Episode 21: A Coffin for Starsky

After someone injects Starsky with a deadly drug, Starsky and Hutch have twenty-four hours to find both the killer and the antidote.

Cheryl: Jenny Sullivan, Vic Bellamy: Gene Dynarski, Sweet Alice: Nellie Bellflower, Janos Martini: Seth Allen, Prof. Jennings: John McLiam, Charlie Collins: Jack Griffin, Dr. Franklin: David Byrd, Sue Bellamy: Carole Mallory, Mrs. Haberman: Fritzi Burr. Written By: Arthur Rowe, Directed By: George McCowan.

QUESTIONS AND NOTES:

This fan-favorite is the last-filmed episode of the season and the first one written specifically for the two actors. I’m guessing in previous episodes some dialogue was either modified or reinterpreted by the actors to make it more their own because the change is so seamless, so perfect. I have read in the past that the scene in the hospital at the end, when Starsky is about to be taken away, had an entire scripted conversation which was edited by Glaser and Soul into a single mute look. This shows most remarkably how both actors were able to forge an immediate personal bond; this real life relationship is indivisible from their performances, especially here.

Of note, too, is how love and affection expressed by Starsky and Hutch – here in its most pure and urgent form – is so sharply contrasted by the rough characters, lewd or ugly situations, dirty urban settings and grim dank hallways. This, for me, is the series at its best; less successful is the last season in which a persistent upscale luster has the effect of diffusing the emotional potency.

It’s interesting the first line is “I can’t.” Starsky’s voice. “I can’t”, he says. “I can’t let …” This is an important indicator of Starsky’s iron will. I can’t let him get away with it.  And he doesn’t. That’s it, we then hear Bellamy’s evil laugh and the journey has begun.

Notice the four-tube Nixie Clock, Russian-made components glowing amber numerals under a smoked-plexiglas case, on a wood base. A 70s classic.

“Hutch. Help.” Two words, that’s all it takes; not many of us can claim a lifeline like this. Picture the unfilmed scene: Hutch arriving in a panic, breaking in and rushing to the bedroom and encountering his partner with no gunshot wound, no bruising, no signs at all that he’s been injured even though he’s unconscious. (The “pre-shot” must cause his unconsciousness, and not the fatal poison; Starsky is conscious and clear by the time he’s examined). It would be a shocking discovery for anyone but for Hutch it’s amplified by the revelation that he alone will be responsible for seeking justice for this terrible crime. Look at his stunned bewilderment in the ambulance – another great moment for David Soul, who is always able to condense a great range of emotions into a single gesture or look.

Several times throughout the series we see Starsky parking the Torino at his apartment so it blocks garages. My guess is that he knows these are storage units and not active garages or he would not have done so; Starsky isn’t the selfish type. But even so, it’s fun to imagine a tenant’s council meeting where they argue about whether allow their oddly intimidating neighbor – who keeps such strange hours, whose friendliness is overshadowed by the fact he carries a gun – to park his car in the most inconvenient place possible. I can see the decision coming to “yes” when no one volunteers to be the one to say “no”.

There does not appear to be any doubt by either the emergency response team or Hutch himself that what Starsky has suffered is, in fact, an injection of a paralyzing agent. If Hutch arrived to find his partner unconscious but with no discernible injury all kinds of possibilities would be foremost in their minds: heart attack, overdose, stroke, aneurysm. However, Starsky has seemingly regained consciousness sometime before the rough stuff happens (stomach pumping is the most obvious first step, but that never seems to have happened, luckily) in order to tell them what has happened. Did Hutch’s experiences in “The Fix” alert him faster to the possibility of poison? Did it lead him to first check for an injection site, and be the one to find the tell-tale pin-prick in the arm? I’d like to think so.

I like how Hutch tries to suppress a yawn when the doctor leads him out of the room, a hint of the fatigue he’s fighting.

Notice how Franklin says formally, “I understand you and Detective Starsky have been partners for some time now” and Hutch reacts calmly, saying “that’s right”. But when Franklin changes his tone to the more personal, “yes, he says you were his best friend” Hutch nervously interrupts, actually waving an impatient hand in Franklin’s face to stop him. He says a curt “Doctor, what are you trying to tell me.” It’s a lovely, subtle moment: formality is good, but don’t try anything else. Franklin is unswerving, though: he says, “I don’t think your friend is going to make it.”

