La côte sauvage

"Barbary Coast" is a lot of fun for fans of "Mission: Impossible"-style hijinks, period adventure and William Shatner.

Too many compare this series to "The Wild Wild West," but this series is far more grounded. There are no outlandish gadgets or supervillains, but rather 19th century lawbreakers and scoundrels in San Francisco.

Shatner is having the time of his life as the master-of-disguise, and he's quite good. His disguises are of the Ross Martin/Artemus Gordon variety, not the face-peeling of M:I.

Unfortunately, Doug McClure is his co-star. McClure, while fine in The Virginian and Checkmate, here appears to be co-starring because he lost a bet. Unlike the dashing Dennis Cole of the Made-for-TV pilot, Doug has one expression. Dour. The chemistry between him and Shatner is sadly lacking.

The series was never really given a chance to find its footing, fighting M*A*S*H and Rhoda one night, then Sanford & Son and Chico and the Man the next. But saddled (pun intended) with a bored McClure, it's doubtful that a different slot would have made a bit of difference.

I saw the film only once. I missed the first part of it. I remember seeing this burly, scruffy, rough looking guy come into a pub and walk into a back room. As the man started to peal off various items, I noticed his eyes. After a few moments, I realized that it was, William Shatner. WOW! I loved it. For the rest of the movie, I couldn't wait to see what sort of disguise he would appear as. The China man in the end was choice.

I have always thought that it must be an actors dream-come-true to be able to play all of those wild and fascinating characters all in one movie.

I only wish that I could see it again, however, if I understood Mr. Shatner during an interview on Regis, there were no video version made for distribution. I respect that, but will never forget that movie.

The plots had a similar complexity to the wonderful Robert Conrad/Ross Martin series Wild Wild West, and the characters are rather similar, though their attributes were combined and scrambled into the two new characters. Here Shatner is the disguise master, but is also the nominal lead, while disguse-master Martin played second fiddle to Conrad 10 years earlier.

Unfortunately, the intelligence (or rather, attention) of the audience had so deteriorated over the previous decade that this show was promptly canceled because the plots were deemed too complex.

If you've never seen Wild Wild West, see that instead. If you've seen that already and you're willing to put up with Shatner, then this can scratch your itch.