1993 - THE RETURN OF IRONSIDE, closing the loop.

The previous post looked at the TV pilot for Raymond Burr's Ironside series.  The chief selling point of The Return of Ironside was as a reunion show which had Burr back with the original cast from his old TV series.  The movie was filmed on location in Denver, Colorado at Burr's insistence.  Burr had a great fondness for the city.

In the 1970's these television reunion shows were all the rage.  The baby boomer crowd got to relive the hours they spent in from of their television sets watching stuff like, The Return of the Mod Squad, Rescue From Gilligan's Island, The Munster's Revenge,  etc.  Believe me the list is endless. 

The plot of this film is almost incidental.  The original cast was Don Galloway as Ed Brown, Barbara Anderson as Eve Whitfield, Don Mitchell as Mark Sanger and Anderson's replacement Elizabeth Baur as Fran Belding who took over the sexy female cop role after Anderson left the series.  The story of this rather contrived movie involves Anderson's daughter played by Perrey Reeves being framed for a murder she didn't commit by some corrupt cops, yes that old narrative chestnut.

 

Burr was back in the wheelchair but this time he needed it in real life as he was now dying from cancer.  In fact The Return of Ironside was aired after Burr's death.  Burr at age 76, was still the old performing trooper and although visibly ill he's the main reason to watch this plodding crime thriller.  The movie spends way to much time on the Perrey Reeves character's boring love life at the expense of Burr's interaction with his old cast mates.

 

You can spend a few minutes on the Wikipedia entry for Raymond Burr, it's fascinating reading.  He was a closeted actor his entire life and had a long career working in film, theater, radio and finally TV.  The Return of Ironside is a real nostalgia wallow.

The film was written by Collier Young, Rob Hedden and William Woodfield, the running time is 89 minutes.