1967 - IRONSIDE, the TV movie pilot for the series.

The careers of some actors can take an interesting turn, case in point Raymond Burr.  Burr had entered into the movie business in the 1940's and carved out a career playing bad guys.  Probably his most notable role was as Lars Thorwald the wife killer in Rear Window.  Hitchcock with his usual perverse sense of humor had Burr made up to look like his first producer David Selznick who Hitchcock frequently clashed with while making Rebecca, Spellbound and The Paradine Case.  It should also be mentioned that Burr was cast as reporter Steve Martin in the American reedit of Godzilla.  This version of Godzilla was the film responsible for the popularity of the Godzilla character.

 In 1956 Burr moved to television where he was cast as Perry Mason in the long running legal series.  As with all TV series Perry Mason finally ended it's run in 1966.  Burr was now a popular television star which lead him to his next series Ironside the wheelchair bound detective.   The TV movie pilot showed up on Amazon Prime so I thought I would give it a look.  Ironside had Burr playing the chief of detectives of San Francisco who gets shot while on vacation.  Ironside survives the shooting but is left paralyzed. This doesn't stop him from getting back in the crime solving business. His first case being who shot him.  Ironside has a trio of helpers to assist him in solving crimes.  A by the book cop, a beautiful blonde policewoman and in a rather tasteless piece of casting a black guy who's job it is to push him around in a wheelchair.  The Ironside character is basically a reworking of Sherlock Holmes if Sherlock were stuck in a wheelchair.

 

Truth to tell when I watched this series in my very younger days the mysteries on the show were nothing special.  Then again there wasn't a whole lot of choice on what to watch on television in the 1960's since there were only three networks.   Raymond Burr had a great booming voice but he really hams it up as the tough detective who isn't going to let a little thing like the loss of his legs keep him from solving crimes every week.

Ironside the TV movie pilot is a typical Universal Studios pilot from the 1960's.  It was filmed mostly on the back lot, it's loaded with lots of B-movie and TV actors and overall is kind of a cheap looking production.  The mystery isn't really much of a mystery.  Viewing this movie was probably more an exercise in nostalgia if anything it's really kind of a mediocre movie.

The writers were Collier Young and Don Mankiewicz, the running time is 98 minutes. 

1977 - ROLLERCOASTER, a thriller in the wonder of SENSURROUND

 A decent thriller that suffers from over length and was presented in the cinematic wonder of the late 1970's SENSURROUND, essentially big speakers rumbling at a low bass level.  The process was only used in about 4 films and then apparently abandoned.  Besides Sensurround the film is noted for being one of the few screenplays written by Richard Levinson and William S. Link creators of the Columbo TV series and primarily writers of high class television mysteries.  Rollercoaster was one of the few times they wrote for motion pictures.

The plot is the old mad bomber story with clean cut Timothy Bottoms playing the clever mad bomber who is running circles around the FBI and police as they attempt to catch him.  Into the mix comes safety inspector George Segal who is a lot sharper when it comes to figuring out the bomber's mind games than the police are.

  

The film is well directed by James Goldstone and Bottoms and Segal are very good in their roles.  However the problems with the film are it's length, it probably could have been about 10-15 minutes shorter (maybe one less rollercoaster ride) and the studio releasing it during the summer when it had to compete with films like Star Wars, Smokey and the Bandit and the latest James Bond film.  Jazzing the film up with Sensurround didn't really help the box office.

 

Still, if you are looking for a decent thriller Rollercoaster ain't bad.  The running time is 119 minutes.

1980 - WHEN TIME RAN OUT extended edition, yikes

When Time Ran Out, is not a good film, but is it any worse than the 2011 summer releases, The Green Lantern, Cowboys and Aliens,  Zookeeper,  Transformers 3 Dark Side of the Moon,  Cars 2 and The Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides?

Well the answer is yes, it appears to be worse then those films.  This Irwin Allen production just looks plain cheap and terrible considering the 20 million dollars spent on it.  Allen was always a producer that would start strong with a concept for a TV show then invariably use the same stock shots over and over to save money after the series was picked up.  As a producer Allen was a real cheapskate.

In the case of When Time Ran Out everything is of a low or poor quality, the volcano model, the optical work in the disaster scenes and in particular the climactic escape across the collapsing bridge over the river of molten lava scene that looks laughably phoney.

I'm guessing the three big name stars Paul Newman, Jacqueline Bisset and William Holden made very sure they were well paid for this film particularly after reading the script.  The extensive on location filming in Hawaii probably didn't hurt.  Nobody ever turned their nose up at a free trip to Hawaii.

When Time Ran Out marks the end of Irwin Allen's run as a producer of mainstream Hollywood films it was back to schloky made for TV disaster films for rest of his career.

This film isn't even worth a laugh as a "so bad it's good" film.  

144 minutes