| City of Angels | |
|---|---|
City of Angels title card |
|
| Format | Detective fiction |
| Created by | Stephen J. Cannell Roy Huggins |
| Starring | Wayne Rogers Elaine Joyce Clifton James Philip Sterling |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Jo Swerling Jr. |
| Running time | 60 min. |
| Distributor | Universal Media Studios |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | February 3, 1976 – May 18, 1976 |
City of Angels is a 1976 television series created by Stephen J. Cannell and Roy Huggins, who had previously worked together on The Rockford Files. American mystery novelist Max Allan Collins has called City of Angels "the best private eye series ever."[1]
Contents |
Former M*A*S*H co-star Wayne Rogers plays a determined but rather ethically challenged private detective, Jake Axminster, who looks out for himself—and somewhat less aggressively for his clients—amid the corruption of Los Angeles, California, in the mid-1930s. He is aided in his investigative efforts by two friends: his ditzy blonde secretary, Marsha Finch (Elaine Joyce), who also runs a call-girl business on the side, and attorney Michael Brimm (Philip Sterling). Brimm is called upon frequently to defend Axminster from charges (mostly trumped-up) leveled against him by Lieutenant Murray Quint (Clifton James), a fat, cigar-chomping, and thoroughly crooked member of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Axminster drives a 1934 ragtop Studebaker and keeps his office in downtown L.A.’s historic Bradbury Building, phone number OXford-8704. (Brimm’s office is across the hall.) For his services, Axminster charges $25 a day plus expenses. Although Brimm describes him as “Mr. Play-It-Safe,”[2] Axminster regularly places himself in danger by helping friends and annoying the police with his questions. His efforts frequently result in his being beaten up. So often does Quint order his thrashing, that Axminster has taken to having nude photographs shot of himself in order to prove later on how aggressive the cops were in their interrogations.[3]
The detective drinks coffee addictively. When one client asks him whether his habit keeps him up, Axminster responds, “No, but it helps.” He appears to be constantly in debt, and he’s not above borrowing money from friends and even his bootblack, Lester (Timmie Rogers).[4] Axminster “gripes in general about the cost of staying alive. ‘All the angels left this burg about 20 years ago,’ is his succinct summation of the 1930s ...”[5]
Loosely inspired by the popular 1974 film Chinatown,[6] City of Angels adopted the same cynical view of Depression-era Los Angeles, a place where Hollywood and crime competed for attention. This series also found its roots in Roy Huggins’ hard-boiled 1946 detective novel, The Double Take,[7] which had earlier provided the source material for another Huggins-created series, 77 Sunset Strip. Individual installments of this show were based on real-life events. The three-part pilot episode, “The November Plan,” was based on a notorious 1933 American conspiracy known as the Business Plot, which involved wealthy businessmen trying to bring down United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a coup. Another episode, "The Castle of Dreams," featured a pricey brothel where the prostitutes were movie-star lookalikes. That establishment was based on the historical T&M Studio (later fictionalized in L.A. Confidential as the "Fleur de Lis Club"). During the show's run, Nazism, communism, railroad-riding hoboes, and the Ku Klux Klan all figured into the plots.
Like Banyon, an earlier and similar L.A.-set American series, City of Angels was short-lived. Only 13 hour-long episodes were produced before NBC decided to cancel the program. Critics argued that the TV audience did not easily connect with Rogers as a tough, wise-cracking gumshoe. TV Guide's Cleveland Amory wrote:[8]
Series co-creator Huggins was said to have thought Rogers had been miscast.[9] Meanwhile, Rogers had his own gripes with the series. An "associate of his" was quoted in TV Guide as saying that "Wayne actually tore up Angels scripts while they were shooting on the set and rewrote them himself. He hated the material they gave him."[10] That article continued:
Wayne Rogers was paid $25,000 a week for his starring role in City of Angels.[11]
The series' theme music was composed by Nelson Riddle.[12]
| Episode | Title | Original Airdate |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | "The November Plan, Part I" | February 3, 1976 |
| 2 | "The November Plan, Part II" | February 10, 1976 |
| 3 | "The November Plan, Part III" | February 17, 1976 |
| 4 | "The Parting Shot" | February 24, 1976 |
| 5 | "A Lonely Way to Die" | March 2, 1976 |
| 6 | "The House on Orange Grove Avenue" | March 16, 1976 |
| 7 | "Palm Springs Answer" | March 23, 1976 |
| 8 | "The Losers" | April 6, 1976 |
| 9 | "A Sudden Silence" | April 13, 1976 |
| 10 | "The Castle of Dreams" | April 20, 1976 |
| 11 | "Say Goodbye to Yesterday" | May 4, 1976 |
| 12 | "The Bloodshot Eye" | May 11, 1976 |
| 13 | "Match Point" | May 18, 1976 |