Reviews

The early episodes are excellent. Well paced. Fast moving. Interesting stories. Great characters, Then, the pacing is slower. They take longer to tell the story and longer to get to the point. Plus the episodes are padded with "flashbacks" from previous episodes and the percentage of time devoted to flashbacks keeps increasing. Plus later episodes get really preachy and the characters are two dimensional white and black hats. Story lines get predictable and repetitive. The final episode is unwatchable. Start watching and feel free to bail out when you get bored. If you are hoping it will pick up again, it won't.

A good biopic about Murrow could have been made. Actually, it was made already. By HBO in 1986. This movie is too narrowly focused and lacks depth. We learn nothing about the Murrow-Paley relationship which would help us to understand the actions of either in this film. Clooney spends far too much time on old film clips of Joe McCarthy and on extraneous and irrelevant clips of a jazz singer. (If he had to use music to set the tone of the 50s, he'd have done better with clips of his aunt.) The film is full or errors (see goofs). This is a Hollywood pretty boy trying to be a serious film maker and instead offer self-indulgent BS, that would barely get a passing grade in film school. See "Murrow" with Daniel J. Travanti instead. And Edward Herrmann makes a much better Fred Friendly than does Clooney.

OK, the producers of this show wrote the Dick Van Dyke Show. Problem is they produced this show and didn't write for it. It's not funny. The characters are one dimensional. Carl Reiner wrote about the writing staff of a prime time comedy-variety show because that's what he knew. Apparently, nobody connected with this show had any experience working in radio (unlike WKRP, even though that experience was about 20 years out of date). The situations are dull and not believable. Amazon Prime is showing it now so we can all see how bad it was.

I remember the theme song. I have almost no memory of the show. Just as well. So much, so bad. Adam Kennedy is a pretty boy with zero acting ability playing a largely unsympathetic character. Good concept but poor writing. Wicked city. Corrupt cops and politicians. Honest citizens organize as vigilantes - until the second season. Sean McClory in the lead might have pulled it off. Instead, the first season cast gets fired and an honest cop fights the vigilantes who have taken the law into their own hands. Even if the show had been better, it was up against "The $64,000 Question" and didn't stand a chance with either cast or concept. But there's still the theme song.

This is the first time ever I've seen a movie in which I disliked Jimmy Stewart. His character was his self-absorbed, intolerant and selfish. Hisfather (Walter Huston) is rigid, self-righteous and physically abusive. The mother (Beulah Bondi) is weak and ineffectual, unwilling to protect her defenseless young son. At times I was torn between sympathy for Jimmy, a victim of extreme physical abuse from his father, and finding his character so obnoxious I'd think we deserved what he was getting. Characters are poorly developed and the plot was improbable. There are so many great pictures with any of these actors. Watch them instead of this one.

I was much more familiar with the sequel, "Edison The Man," when I watched this film. The depiction of Edison is completely inconsistent between the two films (apparently about seven years Edison spent as a telegrapher). He doesn't just mature; he undergoes a complete personality change. Edison in this movie is sort of Sheldon Cooper of the 19th Century but annoying, rather than funny. I am shocked by the physical abuse he endures but at times I feel the urge to hit the self- absorbed brat, too. I have read the Edison may have suffered from Asperger's Syndrome (like Sheldon), and Rooney's portrayal is consistent with that, although Asperger's was not yet defined when this movie was made. This may be a far more realistic depiction of Edison than Spencer Tracy's in "Edison The Man." But Tracy's is the more enjoyable of the two films.

One small correction to the review posted 28 April, 2003: Harry Morgan appeared regularly in the original Dragnet radio series in various roles. Webb did employ a regular "stock company" of actors, some of whom he had worked with since his days in radio in San Francisco, through the Dragnet radio series, the first TV series, a theatrical movie, a made for TV movie and the second TV series. Richard Boone (Paladin) was also heard regularly on the radio series, and came back for the theatrical movie. However, contrary to the IMDb listing, Harry Morgan did not appear in the first TV series. Other long-time radio actors who appeared in the Dragnet TV movie (and both series) were Olan Soule (usually as a "forensic chemist" from the "crime lab" - what we now call CSI) as well as Sarah Selby, Harry Bartell, Vic Perrin and George Fenneman (the announcer).

The show worked but not with Gleason. It had been very successful on radio with William Bendix and later came back to TV successfully with Bendix (one of the only times a cancelled show was recast and brought back for a second chance).

Gleason came back, too. Once again playing a Blue Collar everyman from Brooklyn but the second time lightning stuck in The Honeymooners.

But Reilly and Gleason together was a losing formula. Gleason was subdued and not funny. He could have played Reilly. He should have been able to. My guess was bad directing (by the writer and creator of the radio show).