Photo Finish

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S4 (Photo Finish)

After a couple of episodes mostly going solo, the dynamic duo are back to their regular team-up, with all the banter and oneupmanship that implies, although unfortunately it's a fairly run of the mill episode which stints on the usual action, and is actually a bit messy with them shooting here and there, gatecrashing a party of high society swells because their friend, Marcie, is on official photography business - but would you want S&H around when you're trying to present a professional front? It's the old fish out of water gags that always work so well for them, though this time Hutch isn't quite as much in the role of explaining aspects of the good life to his partner as he did so memorably in 'Bust Amboy,' for example. So the humour isn't quite as free-flowing as it can be, but on the other side, it's great to see them snap into action, all social faux pas and awkwardness vanishes in the instant artist Troy Braddock is shot by an unknown assailant in the midst of the party guests. S&H immediately lock down the area and there's no more laughing at Starsky's tattered tuxedo, he has zero concern about appearance once a murder has been committed.

The real star of the episode is the mysterious hit-woman who goes by the aliases Greta Wren and Dora Pruitt, neither of which, I assume, is her real name, adding even more mystery to this mistress of disguise that gives even Hutch, after his performances under makeup in 'The Game,' a run for his money. It's a great performance, from ditzy Dora, the waitress serving at the party, to the sinister mask lady that tails Marcie on suspicion of her photograph revealing the killer, to the breezy Greta of Women's Fashion Magazine. She's a dangerous foe, and we've not seen many of the female variety on the series. She certainly fools S&H with both her personas, and the only time we see her real one is when she's on the phone to her employer, Basil Monk. She was such an intriguing character and although I thought there was something odd about the waitress at the beginning I forgot that she was the murderer. The name Pruitt rang a bell and I was wondering if she was a relation of the series' nemesis (of 'Pariah' and 'Starsky's Lady' fame), until I recalled he was Prudholm, not Pruitt. That would have been a great connection if they'd seen fit to take it up and one of her aliases had been Prudholm, or perhaps her real name, but they didn't go in for a lot of connective tissue in the Seventies.

The one thing that would have made the episode feel more complete and fulfilling is the action quotient, which is surprisingly small. When Marcie is so close to being run down by the disturbing mask lady I thought one of them, Starsky or Hutch, would jump in the Torino and speed off in pursuit, but they both stay with Marcie, whose own ambitions have caused her trauma: if she'd given up the film when Starsky asked, there would have been no negative for the killer to pursue and she wouldn't have been on the radar, but the promise of a leg up in her career, not to mention the potential wealth generated by such a shock image, is too great a temptation for her (I was wondering why she was so pleased after developing it, since it doesn't appear to show the killer, then I remembered it's about making money and a name for herself that matters to her, not finding the killer as we and S&H want). 'Greta' visits her with the intention of pulling a gun, possibly to kill, perhaps to extort, but either way her life was in danger and if friend and boss, Paula, hadn't showed up just at that moment things could have gone very badly indeed.

Marcie isn't portrayed as a 'bad guy,' just ambitious and career-conscious, making the excuse of how difficult it is for a woman to make it in her career. As you'd expect for the series, it doesn't delve into any issues like that, but S&H stand by her and don't scold or remonstrate with her for the lack of cooperation. It's nice to meet another friend of theirs, even though they seem to know half the city! It's interesting that we have a photography focused episode immediately after one where Starsky showed off his hobby - perhaps that's how he met Marcie? I'd have liked them to talk cameras and things to show he's still into it, and maybe she could show him up, more humour could have been derived from an amateur next to a professional, with the irony being that his profession saved her when her photography almost drew death towards her.

Though there isn't much action for them to get their teeth into (as soon as I saw that banister outside Marcie's I thought it would be ideal to leap over, and then they did!), and Huggy and Dobey are mostly sidelined (Hug's scene at the very end is almost like the writers were guilty they hadn't given him any business, so they bring him in just to give the double-daters a bottle of champagne), the direction was notably dramatic, whether it was the scene at Police HQ where S&H and Dobey are discussing things, Hutch and the Captain pacing back and forth behind the seated Starsky, they add… pace, by having the camera follow one, then the other, crossing over behind the seated man, then dropping to him - it's almost the modern style we often see now, except without the annoying handheld camera shake that can blight shots. There's also the creepy scene at Monk's mansion where the hit-woman has been tricked into thinking Basil has bought the negative to use as leverage against her. You see this figure dressed in black springing across the patio outside, the hideously blank mask and headscarf even more chilling with the contrast that draws the eye there. There's some real tension, like something out of a Hitchcock, when Basil stands in the hallway, gazing dumbstruck at the door as we hear the sounds of a lock being picked, a pool of light highlighting the handle, and then enters the mask, directly and purposefully towards camera, and what we assume is Basil's point of view. Except he's gone.

