McMillan & Wife

The NBC Mystery Movie was a perfect fit for a film star like Rock Hudson who wanted to get into the grind of a regular television series and its 30 or so episodes that were expected back in 1971. Alternating with McCloud, Columbo, and others Hudson did about 8 McMillan&Wife shows a year and still did a film or two.

Reportedly the co-stars Rock Hudson and Susan Saint James did not get along all that well, but you'd never know it from this 70s version of Nick and Nora Charles. In real life even in San Francisco the police commissioner is an administrator of a large agency. But in San Francisco Stuart McMillan took a hand in an occasional murder that came in some roundabout way to his attention.

Like Myrna Loy, Sally McMillan tried to help as did their maid Mildred played by Nancy Walker. Many times they helped the way Lucy and Ethel helped Ricky. But Mac was always around to save Sally from whatever harm she got in the way of.

The stories were always witty and literate. The one weakness of the show was that whoever the big name guest star was you could pretty much guess that that individual would be the murderer. Maybe one or two times it didn't work out that way, but that was a tease.

It was an enjoyable show and Sundays were always something to look forward to on NBC with McMillan&Wife, McCloud, and Columbo. You could never go wrong.

This show definitely was inspired by the Thin Man. This was a very light hearted detective show and Rock Hudson and Susan St. James were a perfect match. Forget about all the revelations that came up after Hudson's death. Just look at the show for how well it was written. Also, Nancy Walker and John Schuck gave the show its perfect comic relief as Mildred and Enright respectively.

The plots are a little slow, but they are funny in about five different ways and so cleverly written that it really is a shocker what happened. I like that sally wears a football jersey to bed. Everybody in the show plays off each other really well and adds their best to make you not want to change the channel even though it is on really late at night.It's at it's best when Mildred dances the tango or mac and sally have double entendre' conversations while laying in bed. But don't watch the last season,everyone pretty much left and it's just a run down looking Rock Hudson and Mildred's VERY ANNOYING sister solving mysteries together.

As other reviews note, logic isn't a major part of many of this series' scripts, and some of them didn't age well. But keep in mind this was close to a half-century ago, and TV audiences were used to these kinds of plots and writing. (Some of the cars are very cool to see, but the clothing styles are straight out of Barnum and Bailey-guys in every pastel color under the sun, and women wearing huge stiff wigs and dressed in what looked to be upholstery.) St. James went on to a solid tv career, and Hudson was a better actor than some may remember. Despite the plot and dialogue implausibility they sometimes had to deal with, their characters played well off each other, and that's largely what kept us coming back for several seasons. For many of us teen guys, Susan had enough drawing power to do that by herself--cute, spunky, funny, and just the right amount of kooky. However, I could never figure out why the city brass didn't make Mac--who, after all, was the Police Commissioner--work out of his office instead of running around getting into gunfights. The series isn't the top of the TV-detective heap, but it represents the era....a comfortable and friendly revisit to a more innocent time.

Though its co-rotators, Columbo and McCloud (while others came and went), seem like better shows, I have a soft spot in my heart for McMillan and Wife. Susan St. James and Rock Hudson made a wonderful couple, and the show did sport one of my all-time favorite episodes, "The Easy Sunday Murder Case," in which June Havoc's dog is kidnapped. Havoc describes her precious purebred Pekinese - Mac doesn't think there's anything distinguishing about the dog, so Havoc offers a photo of her husband. "Why would I want that?" he asks her. "Oh," Havoc says, "they took him too." A great episode with a stellar cameo by Wally Cox.

Hudson himself was surprised when the show was expanded to two hours, commenting at the time, "It doesn't hold up for 90 minutes." But for its many fans, it really did, in part because of the great cast. Nancy Walker as Mildred nearly stole the show every time she was on, and John Shuck was the lovable Charlie. Mildred Natwick made several appearances as Mac's mother, and Martha Scott played Susan St. James' mom.

I agree that the disappearing baby was very confusing - Mac and Sally were very involved with one another and the producers didn't want to spoil that, but on the other hand, when were they going to have kids, and if not, why not? They should have been left childless, since the baby was only mentioned in passing.

When Susan St. James and Nancy Walker left, the show was never the same and it was a downer to have Sally and that mysterious baby killed in a plane crash.

I was surprised that posters mentioned Hudson's homosexuality as somehow influencing perception of this show in hindsight. Hudson was gay; Mac wasn't. If straight men can play gay characters, why can't the reverse be true? Why must someone's private life interfere with a role?