David Janssen *is* HARRY O

It is funny that a grumpy old dude like Harry (Janssen was about 45, but looked 55, and I'm not sure how old the character was supposed to be) attracted so many 22-year-old babes. Farrah Fawcett-Majors appeared in several shows as Harry's main lady, but he had several (and, of course, many old flames who re-entered his life as clients). His first in L.A. was played by THE THING WITH TWO HEADS' Kathy Baumann, who had a very large but never seen boyfriend named Walter that spawned many funny gags.

Interestingly, these affairs seemed to be very casual to fit a somewhat bohemian lifestyle that was unusual for middle-aged crimefighters on network TV. Jim Rockford lived at the beach too, but he also had a family and a circle of friends and acquaintances. Orwell was a loner.

"The Confetti People" (S1, ep. 16) centers on head case Jack (John Rubinstein), who thinks he shot his artist brother to death during an argument, and hires Harry to find his brother when the body is missing. Thing is, the next day the brother is alive and well, but gets shot and killed for real when Jack shows up at the house again. With his client incarcerated, Harry must figure out exactly who is behind this fantasy-turned-reality murder. Solid acting and directing in this episode are betrayed by a really weak script. I mean, it is one of those episodes every show has where a person says a certain thing and the viewer immediately knows the twist and the villain's motive. Director Richard Lang was a HARRY O veteran, directing 18 episodes over the show's two seasons. This episode, his fourth as director, has lots of style for a TV show with the camera always prowling around. Diana Hyland, the future wife on EIGHT IS ENOUGH, is the artist's wife and the similarly named Scott Hylands plays the artist's apprentice.

With the relocation to Los Angeles, I knew it wouldn't be long before we got a story about corrupt Hollywood types. This happens in "Sound of Trumpets" (S1, ep. 17) the third episode since the switch. Harry saves the life of trumpet player Art Sully (Julius Harris) after he drunkenly falls off a pier at night. He actually saved his life in more ways than one as a guy with a knife was about to sneak up on him and stab him. Naturally, Harry takes him in and the guy repays him by stealing Harry's long suffering car. Things get complicated when mega pop star Ruthie Daniels (Brenda Sykes) shows up and asks Harry to locate Art again as he is her father, who seems to have a vendetta against his former record label after they paid for his defense during a murder trial. This is a pretty solid episode that gives Harry a new foundation in a beach front place in Santa Monica (his voice over states how his old place in San Diego was torn down for a high rise). Luckily for him, the stewardess moved right next door. This is one of the heavier entries in terms of stars as both Jim Backus and Cab Calloway have supporting roles. Also, Hal Williams, earlier a beat cop in EYEWITNESS, is now cast as Harry's mechanic.

I never thought much of Richard Lang as a director, and he didn't really work on many A-list shows. However, his work on HARRY O is pretty good. He worked a lot with executive producer Jerry Thorpe on KUNG FU, which explains his frequent employment on HARRY O. Diana Hylands acted in four or five FUGITIVEs with Janssen. Of course, a couple of years after her HARRY O, she was dead.

It's funny in "Sound of Trumpets" that Harry, his mechanic, and his new acquaintance on the police force are now besties that go to jazz shows together. Considering he just moved to L.A. and the fact that he's a grumpy loner, Orwell sure makes friends quickly.

Nobody is going to give up the chance for a free, private show by Art Sully!

"Silent Kill" (S1, ep. 18) centers on janitor Ken Corby (James Wainwright), who is arrested for setting a fire that killed three people at an apartment building he used to work at. Problem is Ken is a deaf mute who has no idea why he was taken in and Harry teams with Ken's wife, deaf Eileen (Kathy Lloyd), to clear his name. Ken contends he was only there to pick up his last two weeks of pay, while the police say it was revenge. Arson plots are pretty standard stuff for TV crime shows and 99% of the time you already know the motive and perpetrator before the opening credits end. This case is no different. This episode does feature more solid acting though, especially from character actor Wainwright as the deaf mute. He is so convincing with his looks and use of sign language that I actually thought he was a deaf mute. Director Richard Lang returns and does a nice little trick where he shows the proceedings from Ken's POV, completely silencing the soundtrack for a period of time. Works pretty well.

