User Reviews

'The Knightly Murders' has to rank as one of the sillier Kolchak episodes, with a story seemingly inspired by the kind of thing the 'Scooby-Doo' show would do. A 12th century man in knightly armour is pursuing and slaughtering all of the people who would replace a museum of antiques with a disco. A disco, of all things! No wonder the knight is so mad.

While Kolchak investigates the leads, he's forced to deal with more troublesome sources than usual. For one thing, this weeks' lawman is an educated gent hilariously played by John Dehner. With his sing song speaking style and his inscrutable dialogue, he's just a riot; for once, Kolchak is just as annoyed with an interview subject as they are with him. Another individual who gives him trouble is air headed interior decorator Minerva Musso (Lieux Dressler), and when he goes to a coat of arms dealer, Roger (Robert Emhardt), to gather information, he distracts him with all sorts of details regarding his heritage and ultimately talks Kolchak into buying a coat of arms himself.

Of course, Kolchak ruffles his share of feathers as he infuriates a huffy museum curator, Mendel Boggs (Hans Conreid) and his editor Tony Vincenzo, who's sick and tired of Kolchak indulging in what he thinks are fantasies. But we and Kolchak know better, and soon the intrepid reporter is left to face the angry knight by himself.

Speaking of the knight, it's simply too hard not to laugh when he's clanking around, although to be fair he does do some serious damage and commit some pretty brutal murders. The climactic confrontation is reasonably exciting, but overall the resolution fails to really satisfy. For one thing, it's over a little too quickly. Fortunately, there's one devastatingly funny sequence when Kolchak cracks that the I.N.S. office will be visited by the interior decorator, and that Updyke will be replaced with a fern and Vincenzo with a snapdragon.

The roster of guest stars also includes Jeff Donnell as Rogers' co-worker Maura, the priceless Shug Fisher as Pop Stenvold (an information provider), and Gregg Palmer as police officer Sgt. Buxbaum.

This is not one of Kolchaks' finer hours, but in the end it's still amusing and fun.

Seven out of 10.

"The Knightly Murders" still holds together after 40-plus years. Less for the plot, which is essentially a ghost story (albeit a ghost wearing a suit of armor), and more for the guest appearances and how the story undermines Kolchak for the most part.

There are several plot holes: for instance, the misanthropic knight guy who sets the whole thing swore his "resting place" couldn't be plagued by human gaiety and music. Unless he was buried in his armor, wouldn't that be a cemetery?

For another, that suit of armor sure gets around. Despite all the noise it makes clanking, it gets into Musso's apartment. Although the noise is gaslit when Kolchak wonders if her pipes are clanking. "I beg your pardon!" And the suit of armor crushes a telephone underfoot. And how does the knight get around so, that no one ever sees it until it gets to its victims? If it can teleport, why does it have to get through doors to get to Hocking and Musso? So it it real, or it is a ghost?

The so-so story is supplemented by the goofy guest stars and the dialogue. For instance, the scene above: Kolchak asks Musso if her pipes are clanking, and she immediately takes offense.

Veteran actor John Dehner gets the spotlight, as Captain Vernon Rausch, one of a number of people who give Kolchak the runaround. In fact, all of the guest stars pretty much undercut Kolchak. Rausch and Boggs (Hans Conried) cheerfully insult Kolchak, his "contacts" like Stenvold and the mom-and-pop chivalry store (??) rip him off, and the interoffice INS banter has Vincenzo and Updyke giving as good as they get.

And Dehner has always had a droll comedic touch. Which is probably why he got cast on 'Maverick' so much. Watch his silent reaction when a reporter (with Kolchak's prompting) repeats his vague semi-theory from earlier about a woman who thinks she's a British commando as the murderer. Even Rausch/Vernon doesn't know how to react to that! Particularly funny is that it's Rausch's weird-ass steam-of-consciousness theory, but he acts like it's nonsensical when he hears it repeated back to him.

And Darren McGavin presumably picked his guest stars, so he probably picked Dehner knowing who he was getting. Watching Kolchak's reactions as he tries to decipher Rausch's meanderings ("Less directly?!?") makes the first 10 minutes hilarious. The focus is less on setting up the story then letting McGavin and Dehner jointly chew the scenery.

Vernon shines as Rausch, who has an actual personality as opposed to the usual bland cop-of-the-week who Kolchak goes up against. The good captain is less concerned with Kolchak's antics, then retiring and having to deal with his wife's chamber music antics. Rausch isn't the only one: Boggs gets insulted by other guest stars (Musso calling him an aspiring village idiot, and "Boggsy"), and has a bit of physical humor when police officers try to force him to put on the armor.

Overall, "Knightly" is the best example of the show's late-run approach. By then, the production staff realized that the show was being cancelled. And they had already exhausted most of the horror tropes: zombies, vampires, werewolves, Jack the Ripper, aliens, Indian supernatural threats, etc. So they go with some so-so supernatural hijinks, highlight the humor, and emphasize the eclectic guest cast.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong. What do you think?

All those connected to the planned renovation of an old museum are being murdered by a killer who uses medieval weapons.

