User Reviews

What a huge plot twist in this one. Say no more. And for a 1977 episode of a mainstream US tv series. Jason Evers, who was invariably cast as a heavy, shows incredible bravery to take on this role. The scene with his father is utterly extraordinary.

Chuck McCann dominates the proceedings in this Rockford Files episode playing a has been comedian trying to make it as a solo act. Funny thing is that his former partner Robert Quarry is trying the exact same thing and not having all that much success either. These two maybe should have stayed together, but Quarry can't stand McCann and as we learn in the episode he's got good reason.

From McCann's point of view the show is essentially about his vanity. Quarry steals his funny box which is his catalog of jokes and material which every comedian has. Some of the funniest people around are not ready wits like Groucho Marx so they keep their material stored and safe presumably from all except Milton Berle. And Chuck McCann in this story who's as big a thief as Berle and not so lovable.

James Garner is hired to pay a ransom and get the funny box back. But Quarry turns up dead and it seems that McCann and now Garner have stumbled on a Mafia family secret.

Among other people that McCann rubs the wrong way is Noah Beery, Jr. who starts out a fan and then sees there's a lot less to McCann than meets the eye. But in the end Garner has a perfect way of dealing with him that you have to see to appreciate.

This is a good episode ,I liked it. Chuck McCann plays a great part as a sweet-talking,but shady/smarmy show-biz character that had seen better days. Eavesdropping that reveals more than was expected starts the ball rolling for blackmail,murder etc in this engaging episode of a great show.

Get ready for a knockout blow.

This episode is incredibly risqué for the time it was made. The story is well acted and not remotely sensational.

One of the best.

The beginning of this episode is pretty standard and has the usual fine writing, but then later, I was thrown for a loop when another unrelated topic took this episode in a more serious direction, and I'll address that shortly. The gist revolves around a comic named Kenny Bell, played solidly by Chuck McCann, and his former partner, another comic named Leo Russo(Robert Quarry), and their dealings with the mob, although Kenny wasn't involved with them, but Leo was. Tom Atkins was in fine form as Diehl, although Dennis had a scene or 2, but wasn't really needed, and let me mention that Rocky had more scenes than usual; look for a nice scene on the beach with Rockford, Rocky, and Kenny, as father and son return from a bad day trying to catch fish. Kenny hires Rockford(he calls him "Rocks")to drop off a briefcase full of cash, but Jim finds Russo dead in his car as Jim's making the switch, and the police arrest him, and Jim is seriously mad at Kenny. The next plot has the story take a stunning and powerful twist, as it's discovered that local hood Paul Silvan(Jason Evers)and Russo were gay lovers, and the scene between Paul and his powerful mob boss father(Gilbert Green)isn't exactly touching, as he berates his son and mocks him; he was forced to listen to a tape that Kenny sent to him, and he's in serious denial about his son, even though Paul admits that he's been gay a long time, but his father wouldn't talk to him about it years ago. Not too long after this conversation, Paul and a driver are chasing Rockford and Kenny in the Firebird, but they elude the hoods, and the driver has to call Paul's father with bad news about losing their targets, and this is where an effective scene was too rushed; basically, the father says something to the effect to have the driver kill his son, even though the driver seemed confused. The next moment has the man walking back to the car and we hear a gunshot, which was in broad daylight and not exactly in a desolate area; the scene was, in my opinion, too rushed and would've been better served if it took place at night, which would have been more realistic. The latter half of this episode really made it special, especially the performance of Green, and I would recommend strongly to a fan of the show.

I notice this is on the ME-TV schedule tonight and I discovered by reading these reviews that I saw this many years ago. Perhaps in its original airing. I remember the scene between the father and son. After listening to his father's denunciation of his lifestyle the son replied with a tired haughty tone, 'Don't you think that all has a rather piquant quality?' The father replied dismissively, 'No, I don't use those kinds of words.' As for Chuck McCann, I remember him on a talk show doing a hilarious imitation of Robert Cummings being much older than he appeared. He mimed Cummings putting on a youthful mask and having a small tape recorder in his mouth instead of using his actual voice. The tape recorder rewinding sounded very real.

This , for me, is one of the weakest episodes" of the series. First of all, Chuck McCann was basically a whiny has been grifter who has just scraped be in comedic mediocrity for years. He has earned the enmity of his ex partner Lee Russo (played by Robert Quarry) for allegedly absconding with Lee's material. It was a slapdash plot of murky elements, which gave the episode a type of uncharacteristic unsavoriness. Jason Evers was out of character for the type of personage he portrayed and the idea of certain controversial concepts being thrown about made the entire thrust of the episode incongruous with what viewers had been known to expect from the series. I did like the return of Tom Adkins (Lieutenant Diehl),Jim Rockford's other nemesis .But this was one of the weakest entries yet and I found it not satisfying in the least.