Yep, this was a very cool way to put the audience inside Ken's desperate head and let us know how lonely he must be all the time. Wainwright had just done a cop show called JIGSAW. Since he always played tough guys, it was interesting to see him play a more vulnerable character.

Oddly, Kathleen Lloyd, who was also in the HARRY O pilot, shows up as a different character about three episodes later. I'm all for shows bringing back good actors as different characters (I think LAW & ORDER is the only current series that does this, but they all used to), but they oughta wait more than three weeks.

"Double Jeopardy" (S1, ep. 19) opens with Harry witnessing a girl being shot and killed while she is riding on horseback on the beach. Immediately on the scene is struggling actor Todd Conway (Kurt Russell), who jumps on the horse and rides off. This action makes him look like the killer and that is bad news as the girl was the daughter of mafioso-turned-legit businessman Carl Milland (Will Kuluva), who quickly sends out men to deliver justice. After surviving a cut brake line hit attempt with Todd, Harry takes the case and for good reason as he had run ins with Milland 20 years ago when he was still a cop. As you can see, this was an episode with a big name before he got big on the silver screen (again) in Kurt Russell. Kurt is Kurt but he does have a nice rapport with David Janssen as his character helps fix Harry's boat. Also, this episode introduces Farrah Fawcett into the mix as a sexy stewardess neighbor for Harry. The mystery is pretty routine, but there are a few nice bits in this. One of the best is Milland's wife trying to stop him from going out to kill Todd and ruining his life. Another is a quiet scene between Janssen and Anthony Zerbe in an empty courtroom where Zerbe reflects on the sense of justice (after the sentencing of a woman who killed her abusive husband). This is also one of the first episodes not to feature Zerbe's cop character Trench intricately involved. Director John Newland had done DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK a few years before this. This was the last of the four HARRY O episodes he directed.

I never figured out why Russell was on the beach or why he jumped on the horse and rode off on it. Either I missed something, or I was a victim of syndication cutting.

His explanation was that he jumped on the horse to go get help. Why he was on the beach is never said, but I assume he was just hanging out and then became the "wrong place at the wrong time" guy. Either that or he was secretly stalking that hunk Harry Orwell in his jean shorts.

"Lester" (S1, ep. 20) opens with a young woman being chased and hit by a car in a college park at night. The next day her roommate reports her missing and the top suspect is Lester (Les Lannom), a student bordering on autism who asked her to meet him there. Lester's attorney hires Harry, who quickly discovers the missing girl's body in an abandoned mansion. The problem? The specifics of the crime are almost identical to an unsolved abduction-murder that occurred in Lester's hometown just over a year ago. This episode is strange in that it features perhaps the show's most graphic bit (the discovery of a half naked corpse) and a larger amount of comedy (Harry's interactions with Lester; the intro of a neighbor's goofy big dog). The episode ends with Lester wanting to team up with Harry as a detective's sidekick (he even dresses like Harry and mimics his actions) and the producers seemed to like that idea as Lannom came back in three more episodes. It is funny too because - as Marty mentioned above - the actor was recycled from an earlier episode in season one of this series.

One of the later Lester episodes was clearly intended as a pilot that teamed him with Benson Fong as an older criminologist. Stuart Whitman, Roddy McDowall, Dean Jagger, and Anne Archer were the guest stars, and Janssen was barely in it. Les Lannom as Lester is amusing enough, I guess, but I can't figure out why Jerry Thorpe was so high on him. His David Janssen impression is really good.

The studio imposed change of moving Harry Orwell from San Diego to Los Angeles left lots of loose ends. "Elegy for a Cop" (S1, ep. 21) tries to correct this. Lt. Manny Quinlan (Henry Darrow), Harry's old cop boss/friend, drives to Los Angeles to get his drug addict niece (Kathy Lloyd, two episodes removed from playing a good girl) out of the grip of a mysterious drug dealer (Sal Mineo). However, it is a set up and he is gunned down with money planted on him to make him look dirty. But in his dying moments, Manny writes Harry's address on the envelope and gets it mailed off, knowing his good friend will know to investigate (and pay 56 cents in postage due).

