Word: falke
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Wayne Rogers, 44, actor. Even before Rogers became famous as Trapper John in the TV series M*A*S*H, he was boning up on finance and managing the money of his friends, Actors Peter Falk, James Caan and Jack Webb. In 1969, with those and other pals, he bought 2,500 acres of farm land in Paso Robles, Calif., for $750,000 and turned 500 acres into a vineyard that has become famous for its Merlot grapes. Future plans call for building a 40,000-case winery on the property. The land is now worth $7 million and that...
Under the aegis of programming whiz Fred Silverman, NBC has promised, with great fanfare, to improve its original programming. At ten, I caught a pilot of Mrs. Columbo, a detective series about the wife of the character Peter Falk played. So much for originality. The story, however, was a moderately entertaining formula television mystery--just substitute a new title character and rearrange a few details, and it would have been Barnaby Jones or McCloud...
...weren't for the director's dead-weight, this movie could probably rollick to success. All the elements are there--from Falk's bumbling to Warren Oates's sensitive performance of the gang member who cracks and blows the whistle on the thieves just two weeks before the statute of limitations runs out. Even the post-war Boston setting is faithfully captured, right down to the graffiti on the subways. But the film never takes off. At the end the robbers are led, one by one, past cheering crowds outside the courtroom. It's staged curtain call...
...Falk sometimes manages to escape the director's slow pace. His portrayal of the thief with the heart of gold never falters. When he accidentally discovers that the Brink's fortress is no more than a poorly protected warehouse of money waiting to be hit, he rushes out and buys his wife a 100 per cent muskrat coat to celebrate his upcoming...
...robbery itself does not come off so well. The repetive humor kills any suspense, and even Falk can't save it--his antics are inspired but predictable. Friedkin tries to enliven the end of the film by dragging in J. Edgar Hoover for a little fun. But Hoover comes off as the same old commie-hating tyrant everyone has seen before. Friedkin fails to embellish this stock figure in any way. It isn't terribly original and it's not funny to boot...