Just thought I'd point this out. Did this film take 3 years to get distributed? I think its pretty amazing that it was written by the Neal Barbera of the HANAH BARBERA group. It'd be cool if it got a DVD release with their commentary!
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Yeah, definitely looks more like 82 than 85.
It did not take 3 years to get distributed. It was filmed circa October-December, 1982 (not March-May like it says on here) but wasn't completed until sometime well into 1983. The European hack that Mike Connors hired to do the lousy score reportedly double-booked on him (I forget what the exact story was but there was a schedule conflict) and I believe he had to wait for the guy to get off a tour before the music could get done. So it sat unfinished for many months. When it was finally completed, Connors did have some trouble finding a distributor. He was trying to sell it to the major studios, who all turned him down. Technically, the release date on the IMDb isn't correct, as The Movie Store test marketed it in a few cities in September, 1984. January, 1985 was the L.A. release.
Ironically, one of the majors who didn't want to put it out theatrically, MGM, later ended up acquiring home video rights.
Thank you for this interesting info!
Are you related to this film somehow?
"Stupid f...ing white man!"share
Dead Man (1995)
I'm a huge fan of Connors and MANNIX, and even got to know Mike a little a couple of years ago (wonderful guy), but this is not a film I was familiar with.
Was Connors a producer on this film?
Yes, that Mike Connors. He produced this on the cheap seven years after CBS canceled his hit show while it was still popular because they hated having to pay for it. (Of course he also made sure he starred in it, since the acting offers were drying up.) He wanted to be a producer of acclaimed fare, as he said at the time, but felt he had to start with something that was guaranteed to recoup his investment. I'm not sure if it ever did. Suffice to say, the acclaimed fare, whatever it might have been, never materialized.
The crummy made-for-TVesque production values and the less-than-superb underscore aside, I didn't think it was a terrible picture overall. Certainly better-scripted, if not better-produced, than Neal Barbera's and Glenn Leopold's previous attempt to break away from The Smurfs and Scooby Doo. But Connors and Tony Lo Bianco shot the thing like it was an episode of "Mannix," and that's likely the main reason it sat on the shelf for a year and a half and got rejected by every single distributor who mattered. By the time it finally got a sort-of-wide release in early '85, it already looked like it was a decade old.