Well, dear readers, I am sitting here like so much fish, listening to Maurice Jarre’s score for the motion picture entitled The Collector, a William Wyler movie starring Terence Stamp and Samantha Eggar, based on a novel by John Fowles. It’s a very fine motion picture and Jarre’s score suits it very well. I’m not a huge Jarre fan – I do enjoy his unique early scores for Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face), Judex (Judex), and most importantly, Sundays and Cybele. I know people will hurl things at me, but I’ve never been all that fond of his scores for Lawrence of Arabia or Dr. Zhivago, and I find several of his American film scores not to my liking. But then we get a score like this or The Professionals, which are great. His score for Hitchcock’s Topaz has some nice moments and some awful moments. But his scores sound like no one else’s and one has to give credit for that. I’m trying to think of others I like – let’s see – ah – Gambit, Grand Prix, The Only Game in Town, A Passage to India, The Man Who Would be King, Winter Kills, The Year of Living Dangerously, Top Secret, Witness, and Ghost. So, that’s quite a few. I did watch a motion picture last night – well, a 1982 made for TV movie that I found on the Tube of You entitled Take Your Best Shot, starring Meredith Baxter Birney and Robert Urich, along with Jeffrey Tambor and a VERY young Howard McGillan, written by Richard Levinson and William Link, who are well-known as the mystery writers who created Columbo, Murder, She Wrote, Mannix, and wrote several TV movie mysteries. This one, the story of an out of work actor separated from his wife, who’s been dating someone new. In the first twenty minutes we had some of the worst dialogue I’ve ever heard, surprising coming from these writers at that point in their career – almost cringeworthy actor/agent/casting director, director stuff that bordered on the ludicrous. I kept waiting patiently for the mystery to kick in – who would the victim be? The wife, the guy she’s seeing – I waited and waited and waited until at about the three-quarter mark I realized that it wasn’t a mystery, it was a romantic soap opera drama with a few comic bits. Oops. But that’s the problem – you see Levinson and Link and you’re automatically waiting for the murder. Which IS odd because they wrote some pretty famous non-mysteries, like My Sweet Charlie, That Certain Summer, The Execution of Private Slovik, as well as the features, The Hindenberg and Rollercoaster. Go know. Anyway, it wasn’t very good, although I like the actors – Tambor is a little over the top for my taste, but this thing just kind of lays there for an hour and thirty-five minutes, then ends without resolving.
Prior to that, I got about six hours of sleep, I think – who remembers – got up, was irritated right away by the non-arrival of that which I hoped would arrive, and that kind of put a damper on the damn day and but me in stasis aka inertia, where I just didn’t feel like doing anything, and that’s what I mostly did – nothing. Oh, I had chicken tenders from Popeye’s – not too great – and not enough food, really, so I’m waiting on some clam chowder and sweet potato fries from BJ’s. I did do a few things that needed doing, had no telephonic conversations, I dozed off for an hour or so, and that was pretty much it and it was pretty much that, not necessarily in that order. Oh yeah, and I kept waiting for the murder.
Today, I’ll be up by ten or so, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll hope for an arrival, I’ll pray for a modern major miracle, I’ll figure out what to eat, I may go to the mail place if there’s anything there to gather up, I’ll do some writing, and then still try finalize the last two young people so I can get the flyer done and choose songs, and then I’ll watch, listen, and relax.
The rest of the week will be more of the dame – more of the DAME??? I mean, more of the same – and I think I’ll be having a couple of meals out.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up by ten or so, do whatever needs doing, hope for an arrival, pray for a modern major miracle, figure out food, eat, maybe go to the mail place, write, finalize casting, choose songs, and then watch, listen, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What are your favorite TV movies, and your favorite TV detectives? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, where I shall dream and perhaps be waiting for the murder.