Why does Starsky say he “hate soapy scenes” and makes Dr. Franklin give Hutch the bad news? It only takes a second for Hutch to open the door and confront him with the situation. The soap is in the aftermath, and not in the moment of the telling, something he knows he will not escape no matter who conveys the news.

Original script details included Hutch’s realization that he was intended to be Jennings’ first victim, the revelation that Starsky’s toothpaste was drugged, and a lot of dialogue in the farewell scene (including Starsky making the connection about Bellamy’s education), which was replaced by the long look that couldn’t be scripted.

Hutch, when questioning Starsky, says, “what about the voice? Did you … did you fix a pattern?” This sounds like air traffic control. Maybe Starsky is right when he says Hutch can’t handle this. Remember how Starsky confronts Hutch in a similar – if not more difficult – situation in “The Fix” when he tries to make Hutch remember details following a disorienting trauma. Getting into his face, barking out commands. “Names. Names.” This is much more effective and emotionally real than tentatively asking to “fix a pattern”.

The whole conversation with Hutch, Starsky and Dr. Franklin has the undercurrent of sexual assault. In a way it is, because a rapist inflicts pain for no other reason than the pleasure of inflicting it. “Whoever it was wanted to enjoy himself,” Starsky says.  And then, with a touching attempt at bravery he adds, “It’s about as dirty a laugh as I’ve ever heard.”

Hutch tells Dr. Franklin he assumed because Starsky was in the hospital, that he would be treated successfully. Later, he rails about doctors, “You get sick and they can’t even cure the common cold!” While under a great deal of stress, he has now said two opposite opinions in five minutes. Starsky displays similar ambiguous feelings in “Black and Blue” about the medical profession as well: when calling to find out Hutch’s condition after being shot, the nurse comments Starsky apparently doesn’t trust doctors.

We now come to the only scene in this harrowing episode with a glimmer of humor, and it’s wonderful. Starsky’s display of pique as he releases himself from hospital – “You mean you want me to hit the streets with no pants, no badge, no gun – no dignity?!” shows that he, too, uses Hutch as a means of releasing tension, although more rarely. Hutch plays his part admirably by lamely holding up the watch, the only thing he’s remembered to bring, enabling Starsky to hit the roof. It’s a complex but tidy little moment and terrific fun to watch. A lot of things seem to be happening all at once: Starsky blaming Hutch for something he couldn’t possibly be expected to do – Starsky is so sick it’s inconceivable that he’d be released at all – Hutch acknowledging the importance of a watch to his partner, despite his constant scorn on the subject, and the use of explosive temper at the other as a way of decompressing and focusing on the task at hand. We can see both Starsky and Hutch have the ability to absorb tension and transform it into useful energy. Plus, it’s effing hilarious. Also, it’s entertaining to see how Hutch is able to be subdued by Starsky’s criticism. He recovers quickly, though, bitching as they walk down the hospital corridor about how impossible it is the choose between Starsky’s “equally crummy blue jeans”. Fighting back and refusing to apologize is a way of equalizing the partnership again, Hutch indicating he now feels his partner is strong enough to be trusted, and so his retort becomes both a compliment and a stimulus. The whole scene has a joyous energy that practically zings off the screen.

Hutch knows Charlie Collins well when he calls in, is impatient with him to the point of rudeness. When gently remonstrated by Starsky, who as usual plays the peacemaker, Hutch relents and softens his tone. He doesn’t tell Charlie what it’s all about but tells him to check with Dobey and mentions the hospital, which is almost the same thing. Of note is Hutch’s authoritarian ease even though Charlie is at least twenty years older than he is, and has double the experience. Later, bringing in the files, Charlie apologizes for “the static”, but to Starsky and not to Hutch, and then proceeds to hover anxiously in later scenes.

The name ‘Bellamy’ is an in-joke on quiet director Earl Bellamy.

“The way I see it,” says Starsky, “it’s who-do-we-trust time.” And the two of them proceed to give each other a deeply penetrating look. A stops-time look. The look very, very few people will ever get a chance to either give, or receive, in their lives.

Starsky tells Huggy someone broke into his house last night and gave him “a shot”. Huggy doesn’t ask “a shot of what? Bourbon?” which would be the logical thing to say. No, he looks genuinely upset, doesn’t press for details, and quietly gets on with it.

