A. Dunster Lowell (The Boston Terrier)

Created by Blake Edwards & Tom Waldman

Blake Edward must have really liked this idea.

After failing to interest any of the networks in his 60-minute pilot, The Boston Terrier, about the adventures of suave, Harvard-educated (and presumably dogged) private eye A. DUNSTER LOWELL in 1962, Edwards tried again the next year with a revamped thirty-minute version—in essence, he produced not one but two (Count ‘em!) pilots.

The first aired as an episode on The Dick Powell Show, and presented itself as a quirkier, more light-hearted version of Peter Gunn, which had just ended its run in 1961. In it, the upper-crust Ivy League investigator, the scion of a wealthy Boston family (played by a pre-Man From U.N.C.L.E. Robert Vaughan) uses all the latest gadgets (thanks to his old Harvard Professor and current mentor, who considers criminology a “hobby”) to investigate the theft of a 300-pound antique machine gun. The whole thing’s boosted along by a zippy score by Ernest Gold. According to Powell, who introduced each show, the show was actually filmed on location in Boston, although most of it takes place indoors, and the few outdoor shots aren’t particularly convincing.

Round Two aired in ABC, and was supposedly more quickly paced, with Vaughan reprising the role, although the plot and cast were different. It was, according to Film Score Monthly, a “rushed affair with little of the hour long pilot’s flair and a very generic score.” Odd, that, given that the score was by Henry Mancini, Edwards’ go-to guy when it came to music.

But this pilot didn’t sell, either, and the weekly series Edwards was hoping for never materialized.

TELEVISION

• THE DICK POWELL SHOW
  (1961-63, NBC)
  Host: Dick Powell
  Powell served as host and occasional star in this dramatic anthology.
  • “The Boston Terrier” Watch it now!
    (April 10, 1962)
    60 minutes
    Based on characters created by Blake Edwards and Tom Waldman
    Story by Blake Edwards and Tom Waldman
    Teleplay by Lester Pine
    Directed by Blake Edwards
    Music by Ernest Gold
    Starring Robert Vaughn as A. DUNSTER LOWELL
    with Robert J. Wilke as Lt. Duffy Cardoza
    Also starring John McGiver , Bennye Gatteys, John Marley, Russell Collins, Douglas M. Dick, Richard Deacon, Ian Wolfe, Charles Seel, Charles Horvath, Dick Crockett, Hal K. Dawson, Diana Millay
• THE BOSTON TERRIER
  (1963, ABC)
  February 28, 1963
  30-minutes
  Based on characters created by Blake Edwards and Tom Waldman
  Writers: Blake Edwards, Frank Waldman, Tom Waldman
  Directed by Walter Grauman
  Music by Henry Mancini
  Starring Robert Vaughan as A. DUNSTER LOWELL
  with Stanley Adams as Lieutenant Clarence McKenzie
  Also starring Paul Comi, John Hoyt, Frank Killmond, Elizabeth Montgomery, Helen Wallace

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

• Blake Edwards’ Private Eyes
  And other miscreants…

Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.