Ace Crawford, Private Eye: Murder at Restful Hills

ACE CRAWFORD, PRIVATE EYE: MURDER AT RESTFUL HILLS

Written by: Ron Friedman

Directed by: Michael Preese

Airdate: March 15, 1983

Long ago, television had just three networks. They, surprisingly, would not broadcast 24/7. At night, they would sign off, usually to The Star-Spangled Banner. Thus concludes their broadcasting day. Later on, we saw networks offer infomercials before eventually transitioning to eternal broadcasts. Even with all those limitations, it is astonishing that anyone at CBS approved Ace Crawford, Private Eye as a regular series. A television movie, perhaps, but a full series? Murder at Restful Hills, our first Ace Crawford episode, shows that this detective spoof had a sliver of potential but not much else.

Narrated by Toomey (Joe Regalbuto), Ace's eager Guy Friday, we learn of Ace Crawford (Tim Conway). He's the greatest private detective in the world, one so great that someone attempting to stick Crawford up ends up asking for his autograph when he learns whom he's trying to hold up. One person who wouldn't ask for Crawford's autograph is Dr. Sears (Arlen Dean Snyder). He has been murdering residents at the Restful Hills Retirement Home, faking their wills to cash in on the residents. Luana (Shera Danase) is the chanteuse at The Shanty, Ace's main seaside bar hangout. In tears, Luana tells Ace about the seven deaths at Restful Hills. Luana's Grannie, Gretchen Kronenberg (Dolores Albin) is a Restful Hills resident. She fears that Grannie might be the next victim.

Ace goes to Restful Hills to investigate. He first poses as Grannie's grandson. Unbeknownst to Ace, Sears discovers Ace's true identity and is alarmed. Sears and his henchman, Eugene (Tim Rossovich) are terrified Ace will expose them. With that, it's time to bid bye-bye to Grannie. Ace, however, has an ace up his sleeve. He will enter Restful Hills as a new resident, with Toomey posing as his heartless son. Toomey is anything but heartless. In fact, he has to juggle between serving as Ace's eager young assistant and attending his daughter's school play, where he has to play a watermelon. Grannie's life is in danger, but will Ace be able to use his Old Man act to save her and the other Restful Hills residents? Will Toomey make it back in time to save Ace?

After rewatching Murder at Restful Hills, I think it was not as bad as I first remember it. Screenwriter Ron Friedman and director Michael Preece do get some of the film noir conventions. We have Toomey narrate the plot. We have some amusing lines and comedy bits. Near the end of Murder at Restful Hills, Toomey's voiceover narration marks that his accounting job and marriage are suffering from his devotion to Ace Crawford. However, he wouldn't trade it in for be alongside someone who is sometimes called "the Peeping Tom of Justice". Shera Danese's Luana seemed to be completely in on the joke that Ace Crawford was meant as a broad spoof. She did a good job, for example, belting out a tearful version of On a Bicycle Built for Two and being exaggeratedly hysterical over her concerns for Grannie. At the end, her flirtatious manner with the somewhat oblivious but reluctant object of desire.

The problems with Murder at Restful Hills in particular and Ace Crawford, Private Eye in general, however, overwhelm what little good there are in the episode and series. First is Tim Conway as Ace Crawford. There is a wild inconsistency in his character. On one hand, he is painfully unaware of almost everything around him. In the episode, an elderly man is shunted off to the "Therapy Room" by Eugene as Ace and Dr. Sears are walking down the same hallway. However, it never registers with Ace. He is supposed to be confident in his skills, so much so that stickup men all become starstruck when meeting him.

On the other hand, Ace is belligerent and downright mean to the perpetually innocent and eager Toomey. I found it strange that with most everyone, Ace is pleasant and a bit clumsy. With Toomey, however, Ace berates and dismisses him at almost every turn. He seems intensely impatient and sarcastic towards Toomey. Ace Crawford is supposed to be endearing in his bumbling. He is not when dealing with Toomey. When, for example, Toomey eagerly and sweetly describes his daughter's role as a lettuce, Ace displays intense irritation. "You're either going to help me or go play in Miss Wiggins' cabbage patch", Ace snaps.

This might have been a nice in-joke about his past on The Carol Burnett Show. However, it was a terrible mistake to echo that legendary variety show in Ace Crawford. Worse still was when Conway went undercover at Restful Hills. He was doing his Oldest Man routine here. It might have been nice for viewers to see Conway shuffle along in tiny steps. However, performing the Oldest Man bit cut away from making Ace Crawford original. It looked like Conway and company was just recycling old bits.

Yes, the joke is that Ace Crawford is the antithesis of his reputation as a fearsome and shrewd customer. Unfortunately, Murder at Restful Hills never built up a case as to how or why he had that lofty reputation. He does not solve the crime. He more stumbles onto Grannie's attempted murder and leads some kind of retirement home rebellion. There was no actual detective work.

If anyone in Murder at Restful Hills gave a performance, it was Joe Regalbuto. His Toomey was played exactly correctly. He was made into this eager, wide-eyed young man totally enamored with the legend of Ace Crawford. His reciting of his daughter's role in the play was a nice bit. Regalbuto had another nice moment when he almost didn't admit his "father" into Restful Hills, overcome by Ace's fake memories of a happy childhood. Regalbuto played Toomey not as a moron who worships a bigger moron. Instead, he played him as a perpetually naive man. He had one slight disadvantage when he appears in his watermelon costume. It is not so much the costume itself. It is that it reminded me of something Milton Berle once said. You have someone appear in a funny costume. You get the laugh. Then what, Berle asked. You have to go on with the scene with the character in that funny costume. Fortunately, that scene was brief, but it still felt a bit forced.

The other performances surprisingly had little time to build up. I am not talking about Arlen Dean Snyder as Sears or Dolores Albin as Grannie Kronenberg. Albin in particular seemed to be effective as someone else who was in on the joke. Snyder was fine but he never quite got that Murder at Restful Hills was meant to be broad. He seemed to play it straighter, which is an odd choice for a noir spoof. It was the rest of Crawford's crew that got short-changed. Billy Barty as The Shanty's owner/barman Inch and Bill Henderson as blind pianist Mello barely made an appearance. Worse was Richard Christie's Lieutenant Fanning. Billed as "Dick Christie", he popped up at the end and frankly, I do not think that his name was even used. He just appeared, with no rhyme nor reason.

As for Conway, he got the physical comedy bits fine. I think the somewhat contradictory nature of Ace Crawford (bumbling but perpetually mean to Toomey) was a poor decision. Another poor decision was to add a laugh track to things. It ended up emphasizing that a lot of Murder at Restful Hills was actually not funny. I would argue that a film noir spoof that revolves around murdering old people is already a hard hill to climb. Murdering them by having them exhaust themselves on a treadmill does not seem to be any funnier.

Murder at Restful Hills is a poor pilot to begin this now-forgotten series. Had I been a television executive, I would have said that it would not be picked up and urged them to rework it as a television movie. The Peeping Tom of Justice wouldn't catch anyone's eye.

4/10

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