Boone and Dunn in a Forgotten TV Movie Classic
Richard Boone did what he could to get a movie career going, but it became readily apparent to the craggy-faced, charismatic actor that TV was his true home. In the 70's, he gave himself over to taking lead roles in a large number of the newly hot "Movies of the Week" -- made for television movies.
As a Boone fan, I saw a lot of them. The best was easily "Goodnight, My Love," a 90-minute homage to the Raymond Chandler tradition that managed to pull off a surprisingly detailed 1940's atmoshpere on a low TV budget, principally through the use of old-time Los Angeles locations and smokey, shadowy cinematography.
The writer-director of "Goodnight, My Love" was Peter Hyams, who used this TV movie as a calling card to make a lot of mid-level theatrical thrillers later on, like "Capricorn One," "Outland," and "The Star Chamber." Hyams seems to have made "Goodnight My Love" as if he were MAKING a theatrical film.
The central conceit is a great one: tall hulking Richard Boone is a Los Angeles private eye, whose partner is (literally) a dwarf: Michael Dunn, of "Wild, Wild, West" fame. Just on the natural, the image of giant Boone and tiny Dunn walking together around LA locations makes you laugh (with Boone bent over, hands in pockets, leaning down towards Dunn) -- even as the two men are partners enough that you never doubt Dunn's value to the team.
Still, there's a great sight gag: when the two private dicks question a hotel clerk, Boone can be seen, but Dunn is represented only by his eyes, forehead and hat just clearing the desk.
Boone does his usual deadpan, as in this scene when femme fatale Barbara Bain (from the TV show Mission:Impossible, and surprisingly good here) asks Boone to take her case:
Bain: My boyfriend has disappeared and I need to find him. The mob's after him.
Boone: I don't take that kind of case.
Bain: I'll pay you a thousand dollars up front.
Boone: (No change in tone) I take that kind of case.
Actually, Boone isn't deadpan all the time in "Goodnight, My Love." Often, he is exasperated or just plain disgusted with other people, in the usual Boone manner. One character who annoys him is over-articulate 60's fat man Victor Buono, on hand to play a Sydney Greenstreet type. Buono keeps threatening Boone with death; Boone just looks put out.
Writer-director Hyams fleshes out some nifty scenes:
-- At a horse race track, Boone questions a flock of betting-addicts who bet on EVERYTHING ("(Boone's) going to pull a pen from his left pocket...its gonna have blue ink, no I'll take the bet its gonna have black ink...he's gonna turn right when he walks away...no, I'll take he's gonna turn left...")
-- A pool-hall scene shot by a constantly moving camera in a manner that says: "this isn't a TV movie, its a MOVIE."
-- Boone and a cop discuss a dead body while joking and laughing. They never stop laughing all through the scene. Boone laughs louder than the cop -- but meanwhile, Boone gets all the information he needs.
-- A wonderfully stylish "hit" in a movie theater.
Boone gets beaten up a few times in the movie. Once, sitting punchy on the ground while little Dunn stands next to him, Boone deadpans:
"I sure am I tired of getting beaten up all the time."
Great, great, great, all of it. One little problem: not very available on tape or DVD.
Ah, but what a memory...