Mannix (TV Series) Broken Mirror (1972) User Reviews

ANOTHER LADY IN THE LAKE?

[tcchelsey · 9/10 · 13 September 2022]

I dropped this down to 9 stars because I do agree with the last reviewer. A woman (innocently) disappears off a yacht in the middle of the ocean? Where did she go? That all said and done, the story, as it goes along, is pretty good, and Anjanette Comer (as Gina) is just right for the quirky role. Comer will always be remembered as Aimee Thanatogenous in the classic dark comedy THE LOVED ONE (1965). They play it a lot on TCM. She followed this with an appearance in COLUMBO (Etude in Black), and always beautiful.

Bottom line, Joe has to find out just what happened to the mystery lady, especially since her wealthy husband --who hired him in the first place -- is about to be thrown in the jug. Jon Cypher plays the man in question, best known as the police chief on HILL STREET BLUES. A puzzler, directed by the master of adventure David Lowell Rich. Rich was the king of tv movies in the 70s, directing Mike Connors in the caper film BEG BORROW OR STEAL (1973), all about three handicapped men who turn to a big steal. Watch this if you ever get the chance. Rich was the director behind such cult tv shows as ROUTE 66 and NAKED CITY.

Oscar winner Robert Pirosh did the story, who contributed to THE WIZARD OF OZ early in his long career. He wrote the pilot and was a contributor to COMBAT. Look for Ahna Capri (as Billie Caprice). She was one of the Warner Brothers/ABC tv stars who appeared in dozens of WB classic cop shows and westerns. She is missed, having died tragically in a car accident.

Partly filmed at lush and plush Palos Verdes Estates, about 23 miles south of Santa Monica, near Long Beach. The average home price is about 1.2 million dollars, one of the most expensive cities in the U. S. to live in. But... what a view!

SEASON 6 EPISODE 4. CBS remastered color dvd box set.

Guest Anjanette Comer is beautiful, sexy and carries this ep

[bnelso-23793 · 8/10 · 21 December 2018]

This is a very well photographed ep with very nice scenery including the best scenery of all --a beautiful and interesting lady. Comer starts off sitting in a radiant pose on the ede of a boat her character and her character's husband are riding round in. He goes below to mix drinks and comes back and she is gone. He hires Mannix to find her and soon she is located alive or is she?

Poor editing

[george_cherucheril · 6/10 · 3 May 2024]

This is an average episode. Anjanette Comer was effective in her role. Other reviewers had issues with the private investigator cliches but I did not because the plot was still somewhat plausible. I did not like the editing.

Mannix goes to the cove by himself. He is surprised by two divers who pop out of the water and drag him in. This fight scene was expertly filmed but ineffective. Mannix is not going to beat the two divers because he was surprised and not equipped with an oxygen mask. Mannix puts up a herculean effort defeating both divers. Then we go to commercial. When we return Mannix is back at Wallace Hunter's mansion in his suit as if nothing happened at all. If you need to have the fight scene, maybe have someone come to help Mannix win it. After the fight ends, don't cut to commercial, have some closure about it and tie it in to the plot. Who were theys guys? Does Mannix get some information from them?

As a Catholic, I liked seeing David Renard wear the traditional cassock. Priests used to always wear the cassock.

It was laziness not to feature more of Jon Cypher as husband Wallace Hunter. He is completely forgotten. He does not appear at the end to be re united with his wife.

There was no need to have the evil twin sister die at the end. She did a good thing for her twin and could have had a happier ending. They made her too evil and should have made her more sympathetic.

The big room in Wallace Hunters mansion has been used on several Mannix episodes. The Wallpaper used to be blue instead of gray. They added more decorative trim to the fireplace.

It wasn't me. It was the one-armed man.... ah, wait. It was my evil twin!

[Guad42 · 3/10 · 15 December 2021]

The show begins with Wallace Hunter (Jon Cypher) and wife Gina (Anjanette Comer) sailing off the coast of Mexico. He goes below to make drinks and, upon his return, his wife has vanished. If only the scene had switched to George Peppard rowing on the Charles River. This might have been a good Banacek episode. (He found mostly objects but he did find a person in the last episode of the series.) Unfortunately for all concerned, we won't be seeing Thomas Banacek. There is an old Polish saying....

Wallace Hunter goes to Joe. While they and lawyer Richard Averill (John Lasell) are going over the case, word comes in that Gina has been found in a Mexican town. The two men go there and learn she was kidnapped by two divers and taken to a boat and ended up in a cove. She escaped. Joe goes to the cove in a small boat and ends up in the water fighting two divers. Since I doubt the two men just happened to be swimming by, I assume Joe was set up but that aspect is never pursued. Joe next quizzes the wife Gina and she comes off as sweet and lovable and the husband comes to her defense. Joe follows up another lead and gets shot at again and then returns to the office, fairly non-plussed over the incident. I'm not even sure why this part is in the show. Maybe to pad the time. At the office, he gets a call from Averill who wants to come clean but won't talk over the phone. Joe runs out to see him and, sure enough, the lawyer is shot by a sniper who gets away.

