Silence

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S1 (Silence)

Once in a while it's nice to be pleasantly surprised by an episode previously thought of as weak, and that happened for me with this one - there's enough in it that I considered I'd judged it too harshly, and it's actually one of the better productions of the season. It has the usual S&H buddy banter, it has a good running joke that is actually funny, it even has a villain with charisma and presence for a change, but plenty of episodes have these ingredients. What makes this better than an average story is that it begins well, with big guy Larry, crying, much to Hutch's embarrassment; it has a good shootout in a vacated cinema at the end; and there's also a funny tag scene, which is actually amusing instead of being silly or groan-worthy. It's not brilliant or incisive storytelling, it gets a little boring in the middle when they're looking for Larry, but on the whole it's not a bad instalment of the first season.

I wondered if it was going to court controversy by having a real priest as a crook, but it avoids that when we realise he's an imposter who's done away with the real Father Jonathan Ignatius, and poses as him in order to perform his robberies. There must have been an easier cover to develop, and it was a long game Marty was playing, since to develop trust between the regulars of the Dismas halfway house must have taken time. So how long had he been posing as the benevolent priest? We know his plans are coming to an end because more priests of his order are being sent and will recognise him, but if it was any length of time why did they not notice the Father had changed his habits? His craggy face, lined with deceit as it turns out, had a lot of character to it, and the way he's introduced, storming into the police station to claim his associate back gave him immediate personality, something that a lot of villains this season haven't achieved, and though he was no match for S&H in the end, he gave them a fight.

The shootout in the cinema worked well, creating both a mood of fun (S&H draw his fire by leaping up from behind the rows of seats and shouting at him before ducking back again), and danger, as they each divert him from the other, rolling over the seats. I will say that the cinema looked suspiciously clean and bright with the lights on, and it's probably nitpicking, but after the audience had fled I felt it should look in some state of disarray, which pointed to the scenes in the dark, patronised cinema, and the empty scene, being shot well apart from each other. But their acrobatics looked good, and this was something else the episode had going for it: S&H shown in a good light. It was well shot, and it isn't always - we even get a rare in-car view as they chase the thief's vehicle, and when they leap out of the Torino and dash past the camera it's a moment full of energy and excitement. It's let down a little by the subsequent shot of the enemy car careering round the corner to try and mow them down, as the stunt doubles are clearly visible, even Hutch's, who as I've mentioned before, usually blended in well.

The best shot was one later picked up and used in the credits of subsequent seasons, and which makes S&H look totally cool, summing up the partnership with no words: Hutch, gun drawn, walks alongside Starsky driving the Torino with the door open down a dark street like something out of a cowboy film. I could never remember which episode it came from so I was pleased to see it here. I like the rest of the scene, too, where Hutch splits off down an alley and finds the abandoned car they'd been chasing and signals to Starsky who then speeds the Torino round the bend and screeches to a halt, kicking up a cloud of dust! They are at their best as funny, endearing, tough cops out to do what's right, yet finding time to admit to hunger pangs, and it's one of the better uses of the two characters this season.

The running joke of the week is centred on food, and more precisely Starsky's lack of it. While Hutch is on a forty hour fast, taking only water, his partner in stopping crime keeps settling down to a super-fat meal that he's continually called away from. What's worse, most of the time it's food he's paid for! Dobey's issue with food comes up again, as it should with that subject matter, and the funniest moment is when Starsky's shooed away to get on with his investigation while a dinner so good he could marry it sits uneaten… until the Captain settles down to stuff his face, Starsky walks back in and Dobey tells him to get lost, shouting with mouth full of Starsky's food. The look of hurt on his face is priceless! It doesn't end there, because he also has to pass up a fast food frenzy at a drive-in diner, and gets Chinese all over his face when the fellow they're supposed to be watching bumps into him as he carries a good meal. The only surprise is that the episode eschews the easy one-last-time expectation of Starsky's food being whipped away, for a just as amusing scene where Larry shows the cops his kittens that have been named after them, leading to arguing over who's who until Hutch names the one who widdles or poops on him, Starsky. It is actually funny!

The reason they went for that is because it tied up the story better rather than being completely unrelated as some have been. The episode starts with Larry Horvath, a deaf-mute, being arrested for petty shoplifting. Seeing the big guy snivelling is both funny and a sympathetic moment, but even though he was child-like, I didn't get S&H's guilt at taking him to task, magnified when Evil Fake Father Ignatius comes a-calling, because he knew it was wrong and should have been punished, regardless of his situation. But it shows once again that S&H are very tender-hearted and see things in perspective. Not for them the by-the-book approach, machine-like and strict. They can be moved, and affected, which is how they can survive with all the bad stuff they have to see in their line of work.

Larry was a really well written character, all coming from the performance of the actor, who exudes playful, loveable naughtiness and generosity like some over-sized child. I wonder if the actor was actually deaf, because he did such a good job in the role. R.C. Turner, his best friend, wasn't bad, but I felt they missed a good dramatic opportunity by having him get over his distrust of cops and officials so easily. The way he's acting when he comes in with Ignatius, he looks like he'd as soon hit S&H than help them, so when I heard they were going to his print shop, I thought there was going to be trouble. If they'd made it so that he comes round to the idea of trusting them through necessity and then finds them honourable men it would have been stronger drama, but it may be expecting too much of the series.

It fell into the positive category through S&H helping Larry and R.C., and the kind of locations seen - jewellery offices and business premises, a normal cinema showing a Western (they still had ushers then! But what was the film called, it wasn't named in the end credits?), wide city streets and church property and the mood is upbeat. Marty's righthand man wasn't much of a character, not really having any purpose other than to be there so he'd tell him his plans and we'd know he was a rotten apple, but I felt like he was another of those actors that may have been in it before, or after. There are actually few characters in the story, the eccentric ones being narrowed down to Larry (but in a good way), Jessie, the tea lady at the halfway house (who responds to Starsky's polite flirting, much to his dismay), and an unnamed, unknown guy they find polishing Starsky's car bonnet at one point! It probably needed the polish after Hutch climbed over it during the episode - Starsky complains about it, but then he does the same thing later!

There are plenty of pop references to spot this time: a Humphrey Bogart impression from Starsky ('Bogey'), S&H called Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, a mention of Pat O'Brien, which from the context I imagine was a cowboy film actor, and the return of Starsky being compared to Paul Muni (as in 'Lady Blue'). An unintentional link to another episode was the red-rimmed balaclava Marty (I think it was Marty), used in the break-in, which was also seen in 'Terror On The Docks.' The old cop guarding that place really didn't seem to have survived to be so old by experience - he has the wit to call for backup, but then goes in alone and gets blown away! Did he have a death wish? You can't always believe what people say: Starsky claims to have torn his jeans when he 'went down' after narrowly avoiding the oncoming car, but if you watch carefully he never actually falls over! I also noticed that parts of the episode were in need of minor restoration: from the scene in Dobey's office in the middle of the episode, some scenes look a bit washed out as if they had suffered some fading.

I can't fault the episode, and it has a rare use of a minority at its heart, good opposition, some well written moments (Larry stumbling through the people on the pavement as he hurries along, tears in his eyes is one that comes to mind), and played S&H up to their full potential. It doesn't work on every level, for instance it doesn't have much in the way of dramatic tension, except perhaps when you know Marty's going off to kill Larry, and there's no Huggy, but it's a better episode than I previously gave it credit for, even squeezing in some 'aaah' moments with little kittens. Good.

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