dubchi

The basic concept of Route 66 was to be the adventures of two young,totally unattached young men.They were both without parents,siblings,wives,girlfriends,children,property,business careers or any other ties.They were "chasing a star".Searching for the right place to build a life and/or girl to marry.The early episodes were faithful to the series' concept.Tod and Buz and what happened to THEM were the story.As the series went on many of the episodes had Tod and Buz as mere peripheral players to the stories (see "A Bunch of Lonely Pagliacci's" as an example).The illness of George Maharis which caused him to be unable to work (he missed 8 of the first 79 episodes and quit after episode #79) and the generally mundane acting ability of Martin Milner led the producers to focus less on the adventures of the principals and more on "message" stories.As the series continued,many of the "message" stories became darker and less optimistic dealing more and more with death and the future being grim for the characters Tod,Buz and Linc encounter. Maharis as "Buz Murdoch" gave a John Garfield-ish dramatic quality to the stories which balanced the lukewarm Milner's "Tod Stiles". Late in the series,the replacement for "Buz Murdoch","Lincoln Case",was even less true to the series concept."Linc" was far from unattached (both of his parents were still living,married and residing in the family home) and despite having the background of being a Vietnam combat veteran his character was usually even more sedate than Milner's "Tod".Glenn Corbett played the part woodenly and showed very little acting ability. All in all,the initial concept of the series was brilliant and while many of the "message" episodes were quite good,the series became overly talky and less about the experiences of "Tod","Buz" and "Linc"."Message" became more important to the producers of the series than the "search for a place in this world".

COMMENT,NOT A REVIEW-The fourth and last (they also appeared in three previous "M Squad" episodes) Whitney Blake/Lee Marvin collaboration is the best. Blake,a pretty woman who rarely had any real chance to show her dramatic acting ability,was given sufficient screen time in this episode to convincingly show her "Laura" (or "Sheba") both loathed and was dangerously attracted to Marvin's "Woody",a slick and deadly admirer. Blake showed she was quite talented and underutilized by Hollywood. Marvin here was an interesting,quirky "bad guy" ala his "Violent Saturday"/"Bad Day at Black Rock" past. It is a shame the two never worked together in a full length "noir" film.