La course à la vérité

I loved the opening shots: his phone in the refrigerator, old pizza, that gulp of sour milk . . . and the teaser (paraphrased) : "My name is David Ross and you're probably wondering how I got into this mess."

One episode ended with an aerial view of him looking a broken rear-view mirror on his car. There was a note on his windshield. As his voice-over read the letter, the camera panned higher and higher. The note said something like: "Sorry, I broke your mirror. There were several witnesses. They think I'm writing down my name and address. I'm not."

His ups and downs remind me of one of my favorite fictional detectives, Shel Scott, who was always getting in and our of jams.

The legendary Roy Huggins created "Cheyenne", "Maverick", "Colt 45", "77 Sunset Strip", "The Fugitive", "Run For Your Life", and "The Rockford Files". This pilot movie was Roy Huggins' attempt to reinvent the private eye show (with a hint of "The Fugitive").

Los Angeles private detective David Ross was a man on the edge. He was an ex-con who had been unjustly convicted of a crime. Ross wasn't a high school graduate. He drove a beat up old car. He had no partners or secretary. His office was the opposite of plush. He handled divorce cases. He could barely make a living. His "friend on the force" treated him like scum. David Ross wasn't even his real name. At the end of this terrific pilot movie, the police solve the case rather than Ross.

This was a brilliant conception for a private eye show. Huggins might have tried reversing still more traditional attributes of the private eye. Maybe David Ross wasn't attractive to women and could never get a date. Maybe he didn't drink. And maybe he was unfailingly polite and somewhat timid-a soft-boiled detective.

But "The Outsider" had a real shot at greatness just the way it was. Roy Huggins offered the role of David Ross to Jack Lord, who would have been superb, but Lord chose "Hawaii 5-0" instead.

Other actors who might have been interesting as David Ross are Jack Palance, Charles Aidman, Hershel Bernardi, Herb Edelman, Bruce Dern, Clint Walker, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Peter Falk, Telly Savalas, Stuart Whitman, Roy Thinnes, George Maharis, Vince Edwards or Bradford Dillman.

Darren McGavin had already brilliantly played private eye Mike Hammer, so he wasn't the freshest casting. But McGavin was one of the great TV actors, and he made a good David Ross. Director Michael Ritchie ("The Candidate", "Downhill Racer") did a stylish job with the pilot. The supporting cast was also first rate and included Edmond O'Brien, Shirley Knight, Ann Southern, and Ossie Davis.

This fine pilot movie lead to a very good series, but "Hawaii 5-0" killed "The Outsider" in the ratings.

David Ross (Darren McGavin) is a private detective who has a most unusual case. A man wants his secretary to be followed and he comes up with some pretext for Ross to do this. However, this man is lying....and there's far more about the secretary he hasn't told Ross. Additionally, there are other folks involved in the case that Ross knows nothing about nor their intentions. During the investigation, which seems pretty routine, things get crazy and the secretary is found murdered. Later, the man who hired Ross is shot...and several attempts are made on Ross' life. What is really going on here?!

This is a pilot for a short-lived TV series--many episodes as well as this pilot are on YouTube. I decided to watch it, as I like detective shows and McGavin. It was pretty good. While the end was a tad talky and disappointing in some ways, there was lots of action, some excellent acting as well as the most unusual and artsy camerawork I've ever seen for a TV detective show. Well worth seeing, though I have no idea is the episodes of the series are worth your time.

This hard core noir thriller recalls the best days of Humphrey Bogart, Raymond Chandler and Alan Ladd, with even a beautiful false lady to compete with Lauren Bacall. The tempo is swift, it's hard action all the way with constant surprising turnings, and Darren McGavin has to go through quite some hard blows and ordeals, even becoming involuntarily drugged and subject to a number of assassination attempts, but don't worry - detectives like this always survive and return. You will recognise Joseph Wiseman in an interesting supporting role, there is always something eerie about him, like he was in "Doctor No" in the title role. He has only one scene here, but it is enough to make an unforgettable impression. The real part here is Edmond O'Brien as Mr Bishop, who hires McGavin to spy on his secretary on suspicion of embezzlement, but what O'Brien really wants to know is if she, his mistress, is deceiving him with a younger fellow, which she is. That's how McGavin gets mixed up in a nightmare of a mess in which he almost ends up dead. That's how the film starts. Enjoy!

Living in a rattling house beside the Hollywood Freeway, McGavin plays a hard-luck detective, who resembles the character he played later in the "Night Stalker". He pursues a missing girl through the underbelly of 1967 Los Angeles, going from some Hollywood Hills decadence with a wild gay couple (think "Vanishing Point"), down to a go-go on the Sunset Strip, and eventually find her tripping on LSD in the Malibu shack of a part-time "guru", while the man's mother watches a game show in the other room with headphones. This scene, with McGavin waiting on the couch, both the mother and the girl on LSD laughing hysterically, is one of the weirdest. I hope this one gets released someday--it definitely stands on its own and is a a fun vehicle for McGavin, although the later show apparently failed miserably. As a noirish late 1960s portrayal of Los Angeles, this one is right up there with "The Long Goodbye" and "Marlowe". Indeed, as the writer moved on to "The Rockford Files", this is very closely linked to the stylish "Marlowe".