“I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. I am my own man.” There are those who proclaim The Prisoner: Complete Series (1968), Patrick McGoohan’s cerebral spy show and portrait of personal freedom as an existential prison, the greatest TV show of all time. I won’t argue the point. His insidiously […]
“Actually, there is one thing. Not that it makes much difference, but…” Peter Falk dons the overcoat as the most distinctive detective on TV: the cigar-chomping, eternally disheveled LA police detective, Lt. Columbo. The character was actually created as supporting character in a Broadway play by Richard Levinson and William Link, where Thomas Mitchell played […]
Set over the course of a single night in a sleek jazz club carved out of a waterfront warehouse (the passion of a jazz-loving millionaire played by Richard Attenborough), All Night Long (1962) reworks Shakespeare’s Othello for the 1960s jazz culture culture of musicians and singers and nightclub showbiz dealings. Iago here is America drummer […]
“Every government has its secret service branch. America, CIA; France, Deuxième Bureau; England, MI5. NATO also has its own. A messy job? Well that’s when they usually call on me or someone like me. Oh yes, my name is Drake, John Drake.” Before Patrick McGoohan was The Prisoner, he was John Drake, the maverick agent […]
