The Fall Guy

For those of you with some age under your fingernails - ( Whaa?? ) - you may remember when TV was a constant source of discovery. This was before cable. Hell, it was even before UHF. Yes, long before 500 channels of computer regulated crap, there was a time when you could flip on the set and have no idea just what you might encounter. Tonight was one of those times.

Just finished watching "The Fall Guy". A man ( Johnny Quinlan ) falls in with a drug smuggling crook ( Thomas E. Jackson ) while his girlfriend's brother ( Ned Sparks ) cracks wise. That's really all you need to know, other than that the story is compelling enough to hold one's interest through even the most banal of late night commercials.

Oh, and a couple of other things: Ned Sparks must have been a big enough star in his day to have inspired a Warner Bros. cartoon parody. As for Thomas E. Jackson; close your eyes and you will swear you are listening to Lewis "Studs" Turkel. Think the studly one might have seen this movie? Hey, take it easy...but take it! Anyway, what inspired me to take keyboard in hand here is the fact that I saw this movie for the first time moments ago. On TV. Not on some esoteric cable station, but on good old WLS Ch.7 in Chicago. That's right, someone found this one in the vaults, dusted it off and stuck it on Insomiac Theater. LORD A' MIGHTY! This is what TV used to be about; discovery, the unexpected and all, those other good things that made us kids born in the late 40s and early 50s fall in love with the unblinking eye. Excuse me while I go weep for what once was...and still could be.