pmicocci-18908

Well, Frank was butt hurt that Ava Gardner was finding her own career, because a good Catholic man could never consent that his woman could have her own career. So let's find superhuman antagonists (Dan Blocker) a number of "sexy broads" that Frank could interact with, to show that he was an Alph male, because, he couldn't be anything less!

Frank gave two good performances: The Man With the Golden Arm, and The Manchurian Candidate. Or three, although he ended up the dead victim in From Here to Eternity.

So, I need to add 600 characters to satisfy IMDB.

Gangster-connected assholes apparently have some pull, even when decades dead

Frank Sinatra was perhaps not an unbridled homophobe, but he definitely played into the gay panic of the late 1960s.

In a show I find generally very funny, Alice Ghostley really shines. Somewhat less pitiable than her Esmeralda role on Bewitched, she still unfortunately suffers from low self-esteem, but she turns out to have quite a bit of allure. Francis' sisters are crazy about her! And when you catch her playing piano and singing, followed by violin, trumpet, trombone, and musical saw, how could you not be as well?! Not to mention her weight-lifting skills as well!

Being an early '60s sitcom, it of course suffers from gendered stereotypes, but the writers were intelligent enough to poke fun at many of those conventions. And Alice Ghostley was positively enchanting as Bonita, unlike her disenchanted Esmeralda character.

Every series so far is predicated on the premise that the local police force *read Black people* are incapable of solving crimes without the dominating guidance of a White British man. Even the brilliant undercover agent Camille Bordey, who started out as an undercover investigator, was subsumed in a sidekick role, and subsequently never seemed to cop on to the brilliant reasoning, first of Richard Poole, then of Humphrey whatshisname, and Sara Martins wisely fled the role.

Then Josephine Jobert was subjected to the role of wide-eyed and wide-mouthed sidekick to Humphrey Goodman. Then, somehow, they wrangled another few Black actresses into subordinate roles. The nadir was Shyko Amos, who presents as a completely idiotic, incompetent, and dangerously incompetent moron.

What is this series trying to present? In the first two seasons, Richard Poole as a fish out of water was amusing and led to some interesting conclusions... But was Camille Bordey incapable of leading the team?

I feel like the whole premise of this series is racist, on the face of it - how many competent black officers have been blown off? Can only white Anglo-Saxon officers analyze crimes? Even during the better days, with Richard Poole, all the Black members of the cast acted as though he were an idiot - could none of the local people have sussed out a similar conclusion? Camille Bordey was allegedly chosen for her abilities, and, based on the pilot, before her beneficent contact with the Great English Detective.