeles.
So I can understand why the change in cast got more attention than change of location. I also think that is the unmentioned reason no one considered shooting in Los Angeles with some San Diego exterior shots to add to scripts to keep the San Diego home of Harry. That had been a common way to shoot TV series such as HONG KONG with exotic locale.
July 6th, 2012 at 3:45 pm
michael –
Your last remark about using wild second-unit shots with studio based footage brought back some memories of another ABC series from that same ’74-’75 season: Kolchak The Night Stalker.
Darren McGavin spent much of that summer here in Chicago with a second unit, driving around the city and passing local landmarks that hadn’t been seen on national TV since Lee Marvin and an M Squad unit had been there 15 years before. McGavin also spent some time walking into and out of the old Police Headquarters building on State Street (long since replaced and demolished), as well as the Old Colony Building on Dearborn, the supposed headquarters of the INS (Kolchak’s employer). This last building was picked for its close proximity to the Loop Elevated station at State and VanBuren (since demolished and replaced); I have to say that Universal’s editorial crew did a pretty good job matching shots of the Loop Shuttle train (since discontinued) with studio interiors of the INS office.
Incidental Fun Fact: In 1974, the actual occupant of the “INS Offices” was a school for bartenders.
Once they got their library of stock shots, the Kolchak crew went back to Universal City, which became “Chicago” for all but two of the 20 episodes.
Hey, it could have been worse – this was years before Hollywood started filming all their “Chicago” movies in Toronto.
There were occasional glitches at the script level: in one show, Kolchak picks up a police call sending him to “the corner of Pulaski and Laramie”; for non-Chicagoans, these are both North-South streets that don’t intersect.
But let’s be honest – this was part of the fun.
OK, off-topic, but you’re the one who reminded me of it, so there too. :-p
July 6th, 2012 at 4:12 pm
Not so off topic, and I am glad you came up with a better example than I did for how Hollywood cheats with series that take “place” anywhere else but Los Angeles.
July 6th, 2012 at 4:43 pm
Thank you for the intelligent comments about this wonderful, quirky and unfortunately underrated *noir* series. You might be interested to know that Henry Darrow talks about behind-the-scenes and working with David Janssen in his recently published biography “Henry Darrow:Lightning in the Bottle.”
July 6th, 2012 at 4:58 pm
The producers of THE SAINT usually stayed firmly on the backlot of Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire. However when the did the feature-length VENDETTA FOR THE SAINT they went to film in Malta (which was standing in for Sicily). I read that after filming they premiered the story at a special screening for the public. Unexplained laughter was heard whenever any of the characters was seen driving around. It was discovered that Simon Templar could be seen turning a corner in his car, and be suddenly going down a street on the other side of the island. To viewers in the rest of the world this didn’t register, but it was obvious to the locals. A lot of my experience of the USA comes from seeing it on TV dramas and comedies, but I expect that what I see is a tiny fraction of the real country. I know that American programmes which do a British episode(s)tend to stick rather religiously to familiar London landmarks, with perhaps a detour to Oxford or Cambridge. In a lifetime of telly watching I don’t think that I’ve ever seen one of these shows film in somewhere like Birmingham.
July 6th, 2012 at 6:05 pm
#18. BRADSTREET, you hit on the problem with San Diego, it has few classic landmarks. It is a beautiful area without Los Angeles smog and a cleaner bluer ocean, but nothing like the Golden Gate bridge, the Tower of London, New Orleans French Quarter, something that as soon as you see it you know where you are.
This was also in 1974 when very few places had city or state film commissions to help visiting filmmakers, and even fewer places wanted film makers to visit.
“Television Chronicles” article dealt with the many nightmares shooting San Diego caused.
There was a rule with the Screen Extra Guild that any film location less than 300 miles from Hollywood must used extras from Los Angeles. At the time an extra could cost $55 a day, add travel expenses and per diem and the fee could get as high as $125 a day per extra. The show could use 30-50 extras and that added to the budgeted costs.
There was a lack of experienced crew members. Most talented film crew workers at the time needed to live in Los Angeles to find enough work to make a living. Some cities and states (New Orleans and Louisiana to name the two I know from my creative days in the late 70s in Louisiana) had local pools of talent where you can fill some of the film crew needs. San Diego did not have such a group.
Locals were slower than Los Angeles pros so the shooting schedule went over.
The San Diego Board of Health claimed the catering company that feed the crew and company violated several city health codes.
According to “Television Chronicles,” the Los Angeles “Times” claimed each episode of HARRY O in San Diego was budgeted at $205,000 per episode with an additional $5,000 towards cost of location shooting. The paper also reported Warners knew in advance it would be “at least $30,000 an episode into deficit financing.”
I spent 20+ happy years in Los Angeles and you get used to seeing a car drive down a road with background that changes and suddenly jumps miles apart. Actually, I find that easier to accept then when two characters are talking in one place and the director does a cut in mid-sentence and the character finishes his sentence now a long distance from where he first began that line of dialog.
July 6th, 2012 at 6:28 pm
Oops, the real #18. Jan Pippins, thanks for the heads up about the Henry Darrow book. I’ll try to find a copy. It would be interesting to learn if he and I agree about Manny Quinlan.
July 6th, 2012 at 6:56 pm
The reason the numbering got off track is because I’ve been away from the computer most of the day, and Jan’s comment was on hold until I approved it. People who’ve commented before are usually preapproved when they post again, so their comments show up right away. When this happens, every so often, the numbering is off for a little while, but it soon sorts itself out.
