The Trials of O'Brien

Although I remember thoroughly enjoying the show at age 15-16, I was aware that it was more adult than most TV fare. I seem to remember only individual incidents rather than plot lines. For example, O'Brien seemed to be having an affair with his ex-wife and them being in a panic when he has lost the key to his apartment and she picks the lock with a hairpin. Always having been a Peter Falk fan I would watch anything he was in, and realized early in life that he was somewhat unconventional. Another memory of the show is of O'Brien driving around in his old convertible with a briefcase of important papers that he has just thrown on the back seat. Would love to see some of the episodes as an adult.

This series was way ahead of its time, with a main character who was a divorced, cynical, slightly seedy lawyer, and was very rumpled -- a Columbo prototype. Peter Falk's charm was evident, and David Burns added a vaudeville touch. The plots were clever, although not memorable after forty years. But I thought it was terribly sophisticated at the time, and, yes, I can still hum the theme music. Even the cast was ahead of its time. In its one year, the guest cast featured the up-and-coming Frank Langella, Cloris Leachman, Faye Dunaway, Estelle Parsons, Britt Ekland, David Carradine, Gene Hackman, Martin Sheen, Alan Alda, Charles Grodin, Tony Roberts, and Brock Peters; and it was a veritable who's who of familiar faces like Vincent Gardenia, Murray Hamilton, Will Geer, Tammy Grimes, Norman Fell, Jack Albertson, Philip Bosco, Barnard Hughes, Angela Lansbury, Tony Musante, and Al Freeman Jr., among many others. Even the playwright Marc Connelly! I've never caught any reruns, but I would love to see some episodes again to see if it was as good as I thought it was. Doesn't anyone else remember The Trials of O'Brien?

This was one of my "must-watch" TV shows in the early 60s, along with The Defenders, Route 66, and the vanished summer replacement Diagnosis: Unknown. I'm going to pretty much echo everything said here already; I have a couple of prized DVDs of several TOOB episodes I got from an outfit called Robert's Hard to Find Videos, and the shows pretty much hold up all these years later. (Of course I'm easy to please, what with Falk's charismatic performances plus the fun of seeing regular working New York actors who later became screen icons or quasi-icons, like Martin Sheen, Herschel Bernardi, Alan Alda, Philip Bosco and Elaine Stritch.)

Some of the plot contrivances absolutely strain credulity, possibly due to the pace of production and turnaround; an hour is a lot of time for a writer to fill, and sometimes it shows. But the acting is uniformly superb, the NY locations are memorable, Falk is a pleasure, Joanna Barnes is a dream, Ms. Stritch is a hoot, and it's all just great fun. (A word on the DVDs: most of the episodes seem to have been shot directly off a TV screen by a 16mm camera, and copied many times since, and the quality isn't exactly archival--glarey video and occasionally "underwater"-sounding audio. But everything's there, and the quality's perfectly acceptable for us TOOB diehards, and really--where else ya gonna go to find these episodes?) The overall experience is still, as O'Brien says, "Terrific…jus' terrific."

Peter Falk won an Emmy for "The Price of Tomatoes", an episode of "The Dick Powell Show" written by Richard Alan Simmons. Inger Stevens, Falk's co-star, was also nominated for an Emmy. In reference to Simmons, Falk said "the man is a mountain." Falk and Simmons continued their partnership with "Trials of O'Brien", and Simmons proved Falk was right.

Falk was superb in the role of Daniel J. O'Brien, a disheveled, odd-ball, humorous attorney, who happened to be very effective. The hour-long series was a comedy/drama/murder mystery. There was no trenchant analysis of social issues as in "The Defenders". Indeed, minimal time was spent in court. The series attempted to capture the sparkle of old movies like "The Thin Man". At the end of most episodes, Falk would gather all the suspects and determine the killer. The consistently high quality of the writing was amazing.

This show was all Falk, but the supporting regulars were also extraordinary. Joanna Barnes was his ex-wife, Ilka Chase was his ex-mother-in-law, David Burns was his investigator, and Elaine Stritch was his secretary. Sexy, sophisticated, smart Joanna Barnes was at her very best here, but she wasn't used anywhere near enough. She could have been a break-out star if she had been given more screen time.

The show was set in and filmed in New York, which almost seemed to be a requirement for quality drama series in the 60's. Many of the guest stars had stunning work ahead of them: Alan Alda, Faye Dunaway, Gene Hackman, Roger Moore, Robert Blake, Angela Lansbury, David Carradine, Martin Sheen, Frank Langella and Jessica Walter, to name a few.

"O'Brien" was on Saturday nights after Perry Mason, another detective-lawyer. The line producer was Jon Epstein ("Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law", "Rich Man, Poor Man").

Richard Alan Simmons later produced a season of the 1970's Columbo, and Jon Epstein produced some Columbo episodes in the early 1990's shortly before his death. A Columbo episode is dedicated to Epstein's memory.

TV Guide critic Cleveland Amory said the best series performance of 1965-66 was given by Patrick McGoohan ("Secret Agent"), but Amory gave honorable mention to Ben Gazzara ("Run For Your Life") and Peter Falk ("Trials of O'Brien"). None of those three actors was nominated for an Emmy that season. Amory said some of the later episodes of "O'Brien" were truly magnificent.

"Trials of O'Brien" may have been a business failure, but Peter Falk and executive producer Richard Alan Simmons achieved greatness with this show.

I remember liking "The Trials of O'Brien" a lot. It wasn't like any other cop show or lawyer show of that time... an unusual mix of the comically absurd and serious drama. Unlike Perry Mason who always stayed within the law (even when it appeared that he hadn't for most of the episode), O'Brien was known to have "bent the truth a little" to make sure his client got a "fair go".

The 90 min (?) O'Brien TV movie, "Too Many Thieves", sometimes appears on the Showtime channel (in America). This movie is an edited version of the two part story "the Greatest Game"...but it really isn't typical of the rest of the series...eg. the Ex-Mrs O'Brien makes only a very brief appearance in it and I can't remember seeing "the Great MacGonigal" at all. Instead the movie is about a jewel heist and O'Brien trying to stop the baddies killing the heroine (Britt Eklund).

Like other fans, I hope the other episodes in this short-lived series will some day be shown again on TV.