Birds of A Feather

DVD, Starsky & Hutch S4 (Birds of A Feather) (2)

Same old story: an old friend of Starsky/Hutch/Dobey/the department is called in for/has/wants an operation to take down some criminal, but it turns out it's more personal than professional and he becomes as much a thorn in the side of our characters as the criminal, but S&H have to decide how best to deal with the situation. I mean, we'd even seen it before this season with 'Strange Justice,' so it is worrying that they're not thinking of new stories, but pounding out the old ones. That's not entirely fair as we'd just had a couple of good, different stories in 'Starsky's Brother' and 'The Golden Angel,' but when you see the quality of those you can't help but wonder why they weren't coming up with such radically different stories every week, and yet, at the same time they were banging out a production line of twenty-odd episodes a year with the strict mode of storytelling of the time that you didn't have ongoing story arcs or recurring characters to break up the main familiar elements of the series. I wouldn't even say this was a bad episode, it's just another average one that spends far too much time emphasising the guest characters of Luke and Doris Huntley, and their nemesis, Anthony Reuban, instead of keeping the focus on S&H as they should.

It's not even that Luke is a bad character, he has the rapport with S&H and seems like a mostly decent sort, though in the tradition of this friend of the week sub-genre of the series, he's just crooked enough to pose issues for S&H, which aren't exactly straight arrows one hundred percent of the time if they have reason to bend the rules. Indeed, towards the end (about the only time they really have anything of importance to do), it's unclear what Hutch was planning to do for Luke, who has killed Reuban's heavy, Jimmy Lucas, after he was planning on offing the guy on his boss' orders, and arranges a meet with Reuban to get the rest of the money he was shortchanged on. It sounds like he sees no way out except to force a shootout where Hutch can come in and 'pick up the pieces,' or grab the money so Luke can die in a blaze of glory, and his wife will have something to live on in her old age. Instead, Hutch turns up early with Starsky in tow to give him another alternative - they help in the fight against Reuban's 'protection' muscle, and it sounds like they weren't going to turn over the money to the police, but make sure it got to Doris. I'm not sure what happened about the money because nothing's said about it, we only know that Dobey was doing everything he could for Luke, but he'd still have to do gaol time.

A dilemma for Hutch should have been what the whole episode was about, because he's the one that matters, being the old family friend of the Huntley's, and although Starsky would have backed him to the hilt, he could have been the one to suggest the irregularities in Luke's behaviour, and that of Doris. There would have been a bit of anger between them, but Hutch would have come around to the possibility of Starsky being right. Again, it's something we'd seen this season, with Starsky finding it difficult to come to terms with an 'old friend' (his own brother), having links to criminality, and it created great drama, but none of that plays out in this episode. It's discussed with Dobey in a mild way, where usually they'd have some other authority come in and order them to trail Luke, or tell them where he is - the closest we get to that is at the scene of Palmer's death, when Detective Webster flares up at Hutch over the fishiness of it all. Palmer's a witness that was going to testify against Reuban, whom Luke had been called in to protect, but instead uses his life as a bargaining chip to get back the 50K life savings Doris squandered at Reuban's poker table. It's a shocking display of unprofessionalism in the extreme, even conspiracy to murder: he calmly leaves the witness so Jimmy can come in and blow him away. Palmer wasn't very likeable, and Luke has clear disdain for him, but it's hard to come back from something so callous and treacherous when he coolly scuppers the job he was called in to do, the trust Dobey and the department put in him, destroyed.

If it had been his wife's life in danger from Reuban's goons then we might have had some sympathy, but because it's over money, no matter that it's his savings from twenty-five years on the force, his sabotage of the police's efforts and collusion with the enemy is hard to accept or support in any way. He had good friends in the police force that you feel would have rallied round if he'd gone to them, but like so many before him he has to take the whole burden upon himself and sort it out, no matter the cost to career and life. He seems to want to end it in some kind of martyrdom because he sees no other way, but Hutch points out that Doris might not want to live without him, even if she had the money to do so. It sounds like the themes should have made it a good episode, but because Luke is this unknown face, no matter that he and Hutch get on like a house on fire, and that he was one of the prime reasons for Hutch joining the force in the first place (though they sadly don't elaborate on details), it's still too much to ask with the level of the writing that we accept this stranger as the protagonist of the episode, taking that position away from S&H, which is its biggest flaw.

