Taylor is likable as McGee, but neither imposing (he's 5' 11", not a 6' 4" ex-defensive-linebacker) nor gentle enough. Bikel never displays Meyer's formidable intelligence, nor his astonishing personal magnetism; he's just a sidekick, who also looks wrong (Meyer is described in the books as having the pelt of a black bear). The Flush is...well, a houseboat, nothing special. Miss Agnes probably is, but we never get a really good look at her. The Alabama Tigress...a great excuse for Jane Russell to come out of retirement, for a few seconds on the screen. Kendall is beautiful, but not right at all for Vangie, who was Hawaiian and a hard-as-nails totally self-absorbed hooker from a pretty grim background. The music score is also distracting and inappropriate—a mix of badly done late-cool jazz and TV-movie clichés.
The plot is closer to the book than Hollywood usually allowed its writers to adhere. But a couple of significant changes are senseless. The bad guys trace clues to a friend of McGee's and kill him, to no point whatsoever. (They're smart enough to get that far, but too stupid to keep the guy alive so they can get further...) McGee goes back to the fishing hole and dives to pull up...a barbell. (Replacing the novel's cinder-block, why? Would a bodybuilder ever be so stupid? Or did he just have an extra lying around that he wanted to throw out?)
Most annoying was the rewrite on McGee's relationship with Vangie, I guess so that he could look as much as possible like Bond (i.e. have sex with every woman who wanders through the script). Given who McGee is (and how well readers of the book know his principles and his habits of self-reflection) and what he thinks of Vangie, any devotee of the books will look at this strange Taylor-inhabited character, and wonder who it really is. Certainly not the Travis McGee that we wanted to see in a decent film.
The plot is closer to the book than Hollywood usually allowed its writers to adhere. But a couple of significant changes are senseless. The bad guys trace clues to a friend of McGee's and kill him, to no point whatsoever. (They're smart enough to get that far, but too stupid to keep the guy alive so they can get further...) McGee goes back to the fishing hole and dives to pull up...a barbell. (Replacing the novel's cinder-block, why? Would a bodybuilder ever be so stupid? Or did he just have an extra lying around that he wanted to throw out?)
Most annoying was the rewrite on McGee's relationship with Vangie, I guess so that he could look as much as possible like Bond (i.e. have sex with every woman who wanders through the script). Given who McGee is (and how well readers of the book know his principles and his habits of self-reflection) and what he thinks of Vangie, any devotee of the books will look at this strange Taylor-inhabited character, and wonder who it really is. Certainly not the Travis McGee that we wanted to see in a decent film.