Steven Strauss

It's not that the ideas in this movie are so dumb, it's just that they are so unambiguously presented. You actually notice the drama getting more subtle and complex when the brothel madam starts talking through a doll. It's too bad, because Roy Scheider really tries to make something of his part. He must have been holding his breath between takes because he has the expression of a man performing a field autopsy. Paul Schrader should re-write this lurid chewathon for Jimmy Smits. There's an actor who can spin gold out of lint.

Whatever else might be said about the overall entertainment value of this production, Rex Stout would not be disappointed by the production decisions or the casting of this nicely drawn adaptation.

The movie is brimming with gorgeous period details, handsome Studebakers and drab office waiting rooms. The physical characteristics of Wolfe's entire world in a brownstone appear here to be spot on, as though the producers were preparing it for the famously particular sleuth himself. Maury Chaykin brings to his character the thought, care, and gravitas worthy of a King Lear, and manages to present a Nero Wolfe at once psychically wounded, showcat-finicky, masculine, compulsive about his orderly routine, insightful in the workings of others, and a little bit clueless about himself. Although the violence of his angry outbursts seems a little overmodulated, a better choice for the role is hard to imagine.

Archie Goodwin is a less boldly written role, but in this production he seems fully realized and very natural. Timothy Hutton gets the right tone when Archie is dealing with his exacting boss, and it doesn't seem at all odd that this smart aleck would be loyal to a man who routinely tells him where to sit. (The entire snoop team's devotion to Wolfe is palpable, felt not so much in what's said as in what need not be said. All this seems like a minor miracle in a TV movie.) Archie seems very much to enjoy manipulating the hapless participants in the mystery, as though escorting guests out the door before they are ready is wicked fun. (Only Bruce Willis -circa 1988- comes to mind as closer to the ideal Archie - you really don't want to see Tim Hutton's Archie take a punch.)

The plot's something of a tangle, and women characters don't get a chance to shine, but these shortcomings go straight back to Rex Stout. The joys of this story are in the unique and symbiotic relationship of Nero Wolfe and Archie, and in the mystery of a detective whose gifts of insight stop just short of the bathroom mirror.

Did nobody notice (not even IMDb) that the show is created by Linwood Boomer, the guy who played Adam, the blind teacher in "Little House On The Prairie?"

I do hope the show explores the unique reasons a gifted kid has for going astray. Malcolm is definitely NOT Bart Simpson, and he deserves a unique story.