Series creator Howard Rodman returns as an episode writer (his first since the series lead in "Gertrude") and it turns out to be one of the better episodes. He understands the Harry/Manny relationship the best and it is nice that the series brought the character back after the abrupt switch. Rodman's writing is also levels above the stuff usually seen on the episodes, so it really stands out. Of course, I'm still wondering how Tom Atkins character handled the news of Manny's death. ;-) Also worth seeing to catch Sal Mineo doing a really sleazy turn as the villain, showing his versatility. Less than a year after this airing, he would be murdered. It is strange that the series didn't bow out of its first season with this episode. Instead, one more generic episode appeared after this.

"Elegy for a Cop" is a wonderful episode anchored by its tag, poetically written by Rodman and played by Janssen, where Harry buys a bottle (bourbon?) and leaves it with the bartender with instructions for him to pour a drink from it for anyone who's decent and looks like a good person. To tell him the drink is on Manny Quinlan, and, if the bartender feels like it, that Manny was a friend of Harry Orwell's.

"What do I do when the bottle runs out?"
"Nothing. Nobody lives forever."

The episode missteps, however, in its pirating of stock footage of Mineo from the first pilot, SUCH DUST AS DREAMS ARE MADE OF. The motorcycle chase and the scene between Janssen and Mineo at the diner are taken from the pilot, in which Mineo played a different character. The editing is fine, but those who have seen the pilot will be bewildered.

Interesting. I have never seen that first pilot, so that is good to know. It also explains why Janssen is suddenly a guy who likes to wear sunglasses.

The first season of HARRY O, including the DUST pilot, is now available from the Warner Archive.

Really enjoying this now and will look forward to reading through William and Marty's comments when I'm done, with Season 1 anyway.

WA has indicated that Season 2 is coming at some point, hopefully soon. Season 1 has performed well thus far.

I was also struck by the scenes of race relations in EYEWITNESS. I liked how Harry interacted with the blind boy, in particular. Later, there's a nice moment in the background when the black detective (Hal Williams) is seen comforting the same boy after the shootout at the episode's conclusion.

G.W. Bailey appears a few times as cop in the show (sometimes billed in the credits as G.W. Baily).

Seeing as folks tended to age a lot more quickly in those days, I wonder if Janssen would have seemed so old looking to viewers back in '74. I'm not real familiar with Janssen's biography, but, IIRC, he liked to drink, which probably added some years to his face, prematurely. It certainly could have had something to do with his untimely and most unfortunate early death from a heart attack. My grandfather was just a few years older than Janssen and had a serious heart attack (which didn't kill him) at around the same age that Janssen was when he had his fatal attack...my grandfather had been fairly liberal with the smoking and drinking up until then and that combined with the heart attack gave him a similarly aged appearance in his 40s and 50s and eventually killed him in his very early '60s.

On a similar note, was watching S.O.B. recently and was similarly struck by how much older a 60+ year-old man in the form of (hard-drinking) William Holden looked as compared to one of many Hollywood counterparts today. BREEZY, with a 54 or 55 year-old Holden romancing a 20 year-old Kay Lenz wouldn't seem like such a big stretch in this day and age, whereas in the film Holden looks and acts even older than, one would imagine, Breezy's unseen father.

As to Harry's magnetism where twenty-something women are involved, might have something to do with the world weariness this guy has (without ever seeming cranky), sensitivity (without being soft), nonchalance, and lack of vanity...it's the kind of thing we are (mostly) sadly missing in actors on television and on film now, and which women seem to have the ability to value (over physical appearance) in a prospective romantic partner...more so than men do, or can, with women, I would say.

Watching the series in order, this is probably my favorite episode so far. Diana Ewing is so good here...simply heartbreaking. What happened to her?

This post has been edited by Jonathan Hertzberg on Aug 28 2012, 11:04 AM

Season 2!