I also quite liked the use of his toys to startle the hit-woman into firing off all her rounds. She wasn't the coolest of her profession at that point, but then she had come in the heat of anger, thinking her employer was double-crossing her, despite the fact that she would have deserved it as she was trying to extort more money from him! She calls herself the White Witch when Basil asks who she is, though whether she's just trying to scare him with a creepy name or that's the genuine alias she goes by, we don't find out - I wonder how he first got in touch with her as she must have a contact name of some kind, and how did he find her, the telephone directory? Earlier we saw Basil sitting next to an eternally weird monkey clapping cymbals and grinning just like the mechanical toy, and here it gets its comeuppance for being so sinister, as do several other toys (I used to have a battery-powered police car like that when I was a child - it was so cool, driving around automatically, blaring sirens and flashing lights!). Though the music wasn't very noteworthy, unlike 'Blindfold' before it, I did notice they were using percussion to accentuate the horror as they've done so often before in strictly horror episodes.

I wouldn't have called this a horror, but they could have played that side of it up to strengthen the tension and give the episode an edge that, for example, 'The Avenger' would have later in the season, and that others have managed to varying degrees. But it's a pretty sunny, 'positive' episode. Sunny doesn't have to mean that, it can be oppressive and draining, but when they do horror it's usually of the dark corners variety, so successfully achieved in the door-unlocking scene here. There's also a lot of humour in the episode, with a few wacky and crazy characters: I would have put Dora in that category when she first appears as the waitress who Starsky inadvertently tips because he doesn't realise the drinks are free (they seem to have a thing about women storing things in their bras in this episode - Dora shoves the tip in there and Marcie hides her films there, as well as the precious negative, later!), just because she's got a sort of vivacity to her that is also open and simpleminded, the two in conflict, even in that brief interaction with S&H. But she doesn't qualify ultimately because her real persona is a touch world-weary and businesslike - perhaps she's reflecting on her life as she sits massaging her forehead, or maybe it's the tensions of staying in character so much, or even concern over the negative that may point the finger at her. I like the little subtle details like that - another one was at the Formal Wear clothing store when Hutch takes off his jacket to try on a tuxedo for hire when he hears Paula's going to be at the party and invites himself along. The shop assistant pointedly notices the gun, but Hutch just reassures him with a friendly shrug.

If Dora doesn't meet the requirements for wackiness inclusion, then Basil certainly does, with his high-pitched voice and large glasses, his odd views and pattern of speech, not to mention his many toys scattered around, and the eccentric behaviours (such as his butler pouring fish food into his upturned hat for him to go and cast into the pond). He also had some good lines, such as calling himself a 'devout coward,' and the assertion that he and his wife would remain married for life, to which Hutch rejoins "Yours or hers?" There's also the old landlady that takes no chances with S&H's claim to be cops ('and I'm Tatum O'Neill,' she retorts) - holding them up with the barrel of a hefty rifle when they visit the hit-woman's newly deserted apartment, before revealing that she can't get the ammo for it anyway! Plus she calls Vogue, Vog-oo. There's also the secretary at News World Magazine, who wears ear defenders because of the building works on the floor above, so she and S&H have to constantly shout at each other to be heard! Then she goes round watering the plants while they wait, one of which she says is called Boris… Basil's unfaithful wife Nicole didn't meet the criteria, she was merely slimy, and Marcie and Paula were, of course, perfectly normal. Greta would have fitted into the group if she'd been a real person instead of an act, and it was certainly impressive how different the body language and speech was from Dora. I'd have loved to have seen her pull off other disguises since the two were so effective.