While the formula for the average "Night Stalker" episode was generally one half comedy and one half horror, it's the comedic content that comes off most successfully in this glaringly uneven entry.

Many of the biggest laughs belong to John Dehner as the hawkish-looking Captain Rausch. This pompous, distracted cop is definitely the funniest of all the police officials Kolchak encountered during the run of the series and it's a shame they never had him back for a second appearance.

Character actor Hans Conried plays the cranky museum curator who's totally opposed to the gutting of his cherished museum. "They want to turn it into a medieval themed disco and call it 'Camelot'" he sniffs. "They should all rot in Camelot!"

There's also an amusing scene in which a shop owner tries to sell Carl a coat of arms commemorating the proud history of the Kolchak family- "for only 72 dollars". Kolchak upon learning of all the alleged noble deeds of his ancestors responds, "That's terrific. My grandmother always said we were descended from slobs."

Unfortunately, as stated, the less successful paranormal aspect of the story hurts this episode. For example, of the four titular murders committed, only two are remotely effective. In one, a terrified man watches as the villain of the piece (a ghostly knight in black armor) stomps towards him swinging a mean-looking spiked mace. In another suspenseful scene the rampaging knight chops a door to splinters with a huge battle axe. Those work well enough, but the other half of the mayhem is not so effective due to director Vincent McEveety's poor staging and some amateurish camera work in which certain shots are not even in proper focus. It's as if McEveety was disinterested in the supernatural angle and instead just concentrated on his real strength (the direction of the comedic performances).

Something really jaw-dropping occurs when Kolchak sneaks into the museum after hours. The clanking of armor signals that the murderous knight is coming down a staircase. Carl then quite logically conceals himself in a corner. Now it can be rightly pointed out that in his zeal to get the scoop, Kolchak would often do some pretty dangerous things. That's true enough. But never before, in Any of his adventures, does this man seem as downright stupid as he does here when he walks right up behind the hexed heap of metal... and takes his picture! With a flash yet!!! Just as baffling, when the knight turns to face him, Carl actually seems surprised. It's so preposterous that after watching it, one feels like asking the script writer why he would have Kolchak do this incredibly suicidal thing.

Anyways, things do become fairly engaging as the modest-sized reporter is pursued by the hulking 12th century knight. When he locates the only thing in the museum that can defeat it, (a blessed battle axe) Carl just barely has enough strength to lift the enormous weapon and hit the malevolent knight, sending it toppling to the floor. Next, in an extremely brief closing scene we see the helmet fall off the body revealing that the suit is empty.

Reasonably satisfying, and the humour does work, but had the direction of the equally important supernatural element been as strong, "The Knightly Murders" would have been a much more solid episode.

Citizens involved in a project to transform a museum into a disco are bumped off with various medieval weapons by a ghostly black knight. Naturally, Carl Kolchak (a typically fine and energetic Darren McGavin) has to save the day. While the script by Michael Kozoll and David Chase is rather slight, yet reasonably fun and clever, Vincent McEveety's direction unfortunately runs hot and cold throughout: McEveety handles the show's trademark bright cynical humor well enough, but the whole thing seriously lacks any real tension and the attack scenes are indifferently staged. Moreover, the black knight alas just ain't that scary or menacing. Luckily, the nice acting from an able cast rescues this episode from total mediocrity, with especially stand-out contributions by Simon Oakland as the cantankerous Tony Vincenzo, John Dehner as polite, articulate, and diplomatic intellectual Captain Vernnon Rausch (his witty and eloquent sparring scenes with Kolchak are simply delightful), Hans Conreid as angry, pompous museum curator Mendel Boggs, Robert Emhardt as helpful medieval arms expert Roger, Shug Fisher as folksy store owner Pop Stenvold, and Lieux Dressler as fiery interior decorator Minerva Musso (her untimely death provides the sole truly effective jolt in the entire show). Ronald W. Browne's crisp cinematography and Jerry Fielding's lively'n'jazzy score are both up to par. The climactic confrontation between Kolchak and the knight is fairly exciting. Not one of the show's best hours, but still worth a watch just the same.

As in so many episodes of Kolchak, there are murders throughout Chicago and they have a supernatural feeling about them, as all of the murders were committed with medieval weapons. The big difference is that Captain Rausch (John Dehner) is the first cop who seems like he actually wants to deal with Kolchak.

It also has Minerva Musso (Lieux Dressler), a decorator who has David Bowie lined up as her next client. For now, she's renovating a home into a disco club and that's why the knight has come back from the grave, enraged that his ancestral home is being used in such a way and destroying anyone who gets in his way.

Director Vincent McEveety was a TV veteran, directing eight episodes of Star Trek, 11 of Diagnosis Murder, 28 installments of Murder, She Wrote, 18 visits to In the Heat of the Night and movies like Herbie Goes Bananas, The Watcher In the Woods, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Gus, The Strongest Man In the World, the original Wonder Woman TV movie, Superdad and The Million Dollar Duck. This episode was written by David Chase, his eighth script for the series, and Michael Kozoll, who went on to write First Blood and one of my favorite TV movies, Vampire.