Created by Blake Edwards
(1922-2010)
“An independent guy like Gus Monk is always attractive. He attracts women, money, excitement… and danger.”
No, not that Monk!
This is a whole different San Francisco treat. Hmmmm… maybe they’re related.
The Monk was a pilot for a proposed television series, featuring George (Route 66) Maharis as GUS MONK, a free-wheeling (and unlicensed) San Francisco private eye who had a beer-swilling pet cat called Aristotle–pretty hip for TV of that era.
The pilot aired as the ABC Movie of the Week on October 21, 1969, and also featured Jack Albertson, Edward G. Robinson Jr. and Janet Leigh, Gus is hired by a mobster to guard an envelope containing important information, but the envelope is stolen, the mobster is subsequently murdered, and Gus is left as the prime suspect. A “merry-go-round of viciousness and murder” is promised.
According to Maharis fan Chris Jehle’s “Just try taking your eyes off George long enough to check out Janet Leigh as his love interest and chief suspect. Check out Janet’s wardrobe: fur-trimmed mini-skirts and bare midriffs! Too bad this didn’t click as a series!”
Maybe, but Blake Edwards, who’d had some good luck creating other “hip” dicks such as Richard Diamond, Mr. Lucky and Peter Gunn, struck out with this one. Nobody picked up the pilot.
Still, the little-seen and little-remembered made-for-television film occasionally pops up in those cheap ass DVD mega-packs…
TELEVISION
- THE MONK
(1969, ABC)
74 minutes
Premiere: October 21, 1969
Story by Blake Edwards
Written by Tony Barrett
Directed by George McCowan
Produced by Tony Barrett
Associate producer: Shelley Hull
Executive producers: Aaron Spelling and Danny Thomas
Music by Earle Hagen
Starring George Maharis as GUS MONK
Also starring Janet Leigh, Jack Albertson, Edward G. Robinson Jr., Joe Besser, Rick Jason, Raymond St. Jacques, William Smithers, Jack Soo, George Burrafato, Linda Marsh, George Saurel, Joe Besser
FURTHER INVESTIGATION
- Blake Edwards’ Private Eyes
And other miscreants… - They Left Their Hearts…
Some San Francisco Treats
THE DICK OF THE DAY
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
I was in this film! In a small walk-on part that Janet Leigh pushed the director to put me in. Her had cut it and that really hurt.
They were filming under the Golden Gate Bridge at 2 am in the fog, really dumb and everyone was FREEZING. I had read they were filming so I saw their predicament and went home, got an entire case of Sterno and dumped it into the oil barrel that everyone was huddling around to try to stay warm.A giant flame shot up about 50 feet into the air but after that everyone loved me and Janet Leigh came over and gave me a huge hug and thanked me for what I did and we became really good friends. I was 17 then and I’m 64 now and I liked her a lot. I also worked as an extra on Streets of San Francisco and in the dedication scene in The Towering Inferno, filmed at midnight and absolutely freezing with icy cold winds. Janet and I both had appeared on stage in the Pittsburgh Playhouse, though not at the same time, since torn down. I miss her a lot.