Tales from the Hollywood Hills: A Table at Ciro's

"A Table at Ciro's" is one of the most fun episodes in the periodic prestige series, Tales from the Hollywood Hills, presented on PBS. Scene 1, Take 1 begins inside Ciro's as employees ready the club before opening for the evening. Rehearsing on stage is one of my favorite vocalists, Donna Murphy, who later, in 1996, delightfully played Ruth Geddy in an episode of Rupert Holmes' great old-time radio series "Remember WENN."

Darren McGavin is A.D. Nathan, a studio head on rocky ground and, unsure of his own future, keeps his suspicions to himself. Meanwhile, he arranges for dinner at Ciro's inviting a couple from the past (Stella Stevens and Kenneth McMillan) who are hoping to make a comeback. Also in attendance is an up and coming young Latin actor (Steven Bauer), a very new starlet hopeful (Kim Myers) and, of course, his wife Lita Nathan (Lois Chiles). What happens next is.......

I can't describe much more without giving away some important parts of the plot, so I won't. But don't miss this TV movie should it come your way, it's totally enjoyable. The final scene contains one of the best renditions of Richard Rodgers' immortal old standard "Where or When" and, of course, it's sung by Donna Murphy.

Please note all cast screen credits are in order of appearance.

"A Table at Ciro's" is a TV movie that was made for a series called "Tales from the Hollywood Hills" that aired on public television in 1987 and 1988. There were only about half a dozen of these made, all under one hour. I don't ever recall having seen this or any of the others on TV, and I can't imagine that many people did, or that anyone at all would recall them. This movie and another one were included as bonus items on a DVD of a feature film I watched recently.

In this film, Darren McGavin plays A. D. Nathan, the head of a fictional Hollywood studio called Paradigm Pictures. He and his wife, Lita (played by Lois Chiles), are hosting a small dinner party at Ciro's, a West Hollywood nightclub in business from 1940 to 1957. They both have affairs on the side, and have invited certain people to this dinner for specific purposes. The dinner, with some speculators looking on, is all about the business, coercion, exploitation, grooming, seduction and skullduggery in Hollywood and the film industry.

There's nothing revealing or enlightening in this TV movie. It looks just like a daytime soap opera, but with a plot and screenplay not even as good as most of those. It's equally boring and distasteful, and it borders on depressing. As for entertaining, this film is little more than claptrap. It's not hard to see why so few films were made in this short-lived series.

The only line of any substance is a ho-hummer, so what's new? McGavin's Nathan says, "When you fall off the ladder in this town, it takes a miracle to climb back on."

The writing is good and the cast impeccable. Overall a very entertaining little miniseries.

This turns up, probably not complete (the scene setting at Ciro's mentioned in the first comment seems to be omitted) on the "Treasure Box Collection" title "Power Passion and Murder".

No info other than Michelle Pfeiffer's presence in what I presume is the eponymous and other "Tales..." episode included, and the runtime (83 minutes), appears anywhere on the packaging, which was part up a 2/$3 batch of DVDs newly at Walgreens.

The form is vignette, with many questions unresolved, and if that's OK then this is too.

I said what I had to say in three lines but the machine demands ten. Up with this I will not put.