CITY OF ANGELS (1976) – Wayne Rogers starred as 1930s private investigator Jake Axminster, a hardboiled detective plying his trade in corruption-filled Los Angeles, hence the ironic title. Sadly, this series was no more successful than the decade’s earlier attempts at launching a 1930s crime show – Banyon and Manhunter.
City of Angels lasted for just 13 1-hour episodes, with the first 3 installments being one long serialized epic. Elaine Joyce co-starred as Jake’s eccentric blonde secretary Marsha Finch, who also used his office to run an escort service by telephone.
Jake and Marsha shared all 13 episodes with crooked L.A. police detective Lt. Murray Quint (Clifton James), while Axminster’s lawyer, Michael Brimm (Philip Sterling) appeared in 10 episodes. Mystery novelist Max Allan Collins (The Road to Perdition) called City of Angels “the best private eye series ever.”
Stephen J. Cannell and Roy Huggins, of Rockford Files and Maverick fame, were the creative forces behind this example of forgotten television.
THE EPISODES: Continue reading
Labor Day weekend is the appropriate time to post this look at neglected working class folk hero Joe Magarac. This figure was the Steel Mill equivalent of Paul Bunyan and John Henry. 
As a lame play on words since this is Labor Day season I’ll present Joe Magarac’s origin and then depict his tales as “Labors” like in The Labors of Hercules. 
NAIA TOPPLES NCAA DIVISION ONE – The WEBBER INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY WARRIORS from the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics played giant-killer at the higher division NCAA DIV. ONE STETSON UNIVERSITY HATTERS. At the Half the Warriors led 17-7, then went on to consummate the Upset by a final score of 31-21. 
KNOCKING OFF NUMBER THREE – In the NAIA the 4th ranked BENEDICTINE COLLEGE RAVENS welcomed the number 3 team in the nation – the MORNINGSIDE UNIVERSITY MUSTANGS. The 1st Quarter ended with the Mustangs on top 14-7 but by Halftime the Ravens held a 17-14 edge. The 4th Quarter started with a 31-27 lead for Benedictine College and ended in a 38-34 Ravens win. 
ANOTHER NUMBER THREE TAKES A FALL – Over in NCAA Division Two, the UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT THE PERMIAN BASIN FALCONS played host to the number 3 UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL OKLAHOMA BRONCHOS (their spelling). The Falcons put UCO on Upset Alert with their 13-7 edge at the midpoint, then coasted to a 34-14 victory from there. 
VENUS
DOWN GOES NUMBER FIVE – The NAIA’s 11th ranked MONTANA TECH OREDIGGERS welcomed the NAIA’s number 5 team in the nation – the UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA-WESTERN BULLDOGS. The Orediggers piled up a 31-7 lead in the opening Quarter, a score that was unchanged come Halftime. UMW made it a 31-21 game to end the 3rd Quarter, but Montana Tech won out 38-27. 
NUMBER TEN TAKES A FALL – Also in the NAIA, the LINDSEY WILSON COLLEGE BLUE RAIDERS took the field against the visiting number 10 TEXAS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY RAMS. The Blue Raiders parlayed their 14-3 1st Quarter advantage into a 28-10 lead at the Half. From there, Lindsey Wilson College went on to clobber the Rams by a final score of 45-10. 
GIANT OF THE EVIL ISLAND (1965) – Also released as The Mystery of the Evil Island, this film starred Mission: Impossible‘s Peter Lupus going by the name Rock Stevens. After mild success in a few Italian peplums, Lupus got his one and only swashbuckler movie with this little honey. 
Pedro’s predecessor as captain of his ship has retired after a career of fruitlessly trying to nab the pirate Moloch. Newly arrived Captain Valverde meets cute with the local governor’s daughter Bianca (Dina DeSantis) and the two fall in “love.” 
THE DOOM OF LONDON (1892) – Written by Robert Barr. In the “far future” of the mid-Twentieth Century the narrator of this tale looks back at the catastrophe that hit London in the 1890s. 
THE PAGEANT OF LETTERS (c 402 B.C.) – Here is another examination of an ancient Greek comedy. This one deals with a subject that still affects a very large part of the world to this very day – our alphabet. 
The addition of the four new letters (eta, xi, psi and omega) was causing a certain amount of confusion, as could be expected. Imagine if we suddenly added four new letters to the alphabet now, say, possibly single characters to express sounds formerly covered by two letters together, like “th” or “ph”.
TOWING (1978) – How obscure is this flick? As of this writing there are only 2 user reviews of it at IMDb. That actually makes Towing better known than some of the other flicks I’ve reviewed here at Balladeer’s Blog, but the fact that Joe Mantegna, Sue Lyon, Dennis Franz, Mike Nussbaum, Jennifer Ashley and J.J. Johnston are in this movie make it worth examining. 
Towing is about that period in the 1970s when Chicago tow-truck operators scandalously began towing vehicles out of parking lots based on VERY questionable grounds of being in violation of city regulations. The sleazy towing companies would charge the vehicle owners much larger than reasonable fees to get them back. 
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