Nero Wolfe

William Conrad starred as Frank Cannon in the above-average QM TV series Cannon, but he was a lousy Nero Wolfe. As a matter of fact, I challenge any viewer to name anything different in his portrayal of those two detectives. Conrad was a limited actor who only ever portrayed one character: William Conrad. (A great radio actor, though; he was Marshall Dillon on Gunsmoke on the radio, among other things. What a voice!) Lee Horsley was a good Archie Goodwin, but Alan Miller as Cramer was a hopeless piece of miscasting. The series thankfully was cancelled very quickly, and the Wolfe legend lives on through the novels. (BTW, the A&E series with Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton is quite good and worth watching for cast member Kari Matchett alone.)

I thought Lee Horsley was the definitive Archie Goodwin, and I'd like to know if this series will ever be released on DVD. Although I like Timothy Hutton (in the AE version), he's a little too polished for the role of AG and Maury Chaykin a little too vehement for Nero Wolfe. I had not seen the AE version of Nero Wolfe until recently when I checked the DVDs out of our local library. I enjoyed them, but I'm a real fan of the Nero Wolfe books; and the characterizations of Wolfe and Goodwin were just a little "off." I remember the 1981 series set me to reading the books, and I had no difficulty visualizing Lee Horsley as the wise-cracking Archie. I would love to see this older series again.

Lee Horsley was the perfect Archie Goodwin. I'm a big fan of the books & when I read them I can see only Horsley as that character. He can come & rescue me anytime!!! William Conrad was also very good as Wolfe. I wish that they still showed them on tv so I would have a chance to tape them .

This was my introduction to Nero Wolfe, starting a happy 3+ decade relationship with Rex Stout's detective fiction. While this series didn't use the period settings that the later A&E series did, it has my affection for a number of reasons.

First, William Conrad. He is certainly a less gifted actor than Maury Chaikin, but his voice is marvelous, and he uses the declarative, falling cadence that Stout's punctuation indicates. "Archie. I read it because it is a book. And I read books." Chaikin too often uses a rising cadence, which took getting used to, for me.

Second, most, if not all (I am going from memory here) the episodes were, as with the A&E series, adaptations of actual Stout stories and novels, which was also welcome for me as a new reader.

Sure, one could say I like the series because it set the tone of the characters for me, and that likely has a good bit of truth. But I've noticed that, among my acquaintance, the greatest fans of the books are the least enthusiastic about the A&E series, and more tolerant of this series. My husband won't watch the old series when we find it on TV, and doesn't like the books. He loves the A&E series. I also am fond of the A&E series, mostly for the affection with which it was so obviously made, for the period sets, and for the wonderful repertory-ensemble cast, with best acting honors to Kari Marchett, who makes every episode she is in sing.

But see this series for a different and valid take, and the best-voiced Nero Wolfe I know of.

It is beyond understanding why this show was canceled so quickly. The appearance and attitude William Conrad gave his Wolfe was just about perfect. He was the "seventh-of-a-ton" detective thousands of readers of the novels probably imagined. But not only Conrad was superb, the rest of the cast was as well, from George Voskovec's Fritz to Allan Miller's Inspector Cramer, with whose fits anyone could feel along.

Some edges of the characters were taken out, which is especially true for Archie Goodwin, and was most probably done to assure mass compatibility. Both Goodwin and Wolfe are described as chauvinists par excellence in the books. But besides that, there wasn't much more an avid fan of the novels could have asked for.

Very noteworthy is the great care about every little detail of the "old brownstone." That was marvelous work and the production crew should be applauded for that. Probably they had a number of Wolfe fans among them.