“11:36,” Starsky says, in the office with Hutch and Dobey going through files of suspects. Dobey tries a joke: “I always did think you were a clock-watcher.” Then, when his joke fails, Dobey does something uncharacteristic and tries for informality. “Now Dave there must be something remember about this guy.” This too falls flat. This catastrophe has drawn Starsky and Hutch so tightly together there is no room for anyone else. “You hear that?” Starsky says to Hutch, “he called me Dave.” Hutch has the death’s-door humor ready to go: “The things people will do to get on a first-name basis.”  “Really,” Starsky says, deadpan. This exchange is for their amusement only and has the effect of pushing Dobey even further to the margins, forcing him to do what Hutch refused to do earlier: apologize.

When you think about it, do you wonder why they call each other by their last names? It’s a custom long gone out of favor by the swingin’ seventies. People, particularly California people, are all about being casual and friendly, hugging people they’ve just met, for instance. Granted, the cops sometimes call each other by last name, but usually it’s senior-to-junior, and Starsky and Hutch aren’t cops to each other. Besides, the guys call the uniform cops by their first names all the time (“Fix”, “Lady Blue” and many others). Are Starsky and Hutch exhibiting an old habit from the academy which is hard to break, is this about keeping up formal appearances, or could it be an acknowledgement of some deeper, hidden truth about each other?

Speculate on Dobey’s miscalculation, calling Starsky “Dave” because he wants to be a real friend, even though Hutch, closer to Starsky than anyone will ever be, only uses his last name. Dobey’s social ineptitude in difficult circumstances is one of the more entertaining aspects to his character. It reminds me of a scene far off in the Fourth Season, in which Dobey is so thrilled by a compliment from a FBI bigwig he forgets to lead an urgent meeting (“Targets, 3”).

Dobey announces, “Twenty possibles reduced to these three primes.” This calculation has always made me nervous. Who’s doing the figuring on this one? Someone had to input information into the police computer system, so how did they know what variables to add? How come Prudholm isn’t on this list, and why do Starsky and Hutch accept this dramatic reduction as a given? Would they be tempted to look at the other names in case something rings a bell?

A cop is, for all intents and purposes, the victim of premeditated murder. This is about as heinous as a crime can get and the one thing, other than a child murder, most likely to rile up the entire police department. Surely there must be ten, a dozen, even fifteen other cops racing around chasing down those “twenty possibles”, turning the city upside down trying to find information that might help a fellow officer. And yet the squad room seems blurry, inert. There are no ringing phones or slamming doors. The other detectives, when we glimpse them, are abstract background shapes. Even Dobey is merely blaring noise that passes for language; he may as well just go “blah blah blah” for all the sense he makes. There is only the two of them, isolated inside their own world, intent on each other and their quest. Nothing else matters. This is when the series reveals its true nature: it is, in fact, abstraction rather than realism. For all its gritty detail, this has nothing whatsoever to do with real life. This may be exculpatory of me to say so, and perhaps is due solely to the privileges of hindsight, but to apply the measuring stick of realism to the series is beside the point. Sure, there are continuity errors and lapses in logic, and anyone can point a finger and say undercover cops don’t do this or that, or list procedural errors and oversights. I have done the same on occasion. But when we notice that all extraneous details have been blacked – other officers working the case, or whether someone as sick as Starsky would even be allowed on the premises – shows us how reductionist this series is prepared to go in order to keep its emotional integrity. (However, when issues become distracting – as in the case of “The Trap” and that rickety impractical barn, or the silly prosthetic in “Quadromania” – does it make sense to criticize.)

How did Janos fit in with the “primes”? There is no mention of him ever threatening to waste Starsky or Hutch, and when confronted he seems genuinely weak and ineffectual. He’s merely a purveyor of pornography with a penchant for assaulting women. Yuck, for sure, but does he really fit the profile?

Hutch first notices Starsky starting to suffer as they walk up the staircase to Bellamy’s apartment. See him take note of a brief lag in Starsky’s step, then the sweat Starsky quickly dabs away as they approach; he checks again as they stand in front of the door – a swift, subtle look that’s easy to miss if you’re not intent on finding it. His face gives away very little, and yet you can read his mind: here it comes.

Sweet Alice is one of the reasons Starsky and Hutch is such a groundbreaking show. She’s smart, sensitive and likeable but also frail and obstinate, a well-rounded portrait of a complex person. I like how she says, in a casual way that implies both are more or less the same, “did you just come by to bust me, or just for a little friendly conversation?”

Is that a mezuzah outside Sweet Alice’s door? It can be seen when Starsky is counting to twenty and waiting to knock.

