’Entebbe Rescue’ lead the way

Press, 15 October 1976, Page 11

’Entebbe Rescue’ lead the way

Wednesday is an easy flight to be persuaded to leave the channel switch alone. TV2 gets a head start on TVI by screening “6.30 Special” which, over the last few weeks, has been good enough to hold any audience and this week’s ‘‘Entebbe Rescue Mission” was no exception.

The passengers interviewed gave their views of it all without undue drama, and it was perhaps this understatement of the incident which brought home to the viewer that this was the real thing and not the product of some fevered imagination. The rest of the evening was not up to the high drama of the first hour admittedly but it did bring a few lively moments. The decor in ‘The Brothers" is alw'ays worth a look, and often is the only thing worth looking at in this somewhat torrid series.

This week however was notable for tw'o things at least: Sour Jennifer actually laughed (once) amd smiled (twice) and Edward told his meddling Mum where to get off.

Kojak bowed out and at last we will be free of that idiotic trailer which calls him a lolly-licking cop — he’s managed to lick a few this time round. Unfortunately it was not vintage Kojak. The witticisms were not there; neither was the feeling of reality which the really good episodes of this feature have generated. Telly Savalas himself directed and in this fact lies the failure of the episode. It was done with an actor’s eye of what should be shown — loving closeups of teary eyes; in fact too many closeups. And lots of eerie nightshots, not to mention the music which sounded like a dash of “Rosemary’s Baby” mixed with “The Return of the Mummy.” Ruth Gordon who was so spine chilling in “Rosemary’s Baby” was not convincing as the spiritualist. In fact, she lacked spirit and the whole feeble story fell flat. Often at the end of a season name actors are brought in to enliven a flagging show and this was obviously the case here. As in so many other instances the recipe did not work.