Passing of James Garner

[No need to know!]

Which is why I dislike whenever politics ever gets involved in a thread... Serves no purpose whatsoever than to get everyone's knickers in a twist or get a rise out of people.

I'm with LG.. Don't care what the affiliation is, if they do good work and are a good person, I respect that.

RIP, James Garner... You had a good run.

Agree!

[J.J. Walters]

Yeah, who cares what his political views were. The man won two Purple Hearts, was in The Great Escape and was Maverick and Rockford! Icon! Legend!

[BWheelz54]

I kinda mentioned this on another thread, but I'm jumping in here because I've enjoyed reading this one. I started watching the Rockford Files for the first time upon hearing of Mr. Garner's death - kinda sad that such a tv legend is lost. I am really enjoying the show. Love all the car chases - man, there were a lot of them in the 70s. I find the plots pretty sophisticated so far, and I would admit that sometimes the show gets those rackets and plots a bit muddled. But it's a fine, fine show. I do not find Garner uninterested in the Rockford character. I take him as going for that old fashioned kind of cynical gumshoe trying to be aloof through all the mess of his cases as he can.

But after watching Magnum, the Rockford Files episodes seem so much longer. The Rockford Files seems to really slow down from time to time. I'm missing the cadre of pals and characters that Magnum has. And watching the Rockford Files is helping me kinda appreciate how Magnum's humor - and let's maybe admit that such humor sometimes really bombs - most of the time keeps a Magnum episode fresh and really clicking along. So I give Rockford Files a thumbs up. Certainly not Magnum. But hey, of course it isn't. And I think Rockford shows me why I dig Magnum so much.

[Little Garwood]

Nicely stated, BW. A well-balanced and completely fair evaluation of The Rockford Files. All the more so for being someone just introduced to the show so there's none of the nostalgia that blurs one's viewpoints occasionally.

I have no issue with the pacing or plot holes of TRF because unless the show downright insults the viewer's intelligence (there's an episode of The Big Valley that enrages me because it sacrifices the story and the characters' motivations all in the name of a "happy ending.") However, short of that, I can accept faults in storytelling. I tend to watch TV shows and movies primarily for characters and their interactions with one another. If that element of a show works then I'm entertained. There are only so many plot lines but character nuances are endless.

I disagree with your assessment of Rockford's pals, however. Both TRF and MPI both have superb supporting casts and Rockford's are all memorable in the very best sense of the word. Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, Angel is to Rockford as Jim Bonnick is to Magnum. Beth Davenport is to Rockford as Carol is to Magnum. Becker and Tanaka, and so on...Magnum owes a lot to Rockford and both shows are in the top five detective shows ever produced.

I kinda mentioned this on another thread, but I'm jumping in here because I've enjoyed reading this one. I started watching the Rockford Files for the first time upon hearing of Mr. Garner's death - kinda sad that such a tv legend is lost. I am really enjoying the show. Love all the car chases - man, there were a lot of them in the 70s. I find the plots pretty sophisticated so far, and I would admit that sometimes the show gets those rackets and plots a bit muddled. But it's a fine, fine show. I do not find Garner uninterested in the Rockford character. I take him as going for that old fashioned kind of cynical gumshoe trying to be aloof through all the mess of his cases as he can.

But after watching Magnum, the Rockford Files episodes seem so much longer. The Rockford Files seems to really slow down from time to time. I'm missing the cadre of pals and characters that Magnum has. And watching the Rockford Files is helping me kinda appreciate how Magnum's humor - and let's maybe admit that such humor sometimes really bombs - most of the time keeps a Magnum episode fresh and really clicking along. So I give Rockford Files a thumbs up. Certainly not Magnum. But hey, of course it isn't. And I think Rockford shows me why I dig Magnum so much.

[marlboro]

I disagree with your assessment of Rockford's pals, however. Both TRF and MPI both have superb supporting casts and Rockford's are all memorable in the very best sense of the word. Like I mentioned earlier in this thread, Angel is to Rockford as Jim Bonnick is to Magnum. Beth Davenport is to Rockford as Carol is to Magnum. Becker and Tanaka, and so on...Magnum owes a lot to Rockford and both shows are in the top five detective shows ever produced.

