Cleanin' the House: A Quinn Martin Production

Oy. I harbored the naive notion that once we were moved out of Stalag West Seattle I'd be able to blog like the living dickens. No such luck.

The new pad is a big, lovely--but resolutely high-maintenance-- old cuss, so most of my/our waking non-wage-earning hours have been spent cleaning, unpacking, organizing, or some combination thereof (I've also earned my Official Membership in the Weekend Warrior Fraternity with an extensive bout of lawn work, all of which was subsumed by weeds again in short order: Gotta love nature).

In between all of the chores and work, I have had time to imbibe from the well of pop culture, in tiny gulps (just haven't had time to write about much of it). Said sips largely come at dinner, when 30 to 45 minutes can be spent taking in some episodic TV before another vault onto the home improvement breach.

This week's dinnertime diversion: The Streets of San Francisco, the early seventies Quinn Martin cop show that launched Michael Douglas's acting career and made the wonderful character mug of Karl Malden into a household fixture.

The first volume of Season One just hit stores a few weeks ago, providing modern viewers (and old fans, of course) with a unique view of TV evolution. SOSF tried to reconcile the social turmoil of its era with the regimented format of network television, and if the end result creaks a little today, it still packs the requisite thrills--and some (not-always-intended) food for thought.

It's pure formula, with Malden's veteran detective Mike Stone and Douglas's college-educated rookie inspector Steve Keller providing the grist for the obligatory buddy-cop mill. And you can bet dollars to donuts that each episode will end with a chase and/or shootout.

But both leads really click, both as individuals and as a team, and awesome guest stars turn up by the bushel. My personal faves so far: the mighty Roscoe Lee Browne as an avuncular beat poet and possible murder suspect in "Trout in the Milk" (love that title), and Edward Mulhare (Michael Knight's fey employer in Knight Rider) as a cultured, obsessive freak in "Tower Beyond Tragedy," among others.

The series also stands as an interesting bridge between the standard TV cop shows of its era and the CSIs and Law and Orders of today. I watched SOSF with none of the nostalgia that uber-fan Rita harbored, so while the action, guest stars, and buddy chemistry made for great entertainment, the show's glimpses into police procedure of the time were what really hooked me (the show tried much harder than most of its ilk to accurately present the minutae of police procedure).



Some of the procedure has stayed reassuringly consistent (who doesn't love to see a perp read their Miranda rights?), but changes in technology make watching The Streets of San Francisco downright surreal for a modern audience. "Where's his cell phone?" my mind cried out more than once as I watched a beat cop forced to run to the nearest pay phone to call in a crime scene, and observing antique equipment like Tele-type machines and, hell, electric typewriters was like peeking in on a living museum. Such stuff makes SOSF more than just fun: It makes it a genuine time capsule.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mining for Overlooked Pop Music Jewels: Jigsaw

Image
Venerable record chain Tower Records filed for bankruptcy late last year, and its demise bummed me out in a big way. I hadn't shopped with frequency at Tower in ages--put bluntly, their steep prices of late alienated me big-time--but back in the eighties the chain's size and diversity did a lot to open my ears. I remember every purchase I made at Tower Records' Tacoma store from my first at age 14 (for the record, a cassette of Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy and a vinyl copy of Sparks' Angst in My Pants ), all the way to just before I moved to Seattle at age 21 ( Invisible Lantern by the Screaming Trees --and yes, I AM a big ol' dork for remembering). Rampant sentimentality, however, did bupkis to keep me from picking at the chain's dying carcass late last year like any good bargain-hunter. Right before the Tower Records on 5th Avenue in Seattle breathed its last in December, it bestowed one last parting gift in its final week: a 90%-off sale that drew...
Read more

An Interview with Joe Dallesandro

Image
( I wrote this interview for Seattlest.com , and it is reprinted on the Petri Dish with their kind permission. ) For a minute, it looks like the perfect photo opportunity. Joe Dallesandro—former bodyguard at Andy Warhol’s fabled Factory, star of several key Warhol-sponsored cult films in the sixties and seventies, and accidental avatar of the Sexual Revolution—stands outside the W Hotel in downtown Seattle, his back to me. He cuts an almost dangerous-looking figure. Clad head to foot in black, his compact body sits atop slightly bowed legs in an almost pugilistic stance as he smokes his cigarette. A soul-patched, dark-haired kid stops to bum a smoke, and both figures huddle, almost silhouetted thanks to the overreaching shadow cast by the hotel building, as vaporous off-white ribbons of smoke curl above their heads. But then Dallesandro begins to turn, and I don’t want to come off like some stalker before a formal introduction, so I retreat back into the hotel lobby. The sublime noir ...
Read more

Character Actor Heaven: Hollywood Collectors Show, Feb 2005

Image
Hollywood Collectors' Show, February 18/19, 2005 Character actors are the building blocks of cinematic life. And like a lot of important foundations (architectural or otherwise), they get little credit from the outside world for their contributions. Fortunately, there's the bi-monthly Hollywood Collectors' Show , where fans of all stripes can show these hard-working but underappreciated fixtures of film and TV some serious love, and even get some love back. Expect to make a bit of an investment for that love. Daily admission is $15 ($25 for a two-day pass), and all of the celebrities in attendance charge for their autographs (more on that later). But for a real film (or TV) nut, a Hollywood Collector's Show is absolute manna from heaven, and totally worth the extra change. Imagine a Star Trek convention stripped to its absolute essentials--ample celebrity guests and heaps of cool merchandise--and you get the idea. My wife and I saved our pennies for several months and ...
Read more