HAWAIIAN EYE Season One

Connie Stevens, Anthony Eisley, Robert Conrad

HAWAIIAN EYE TV series Season One (1959).

77 Sunset Strip was such a successful private eye show that Warner Brothers producer William Orr decided to use the same formula -- good-looking guys involved with dames and intrigue -- on a series set in Honolulu instead of Los Angeles and the result was Hawaiian Eye. Anthony Eisley and Robert Conrad played the detectives, who have an office complete with bedrooms and swimming pool inside the Hawaiian Village Hotel (which still exists) for which they do security. They also have time to take cases for people who are being threatened or searching for someone who's disappeared etc. 

Douglas Mossman as Moke

There are two other recurring characters, the cab driver and kibitzer Kim (Poncie Ponce), and the singing photographer Cricket Blake (Connie Stevens). Cricket is a petulant, annoying, 12-year-old in a woman's body who has a serious crush on Tracy Steele (Eisner of The Wasp Woman). She not only adds little to the program -- there are plenty of attractive women in the stories -- but her contract obviously gives her the right to sing a song in virtually every episode. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that Stevens' whispery so-called singing is pretty mediocre. Actually Poncie Ponce, who like Stevens is afflicted with terminal cuteness, has a much better voice and is a more talented singer. Others who appeared frequently in the first season and afterward include handsome Hawaiian native Douglas Mossman as security officer Moke and Mel Prestidge  as Lt. Danny Quan, another native Hawaiian who was also a real-life sheriff at the time the show was filming. 

Anthony Eisley and Robert Conrad

Hawaiian Eye was a good and entertaining series if not necessarily a great one. It lasted four seasons, however. Notable episodes include "Beach Boy" with Troy Donahue, Faith Domergue and Robert Lowery in a story of a young man who may or may not be the wealthy heir who supposedly drowned ten years earlier. "Secret of the Second Door" features Harry Bartell in a story of a woman who wants Tom Lopaka (Conrad) to find a stolen cache of money. "Dead Ringer" stars an excellent Dianne Foster and Warren Stevens in a tale of a sinister plot that enfolds Lopaka simply because he resembles Foster's husband. "The Kikiki Kid" stars John Gabriel as a nightclub singer with major show biz aspirations who pursues and romances a columnist (Jean Byron) who can help him while neglecting his wife (Myrna Hansen). Kim is accused of stealing a diamond worth half a million dollars in "Cut of Ice" with Robert Clarke and Frank Albertson. 

Verdict: Fun colorful series with interesting leads and guest performers. ***. 

ADVENTURES OF NICK CARTER

Robert Conrad as Nick Carter

ADVENTURES OF NICK CARTER (1972 telefilm). Director: Paul Krasny. 

Around 1910 in Manhattan private eye Nick Carter (Robert Conrad), learns that his old friend and mentor, Sam Bates (Byron Morrow), has been murdered. Bates was trying to find a young lady named Ivy, who supposedly left town with a young man named Lloyd Deams (Sean Garrison), the paramour of club owner Bess Tucker (Shelley Winters). Nick is hired by Ivy's father-in-law Otis Duncan (Broderick Crawford) to find out what happened to Ivy, although Nick is just as interested in discovering who bumped off Bates. As Nick investigates he encounters Duncan's two sons, the flamboyant and dissipated Freddy (Dean Stockwell) and the much more uptight Neal (Pernell Roberts), not to mention corrupt cop Captain Keller (Neville Brand) and his murderous henchmen. 

Dean Stockwell and Pernell Roberts

Adventures of Nick Carter is based on a character who first appeared in print in the late 19th century. It's been decades since I read any Nick Carter stories but it seemed to me they were a little wilder than this fairly reasonable mystery-detective tale. Robert Conrad had wrapped up his lengthy run on The Wild, Wild West and it was undoubtedly thought that lightning might strike twice with the actor in another suspenseful period piece, but Nick Carter did not become a series. Conrad is okay as Carter, basically playing himself, but he gets fine support from the other cast members named above, as well as from Pat O'Brien as the head of a mission who gives Carter tips from time to time. Brooke Bundy is Carter's secretary, and the awful singer Jaye P. Morgan shows up very briefly as a forgettable chanteuse. The best performances are from Dean Stockwell and Pernell Roberts as the two highly unalike siblings. Nick Carter was later turned into a kind of super-spy in a series of lurid paperback books and was also featured in the foreign parody Dinner for Adele. 

Verdict: Could have made an interesting series, although not as much fun as The Wild, Wild West. ***.