The whole vaudeville scene at the front of the pornography studio is an excellent example of the psychic energy going on. Starsky and Hutch couldn’t possibly have cooked this banter up beforehand – who is “stupid” and who is “creepy” etc. It’s obvious this a mutually gut reaction, both knowing simultaneously what is needed in the circumstance. I figure most of us trundle along in life with a unique set of instincts based on past experiences, genetic predisposition and learned skills. It’s our own psychic recipe shared by no other. But this is not the case with Starsky and Hutch. Somehow, against all odds, and for reasons I will now spend thousands and thousands of words trying to explain, they have forged and inherited the same instincts. Starsky drives this point home with his comment to Hutch that he tell Janos “a funny story”. Hutch knows immediately what he means and goes for it.

Filming Notes: In the alley, for the sake of realism, Glaser went down quicker and harder than Soul (who was to catch him) expected, bruising himself and genuinely startling his costar.

Starsky feels the need to cut through the intense emotion of the scene with an acerbic tale of his aunt Rose who made him just as sick from the chicken soup she couldn’t “get the hang” of, although she made a good won ton. His jokey response to trauma is a mainstay of his character. Does he do this for his own sake, or because he knows it’ll make Hutch feel better?

I would really like to know what a gum movie is.

“Softly,” Starsky says to Hutch, who is railing away about the inadequacies of the medical profession, “don’t antagonize the people I need.” This quiet admonition is enough to stop Hutch in his tracks – he acknowledges his stupid outburst with a nod and that’s that. Later, when Hutch is ill in “The Plague”, it’s Starsky who antagonizes the people they need, causing Hutch to call him off.

The police lab is shown rarely, despite how useful it would appear to be. We see it again in Season Four, during “The Game”, when the effects of botulism are explained to Starsky.

“How you doing, huh?” Hutch says in the lab. “I’m scared,” Starsky says, and you can tell from Hutch’s reaction that he’d hadn’t been expecting – or really wanting – an honest answer. (This is another example of Soul’s uncanny ability to transmit a complex emotion in a micro-second.) Interestingly, Starsky seems to twig to Hutch’s anxiety because he then gives what Hutch wanted in the first place: sarcasm, much like his face-saving wise-ass comment about Aunt Rose earlier. “Just enough time to catch a double feature at the Riverley and finish the book I’ve been reading,” he says. Hutch responds to this with a gesture of nearly unbelievable tenderness.

Why does Bellamy only get a year sentence when caught with the drugs with Jerry? He had already been convicted of pimping, pushing, armed robbery and suspected of two homicides.

What’s the story with the blue carnival dog Starsky has in his desk? I’ve read it actually belongs to Glaser, which means it has the same mystical properties of teddy bear Ollie. It’s spectacularly ugly, and seems to be at the ratty end of its life. Starsky takes it out of the desk drawer and stares at it, as if it encapsulates a memory, then roughly shoves it back in.

Starsky, in a wonderful moment, says “if this was a cowboy movie, I’d give you my boots”. Using 1950s pop culture references to express deep emotion is something Starsky often does. At the hospital in “The Plague”, for instance, he compares a dying Hutch Captain Marvel. This was a kid, I suspect, who spent a lot of riveted moments in front of a television forming an earnest, black-and-white sense of righteousness, which is why he became a cop in the first place. (Hutch has no such illusions; his childhood was compromised and troubled, his boyhood heroes disgraced – as in Maxie Malone).

It’s really incredible that they are, for a very long time, holding hands in the squad room.  Hutch is so reluctant to break the hold that he practically slams Starsky’s hand down on the desk when Mrs. Haberman comes forward with the photographs, exploding “Lady – !” and then, in frustration to another officer, anxious to get her away from him, he says, “Ted, will you …?”

I like how Hutch unloads Starsky from his arms at the doorway to the Bellamy apartment.

Bellamy says, from his hiding place on the roof, “what’s the matter, Hutchinson? You lose your piece?” And then gives the exact laugh the two have been searching for the entire time. Read piece as peace, which means war.

After Starsky kills Bellamy (an example great shooting – it’s dark and he’s so ill he’s lost much of his vision and coordination) Hutch comes up to him. In what is one of the most beautifully staged scenes between them, he gently reaches down and takes Starsky’s gun, then lays his head against the concrete, leaning into him. Harsh shadows and strong light make this all look very noir. Starsky begins to lose consciousness and they both go down against the wall, and it’s almost romantic, although the word seems inadequate, in the way he locks eyes with Hutch as he does so.

