Two for the Money

I saw this when I was 11 years old and still, after the thousands of films I've seen it sticks with me, the thought of Mercedes McCambridge hauntingly singing "men were deceivers ever..." still sends chills down my spine.

Even if you don't like this police procedural, you will need to jump to around the 58 minute mark where the Mercedes McCambridge master class gold starts. Working with a young Richard Dreyfus, McCambridge's brief performance would give this young kid in 1972 nightmares.

Her incessant rant was limited to Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing with portions of Balthasar's song in Act 2, Scene 3:

Sigh no more ladies, sigh no more, Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea and one on shore, To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny,

Of interest is that Mercedes McCambridge, who played her Mrs. Castle character so flawlessly, would, herself, struggle with alcoholism and mental illness in real life. And there is a most tragic end to her son's life in which, in a murder-suicide, he would take the lives of his wife and two children, but not before penning a pointed note to his mother.

I remember this movie from the 70's. Mercedes McCambridge's performance has stuck with me all these years. I can still hear her singing "my hands are clean, my hands are clean and hey noni noni noni". If you saw the movie that will bring back memories. Yes, great buddy cop flick. The two lead actors had a great camaraderie. Someone killed Walter Brennan's family and just disappeared. For a small screen movie it was very good. The acting was very good. It was very suspenseful as you watched these two cops investigate and try to figure out how someone could kill a whole family and just disappear. I wish I could find this somewhere to watch again. Very satisfying.

Saw this exactly once, when it aired three decades ago, and it's really managed to linger. Superb cast in a genuinely creepy and involving mystery thriller. The then-trendy "buddy police procedural" approach, that the title suggests, is so incidental to the true tone that it seems written in to sell the thing, while the macabre storyline is what barrels along to the jarring conclusion. After all these years it's more a case of highlights and impressions I recall, but it had the aura of something that could've been a successful theatrical release, rather than just another M.O.W. that's been lost to time. Pity it wasn't written and produced 15 or 20 years earlier -- doubtless would've been a noir with major cult status.

Any leads on tracking this one down will be most welcome.

The story begins with two cops trying to make an arrest. One is shot and injured badly...so badly that he'll never be a street cop again. Instead of taking a desk job, the injured Chip and is partner, Larry (Stephen Brooks and Robert Hooks) start their own private detective company. Their first case involves trying to find a mass murderer who killed five folks twelve years ago.

While the other reviewers (so far) have really liked this made for TV movie, I didn't. First, some of the characters really made no sense...particularly the sheriff played by Neville Brand. The surviving family member (Walter Brennan) also didn't behave very logically. But the biggest problem was that Robert Hooks' character made some HUGE logical leaps in order for them to find the killer--such huge ones that it completely took me out of the story. It's a shame, as some parts of this film were good.

By the way, this sure looked like a TV pilot episode....especially how the show ended. See it...see if you, too, see this.