If the episode failed to fall into the horror sub-genre of the series, and wasn't a comedy, it would definitely fit into the positive view of the city for all the time they spend in lavish mansions and grounds, the slick apartment of Marcie with all its strong imagery of black and white photographs dominating the walls, her personal darkroom, and the contemporary, spare, but functional aesthetics of News World's offices. The only straying from this is the hit-woman's apartment, a grimy, dismal little place (but not as bad as Ray Pardee's from 'The Game,' it does at least have all the furniture and necessaries a hit-woman could want). And also because the tone is kept fairly light most of the time, apart from Starsky's horror at seeing Marcie knocked against her car so violently (though I couldn't quite make out whether she was bumped by the hit-woman's speeding motor, or if it was a result of her own desperate leap that caused her damage). Dobey even tells S&H to tread carefully among the great and the good upper class people, those with money apparently also having influence, though again, it's not an aspect of the story that's in any way explored, S&H never coming up against haughty, entitled rich because Basil and his wife are both quite unconventional, and he probably thinks he can cover his involvement in the murder more effectively if he cooperates in his own, unique way with the police.

For once we have a genuinely running, running gag, which begins in the first scene (Formal Wear has a red carpet which is usually the shorthand for a bad guy's fancy digs, but Basil didn't have one of that colour!), with Starsky renting the tuxedo, continues to the party where he's the joke of the gathering for foolishly forgetting to take off the rental tag, dangling obviously on his back, followed by Hutch making it worse by ripping the back in half when pulling the tag away, and later, at HQ, just as he's vehemently accepting his own responsibility for it he spills his chilli dog on it. It even gets referenced further into the episode where he notes that at thirty bucks a day he's got to find some way to take it back, shortly before shutting the sleeve in the Torino's door! At least Hutch didn't try to pull it out, ripping it even more… Finally, in the end scene he mentions the tux again, saying they wouldn't take it back for money, so it had a good journey all the way through.

For references we get Marcie describing her shot of Braddock going down as the Ruby-Oswald photo of the Seventies (presumably there was a photo of Jack Ruby killing Lee Harvey Oswald); it looks like she has a large portrait of Robert Redford among the images on her wall; I didn't get who Tatum O'Neill was, but that's another name we get; and the shot in the credits of Starsky bringing the red light in which I'd assumed was from an earlier season was obviously from 'Blindfold' since you can see Hutch wearing the moustache. I liked hearing that Police HQ is in 'Precinct 9,' as Starsky tells the landlady to contact Dobey there to claim for her damaged door. I don't think the bamboo chair at Marcie's was the same as Starsky's, it just shows these things were popular then. Burke, the cop who guards Marcie's door, and is called by that name, was actually the name of the actor (he's credited as 'Patrolman'), and had been credited before (Season 3's 'The Action'), and I'm pretty sure is the goldfish-eyed background extra in a few episodes.

They misspelt News World Managing Editor's John Reinhardt as Reinhart in the credits (you can see the correct spelling prominently on his door, or alternatively, they misspelt it on the door and the correct spelling is in the credits, but either way they didn't catch the mistake), and the husband and wife duo of Basil (Graham Jarvis), and Nicole (Shera Danese), had both played roles previously: the former, back in Season 1's 'Pariah,' and the latter in Season 2's 'Starsky And Hutch Are Guilty.' While Fran Ryan who played the landlady was back for a third stint, having been in Season 1's 'Jo-Jo' and 3's 'Murder Ward,' and a fun character she was. Sally Kirkland as the hit-woman gets the honour of being the only actor to be credited with two roles in the same episode, as Greta Wren/Dora Pruitt. There appeared to be a slight visual error when Greta first visits Marcie and is pulling a gun out of her waistband - she shoves it back in and as she leaves you can't see any sign of it when in the closeup it was quite obvious. There's also the usual TV magic when it comes to blowing up a photo: it's in perfect detail, so good that they can spot the gleam of a silencer barrel on the waitress' tray!

I quite liked the nice little social scene at the end with S&H, Marcie and Paula out at The Pits for a little celebration as it was a nice way for the episode to bow out. It would have been a much better episode if Huggy had been worked in (difficult when it was mostly dealing with the ivory towers of rich people and newspapers rather than the streets), Dobey had put more pressure on through not wanting to upset the posh folk, and a greater use of the hit-woman in a sinister and malevolent way, not to mention the necessary increase in action, but it remains a fun time to spend with the lads, quirky villains and a Director that tried a few ideas, it's just a shame that it didn't quite get to the level it had the potential for, and that we never saw the hit-woman again, as she might have made an interesting recurring foil - I can imagine both S&H stating with absolute confidence they'd never fall for her disguises again, then, predictably, being conned.

**