LES GRANDS DETECTIVES (1975) – A few years back in Balladeer’s Blog’s Forgotten Television category, I reviewed every episode of the British television and radio series The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes. That series presented mystery stories featuring fictional Victorian and Edwardian Age detectives in tales written during Holmes’ own time period.
Lady Molly of Scotland Yard, Dr. Thorndyke, Inspector Lipinzki, Miss Hagar Stanley and others were introduced to generations who had never heard of them. This French-West German co-production titled Les Grands Detectives presented mysteries being solved by similar detectives – including America’s Nick Carter, the one-time fictional giant who has since fallen down the memory hole. Each episode ran 52-55 minutes.
Les Grands Detectives episodes were as follows:
THE SIX DEAD MEN (April 21st, 1975)
The Detective: Inspector Wenceslas Woroboyioetschik, known as Inspector Wens for short. This detective was created by Belgian writer Stanislas-Andre Steeman. Wens was introduced in short stories during the 1920s and also appeared in novels beginning in the 1930s.
The Six Dead Men was the first Inspector Wens novel and was published in 1931. During World War One, six soldiers establish a short-term tontine: in ten years (five years in the novel) the survivors of the sextet – if any – will split the profits accrued in their venture. As the date of the cash-out draws near, some of the men start getting killed off, and Inspector Wens gets involved. Continue reading
NICK CARTER IN PRAGUE (1978) – This film seems to like to hide from the millions of Nick Carter fans in the world by also going under titles like Adele Has Not Had Her Dinner or Dinner With Adele. I originally planned to review this movie last year but the passing of actor Robert Conrad prompted me to review his telefilm The Adventures of Nick Carter instead. 
The approach is wry and knowing but without stooping to the overdone camp of 1975’s Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, starring Ron Ely. Nick Carter in Prague is often labeled a comedy but don’t go into it expecting laughs, just lots of smiles like during Dick Tracy or Tim Burton’s Batman. It’s more “comedy” as in whimsical fantasy touches, not hard belly laughs. 
THE ADVENTURES OF NICK CARTER (1972) – Rest in peace, Robert Conrad. For decades, rugged sex symbol Robert Conrad embodied the old expression “women want him and men want to BE him.” My sister Debbie was a huge fan of Robert’s incredibly tight pants and frequently-bared chest. 
A few years after Wild, Wild West went off the air, Conrad starred in this pilot film for a tv series based on old Dime Novel and Pulp hero Nick Carter. 
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