Then Joe finds out through fingerprints that the wife was really named Margo Moore. She had a police record for blackmail but the charge was dropped. Joe sees Gina/Margo and she spins a story of woe that causes Joe to hold off on telling the husband. Joe goes back to the office and finds out Margo was involved in another crime in Vegas. Joe meets her partner who is in a wheelchair. Margo put him there when she ran him over while escaping from the police. He tells Joe of Margo's friend, Billie Caprice (Ahna Capri). He arrives in time to save Billie's life in her apartment. She tells him of the orphanage where Margo grew up. There Joe learns there is a set of twins and figures out Margo was substituted for Gina after Gina was taken off the boat. Joe confronts Margo who comes clean. Joe and Margo go to Mexico to rescue Gina. They pull off the rescue but Margo gets shot and dies after a few words with her sister. She ends up being a tragic figure who did have a little good in her.

A couple of observations. The boat in the beginning is making pretty good speed. Hard to believe two divers could get onboard and then take away Gina. As another reviewer has already stated, the trope of an informer calling Joe with vital information but won't pass it over the phone and, sure enough, he gets killed just as he is about to talk when they meet in person. Is there a bigger cliché in PI/police stories? Joe figured someone who knew Gina spotted Margo in Vegas and set up the switch scheme. What are those odds? It is a small world, indeed. Good to know the Mexican police have the same sense of timing as the LA police. Always 30 seconds late. It is weird the husband vanishes about a third of the way through the story.

The writer of this was Robert Pirosh. He was the driving force behind one of my favorite shows, Combat. Check his writing credits. He had game in both movies and TV but I guess anyone can have an off-day. The cast is alright. Cypher is not as involved as he should have been. I guess the lawyer was there so he could be shot. I can't see another reason for him to be in the script. Comer is pretty. Ahni Capri is decent enough but none of them can rise above the material. Art Malcolm has only one scene and it is cleaning up after the dead lawyer. Peggy works her phone magic.

Joe gets shot at. Gets to employ his patented snap shot with a snub nose revolver and hitting his moving target. He should be on the Olympic shooting team. He also should have collected a good fee for this one. This is a busy episode but the evil twin angle is just not right. You can skip this one with no regrets.

Not one of the best.

[cpotato1010 · 5/10 · 13 September 2022]

It starts out OK, there is the mystery of what happened to the wife. But somewhere it loses its luster, and becomes rather pedestrian as Joe works out the details.

Joe ends up driving on some backroad coming back from the Hunter house? What is his obsession for the road less traveled, except by the bad guys?

Then there is the Paramount backlot. Definitely not a safe place to be. People are always getting shot and/or falling off buildings.

Btw, Margo and Gina are not dressed the same at the shack, just the color of their clothes is very close. Gina appears to be wearing a man's shirt, from the size of the sleeves, and Margo is wearing what may be a pants-suit. The jacket has wide lapels, and an attached sash-like belt to hold the jacket closed.

I don't think the guy in the jeep was noticing the finer sartorial details.

Possibly the worst "Mannix" episode so far....

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 23 March 2015]

I have been watching all the "Mannix" episodes on DVD and was shocked at how terrible this episode was. Aside from some nifty underwater cinematography, there really is nothing to recommend this dopey episode...nothing!

The episode begins with a couple aboard a fancy sailboat down around Cabo San Lucas. When the husband disappears below to make drinks, he returns to find no trace of his wife! He soon contacts Mannix to look into the case and almost as soon as this happens, the wife turns up safe--explaining how she'd escaped from kidnappers who had used scuba equipment to capture her from the boat. However, who they are is a mystery and Mannix stays on the case to discover who they are. Of course, folks start dying and the story gets interesting (a code for really, really stupid). Why stupid? Well here are only a few reasons: a guy calls Mannix and says to meet him so he can tell Mannix what REALLY is going on and naturally the guy is killed just as he's making a confession (cliche #3 from detective shows), the real leader of the kidnapping ring is the wife's EVIL TWIN that she never knew about (I am not kidding...an honest-to- goodness evil twin!) and the evil twin is shot and dies just AFTER she and her sister meet for the first time! It's all very contrived and silly and it's the only episode I can recall that just felt embarrassing to watch. Yecch!

Swimming in the sewer

[pkfloydmh · 2/10 · 13 November 2021]

This one is about a guy who hires Joe to find out why his wife was kidnapped.

The story line about the identical twin has been seen many times before on other TV shows so this is yet another episode that reuses old plot elements and lacks originality. It's not well-acted either and is pretty awful.

As usual, there are lots of plot holes. How did the woman disappear from the boat when there were no other boats around? And why did the husband disappear for the last two thirds of the episode? And of course there's no way Joe could have survived underwater for that long.

There are some clichés too of course. Joe gets shot at but not hit and admits he was followed but didn't do anything about it.

Then there's some sheer lunacy. Even though there are no police on the scene and no guns pointed at her, Margo just confesses to Joe for no reason and takes him to where Gina is being held.

Anjanette Comer's performance is one of the worst I've seen on this show yet. She's stiff, soft-spoken and speaks in a monotone and is difficult to hear at times and unfortunately she commands most of the screen time since Jon Cypher (who plays her husband) mysteriously disappears about a third of the way in. Maybe he could see what a debacle this is and decided to bail to avoid going down with the sinking ship. It's still pretty strange though since he's the one who hired Joe. I don't believe this has happened on any other episode to date.

At one point Billie talks about how Margo has been swimming in the sewer and that phrase perfectly describes the state of the show overall right now. There hasn't been a single episode so far this season that has been even remotely interesting or entertaining. The show has deteriorated badly and rapidly.