L'homme à la Rolls

The earliest shows I remember watching were kiddie shows or things my parents liked. I was about age 10 when "Burke's Law" came on and it was the first show I decided I really liked after I began to form my own tastes. It was a light but sophisticated murder mystery show that was more comedy than drama. It was the first of the "all-star" cast whodunits and lead to the later "Murder She Wrote", "Matlock" and "Diagnosis Murder", which were created by some of the people responsible for "Burke's Law". Levinson and Link, the creators of "Columbo", also wrote may of the scripts for "Burke's Law". The show was Aaron Spelling's first big hit, so it has quite a pedigree.

What really made it interesting was the eccentric characters who made up the suspects. They were played by an eclectic group of character actors taken from the usual TV "repertory" group, the stars of other shows, former and even current movie stars, silent movie stars and even people from the independent film movement and the British theater and films, who were happy at the American TV exposure and quick paycheck they got for performing a few scenes on the show. You can see oddities like Basil Rathbone listening in pain to John Cassavetes doing a "beatnik Hamlet", Sterling Holloway trying to blackmail Cassavetes, William Demarest running a hotel for ex-Vaudvillians where an acrobatic act earns their keep by cleaning the chandeliers, a convention of police chiefs, each one modeled on a famous fictional detective, (it anticipates Neil Simon's "Murder by Death"), a fake Russian aristocrat who really isn't fake but figures that no one will believe him anyway so he pretends to be a fake, etc, etc.

Gene Barry, one of several Cary Grant imitators on TV at the time, (see Craig Stevens in "Peter Gunn", John Vivien in "Mr Lucky"), is perfect for the lead role, better than Dick Powell in the pilot, which was made two years before as part of Powell's anthology series. Powell would have played the lead in the show but died of cancer before he could undertake the role. They say acting is reacting and Barry is the greatest reactor in TV history, the perfect guy to play off of all the eccentrics. Gary Conway, who should have become a much bigger star, (he was later in "Land of the Giants"), Regis Toomey, the gorgeous Eileen O'Neill and Leon Lontoc offered excellent support.

Unfortunately, somebody, (Spelling? The network?), decided to junk the show by turning it into an under-financed, back-projected spy show. Burke suddenly abandoned LA and is mansion and Rolls-Royce to become a James Bond style agent who traveled the world for a secret government organization headed by someone called "The Man". It was a tepid version of "The Man From Uncle" and was placed opposite what turned out to be the greatest of all spy shows," I Spy", which was in color and filmed in actual locations around the world. The local ABC affiliate in Syracuse declined to even show "Amos Burke Secret Agent" and from what I saw of the episode in syndication, I can't blame them.

Amazingly, the program had a third incarnation and the by now fabulously successful Aaron Spelling brought it back in 1994. Burke was back in LA chasing crooks in his Rolls, but with a son to help him. they dusted off the old scripts for the new shows. Only occasionally did we see the old spark of creativity, such as a victim freezing to death on the hottest day of the year, an ambulance chasing lawyer getting run over by an ambulance, Ephraim Zimbalist Jr. as a greedy tycoon practicing his golf drive from the rook of his building, (who cares who it falls on?), and Brian Keith as an ex-marine turned romance novelist who puts on a dress to get in the mood to write. Still is was a lot better than the other new murder mystery which followed it, "Diagnosis Murder" with Dick Van Dyke. Unfortunately, the network kept the wrong one, (I doubt they cried about it, as it went on for years).

Without the original "Burke's Law", there would have been no "Diagnosis Murder". The original remains the best whodunit in TV history and one of the most entertaining shows of all time.

I would love to run across the "Archive of Television" interview series that explains just what they were thinking when the eventually legendary Aaron Spelling and company put this together for the fall, 1963, television season. It had been back-door piloted two years earlier in the DICK POWELL THEATER anthology series, but Powell was a 1950's noire tough-guy actor while this series presented the most suave, debonair actor on weekly television, Gene Barry. The thinking seems to have been to take the venerable fantasy of the "whodunnit" and modernize it in the most smart, up-to-date style with generous helpings of contemporary American TV wit surmounted by gobs of Camelot-era glitz and glam.

Not only were the likes of doughty Miss Jane Marple or fussy Hercule Poirot updated to a smooth, handsome lady-killer in a perpetual tuxedo who was designed to make James Bond envious, but the protagonist police detective was the heir to a fortune of at least seven million dollars (probably more like 70 in today's money) and except for his job, fully lived the dream, complete with Hollywood mansion, extravagant chauffeur-driven luxury sedan, and what might be the largest (or at least one of the most appealing) retinue of sex-starved babes in the history of television. And although in the better episodes they did manage to hit some of the better heights of weekly television drama, mostly the emphasis was pretty lightweight, focusing in perhaps equal parts on light humor and action.

