Braddock

Created by Paul Monash

Tom Sicox starred as BRADDOCK, a private eye in the not-distant-future on the trail of some stolen components for a new later device, while contending with a jealous lover or two.

Braddock, supposedly “the last private eye in America,” relied on “old fashioned methods”–none of those fancy-schmancy “computerized” tricks for him.

A failed pilot, it finally saw the light of day when the 60-minute episode “Braddock” aired as an episode of Premiere, a 1968 summer replacement for CBS’ The Carol Burnett Show. The idea was to present pilots that were not bought by any of the networks.

Alas, Braddock failed to generate much interest–except for one thing. The music for the show was composed by Lalo Schifrin, the man behind Mannix, Mission Impossible, Cool Hand Luke, etc. and he has a huge fan base–or at least one big enough for a special, limited edition soundtrack CD (coupled with another obscure Schifrin soundtrack) to be released in 2008. Among the tracks listed are such intriguing titles as “Brave New Beat,” “Perennial Suspicion” and the ominously titled “You Are Dead.”

BUT I DIGRESS…

Among the other flops Premiere ran were Call to Danger, starring James Gregory and Peter Graves as federal agents hunting down the plates used to print the $10 bill which have gone missing; Lassiter (not the Paul Levine character), starring Burt Reynolds as a muckraking journalist; The Search, starring Mark Miller as an American detective working in London and, perhaps most notably, Higher and Higher, starring John McMartin and Sally Kellerman as a Nick-and-Nora-type married attorneys. The star-studded pilot also featured Dustin Hoffman (as the DA), Robert Foster, Alan Alda, Barry Morse and Billy Dee Williams, and was presumably named after Jackie Wilson’s then-current hit song of the same name.

TELEVISION

• PREMIERE
  (1968, CBS)
  • “Braddock” July 22, 1968
    Written by Paul Monash
    Directed by Walter Doniger
    Music by Lalo Schifrin
    Starring Tom Simcox as BRADDOCK
    Also starring Stephen McNally, Karen Steele, Lloyd Bochner, Kathy Kersh, Tom Reese, John Doucette, Colette Jackson, Arthur Adams, Don Marshall

SOUNDTRACKS

• • BRADDOCK/WAY WAY OUT (Intrada Special Collection Volume 73) | Buy this CD
    (2008, Intrada)
    A limited edition of 1500 copies.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• Not Quite Ready for Prime Time
  Pilots That Didn’t Fly & Spin-offs That Didn’t Spin

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.