Different people remember different things about old TV series like HARRY O. Until I read Michael’s comments on these early ones in the run, it looks like I remembered the humorous aspects, such as Harry riding the bus or taking a cab, and much less the darker aspects of the stories.
Which I would definitely call noir, and here, Michael, I’m relying entirely on your description of these episodes, such as: “The drama was strong and thought provoking, and there were no happy endings, only people left trying to recover and make it through the day.”
This is the essence of noir, as far as I’m concerned. The noir films of the 40s and early 50s also depended on the black-and-white photography to help create the mood, but the downbeat endings are the clincher.
Unfortunately I’ve not seen any of the HARRY O episodes since they were on the air the first time. I hope a set of official release DVDs is in the offing, but after reading your article, Michael, and all of the comments, I’m not at all sure I want to wait as long as it might take.
July 6th, 2012 at 10:08 pm
#10 Yes, Michael. I think it was me. My original question was back in Feb. I asked if the series would be released on DVD and on Feb 29 they said: “It is no accident that we released “Smile Jenny, You’re Dead.” We hope to have more Harry O news for you in the future.” The subsequent comments that I posted in #7 above gave me hope that it really would happen, but I didn’t want to wait so I got the set from a private individual. I still plan on buying the set when it is released by Warner, but I thankfully get to enjoy DJ now whenever I want. I have all episodes of all of his series and not a day goes by that I don’t watch at least 3-4 hours of his shows.
BTW, in addition to the brilliance of David Janssen, one of the best things about Harry O is Harry’s relationship with first, Henry Darrow, and then Anthony Zerbe. I just love the way they interact, and it is obvious that their characters have a genuine love and respect for each other. Looking forward to your exploration of their relationships as your reviews continue.
July 7th, 2012 at 12:05 am
#23. Pam or Walker or anyone who has recently seen the San Diego episodes. Did you get the same impression I did that when Harry was a cop he was just like Manny?
In “Forty Reasons To Kill – Part One,” Manny was writing off George’s death as a drug deal gone wrong and Harry responds that just because he had long hair and lived with a woman he wasn’t married to, didn’t mean he used drugs. Manny tells Harry he has changed since he left the force.
Add that both were loners with an unknown personal life. And it made me wonder what kind of cop was Harry.
July 7th, 2012 at 4:30 am
I’m not sure, Michael. In the first pilot Harry was different than he was in the 2nd pilot and the series. Even though he had already left the force, the way he was portrayed in the 1st pilot is more like what Manny seems to be saying he was like when he was on the force. I much prefer the newer, more sensitive and caring Harry from the 2nd pilot and the series. We know they changed Harry in the 2nd pilot because audiences did not like the 1st pilot and the series was not picked up. No explanation was given in the series as far as I know as to why Harry had changed, so other than that statement by Manny, I don’t think we can know what he was like before he left the force or what changed him if he did change. It’s ok to wonder about his past, but I guess I’m so happy Harry is the way he is that I don’t want to know about the more cynical loner that maybe he once was. Maybe if the series had been extended as it should have been, they could have explored this possibility.
July 7th, 2012 at 7:00 pm
“Television Chronicles” dealt with some of that. For the first pilot Thorpe and Rodman had discussed many different actors to play Harry (Telly Savalas was one). At first Thorpe thought Janssen was wrong for the part.
SUCH DUST, the original pilot was originally meant to be only an hour long, but Rodman’s script was long and it was easier to add five minutes and make it a ninety minute TV movie. There are two different endings (one in the hour long script and another in the TV movie script). Screening audiences (ASI) loved Janssen so ABC agree to the second pilot.
The second pilot SMILE JENNY was written with Janssen in mind. Rodman has said he was never able to separate Orwell from Janssen. That, “Harry O came out of my mind to begin with, but when David took over, there was never any question about who knew Orwell better. David did.”
Rodman also wrote “the life of Harry O came out of David. It was David’s vitality, David’s soul, that showed on the screen each week.”
July 11th, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Warner Archives has just released the complete first season of HARRY O. It is 6 discs of 22 episodes plus the original pilot SUCH DUST DREAMS ARE MADE ON.
wbshop.com has it for sale at $49.95.
July 11th, 2012 at 6:06 pm
Michael
Great news! I just got the notice, too. You beat me by about 30 seconds.
July 15th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
When I can will acquire a copy, and hope someone sees the Clark Gable connection. My interest stems from an interview Janssen did with Dean Miller on Here’s Hollywood 1961. Then, I noticed. Just scratch a small moustache across any of Janssen’s photographs and you will know what I mean.
July 15th, 2012 at 1:43 pm
There’s certainly a strong physical resemblance, all right, even to the voice. I don’t think they had the same kind of sex appeal to women, though. On the screen Gable was brash and confident, Janssen much more quiet and subdued.
December 31st, 2013 at 4:18 am
Harry O is my all time favourite, and so evocative of the times.
Brilliant.
January 9th, 2014 at 7:26 pm
#19–the other problem with Malta filling in for Sicily is that the Maltese drive on the left side of the road, with right-hand drive vehicles as in Britain, Australia, Japan, most of the former British colonies (the Bahamas, Barbados, Jamaica). Sicilians drive on the right side with left-hand drive vehicles like most of the rest of the world. I remember this from “The Sandbaggers.” Maybe people were laughing at that too. Actually, in Sicily people drive on BOTH sides of the road, LOL.