A dud within a series of otherwise entertaining and enjoyable stories!
2 Reviews
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oldz-1889617 April 2021
Only tenuously connected to Rex Stout
aramis-112-80488027 April 2024
Rex Stout's GAMBIT, featuring Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, concerned a suspicious death in a chess club. The daughter of the man arrested for the crime hires Wolfe to investigate over the objections of everyone else: the man's lawyer, his wife and his friends and associates. Why does everyone object so strenuously to Wolfe's involvement?
The "Gambit" episode of the Nero Wolfe show is about a lone electronics genius with a grudge against Wolfe dating back to the Second World War who booby traps Wolfe's entire house. The idea was later recycled in an episode of "MacGyver."
Perhaps the idea of chess (actually, a popular game in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I was in a tournament myself) was too outre, or too nerdy, or just too darn dull to hold a TV audience, and they were right. One thing they kept from the original story was the cutey-of-the-week.
Again, William Conrad has Wolfe's girth and commanding presence and voice, though he seems a trifle short when sized up against the rest of the cast. Lee Horsely ain't the sassy Archie Goodwin from the books, but he's good and terribly likeable (his pilot episode for his later series, "Matt Houston," is still my favorite pilot episode of all time, just barely edging out "Moonlighting.")
I tend to agree with the other reviewer about this episode. But what makes it watchable if at all (I knew a guy who set a chair outside to watch an imminent train wreck--well, there was nothing he could do to stop it so he might as well watch) is Darrin McGavin's performance as Wolfe's persecuter. He does demented as well as anyone, and better if, like me, you prefer funny-scarey.
The "Gambit" episode of the Nero Wolfe show is about a lone electronics genius with a grudge against Wolfe dating back to the Second World War who booby traps Wolfe's entire house. The idea was later recycled in an episode of "MacGyver."
Perhaps the idea of chess (actually, a popular game in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when I was in a tournament myself) was too outre, or too nerdy, or just too darn dull to hold a TV audience, and they were right. One thing they kept from the original story was the cutey-of-the-week.
Again, William Conrad has Wolfe's girth and commanding presence and voice, though he seems a trifle short when sized up against the rest of the cast. Lee Horsely ain't the sassy Archie Goodwin from the books, but he's good and terribly likeable (his pilot episode for his later series, "Matt Houston," is still my favorite pilot episode of all time, just barely edging out "Moonlighting.")
I tend to agree with the other reviewer about this episode. But what makes it watchable if at all (I knew a guy who set a chair outside to watch an imminent train wreck--well, there was nothing he could do to stop it so he might as well watch) is Darrin McGavin's performance as Wolfe's persecuter. He does demented as well as anyone, and better if, like me, you prefer funny-scarey.
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