Created by Howard Rodman Young patrol officer CHIP BRONX (played by Stephen Brooks) is shot while on duty, and learns he won’t be fit for active duty when he recovers. So his partner and best friend, LARRY DEAN (played by Robert Hooks), quits the department to become a private investigator, and urges Chip to join him, … Continue reading Larry Dean & Chip Bronx (Two for the Money)
Tag: Made-for-television movie
Matthew Hope
Created by Ed McBain Né Salvatore Lombino Other pseudonyms include Evan Hunter, Curt Cannon, Hunt Collins, Richard Marsten, Ezra Hannon,John Abbott (1926 -2005) Robert Randisi considers Calusa, Florida attorney MATTHEW HOPE to be a private eye, and that's good enough for me. When we first meet Hope in 1978's Goldilocks, he’s a transplanted New Yorker … Continue reading Matthew Hope
Nikki Beaumont & Nora Delaney (Nikki & Nora: The N&N Files)
Created by Nancylee Myatt “Here come the girls!” — the official theme song (seriously) Once upon a time, there was a 2004 made-for-television movie, Nikki and Nora, about two female partners (and lovers) in the Special Crimes Unit of the New Orleans police department. Apparently, it was intended as a pilot for UPN, but it was never … Continue reading Nikki Beaumont & Nora Delaney (Nikki & Nora: The N&N Files)
Don Strachey
Created by Richard Stevenson Pseudonym of Richard Lipez (1938-2022) Albany, New York private peeper DON STRACHEY is openly gay, a younger (forty-something) more emotional, and slightly flakier persona than Joseph Hansen's middle-aged, controlled Dave Brandstetter. Where Dave is calm and collected, Don is flippant, sassy, sloppy, paranoid, compulsive, impulsive and prone to plots and plans. … Continue reading Don Strachey
H.P. “Philip” Lovecraft
Created by Joseph Dougherty "The omens are bad. Me, I'm going to Florida!" -- you know things are bad when the landlady threatens to call it quits Raymond Chandler's mean streets were never like this! A pleasant surprise was Cast a Deadly Spell, a pulpy, tongue-in-cheek 1991 HBO offering that took the world of the … Continue reading H.P. “Philip” Lovecraft
Harold “Shill” Shillman (One Shoe Makes It Murder)
Created by Eric Bercovici Some P.I.'s are thick-headed, and some are pretty down on their luck, but alcoholic, divorced, impotent sad sack ex-cop HAROLD "SHILL" SHILLMAN may take the cake. In his only appearance in print, So Little Cause For Caroline (1980), he not only tries to take his own life with a gun, but the … Continue reading Harold “Shill” Shillman (One Shoe Makes It Murder)
Norm Swallow (Blackmail)
Created by Bill Crenshaw "Now, knowing what I know about you two, I could turn you in. It's my civic duty. But it ain't that simple." -- Norm decides to cut himself in SLEAZE ALERT! Here's a real low-budget pleasure, if your tastes run towards those old noirish B-films of yesteryear. In the densely-plotted 1991 … Continue reading Norm Swallow (Blackmail)
Elliot & T.C. Cooper (Quick and Quiet)
Created by Bruce Kalish & Sam Bobrick "Being dead ain't easy..."--official tagline A reboot of a failed pilot from the previous year, Landon, Landon and Landon, Quick and Quiet aired on August 8th, 1981. It was CBS' second pilot to feature William Windom playing a dead private eye, but this time his name was THADDEUS CHARLES “T.C.” … Continue reading Elliot & T.C. Cooper (Quick and Quiet)
Ben, Holly and Nick Landon (Landon, Landon and Landon)
Created by Bruce Kalish & Philip John Taylor As the private eye boom of the seventies on American television sputtered out (we'd already had fat eyes, blind eyes, old eyes and beach bum eyes), the gimmicks started to get wilder and wilder (and the shows lamer and lamer, generally), to the point where we finally … Continue reading Ben, Holly and Nick Landon (Landon, Landon and Landon)
Sherlock Holmes & Jane Watson (Return of Sherlock Holmes)
Based on character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Developed for television by Bob Shayne What the hell were they smoking? The Great One himself, the one and only SHERLOCK HOLMES is defrosted (after eighty years of suspended animation, of course) by his great-great-great-niece JANE WATSON after discovering his frozen body in a basement in … Continue reading Sherlock Holmes & Jane Watson (Return of Sherlock Holmes)