Baretta

Here I don’t mean the Italian gunmaker – Beretta – but the 1975-78 American TV show with Robert Blake in the title role.

The series is not available on Netflix – and only Season 1 (12 episodes) – is available on DVD anyway.  I had no choice but to purchase Season 1 to watch it.  I did so because the show claims to take place in Newark, New Jersey, at the time.

Tony Baretta (Robert Blake).  Police detective, he lives in a hotel with his cockatoo Fred.  He drives a blue fullsize Impala.  The yellow ’70 GTO Judge in the opening credits was a bad guy who tried to run him over – about as much screen time as in the credits.  Baretta’s deal is that he’s “honest”, sympathetic to the more sympathetic crooks, and loves to disguise himself and assume all sorts of clever roles.  Bravo!

Fred.  The bird.  Just flies around and does a few tricks.  Not nearly as evil as Nigel in "Rio", nor as helpful as Snowy (Tintin’s dog).

Billy (Tom Ewell).   Yes, the hapless book publisher from “The Seven Year Itch” looks after Tony instead of lusting after Marilyn Monroe.  He’s put on weight but he’s a good friend.   In addition to looking after Fred when Tony’s off on the job, he also handles various odd jobs.

Lt. Schiller (Dana Elcar).  Baretta’s tough-as-nails, take-no-bullshit superior.  Schiller gives Tony his assignments and gives him the usual grief and flak we expect from police bureaucrats, but deep down he knows Tony’s a good cop.

Rooster (Michael Roberts).   Not Huggy Bear, but a similar dark-skinned lowlife pimp type who provides Tony with lots of useful and relevant street information on who the bad guys are, where they can be found, who they’re hanging out with, and what they’re up to.  Slick and sympathetic, as you might expect.

The plots are fairly standard and predictable.  Stephen J. Cannell apparently wrote all these shows in the 70s.  No surprises.  It's more entertaining to see many later film stars (e.g. Margot Kidder) in minor TV roles, but that's the charm of any of these 70's TV shows.

N.J. or L.A.?  This is by far the most egregious shortcoming of this show, and why I wouldn’t watch Seasons 2-4 even if they were available on DVD.  I was hoping to see northern New Jersey.  It wasn’t long before I recognized the palm trees, eternal sunshine, background mountains, plus the road signs for L.A. locations and fact that all cars have California tags.  ???  Viewers with any familiarity with L.A. would obviously recognize it.  Viewers with any familiarity with northern New Jersey will likewise see it’s clearly NOT Newark.  Plus once you get up near Newark, the NYC skyline – which at that time would have included both the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center – is clearly visible in the distance to the northeast.  Nope: just mountains.  This is like filming in Arizona and calling it Canada.  [In one episode he claims to be from Nutley, New Jersey, which is in fact where Blake came from.]

Robert Blake (real name: Michael Gubitosi).  Long before “Baretta”, he was a child actor: as Mickey in the “Our Gang” series, a continuation of the Little Rascals.  His character was the stereotype Italian-American kid.  I can’t say I recall ever seeing him.  This series started well before the talkies (1922) and ended well after (1944), so the late 30s era with Spanky, Darla, Alfalfa and Buckwheat (“O-TAY!”) was just a phase, albeit the most well-known, before he was involved.  From 1944 to 1975 he acted in various roles, the most famous of which was “In Cold Blood” in 1967.

Then, long after “Baretta”, Blake was charged with killing his wife, Bonnie Lee Blakley, in 2001.  The criminal proceedings took several years, but the jury acquitted him in 2005.  However (as with the O.J. Simpson case) a subsequent civil case ended up with a judgment against him for $30 million.