I'm finally back to Jack after spending some time with family over the New Year's holiday weekend. It was back to work today, too. Then, it took me over an hour to drive home in "intermittent flurries" (good grief, I'd hate to see what our weatherman's definition of a "blizzard" is!) :0
Thank you for all of the lovely New Year's prayers and wishes. And, "welcome" to our newest follower--the more the merrier! :)
Catching up: I watched and taped the last half hour or so of The Gambler Returns - The Luck of the Draw on New Year's Eve. I didn't watch the whole thing because I knew JK didn't appear until the climactic poker scene. I don't think I could have stood much more of this film than what I saw of it, anyway. As actors, Kenny Rogers and Reba McEntire are terrific singers.
I thought The Luck of the Draw was terribly bloated and padded with some of the unfunniest slapstick I've ever endured. I kept yelling at the screen, "Just get to San Francisco, already!" But, no, they had to stop at a rodeo, a prizefight, and even a gas station. (Great Mortimer's mustache!) It was nice to see Brian Keith as "Dave Blasingame" from The Westerner, however, and to hear Paul Brinegar ("Wishbone" of Rawhide) recite a monologue that cleverly included the title of just about every TV western that aired. It was good to see Bat Masterson, too, although I preferred Gene Barry as Amos Burke (that "Bat Masterson" theme song always drove me batty).
Ah, finally, the Hotel Carlton! I wondered how they were going to work Paladin into this mess, since Richard Boone had unfortunately died in 1981. At first, I thought the lady dealing "Mr. Paladin's cards" was the original "Hey Girl" from Have Gun--Will Travel, but apparently it was a different actress.
Of course, everything else fell by the wayside when Jack Kelly at last appeared as Bart Maverick. He looked and sounded good, if a bit frail. He got in a little nod to his political career when Bart asked special guest player President Teddy Roosevelt to confirm that he was playing with his own stake and "not the taxpayers' money". Interestingly, TR was portrayed by Claude Akins, who'd appeared with JK in the Maverick episode "Burial Ground of the Gods" way back in 1958.
The Luck of the Draw couldn't just let Bart stand on his own merit, though. Nooo, the shadow of Bret Maverick and James Garner fell over JK once again as he was given such uninspired dialogue as "Bret would have gotten the cards he needed" and "I'm not the best poker player in the Maverick family!" Sheesh, Bart was even wearing Bret's string tie--and where was his pinky ring?But, I was content to see JK in his final role. I'm grateful he had more than a 30-second cameo. Still, I wish there had been less of The Gambler and more of THE gambler--Bart Maverick--in this silly film.
Well, keep watchin', because next time, I have a very special assignment for all of you sharp-eyed Maverick watchers. :)
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Love those pictures of our Smilin' Jack
ReplyDeleteLa B, thanks for the review, as it saves me the trouble of watching the rest of "The Gambler: The Luck of the Draw" on YouTube. I could only stand the first 20 minutes of it. Kenny Rogers is no actor. And neither is Reba McEntire; she is just terrible. Nobody in today's Hollywood knows how to write a half-way decent TV Western because they don't seem to care about the ones that came before. To have Bart Maverick say he wasn't as good at poker as brother Bret proves the writer's ignorance of Jack's old "Maverick" TV series. If said writer had bothered to investigate it, he/she would have learned that Bart was Bret's equal at poker -- and occasionally better. :(
ReplyDeleteYes, that TV-movie is just terrible and Kelly's dialogue is a humiliation; I just remember him saying, "It's not a poker game without a Maverick" over and over in slightly different ways in the version I watched on youtube. This film is the Niagra Falls of talent utterly wasted, as though it was written by and for the mentally challenged, but I imagine that's the result of studio interference. You mentioned the Sam Peckinpah series "The Westerner," with Brian Keith, and after seeing an episode recently, I have to say that it was the grimmest, most downbeat, and absolutely entertaining work Peckinpah ever did, leaps and bounds better even than "The Wild Bunch," and much more daring as a work of art despite being filmed way earlier. Peckinpah later did a modern version as a pilot, telecast as an installment of "Dick Powell Theatre" with Lee Marvin and Keenan Wynn in the leads. I've seen it and I don't have to tell you it's a knockout worth hunting down.
ReplyDeleteOddly, Garner himself did a cameo as Bret Maverick in a Bob Hope movie back when the original "Maverick" was in production but his appearance seems always deleted from television broadcasts due to rights issues (another sign that "Maverick" continues to be taken more seriously than other television cowboys) and I've never seen it. Sometimes youtube posters mistake Hugh O'Brian as Wyatt Earp (also in the film) for James Garner as Bret Maverick. If you ever get a clip from that movie with Garner intact, by all means post it, it would be a real rarity.
Hi Michael - Re: "The Westerner" - I reviewed an episode of this series on my website about actor Paul Richards -
ReplyDeletehttp://www.paulrichards.net/pr_film.htm
The review is near the bottom of the page. (Oops-- I see that YouTube has yanked some of the links I had to some of PR's other performances.) "The Westerner" is pretty grim, which is probably why it got outgunned in the ratings by "The Flintstones" when it originally aired! But, it was eventually recognized and appreciated for the excellent series it is.
I just watched it. Jack still had "It".
ReplyDeleteHe sure did! :)
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