Mannix (TV Series) Walk on the Blind Side (1974) User Reviews

Stop me if you've heard this one, Peggy is kidnapped and.....

[Guad42 · 6/10 · 25 May 2021]

This starts as one episode and morphs into another. A woman (Kim Hamilton) jumps into Mannix's cab at the airport while being pursued by mob people. She hires Mannix with the usual lying cover story that Joe's clients are famous for. Joe falls for it and takes the woman to a place to hide out. The bad guys force the cabbie to talk and get to Mannix's office. Through a screwup, they kidnapped Peggy thinking she is the client. Kim Hamilton exits the episode by pulling a gun on Joe and running away. You would think Joe would get the police to grab her at the airport since he knows she is on the 8 o'clock plane to Tokyo but he doesn't do it.

Lonnie (Lincoln Kilpatrick) is assigned the job of killing Peggy. He has his own problems, one being his addiction to cigarettes. He is always smoking early in the episode. The other problems become apparent as the episode progresses. The hidden room is hard to believe. It makes a convenient jail, too convenient. Lots of convenient things in this plot. It is convenient that Kim Hamilton is run over in Tokyo so gets her just desserts for not helping Joe. Or so we think she didn't help him.

It is convenient that Joe is in a drugstore looking for a witness who might have seen Peggy and the druggist happens to mention a guy buying Peggy's type of lipstick. Joe questions him and he freely provides information that Lonnie bought the lipstick and has a vague idea where he lives. What are the odds of that happening? Joe finds Lonnie's place and it is conveniently for sale. Joe gets a tour by saying he is interested in the house. Joe leaves and Lonnie figures out it was him. Then Lonnie gets a job out of town and has to make a decision. He has his anxiety attack and Peggy almost gets away. Surprisingly, Lonnie lets it slide. As usual, Joe and Art argue about the case and, as usual, Art refuses to buy into Joe's famous hunches, this one about Lonnie. Of course, he will be proven wrong, yet again. Joe isn't the only one with hunches. Lonnie's boss, Wexler, gets a hunch about whether Lonnie killed Peggy and goes to see Eddie Firestone (Cap), a ship's captain who does drug runs because he and Lonnie are tight. Of course Cap talks because that's the only type of characters Firestone plays. He cops to Peggy being alive as he dies. Wexler shows up at Lonnie's place. A shootout kills Wexler and one henchman. Lonnie is conveniently wounded and dies with Peggy. Joe and Art show up as they got information from letter mailed from Hawaii by Kim Hamilton so she did help a little. In a rare event, Joe is not in the action at the climax.

Gail Fisher is excellent in this outing. She is a fine actress. Eddie Firestone (Cap) looks to be more than the standard stoolie/low life in this one but he isn't. Kilpatrick is good but the anxiety (?) attack is a little overacted but the script doesn't help him here. Not sure why that attack has to be in the script except maybe as a way to explain the hidden room and gain him some audience sympathy. Leonard Stone (Wexler) is making the last of his many appearances on this show. He has been both a good guy and bad guy on previous outings. I like him better as a bad guy. Alex Hentelhoff made a career of playing weak underlings.

Joe doesn't get paid and Peggy definitely deserves a raise. Lots of convenient stuff makes this a hard one to believe but it is not the first time that has happened on Mannix. A decent hour.

So Bad, It's Good

[junemo · 7/10 · 23 February 2022]

