A Major Disappointment

A Brilliant Conflict

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

After CBS killed that wonderful show, Slattery's People, they replaced it with a very different high quality show, The Trials of O'Brien. Peter Falk played O'Brien, an flamboyant Shakespeare quoting defense attorney with a fondness for playing the pony's and a knack for solving crimes. Elaine Strich played his secretary, and the shows featured a cornucopia of great guest stars. Like Slattery's People , it was a rating flop that was well-liked by the critics and a handful of intelligent fans. Like Slattery's People, it molders in the CBS vaults, remembered only by a handful of aficionados. Amazingly, Peter Falk thinks it was better than Columbo. Unfortunately, we will probably never know. Wh, oh why, doesn't CBS turn copies of all its old shows over to UCLA or the Paley center, let alone release them on DVD?

.Vote for it here - tvshowsondvd.com/shows/Trials-OBrien/4368Middle-aged, saddled with alimony, and a gambling habit. This is a lawyer show?It was a lawyer show, but a far cry from The Defenders or Perry Mason, which were the successful lawyer shows that preceded it. Where there's a market for 1, there's a market for 2 or 3 or 4...but with a twist to distinguish each one. Where Perry Mason was a whodunit, The Defenders gave us a weekly sermon on some hifalutin liberal social issue. But O'Brien? He was just trying to keep the wolf from his door. On CBS. The Tiffany Network.I was 11 years old when this was on, so my bedtime was no longer 7pm. Now it was 9pm. This was an hour show that aired at 8:30. But I would have been more inclined to watch The Rifleman or Ensign Pulver or Burke's Law or The Man from U.N.C.L.E., anyway. Or The Outer limits, or Space Family Robinson, or Batman.But this was what Mom and Dad wanted to watch. Mom was a fan of Peter Falk's, and she would always tell us he had a glass eye. Dad, after the war in the late '40s, lived in Greenwich Village studying art at the Art Students League, and he used to hang out in the White horse Tavern tossing the bull with the other young turks, his drinking buddies, of whom Peter Falk was one.For me, as a boy, it, Trials of O'Brien, was what was on TV. And sometimes I was allowed to stay up and watch.So, from an 11-year old's perspective...This show had a really hilarious opening sequence every week, in which the protagonist, a New York City street lawyer who likes hanging out with his cronies (and gambling) is in a floating crap game that gets raided by the police, and you see the cops rushing in, and all the miscreants, of which our lawyer protagonist is one, dispersing and fleeing the authorities. Very funny stuff! Opening sequence. Every week.Also funny was that this was no Brooks Brothers -wearing, respectable, successful-wealthy attorney like the lawyers on The Defenders and Perry Mason were. This was a street lawyer who was always behind on his alimony payments, and his ex-wife would be pestering him to fork over. So, when he WOULD get a case, he didn't get to hold on to the paycheck for very long.That's it. That was the character. This was a show about a working-class guy who had passed the bar exam. His main connection to Columbo would be the seedy appearance. But Columbo was a straight arrow family man dedicated public servant. O'Brien is closer to Joe Pesci's character in My Cousin Vinnie, but older, and more inclined to hanging out with his cronies than a girlfriend. But, like Cousin Vinnie, this was a legal mystery show cloaked in comedy. And, like Cousin Vinnie, O'Brien was loaded with New York City atmosphere.And what a boat-load of talent from week to week!DIRECTORS. Richard Donner. Abner Biberman.GUEST CAST - ACTRESS. Faye Dunaway. Jessica Walter. Estelle Parsons. Cloris Leachman. Tammy Grimes. Barbara Barrie. Joanna Pettet. Britt Ekland. Zohra Lampert. Alice Ghostley. Sheila MacRae. Angela Lansbury. Rita Moreno.GUEST CAST - ACTOR. Gene Hackman. Frank Langella. Martin Sheen. Alan Alda. Charles Grodin. David Carradine. Robert Blake. Roger Moore. Robert Loggia. Tony Musante. Nehemiah Persoff. Lou Jacobi. Norman Fell. Harold J. Stone. Alejandro Rey. Barnard Hughes. Philip Bosco. Vincent Gardenia. Kenneth Mars. Reni Santoni ("Poppy" on Seinfeld). David Doyle. Dana Elcar. Michael Constantine. Conrad Bain. Thayer David. Simon Oakland. Tony Roberts. Frank Converse. Claude Akins. Theodore Bikel. Brock Peters. Jack Albertson. Will Geer. Pat Hingle. Buddy Hackett. Mischa Auer. Milton Berle. Burgess Meredith....to name a few..

It's been a long time ago, but I know this was a critical success. When it was canceled, it caused a "save this show" letter-writing campaign, to no avail. It was about a rather deadbeat, but smart lawyer, fending off bill collectors and while taking on even more deadbeat clients. Falk did his usual great job and I think some of this character spilled over to Columbo. I would love to see if any of the 13 was it? episodes still exist. I would buy them all!

I recall nothing else about this wonderful show except that the writing was SO good even as a teenager I could tell it was special. The only actor who registered with me was the superb Peter Falk. Now that I see that Joanna Barnes and Elaine Stritch were regulars it gives me even more desire to see those old shows again. I remember I was a fan of the show from the very first episode and was sorry no one else was noticing it.