Franklin tells Hutch he has to bring Starsky “upstairs”, which I suppose echoes a death/heaven image; Hutch is trying to be professional but doesn’t want to let go. He goes over to Starsky, leans down close, and says “Hey buddy, I have to go now.” Not you, but me. Starsky has something more to say. He says, “hey.” Hutch leans in closer, but there are no more words. Instead there is a long look that speaks volumes.

It’s always surprising to hear Dobey say, “well, that’s it, huh” when Starsky is back in the hospital. Hutch is right to fly into a rage. But notice this is the emotion that vaults him into a moment of transcendent revelation, solving the case. It seems anger helps Hutch as much as it impedes him: the surge of adrenaline clears his mind and allows him to shut out all extraneous information. “We only have two hours,” says Dobey, to which Hutch yells, “I don’t care if we have two minutes, we don’t give up.”

Why doesn’t Hutch drag the professor back to the lab with him? It would seem he would be of some help in diagnosing the antidote.

Let’s analyze the professor’s thinking throughout this whole thing. Why, if he was so angry at Starsky and Hutch because of what happened to his son, did he not just take a gun and shoot them both? Or get Bellamy to give Starsky an immediately lethal shot rather than a slow-acting one? Why take the risk of the discovery of an antidote? If he wanted them to suffer over a period of time, as he himself suffered, and as he believed his son suffered, then why not give them both the shot at the same time? They would be far less likely to solve anything if both were incapacitated, and Bellamy could have easily gotten to them in the same night. Perhaps the professor understood that one of them watching the other in misery was the worst sort of trauma he could inflict, a sort of “watch your loved one die as I had to watch mine die” manner of thinking. And yet, how would he know how much they loved each other? Did he spend a lot of time in secret observation, drawing his own conclusions as to the way to inflict maximum pain? Why didn’t George Prudholm think this way?

Also, why did the Professor not do the injection himself, and instead bring another person into his plan? Did he doubt his ability to creep into Starsky’s house and do the deed? He’s old but he’s not infirm, and besides, Starsky was already compromised by an earlier dose of something. Was Starsky just coincidentally the first to get it, did Jennings just look at a map and think, he’s closer, let’s do him first and then lose his nerve when it came to Hutch? Or perhaps there was a purpose to his actions. He certainly is calculating, cunning, and nothing he did was by accident. Maybe he thought Hutch would be more destroyed by Starsky’s suffering and death than the other way around. Or maybe it was Bellamy’s idea. Maybe he was nursing an even more poisonous grudge than Jennings. After all, it was Bellamy who really “seemed to enjoy himself”, according to Starsky.

The professor’s daughter Cheryl exclaims, “They tried to protect you in this report,” meaning the report of Jerry’s death and the accidental shooting, and Hutch ameliorates this by trying to explain how his gun accidentally went off while they were struggling with Jerry, who was in a drug-induced delirium. Hmm. First, this means it was Hutch who directly caused Jerry’s death, furthering the questions as to why Starsky was the one to get hit. Secondly, it’s unlikely Jerry grabbed for Hutch’s gun, or if he did it was probably a clumsy, half-hearted swipe at it and certainly nothing to worry about. Hutch has faced thugs a lot quicker and more dangerous than a stoned college student whose brain was “soup”. It’s more likely Hutch shot him on purpose – although why he felt forced to do that will always be a mystery. It’s possible his account was slanted to make the events seem more accidental than they really were as a way of shielding Jennings from the true horror of the incident. Possible, but unlikely, since both Hutch and Starsky have a reputation for honesty above all else, and Jennings does not seem to be a particularly close or valued friend. If Hutch has even a fraction of culpability, for whatever reason, this might explain the very slight, but noticeable, shadow over him this whole time – a sense, not of guilt, but frustration that his own actions might have inflamed the circumstances.

Clothes: Hutch wears one of his best outfits of the entire four seasons throughout this show: brown pants with hip pockets, brown shoes (white socks, but all is forgiven), midnight-blue turtleneck, and a caramel-brown leather jacket (collar up, of course). Starsky wears a tan shirt with a periwinkle t-shirt beneath and his “crummy” jeans. He wears the awesome brown leather jacket. Huggy looks great in the “what it is” scene with his red-brown leisure suit, tortoiseshell glasses, and white hat.

 

Tags: 70s TV show, Antonio Fargas, Arthur Rowe, Bernie Hamilton, David Soul, George McCowan, Jenny Sullivan, John McLiam, Nellie Bellflower, Paul Michael Glaser