An understandable supposition by any reader is that there is a certain amount of objectivity, if not expertise, in this pundit’s comments or reviews of movies, theatre, and television shows.
Lots of luck with that.
As you should have by now concluded, I have my own biases, pet peeves, and firmly held opinions about all sorts of things. The fact that I have been involved with productions in the world of New York theatre, both on and off Broadway, as well as major and independently financed motion pictures, along with at least 300 hours of prime-time television, has only solidified my prejudices as to what is worth watching and what is not.
My standards often reflect those of my generation, which for the most part must be older than that of any collection of readers (as often noted, I have shoes older than most of my readers). It is simply the fact of my being born nearly 90 years ago, and the concurrent disappearance from planet earth of most of my contemporaries.
So, take it or leave it for what it is as I now must tell you that one of my favorite weekends of television viewing was recently binge watching something like a dozen episodes of my own Cagney & Lacey television series starring Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly.
It has been forty years since I have seen this oft referred to “ground-breaking” series of mine, and folks … I gotta tell you: it is good. Still. Very good.
Admittedly, I cherry-picked through the 125 episodes, selecting titles I remembered as either Emmy winners for me as the producer or for Tyne Daly or Sharon Gless. But I also looked at a few I only vaguely remembered and, there too, I was impressed by the uniformity of the show’s quality of performances, the writing, and the overall presentation.
It is understatement to say it was a most welcome break, especially after the hard and tedious work of editing and submitting my second memoir, Before and After Cagney & Lacey (due to be released by McFarland & Co. Inc. publishers on September 30 but available now for presale on their site and through Amazon).
Call me self-promoter … label me as non-objective … what can I tell you? I cried, I laughed, and even my housekeeper … who was supposedly busy doing other things … let me know how much she enjoyed what I was streaming on my living room TV.
It was not a sudden surge of sentimentality nor a morose need for nostalgia that motivated this binge-worthy weekend. UCLA has selected Cagney & Lacey to honor with a screening of episodes to be moderated by Ms. Maya Montanez Smukler, author of the book Liberating Hollywood: Women Directors and the Feminist Return of 1970s Cinema; I was asked to select the episodes to be screened and to be present for that screening.
I could probably have picked two from memory but there were a couple of “issues.” To begin with, the episodes had to either be written, and/or directed, by a woman. Okay, easy enough since many of our best shows fell into that category. Secondly, because of the size of UCLA’s Billy Wilder Theatre at the University’s Westwood campus, pristine prints of the episodes were necessary for proper projection to the anticipated 300 to be in attendance.
Good news/bad news: Cagney & Lacey was filmed … not videotaped. 35mm negatives exist that are in the vaults of the underlying rights holder of the series … no less than the vaunted MGM studios.
There is no question that great prints could be provided. In fact, back in the day, I remember renting a motion picture theatre for a week at a multiplex in Santa Monica, California, screening three episodes a night for five nights while inviting the audience to vote for which one we should submit for that year’s Emmy consideration.
That was in the mid-1980s … we had lines around the block every night, the pictures looked terrific up there on the big screen, and we got great national publicity at the time for the stunt.
That week was more than a personal triumph … it was a thrill for me to sit in that darkened room, listening to an audience laugh at the jokes and react to the performances on screen. It is not something a producer of television gets to do very often … if ever. A special memory.
Here’s the bad news part: MGM’s archival vault is in some undisclosed (to me at least) western state, probably deep under a mountain where my series is in the good company of all those late/great MGM movies of the past.
I was advised by the powers that know of all this that if I want two episodes, I would be wise to pick six … that way I could be assured that they could (most probably) come up with two from that batch.
Okay … six episodes. The challenges were not only to pick what I thought were among our best, but I needed to be sure Sharon Gless and Tyne Daly (who would both be on that UCLA stage with me) would be equally served along with the aforementioned requirement of Ms. Montanez … that the episodes shown be either ones that were written or directed or both by a woman since that was … more or less … the major underlying reasons for the evening in the first place.
Good news, again: women such as Emmy winners Karen Arthur and Sharron Miller had directed a number of our best episodes. Ms. Terry Louise Fisher (also an Emmy recipient along with Georgia Jeffries, Patricia Green, and Shelly List) had written multiple episodes.
If you are of a mind to re-create my weekend’s experience, with some small effort you can find Cagney & Lacey on Amazon Prime and “purchase” each episode for $1.99. You will have to navigate past the four reunion movies we made some years after the series. They were successful in the ratings … and memory is … these were also worthy, but I have not seen them since the mid-1990s, and they were not the shows on which we built our reputation, so take that for what it is worth.
Unless you are a true Cagney & Lacey junkie, I would also avoid season one since it was not until season two that Sharon Gless came on board and it is those 118 episodes, where she played Christine Cagney, that are the ones most of the world “knows” as the real Cagney & Lacey. It also is worth pointing out that during the six years those 118 episodes were on CBS, no other actress won an Emmy as the lead in a television drama but Tyne Daly with four wins or Sharon Gless with two. Overall, the series accumulated more awards than any CBS drama in history up to and including to this day.
You want my picks? From season two: “Open and Shut Case,” one of the first co-written by Terry Louise Fisher, “Burnout,” co-written by Chelsea Nickerson. Season three: “Choices,” directed by Karen Arthur, written by Terry Louise Fisher. Season four: “Heat,” directed by Karen Arthur, “Who Said It’s Fair?” parts one and two, written by Patricia Green. Season five: “The Gimp,” directed by Sharron Miller, written by Cynthia Darnell. Season six: “Turn, Turn, Turn” parts one and two, directed by Sharron Miller written by Georgia Jeffries, Shelley List & Jonathan Estrin. Season seven: “Friendly Smoke,” co-written by Shelley List, and “Don’t I Know You?” directed by Sharron Miller, written by Kathryn Ford.
What? You counted more than six. Call them a producer’s half-dozen. For what it is worth, my first book features some interesting details about the making of a few of these episodes … you will have to read Cagney & Lacey … and Me to find out which. Shameless enough?
The UCLA evening will be October 7, Ms. Gless, Ms. Daly, and I will be on hand. Rest assured, this old man of many prejudices will be sure to bring it up again before the end of September in case any out there want to attend.
Follow Barney at: www.cagneyandlacey.com
https://www.facebook.com/CagneyAndLacey
To Purchase “Cagney & Lacey … and Me” go to Amazon or Apple Books
“Before and After Cagney & Lacey,” a second memoir … coming this Fall from McFarland Publishers.