Watching Mannix is like watching some strange time capsule. If I hadn't grown up in the 70s, I would think the clothes, decor, hairstyles, etc were all made up. Not to give too much of the plot away, suffice it to say a gang of goons mistake Peggy for another black woman played by Kim Hamilton, who is trying to escape from the goons. Kim's character is Get Christie Love! Sort of interesting, but unfortunately perhaps too much, so she's only present for half of the story. Or maybe she had plastic surgery so was present the whole time, but none of us recognized her the 2nd half of the show, which is devoted to Mannix trying to find kidnapped Peggy. Thinking she's dead, the police give Mannix Peggy's bullet-holed red coat that she had recently purchased, because there's no need to keep evidence of a murder, right? Based on Peggy's handwritten clue of her general vicinity on the lapel of her coat, Mannix almost immediately finds the house where she is holed up in what looks like a bomb shelter in the basement. Because the house housing Lonnie (which had to be for sale, so Mannix pretended to be a buyer), Lonnie had apparently ordered from the drugstore a lifetime supply of Peggy's favorite lipstick, so Mannix knew something was amiss. In any case, kidnapper Lonnie decided to store Peggy in this shelter rather than kill her. Besides a bathroom, lipstick, and a cup of tea, what more could Peggy need? He gives Peggy photos of her son, who he found by looking up Peggy in the phonebook. This "act of kindness" surprisingly didn't freak out Peggy. Ultimately, we discover that Lonnie has migraines, mental health, and mommy issues. Still, he somehow formed a plot with a skipper who never made it to Gilligan's Island, to take Peggy to another island outside of the USA. But first, there's a Quentin Tarantino-like gunfight in the living room. Lonnie's been shot, and as he gives his final speech to Peggy in the shelter room, he confuses her with his mother, and based on his speech, it seems he may have killed his mother. Peggy thinks she's a gonner when WHAM-it's Mannix to the rescue! Of the Peggy-centered episodes, this one's not so bad. I was never bored, despite the recycled plot.

Episode starts off excellent and original but then turns into a remake

[belanger75 · 7/10 · 28 February 2019]

A remake of a far earlier Mannix ep that had starred Georg Stanford-Brown as a kidnapper who abducts Peggy Fair and then falls for her.

I like this episode very much but I would loved it If it had stayed what it started off being about. That was Mannix's attempt to help beautiful Kim Hamilton from becoming a mob fatal casualty. There is an exciting early car chase with a cab and we have every right to think Hamilton is the main focus of the show. Sadly Kim soon pulls a gun on Joe and she flees and that's the last we see of her great bit in this episode. Meantime, Peggy is mistaken for Kim and is kidnapped leaving Mobster Lincoln Kilpatrick to go through Stanford-Brown's old role including about the same climax (despite both men turning in very powerful performances Stanford-Brown did it slightly better). All in all I feel viewer-cheated out more Kim Hamilton viewing.

PEGGY'S RESUME: SECRETARY AND HOSTAGE?

[tcchelsey · 9/10 · 18 November 2022]

Even in this final season, poor Peggy had to be kidnapped at least one more time. Blame it all on Albert Beich, who wrote quite a few episodes, including for BURKES LAW. His claim to fame was the outstanding thriller, DEAD RINGER, starring Bette Davis. To his defense, the story does make sense, in an adventurous sort of way. My only arguement is that Joe should have had Peggy packing a gun right from the start. Or... how about joining him in a karate class?

Gail Fisher, as always, does a fine job with what comes her way. Peggy is mistaken for an informant, involved with some extremely desperate (ie: homicidal) characters. The OTHER woman is played by Kim Hamilton, making her third appearance on the show. Kim originally wanted to be a model, and certainly had the looks. She hit some milestones in Hollywood as the first black actress to appear on two prime soaps operas; DAYS OF OUR LIVES and GENERAL HOSPITAL. Kim rose to become a very respected actress and enormously popular.

Accolades to Lincoln Kilpatrick (who plays Lennie), another distinguished actor who appeared in dozens of crime shows. The story goes that the legendary singer, Billie Holiday, urged him to become an actor. Eddie Firestone, usaully cast in offbeat roles, plays Cap. Ward Wood again holds down the fort.

Despite the all too familiar plot, this is well written and owes a lot to the talents of Kim Hamilton. Watch this fine actress. SEASON 8 EPISODE 4 CBS dvd box set. Note: The last season of MANNIX is always on sale and you can pick it up for a good price.

Well, I liked it.

[imdb-25288 · 8/10 · 25 May 2021]

When I was a kid, I knew Mannix to be a very boring show. I didn't understand anything but one thing I knew: Peggy was a very pretty lady and I liked her. She is the star of the show here. The bad guy who abducts her is charming enough and they had a moment where I thought they were going to kiss, but then he pushed her off onto the couch.