I wouldn't say the episode was badly directed, especially as it was helmed by Charles Picerni the Stunt Coordinator and sometime actor (plus Starsky stunt double), and there are notable flairs - I liked the shot where Luke drives away from seeing Reuban at his place, the camera remaining stationery, while through the busy background traffic S&H drive up in the Torino, neatly occupying the space left by Luke. I had to skip backwards to see if the Torino could be seen lying in wait for its moment in the scene, but it actually speeds up organically into frame as if it was just good timing. Typically for a stunt director, Picerni gives us some good fight scenes: Luke and Jimmy in a struggle to the death, the heavy dying from a mystery shot, the gun going off between them as they wrestle around the hotel room where Jimmy was supposed to be dropping off Luke's money; the three-versus-two combat between S&H and Reuban's large bodyguards in a warehouse, both visceral, meaty exchanges, filmed up close, the second rumble culminating in Luke chasing after the fleeing Reuban, hanging onto the edge of his car before it smashes into a load of boxes, quite violently! Even Palmer being blasted through the third floor window was memorable. They don't make up for the lack of S&H in the majority of the episode, but they do provide a little fun, and show Picerni enjoying his role.

The trouble is there's not that much to hook me in: a woman (Doris), has a gambling addiction, foolishly signing a contract to repay Reuban (with interest), $1000 dollars a month for twelve months. Her cop husband (Luke), isn't going to stand for that, and decides to take on the extortionist. The only connection to our characters is that he's Hutch's friend, and they apparently haven't seen each other for a long time (he's known as 'West Side's finest'). I'm not sure how far away 1435 Allerton is, the address of the Huntley's house (memorable because they make a point of mentioning it more than once), because if it's just a short drive from the city, or even in the city, then you'd think Hutch and Luke would have met up more often. And if it's a long distance location it seems unlikely S&H would have driven over with Luke to see Doris on a whim. It's not the only strange thing about the episode: Captain Dobey's quite different, he doesn't get uptight or bawl at his men, he seems in a good mood all the time, and even ends the episode in a way you could never have imagined him doing! He's at The Pits with Huggy and S&H, offhandedly mentioning Luke doing time, then telling them his nickname in younger days was 'The South Side Stick Man,' before promptly ripping either the baize or his trousers, it's not clear which. It's the same old thing of wanting the story to bow out on a jolly note, but it's just really weird and out of character since Dobey doesn't even like Huggy and almost never goes to his establishment.

I also found the tone odd when dealing with 'peeping' Gertrude (the only genuine eccentric of the episode, unless you count the hotel clerk, but she just said some odd things and wasn't odd herself - 'he looked like a truck driver; a bartender; a cop with a lot years'). Starsky says something about her being peeping Gertrude rather than peeping Tom, 'no sexism here,' then the next scene we're at The Pits with the camera lingering on a female pool player's behind for an inordinately long time, enough for Huggy to notice! It's bizarre, and very Seventies. Perhaps it was to make up for there not being a young female character in the story, as Luke's wife is middle-aged, who knows? If the episode lacks its usual quota of wackies, it also lacks the humour (mainly because S&H aren't around that much - probably good for Paul Michael Glaser who may still have been working on the previous episode as Director), the pop culture references, and even the series' tropes. The only things I could spot were Hutch making a couple of jokes about Dobey's weight - in response to the Captain's pool nickname Starsky says something about Minnesota Fats, but I don't know if that was a famous pool player, or not. Hutch getting hot under the collar at Webster is another, though he wasn't an authority figure. You can see the stunt doubles in the fight against Reuban's men, so presumably Picerni was directing himself there? The music was unremarkable, except for some sinister flute music that plays as Doris goes home feeling threatened. And Hutch says he'd bet his badge on Luke, and he was to lose that badge in a few episodes time…

If nothing else, we can be confident of them reusing actors, and that's so again: I thought Reuban actor, Allan Arbus, had been in it before, but I was probably thinking of Frank Stryker from 'Starsky's Brother' - they both had a short, curly hairstyle and thin face. Martin Kove hadn't been in it before, but he's a well known face from lots of TV and films - I've seen him in everything from 'The Incredible Hulk' TV series to 'The Karate Kid' films, so it's great to have him as Jimmy, although the character wasn't very strong in the writing he did exude a menace you felt he could back up with violence. In past viewings I thought Reuban mistakenly calls his secretary 'Chloe' when we first see her, then Gloria all the other times (as credited), but it just sounds a bit like it, and he does call her Gloria after all. Marki Bay (or Bey), returns for her fourth appearance, and third this season, albeit brief. It would have been nice if they'd given her some part of the story, otherwise she could be anyone. Other returning faces are Charles Cyphers as Webster (previously in Season 2's 'The Specialist,' and 'The Avenger' earlier this season, all as different characters), Sy Kramer as Palmer (he'd had similar worried roles in Season 1's 'The Bait' and 2's 'Starsky And Hutch Are Guilty'), and Ben Marino, the dealer in the poker game (he was in Season 1's 'Death Ride'). I'd also mention the credited 'Last Player' in that game for the simple fact he had the great name of Beach Dickerson! Finally, John Ryan as Luke had previously been Frank Malone in Season 3's 'I Love You, Rosey Malone,' credited as John P. Ryan there.

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