Spenser

Spenser: For Hire – When Silence Speaks

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser: For Hire – When Silence Speaks
  • IMDb: link

Spenser: For Hire - When Silence Speaks television review

Throwback Thursday takes us back to the mean streets of Boston and the travails of a smart ass private detective. After breaking up a diamond heist, Spenser (Robert Urich) is hired by an advice columnist (Phyllis Frelich) who hopes Spenser can find a man she has never met and whose real name she doesn’t know. While writing under the pseudonym of an older man, Spenser’s client is an attractive deaf writer who started a correspondence with a man who has suddenly gone missing after taking the writer’s advice, leaving his fiancé (Caitlin O’Heaney), and refusing to help in some kind of nefarious scheme.

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Spenser Confidential

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Spenser Confidential
  • IMDb: link

Spenser Confidential movie reviewSpenser Confidential is loosely based on Robert B. Parker’s novels about a smart-ass Boston private investigator. And when I say loosely, I mean screenwriters Sean O’Keefe and Brian Helgeland may have glanced at the spine of one of the dozens of Spenser novels written by Robert B. Parker over the decades. The film re-imagines Spenser (Mark Wahlberg) as a recently-paroled cop who spent five years in prison after beating up his superior officer (Michael Gaston) on his front lawn after the police captain buried evidence on the brutal murder of a protester (Avery Grant).

With dreams of being a truck driver, Spenser is pulled back into the muck when the police captain and another officer are murdered on the day Spenser is released from prison. Although only a suspect for about five seconds, Spenser decides to look into the situation on his own. Hawk (Winston Duke) is re-imagined as a young kickboxer rather than the world-class hitman with a shared boxing past with Spenser. Alan Arkin co-stars as gym owner Henry Cimoli who, along with training Hawk and giving Spenser a place to stay, helps Spenser and Hawk on the case.

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Spenser: For Hire – Brother to Dragons

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser: For Hire – Brother to Dragons
  • IMDb: link

Spenser: For Hire - Brother to Dragons television review

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the mean streets of Boston and the travails of a smart ass private detective. The death of a second student by heroin overdose in Susan‘s (Barbara Stock) school leads to Spenser going undercover as a teacher. There he discovers a troubled teen (Patrice Colihan) and a vice principal (Timothy Carhart) pushing vulnerable young women into the arms of a pornographer and drug dealer (Stephen McHattie). The episode takes steps to present Corbett (McHattie) as a legitimate threat to Spenser through the eyes of Hawk (Avery Brooks) who knows both men and warns each that any confrontation between the pair would be too close to call.

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Spenser: For Hire – A Madness Most Discreet

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser: For Hire – A Madness Most Discreet
  • IMDb: link

Spenser: For Hire - A Madness Most Discreet television review

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the mean streets of Boston and the travails of a smart ass private detective. It was common in the 80s for shows to do episodes involving Soviets wishing to defect to the United States. Spenser: For Hire offers a twist to standard tale when Spenser (Robert Urich) is hired by a Russian ballet dancer who actually wants the private detective to help her return home. The episode is notable for pointing out several of Spenser’s rules, one of which is simple: clients lie. Anna Maria Kolvo (Maria Holvoe) is no exception as she offers only a partial truth when hiring the detective and only reveals the rest of it after an attempt is made on her life.

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Spenser: For Hire – A Day’s Wages

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Spenser: For Hire – A Day’s Wages
  • IMDb: link

Spenser: For Hire - A Day's Wages TV review

Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the mean streets of Boston and the travails of a smart ass private detective. What starts out as a relatively simple job for Spenser (Robert Urich), looking into who is stealing from a local dress manufacturer (Edward Binns), becomes far more complicated by thief’s death and the business owner’s underworld connections. “A Day’s Wages” returns one of Robert B. Parker’s most notorious characters in crime boss Joe Broz (Raymond Serra) who is slowly squeezing the life out of the business in able to turn a profit with his own scams of selling knock-off merchandise to high-end clientele. The story ties in Hawk (Avery Brooks) by having him perform protection for the victim (Erik King), although it turns out not that well before being sidelined for most of the episode by a deal with Spenser. And with Belson (Ron McLarty) and Quirk (Richard Jaeckel) receiving little more than last-second cameos, the story stays centered on Spenser for nearly the entire episode.

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