Yeah, I agree that the shows have a lot of things in common. I never noticed the similarities in the cast members before.

Higgins/Rocky: I think Higgins and Magnum have a better father son dynamic than Jim and Rocky. Hillerman was such a fine actor, and they had excellent chemistry whether they were doing comedy or drama. I like Noah Beery Jr, but I don't think he was a very good actor. "Rocky" was so nice that he came across as a bit too soft to me. I actually prefer Robert Donley's version of Rocky from he pilot episode "Backlash of the Hunter." Scheming and a bit cantankerous. You could see where Jim got it from. I think he and Garner would have made a great team.

Beth/Carol: I think Beth was a lot more likeable than Carol. Unfortunately, they never did much with her character. A big missed opportunity imo.

Angel/Mac 2: Stuart Margolin was absolutely brilliant as Angel. I can see why the Magnum guys would want to replicate that with Mac 2, but I don't think they pulled it off.

Becker/Tanaka: Jim and Lt. Becker made a great team. In his first appearance, Tanaka reminded me more of a Columbo type detective than a tough cop like Becker. I wish he had gotten more screen time. I was a bit disappointed in his final episode. He deserved a two parter. I would have loved to see more of Joe Santos on Magnum, too. I think he was great in those handful of darker later season episodes.

Cmdr. Diehl & Lt. Chapman/ Buck Greene: I wish we had seen more of Buck. He was a great foil for Magnum. The Rockford Files is one of the most anti-authority shows I have ever seen. Outside of Becker, the police and government were rarely shown in a positive light. The guys who played Diehl and Chapman were perfect for their roles as power tripping authoritarians.

But after watching Magnum, the Rockford Files episodes seem so much longer. The Rockford Files seems to really slow down from time to time.

I agree. Rockford, like many shows from that era, relied on "padding" scenes to fill the 50 minute run time. Usually with extended car chases in the case of the Rockford Files. Another thing that hindered the show was the censorship of the 70s. After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 68, the networks really cracked down on violence. It's ridiculous, but true. In much the same way that Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction led to the FCC cracking down on radio disk jockeys, RFK getting killed led to the powers that be suppressing sex and violence on tv. That's how you go from Gunsmoke to Little House on the Prairie. From Darren McGavin's "Mike Hammer" or Mannix to Columbo. On the Rockford Files dvd, Garner says they were limited to how often they could use guns and that they couldn't even show a woman's cleavage. Compare that to the Magnum pilot where they slip a naked woman past the censors, and Rick guns down a guy in the street with a machine gun!

The Rockford Files is a classic, but IMO Magnum was the superior show. The character development, the action, the deft way they (occasionally) handled serious drama. What it comes down to in the end is that it is just more entertaining. Event eh episodes that i don't like are rarely boring. I do think that the Rockford Files had one advantage of Magnum - the ability of the writers to come up with good mysteries. Magnum was the better show, but Jim was the better detective.

[Little Garwood]

I like Noah Beery Jr, but I don't think he was a very good actor. "Rocky" was so nice that he came across as a bit too soft to me. I actually prefer Robert Donley's version of Rocky from he pilot episode "Backlash of the Hunter." Scheming and a bit cantankerous. You could see where Jim got it from. I think he and Garner would have made a great team.

I didn't really want to bump an obit thread, so maybe we need an actual Rockford Files topic. Anyway, I remembered the above quoted post when watching TRF episode The Dog and Pony Show (S4 Ep 4), Rocky's gentle temperament was in my view the perfect foil for Jim's 1970s cynicism, though Rocky's love and trust of United States institutions was often played as a sort of naivete to Jim's "knowing" viewpoint, but I think Rocky's point of view reflected that of the WWII generation, who also watched the show. I think it works to placate both groups.

They were wise to bring Beery in after the pilot. I think Rockford having a "wily old pappy" like Rocky was played in the pilot borrowed too much from Maverick, which is saying something since TRF is essentially Maverick updated to the 1970s.

As for Noah Beery, Jr., not being a very good actor, I disagree. He may not have been a "chameleon" who could "vanish" into a wide variety of character types, but he--as James Stewart once said--played himself in deference to the character. Beery could play variations within his range and he did so wonderfully in many roles throughout his career.