User Reviews

There was a lot of promise here even when the plot was the oft-employed trope of a criminal gang tracking down the one member who knows where the stolen loot is stashed. Why? The casting of Joe Flynn, George Murdock, Hal Williams, and John Milford, who played a gang of World War II vets who lifted stacks of crisp twenties back in Hawaii. But these were not just any twenties: special Aloha money that over the intervening thirty years has skyrocketed from a mere $24,000 in face value to a whopping $1.6 million in the rare currency collector's market.

Those thirty years were spent in prison by George Blaisdell, the nebbish played by Joe Flynn in what was the show's first and biggest misstep. Flynn's expertise was playing an authoritarian blowhard, most famously as Captain Binghamton on McHALE'S NAVY. Here he's cast as a schnook, the kind of role Tom Bosley or Vincent Gardenia played better. Worse, Flynn loses his memory after a pile of empty boxes fall on him, an unlikely scenario whose sole purpose was to put George and Tony in a hospital room together.

Blake of course befriends this nattering nowhere man. And while George was at first a sympathetic character, as the story unfolds he turns out to be not such a nice guy. For example, his utter ingratitude to Tony, Max and Jerry for rescuing him, providing him a safe harbor, and starting the process of restoring his lost memory (through an impressive word-association technique). And talk about telegraphing! Tony and Max step out of the room for a tete-a-tete about George. George asks Jerry to call Tony and Max back into the room. Does Jerry shout, "Hey, you guys!" or just poke his head out the door saying George wants see you two? No, he goes out in the hall, closes the door, engages in some endlessly banal conversation, and--to the shock of no one--George hightailed it out a window, even taking time to scrawl a snarky Dear John letter to his benefactors. No, not a nice guy.

After that incident my sympathies shifted away from George to war buddies Dunaghan, Gordon and Lubie. They weren't nice guys necessarily, but they weren't bad guys. They only wanted their cut of the take, nothing more. They weren't killers, just opportunists. George Murdock and John Milford have long played heavies, but Hal Williams? He was still playing Officer Smitty on SANFORD AND SON. How bad could they be? And they were rendered toothless and made likeable when revealed as harmless buffoons in the lights-out fistfight in the hospital room that was an homage to Three Stooges-style slapstick. It was George who was holding out, not keeping the agreement, not sharing the spoils. The thief without honor.

I loved Murdock's Dunaghan, played broadly. He had done well for himself as an accomplished racer at the Ontario Motor Speedway, where some of the show's best scenes were filmed (contrasted with the worst at the church bazaar and lame-o magic show). Dunaghan's m.o. is to intimidate people by racing them around the track in his car. Hey, it did shock George into a full recollection of their penny-ante KELLY'S HEROES heist, complete with flashbacks to 1940's stock footage. George remembered where he tucked away those twenties, so the ends justified the means when those ends mean $1.6 million.

The climactic scene boasts an anticlimactic reunion of Bill Bixby with his erstwhile MY FAVORITE MARTIAN costar Pamela Britton. But fans will be disappointed, as they really don't enjoy a scene together because the focus is fixed on Flynn and Murdock. The big finish features some sleight-of-hand by Blake, and a wince-worthy shot of an obviously-not-Bixby stuntman running to a speeding car with a magically wide-open door.

Not a bad show, but not an especially good one. Familiar and hardworking character actors Russell Thorson, Joseph V. Perry and Allen Joseph brighten their small scenes. But, in the end, Flynn's playing against type was a deal-breaking disappointment. Britton's tiny role was another let down. And Yvonne "Batgirl" Craig, relegated to a bit part playing a doctor-turned-damsel in distress, was victim of a casting crime much worse than the chump change cash heist.

In a sad coda, this humble episode of THE MAGICIAN marked the last TV appearances for both Joe Flynn and Pamela Britton. Flynn made a few more Disney pictures, but died tragically in a heart attack/drowning in July 1974. He was only 49. His best work has been and will forever be fondly remembered and enjoyed.