With that much to contemplate the reviewer knows scarcely where to begin. Under the circumstances, then, maybe it would be best to begin at the beginning. I first saw this show at about age 11, and I can't remember now just what all appealed to me about it so strongly then, except for one thing: the most curvaceous, most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen in one whole decade of living, and of course I'm referring to Burke's Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud sedan. This car was practically a character in the show. Probably never in the history of television has an automobile been so strongly emphasized - not even Don Johnson's or Tom Selleck's Ferraris; not even, of all things, the Batmobile (the only exception that comes to mind would be shows where the car explicitly was a character, such as in Knight Rider or My Mother The Car - but I digress). Shot after shot was set up to emphasize it. It even had its own theme music (which was the big, bold, brassy jazz theme song of the show itself, and nothing could have been better - surely, the composer was looking at footage of the car doing its thing as he worked).

The idea seems to have been not only to continuously rub the protagonist's sumptuous fantasy lifestyle into the viewers' eyeballs, but in fact the car actually functioned as the unifying element in the plot development of the episodes. While in the traditional whodunnit the various suspect characters are typically united by geography - e.g., they are all together in an English country house during a gale, or on a Nile River excursion steamer, or the fabled Orient Express passenger train caught snowbound in the Balkans outback - here, in the car-crazy culture of early 1960's Southern California, it is this regal motor vehicle which takes the detective to the crime scene and then back and forth among the characters as he puts the pieces together to solve the case, often finding cause to interview them while riding inside of it (especially if they are female and under 35; on one occasion, when guest-star Elsa Lanchester didn't quite fit that formula, the interview occurred afoot during a stroll down a country road with the car following prominently behind in full view for several minutes' screen time). Councils of war among the hero and his staff are regularly held within it; and moreover every episode's opening credits begin with Amos Burke and his Filipino man-servant, Henry, rushing in classic action-hero form to the car while the rousing, booming, boisterous opening notes of the theme crank up in perfect synchronization to the car's emergence from the driveway, and every show's ending credits roll with a shot of it parked once again back in the circular drive in front of Burke's mansion, dutifully awaiting its next foray into the world of criminal detection.

And that leads us to the part I could not appreciate quite so well at 11 as I could later. As one might have guessed by now, the pre-credits teaser of every show naturally features our hero right smack in the middle of romancing some comely female, only to be interrupted by the obligatory dreaded telephone call summoning him to yet another inevitable crime scene. This was one of these shows where a large cast of name-brand guest stars was required every week, and the litany of the actors who appeared would probably look like an early-1960's Hollywood telephone book. In particular, probably never was any show so heavily populated with young television starlets (generally on their way up) which makes this a delight to watch as no amount of Connolly leather upholstery and sheet metal under thirty coats of hand-polished paintjob ever could. A partial list (simply from memory) includes such luminaries as Elizabeth Montgomery (can you imagine her playing high on Absinthe?), Barbara Eden, Lola Albright, Nancy Kovack, Zza Zza Gabor, Eva Gabor, Annette Funicello, Anne Francis, Debra Paget, Suzy Parker, Antoinette Bower, Glynis Johns, Jill Haworth, Nancy Sinatra, Dana Wynter, Dawn Wells, Tina Louise, Dina Merrill, Carolyn Jones, Jill St. John, Jayne Mansfield . . . And if somebody a little more grown up is to your taste, there was also Ida Lupino, Gloria Grahame, June Allyson, Ruth Roman, and even Vera Miles, Mary Astor, Dorothy Lamour, and Gloria Swanson . . . (and I imagine a female reviewer enthused with the period could come up with a list of male guest stars that would amply complement this list; certainly it bulged with well-known comedians and character actors). Probably the only things missing were Linda Evans, Sally Field, and Mary Tyler Moore (but they did manage a cameo of David Niven, of all people).

If this show had any fault it may have been that it was trying to do so many things at the same time that it couldn't expect to do all of hem consistently well every week, and sometimes the dialog just didn't pay off. Moreover, a good bit of true talent was wasted. At times Barry showed hints of a lot of talent that was barely tapped but which would have markedly enriched the show had it been, while veteran co-stars like Regis Toomey and Leon Lontoc were usually badly under-exploited. Lontoc in particular was a very funny natural comic and when actually given something to do never failed to entertain, and it is disappointing that more was not made of the sort of Rochester/Benny relationship his character, Henry the man-Friday, had with Barry's Burke. One supporting actor who was not underused was Gary Conway as the boy-wonder apprentice detective, Tim Tillson, the youthful prodigy who had everything but rank and experience. This also meant that, in order to know every conceivable useful fact in a case and never miss a single trick in checking out leads, and in direct opposition to his own leading-man good looks, he was what nowadays we would call a geek or a nerd, something he pulled off with aplomb (I especially like the time he was grossly disappointed he could not get the evening off because it was the night the grunion were running - true story).

In sum, Burke's Law can be relied upon to offer an always entertaining look back at Kennedy-era cool.