Peggy is wearing coral lipstick. Bright coral. Mannix often worse a touch of pale coral in the center and towards the inside of his bottom lip. In fact, even many of his female scene co-stars wore it in the same fashion, from the same tube. It looked odd. But Peggy pulls off the coral lipstick well. It matches her coral coat. Now, Mannix is in the 10 min from the end scene, and he is wearing that pale coral lipstick on his bottom lip: it matches the pale orange squares of his dreadfully checkered jacket.

The scene where Mannix checks out th bad guy's place (Lonny's) is weird; why would the bad guy have a for sale sign outside, if he's doing bad guy things, like abducting Peggy inside the house? Hmm...

I have no idea how the episode ends, but I hope Peggy and Lonny get married and he becomes Mannix second banana. The guy has too much style and class not to be in every Mannix episode. At least, it would make it watchable for me. He looks great in a pale blue itchy linen suit.

I'm giving it 8 stars because Mannix is still a boring show. I mean when Peggy drops a can, why do the bad guys look that way? Couldn't it be a cat or a ghost? Or the ghost of a cat? The actress who played Peggy became a cocaine addict and that put a damper on my liking her as a kid. Actors who worked as P. I.'s cops or secretaries for Mannix ought never mess with the drugs. The end.

Weak Season 8 episode

[dburton2 · 4/10 · 3 June 2018]

I find Season 8 generally strong compared to Seasons 6 and 7, but this is below par. It's one of the approximately 800 Mannix episodes where Peggy gets kidnapped or put in danger (and yet she never quits her job; huh). This one doesn't make much sense, and depends on the coincidence of Peggy being mistaken for another lady because she happens to be standing where the other lady is supposed to be, and is wearing a red coat that she just happened to have bought and that looks like the one the other lady is supposed to be wearing. Weak writing, and the story never develops any momentum.

Ugghh!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 16 April 2017]

This is a dreadful episode of "Mannix" and I can't see how anyone could enjoy this one...except, perhaps, for it's camp value.

It all begins with a woman jumping into Mannix's cab at the airport. She is being chased and asks Mannix to help her. For his efforts, this lady ends up screwing Mannix over completely, as she's being chased by mobsters and they end up kidnapping Peggy by mistake. Then, she skips the country and Mannix has no idea what to do next.

What follows COULD have been very good. After all, in the first few seasons of "Mannix", Peggy got kidnapped all the time...and it had been a while since they used this plot element. But here's where it all falls apart...one of the mobsters, Lonnie, is told to kill Peggy and instead he decides to keep her as he has a hidden basement room (huh?). And, it turns out Lonnie is insane and has weird seizures that make Cagney's in "White Heat" look downright subtle! In fact, watching Lincoln Kilpatrick gyrating and moaning and overacting horribly is awful...but awfully funny as well. Overall, an embarrassingly bad episode...and yet another sign that the series had peaked long ago and perhaps eight seasons was a season or two too many.

Blinded By The Light

[DAshton1918 · 2/10 · 25 August 2020]

Not too much to add here but in a review for the first episode of S8, one reviewer (industry type) noted the overlighted sets...you REALLY notice it in this ep. Almost whitewashed out...obviously the C-team for the finale go-round. Sad.

Agree with the 2/2019 reviewer

[raypierce-48543 · 3/10 · 29 March 2021]

It was strange wasting the potentially great plastic surgery to hide from the mob story and just changing the plot to something completely different. It was like two episodes pasted together.

Well had some good parts

[dukeb0y · 6 February 2024]

And the best part was Peggy getting kidnapped in a mysterious way. So here's the spoiler. Mannix shares a cab, with a lady on the run. She just happens to get in the cab. The bad guys are getting another cab and follow her and Mannix.

They have a pretty good car chase. And Mannix cleverly says to the cabbie," I'll give you a 20 if you can lose him".

I want to point out they got some pretty good car chases and they're really bang the old Chrysler's up. I actually got all four wheels off the ground.

Peggy is still kidnapped but trying to talk her way out of it. And I want to say something Gail Fisher is absolutely gorgeous and I wish she was around today. What an absolutely beautiful woman.