PETROCELLI (1974-1976) – Joel Hodgson once observed “You’ve got to light a fire PRET-ee early in the morning to burn Barry Newman.” However, that observation and the 1979 disaster movie that inspired it – City on Fire – have nothing to do with Petrocelli. It’s just the first thing that comes to mind every time Barry Newman’s name comes up. (Well, that and “Chickee chickee boom boom” from that same flick.)
Setting aside my inherent weirdness, Newman starred as the title defense attorney in the clever series Petrocelli as well as the show’s pilot movie Night Games (1974) AND the 1970 theatrical release film The Lawyer, which started it all.
The cleverness I’m referring to was the hook that this program boasted. As surely as Columbo was known for the viewers seeing who the murderer was from the beginning of each episode, and Ellery Queen would feature Jim Hutton breaking the Fourth Wall to ask the audience if they, too, knew who the guilty party was, Petrocelli had its own gimmick.
Viewers would get a Rashomon style account of the episode’s crime from the perspective of both the Defense and the Prosecution. Then, Petrocelli’s investigation would enable him to reconcile the conflicting accounts.
At any rate, after the 1970 theatrical film and the 1974 pilot telefilm, the Petrocelli series was picked up and ran for 2 seasons and 44 episodes.
THE MOVIE: Continue reading
THE WATCHER (1995) – It seems redundant to refer to a UPN series as forgotten. Or short-lived. Nearly every show that UPN launched in January of 1995 was on and off the air pretty quickly. At 13 episodes, The Watcher was to the new UPN Network what long-lived shows like Gunsmoke were to the established networks. 
The Watcher was an anthology series starring rapper Sir Mix-A-Lot as the title character. The Watcher was a mysterious, quasi-supernatural figure in Las Vegas who had hidden cameras throughout the city, thus allowing him to observe and narrate the grim fates of each episode’s main characters. He hosted from his plush room at the Riviera.
APPOINTMENT WITH ADVENTURE (1955-1956) – This forgotten program from the 1950s presented LIVE performances that were filmed and could be aired as reruns in the future. Appointment with Danger ran for 53 half-hour episodes and featured writers like Rod Serling as well as actors like Paul Newman and Gena Rowlands. If you don’t like black & white, some episodes have been colorized. 
FIVE IN JUDGMENT – Paul Newman and Jack Lord star in this drama about two brothers who take shelter from a storm in a small-town diner filled with other patrons waiting out the dust storm. News reports make the locals suspect that Paul and his brother are a pair of fugitives who just murdered a 16-year-old girl. Patricia Breslin and James Gregory also starred. 
NERO WOLFE (1959) – This was a failed pilot for a potential series about Rex Stout’s iconic detective – the rotund, snobbish but brilliant Nero Wolfe, portrayed by Kurt Kasznar. William Shatner played Archie Goodwin, the affable leg man for his reclusive boss. 
The chemistry between Kasznar and Shatner was remarkable, and at just 26 minutes without commercials, this would have been just the right length for each episode without Wolfe’s egotism and impatience with lesser minds wearing out their welcome with viewers. 
If it’s the Friday after Thanksgiving, then regular readers of Balladeer’s Blog know it’s the day when I kick off my annual Christmas Carol-A-Thon in which I review several versions of A Christmas Carol. I look at movies, television shows, radio shows and books which adapt the Dickens classic. Every year I present new reviews with a few old classics mixed in since newer readers will have missed them. 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL (2000) – Christmas Carol-A-Thon 2025 begins with a new review. This ITV production from British television which presented the Scrooge figure as a loan shark coincidentally came out the same year as the Brazilian version which featured Scrooge as a drug dealer. 
Neither one was a comedy, but this UK adaptation adds lighter moments here and there. A Christmas Carol runs just under 75 minutes and was made by a creative team that genuinely understands the Carol. You can tell not just from their insertion of some of the more obscure lines from the Dickens novel but by the way that even their necessary departures from Dickens to stay true to their loan shark gimmick still perfectly reflect the novel’s themes. 
THE GYPSY WARRIORS (1978) – Yesterday I reviewed the godawful 
This 1978 tv-movie starts out by turning “show, don’t tell” on its ear. As bad as the opening of The Chinese Typewriter was, the opening to this World War Two snoozer is even worse. The beginning devotes FOURTEEN entire minutes of the 76-minute runtime to a portentous announcer merely narrating as we see mismatched footage of hands, arms and the backs of heads plus second unit film of buildings, airplanes and vehicles.
THE CHINESE TYPEWRITER (1979) – It’s tough to remember the time before Tom Selleck was a tv megastar. His looks made him stand out and he had “future success” written all over him. He even showed he had a knack for comedy when he made two appearances on The Rockford Files as the annoyingly perfect and cliche-ridden detective Lance White. (“I’m okay, Jim. It’s just a flesh wound.”) 
With those writing and directing pedigrees behind the project you should have been able to smell several seasons, big money and some Emmy Awards in the offing. 
MRS. COLUMBO (1979-1980) – During its brief 13-episode run of hour-long episodes, this detective series – produced by Fred Silverman – was also titled Kate the Detective, Kate Callahan and Kate Loves a Mystery. Much Ado About Nothing might have been a more fitting title given all the energy expended trying to make this Kate Mulgrew program a success, but for so little return. 
BEARCATS! (1971) – This unique action-adventure series was set in the American West of 1914 and starred Rod Taylor (who also produced) and Dennis Cole as renowned trouble-shooters who commanded huge fees for their services. “If you can put a price on it, you don’t need them badly enough” was the program’s tagline. 
PILOT MOVIE: POWDERKEG (April 16th) – Mercenary trouble-shooters Hank Brackett (Rod Taylor) and Johnny Reach (Dennis Cole) are hired by a railroad tycoon to rescue 73 hostages being held aboard a moving train. Their captors are led by a Mexican bandit chief who demands his brother’s release from prison in exchange for the hostages. Guest stars were Michael Ansara, Fernando Lamas, Luciana Paluzzi and Tisha Sterling. 
DANGEROUS ASSIGNMENT (1952) – Brian Donlevy, famous as Professor Quatermass in a pair of movies, starred as secret agent Steve Mitchell. He received his missions from a man called “The Commissioner” (Herb Butterfield). 
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