Before "The Mod Squad,",before "Charlie's Angels",and before "Fantasy Island",and "The Love Boat",a young producer named Aaron Spelling helped mount a fun and atmospheric early 1960's mystery show called "Burke's Law",which was basically a detective series based on the characters created by Frank D. Gilroy. "Burke's Law" was the granddaddy of mystery shows which depended on a weekly group of star cameos to keep it fun and interesting. "Burke's Law" had several gimmicks that made it successful. One was the premise: Gene Barry's Amos Burke was a Beverly Hills millionaire who also the chief of detectives for the Los Angeles Police Department.,who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce. The show had stylistic similarities to Barry's previous series,"Bat Masterson",in which he had played debonair dandy Bat Masterson in the Old West.

During the opening credits,as the title flashed on screen,a woman's voice was heard seductively pronouncing the words,"It's Burke's Law!" The title also reflected the character Burke's habit of dispensing wisdom to his underlinings in a professional manner,e.g. "Never asks a question unless you already know the answer,Burke's Law." Each week's show would open with the discovery of a body,then cut to Burke at his mansion,romancing some gorgeous woman--whom he would leave behind to drive to the crime scene in his Rolls-Royce. The other gimmick that made "Burke's Law" successful was the suspension of whodunnit,with a weekly "great cast" of stars from which Burke would have to find the killer. It was a light and very sophisticated murder mystery that was more comedy than drama,and not to mention plenty of action. It was the first and one of the original "all-star" cast whodunits which was created by some of the people responsible for the success of this show: Richard Levinson and William Link,the creators who were also responsible for "Mannix","Columbo",but later on for "Murder,She Wrote" wrote many of the scripts for this series along with Ivan Goff and Ben Roberts,and Harlan Ellison. The suspect mix was basically consisted of old-time movie actors(Steve Cochran, Gloria Grahame, William Demerest),and at the time newly minted people(Barbara Eden,Carolyn Jones,Paul Lynde,Anne Francis,and The Smothers Brothers),not to mention even Ronald Reagan was a suspect once. Out of the 81 episodes that were produced for ABC-TV from the premiere episode on September 20,1963 until it's demise on January 12,1966. All in classic black and white under Four Star Films.

For the first two seasons of "Burke's Law",each episode consisted of the title "Who Killed---?",and with each episode Burke provided assistance with his partner Detective Tim Tilson(Gary Conway,who would go on to become a bigger star later on in "The Land of the Giants,produced by Irwin Allen for ABC),Detective Les Hart(Regis Toomey),and Sergeant Ames(the lovely Eileen O'Neill). Only the first two seasons of the show were simply brilliant,but as the 1960's progressed,and this was during the show's third season,somebody(Was it Gene Barry? Aaron Spelling? ABC?)had the not-so-bright-idea to jettison all the guest stars and convert the show renamed "Amos Burke:Secret Agent" to compete with "The Man From UNCLE" and the like. During the 1965-1966 season the supporting cast from the first two seasons were dropped with Barry portraying a James Bond type character who worked for a secret government agency headed by someone whom they called The Man. The episodes were horrible which included "A Balance of Terror"(episode 65,airdate 9/15/65),and the series ended with a two-parter episode titled "Terror in a Tiny Town"(episodes 80 and 81,airdate: 1/5/66 and 1/12/66). The reason? During Season 3,the network put this show opposite the greatest of all spy shows, "I Spy",which was produced by Sheldon Leonard,filmed in locations all over the world and it was in color for NBC and also opposite the situation comedy series "Green Acres" which was on CBS. As a result,the show took a quick decline in the ratings thus having ABC to pull the plug after three seasons in January of 1966.

Burke's Law in the time it lasted had some great stories and well cast episodes with name guest star. The guests were usually the suspect in the murder that Captain Amos Burke caught the case for.

The gimmick for this show is that the homicide captain was wealthy. He drove to every crime scene in a Rolls-Royce with chauffeur Leon Lontoc and a roomy back seat complete with full bar.

Gene Barry was the elegant Burke and his associates were Gary Conway and Regis Toomey. Conway seemed always to be nonplussed around Barry but Toomey took it all in stride.

For reasons known only to God, the producers took the successful formula that worked, took Burke out of the LAPD and made him a secret agent. The show folded like a napkin.

30 years later Burke's Law was revived with widowed senior citizen,Barry back with the LAPD now solving cases with son Peter Barton. It only lasted a season.

But Burke's Law was memorable.

I actually laugh out loud watching this tongue-in-cheek cop show. It never took itself seriously and the guest stars loved hamming it up. A long list of Silver Age screen stars and future T.V. stars kept things moving at a brisk pace. Many you'll recognize just before they became TV', most famous stars. William Shatner, Elizabeth Montgomery, and many others. It even took pot-shots at it's own formula. For example in one episode the culprit makes a dash for the stairs to escape and is admonished by Amos Burke as 'Not that old cliché" or lines like "You've been watching too many cop shows on TV." A revival was attempted in 1984 but didn't hit all the right notes. Sexist by today's standards in the way Burke treated his lady friends, but it was a product of it's time. But of course if Burke ever became serious that would take away from his duties which Burke took very seriously. They couldn't make the show today without taking away it's dated charm. Don't forget Captain Amos Burke (Gene Barry) could SING too.