Picked up this hard to find TV movie on an ebay auction, Conrad plays hard edged private eye out to find out who "iced" his friend. Conrad does some post "Wild Wild West" boxing and 4 on 1 fighting with his usual flair, story moves along fine and Shelley Winters makes an appearance. Conrad has a few scenes where he dons disguises, like Ross Martin did as his partner in "Wild Wild West", not a bad way to spend 90 minutes. I understand that this was a pilot for a TV series that did not "sell", is a shame because the "Nick Carter" character had a lot of possibilities that could have been explored in a role Robert Conrad was well cast to play. Guest cast was a good one and watch the unusual turn by Pernell Roberts. Recommended.
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PFJOHN16 May 2005
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This one is to be recommended to fans of Robert Conrad only. It offers a slim slice of the fun we had watching the attractive star step back in time in "The Wild Wild West," but this murder mystery is an otherwise familiar and by-the-book story. Conrad, famous for peeling off his shirt and doing his own fighting stunts as James West, hits the same marks in his first scene, electing to box a fighter being touted as an investment prospect. The sparring is for real, and concludes with Conrad teeing up his chin at the surprising news of his friend's death, then crashing to the canvas when his opponent just about takes his head off with a knockout punch. He's no Jackie Chan--or Laurence Olivier for that matter--but Conrad always gets an "E" for effort.
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zardoz-1322 July 2014Robert Conrad plays a hard-as-nails New York private eye in "The Adventures of Nick Carter" but his charisma cannot salvage an otherwise routine murder-mystery with clichéd characters and stock situations. Carter's close friend Sam Bates is gunned down and the authorities don't discover his body until later when a derelict stumbles onto it. The action takes place in the Big Apple, circa 1912, when motor cars looked primitive. The supporting cast includes Pat O'Brien, Neville Brand, Sorrell Brooke, Pernell Roberts, Broderick Crawford, Dean Stockwell, Paul Mantee, and Shelly Winters. The production values are solid, but the lackluster Ken Pettus teleplay generates little momentum. Conrad puts on an accent and wears disguises. He has few scrapes with the bad guys.
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This attempt to bring classic detective Nick Carter to the small screen as a series was an enjoyable hodgepodge of familiar fafes given the opportunity to dress up in period clothing and attempt to emulate pre-World War I New York City. Robert Conrad delivers the similar tongue-in-cheek perfornance he gave weekly on "The Wild, Wild West", and is a delight, especially when he deals with hard as nails nightclub Bess Tucker (Shelley Wihters, emulating Texas Guinan, but seeming far too modern) in investigating the murder of a young woman (Deirdre Hall, pre-"Days of Our Lives") and the disappearance of one of his associates.
Every time you turn around, it appears that another face from the past is on screen, over-emoting in roles that indicate that the script had far too many characters. Dean Stockwell, Broderick Crawford, Pat O'Brien, Sorrell Brooke, Neville Brand and Jaye P. Morgan are among familiar places that pop out in a variety of cameos of varying lengths, playing varioua archetypes of personalities of the time but really not creating believable characters. Brooke Bundy, best known for playing murder victim Diana Taylor on "General Hospital", is Conrad's secretary and possible love interest, pretty but bland.
This is a movie where style over substance prevails which probably next the idea of a series coming out of it. Too bad, because it would have been interesting to see a fpre-"Murder She Wrote" style show with a period setting, although this is a 1970's version of what life was like at the beginning of the twentieth century rather than making you feel like you were actually there. As far as the mystery is concerned, it's not really all that intriguing, perhaps because if you were is far too distracted by all the familiar faces popping up one after another.