MIAMI UNDERCOVER

MIAMI UNDERCOVER (1961/syndicated). One season and 38 hour-hour episodes. 

In this lost crime series from the sixties, Lee Bowman (of The Lie) plays Jeff Thompson, a special investigator for the Hotel Association in Miami, where the show was filmed. Rocky Graziano (of Country Music Holiday) plays Rocky, who owns a nightclub -- Rocky's, of course -- and who apparently lives with Jeff. Another regular is Lt. O'Malley (Hugh Lawrence) of the Miami Beach Police Department, who has a pretty good relationship with Thompson. Michael Shayne, which debuted the previous year, also featured a private dick in Miami and lasted a little longer. 

There are only five episodes of the show available on the Internet, and it's too bad because Miami Undercover is an entertaining series. In "Miss Venus" the female partner in "Fair Lady" Enterprises is strangled, and the victim's sister works with Jeff to bring the killer to justice. In "School for Girls" Jeff and Rocky try to find out if it's a student or a teacher who's committing robberies at a girls' school. In "The Thrush" Larry King briefly plays a DJ who is murdered because he refuses to accept a bribe to play a record that is actually pretty decent. The singer is played by Jill Corey of Senior Prom and she gives a terrific dramatic performance. In "Bet Your Death" Suzanne Lloyd is excellent as a temptress who offers Jeff $10,000 for two days work selling bonds, but he knows something is fishy and uncovers a plot to assassinate a diplomat. In "Sunken Treasure" Nora Hayden of The Angry Red Planet is a duplicitous female who embroils an innocent young couple in a murderous scheme involving a phony treasure hunt in the Florida Keys. All of these entertaining episodes, with the exception of "Miss Venus," are also available in a DVD collection. 

Verdict: Interesting old series worth resuscitating. **3/4. 

THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN

Lee Bowman and Marguerite Chapman

THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN (1946). Director: Lothar Mendes. 

"There's something wrong with that man!"

New York newspaper columnist Gilbert Archer (Lee Bowman) is shocked to learn that an old friend of his, a priest, has supposedly committed suicide. He believes the man was murdered, and is soon surrounded by a host of suspicious characters. There is an attractive lady named Laura Brown (Marguerite Chapman); a weird character who claims to be her father, Ernst (J., Edward Bromberg); a highly sinister "reverend" who carries guns (George Macready) and his equally unpleasant better half (Katherine Emery); a nasty creature named Rausch (Noel Cravat); the shifty lawyer George Bradford (Edgar Buchanan) and others. Most of these people seem to be after a pair of bibles that have been secreted somewhere and contain the location of a lost painting depicting the Walls of Jericho -- done by no less than Leonardo da Vinci. People would kill to get such a priceless painting, and indeed there are soon more murders ... 

Bowman with J. Edgar Bromberg

The Walls Came Tumbling Down boasts an absorbing and convoluted plot, several good performances from an interesting cast, an attractive credits theme by Martin Skiles, and a pretty fast pace to boot. Yet ... the whole thing is somehow second-rate. Maybe it's that Lee Bowman, while competent, isn't the most thrilling leading man, or that there are other directors who could have done more with the material. But while you're enjoying the plot twists and turns you're not quite believing any of it. Lee Patrick is also in the cast as Bowman's put-upon secretary, and she's as snappy as ever, and Elisabeth Risdon is fine as the dead priest's sister and another murder victim. Bowman never quite seems to evince enough rage over the terrible deaths of people he cares about. Marguerite Chapman is excellent as the mysterious woman who could be a heroine or a femme fatale.

Verdict: Fair-to-middling film noir. **1/2.  

THE LIE

Lee Bowman

THE LIE (1954). Director: Harold Young.

John Hamilton (Lee Bowman) has a night on the town with his friends, an aerialist called "The Great Wilhelm"(Harald Maresch), and Philip (Joachim Brennecke), who is the brother of John's girlfriend, Marlene (Ramsay Ames of G-Men Never Forget). While drunk and nearly passed out, he is confronted by a threatening man who is later found murdered. John is arrested for the murder, and during the trial is astounded when both Wilhelm and Philip lie about going with him to the apartment where the murder took place -- they claim to know nothing even though he knows they were there. John is convicted and the only one who goes to bat for him, eventually getting him out of prison, is Margot (Eva Probst), Philip's former fiancee, who knows something is rotten in Germany. Now John decides to confront his former friends, as well as Marlene, and discover who the real killer is.

Brennecke and Maresch

If The Lie seems like a TV production, it's because it is, filmed in a studio in Germany with mostly German actors. The acting is good, with Ramsay Ames, surprisingly, being more of a stand-out than usual with her unsympathetic role. Viennese Maresch appeared in a number of international productions while Brennecke appeared primarily in German productions. The Lie has a very slight degree of suspense, but there isn't much surprise when it comes to the identity of the murderer, and the whole thing is relatively routine. 

Verdict: Doesn't amount to much. **