He spent a good fifteen minutes straight on screen at one point saying nothing. Peppard played Banacek differently in the pilot.
In the case in the pilot, they ended up out all the money they paid the investigators plus the reward.
Perhaps this is why the producers went with a format where Banacek came on with a promise of reward soon after the items were stolen. In the original conception, Banacek only worked cold cases that hadn’t been solved in sixty days and the executive commented on how much money the insurance company has squandered on investigators’ pay and expenses searching for millions of dollars in gold. The second season disc for Banacek contains the original pilot which shows a bit of the original conception. The character didn’t appear in the last two episodes of the second season since the episodes were set outside of Boston. In one story, she wormed her way into an investigation, asking to learn from Banacek while on a leave of absence from the company and then tried to sell him out to her insurance company. This was a bad move, as it tampered with the show’s dynamic, slowed down the stories, and didn’t add anything to the plot.
However, in the second season, an insurance company exec tried to thwart Banacek with the help one of his own investigator Carlie Kirkland (Christine Belford) who tried to maintain an on-again, off-again romance with Banacek while trying to beat him out of his exorbitant fees. In the first season, the insurance company was more than happy to hand over six-digit checks in order to avoid seven-digit losses. However, scenes in bed were avoided throughout the series, as mere verbal hints were all that would be allowed. Among the Banacek women was future Lois Lane Margo Kidder. Murray Mattheson played Felix Mulhol, a bookstore store owner that seemed to know everything about everything.īanacek was portrayed as God’s gift to women, at least those who weren’t looking for a serious relationship.
Manza’s character would occasionally take a crack at the solution that would be invariably offbase. Throughout the series, Peppard was supported by Ralph Manza who provided the comic relief as Banacek’s chauffeur and erstwhile sidekick. A grand total of thirteen episodes were released.
This allows for plenty of development, particularly in the early episodes, without a lot of fluff. The focus is on the big property crime, not on violence.īanacek was part of NBC’s Mystery wheel, so its original running time with commercials was 90 minutes, with the shows themselves running a shade over 70 minutes in length. While a murder usually happens in the course of the investigation, it’s not guaranteed. How does a football player on the field disappear in front of thousands of fans? How does a million dollars in cash vanish from behind a locked display case? How does $23 million in paintings vanish from a truck transporting it?īanacek takes no case where the missing item is less than a million dollars in value.
The series aired from 1972-74 and it focused on classic impossible mysteries. He made a comfortable living solving cases the insurance company couldn’t crack and collecting ten percent of the insurance company’s savings. More than a decade prior to becoming universally associated with the character of Colonel John “Hannibal” Smith, George Peppard played Thomas Banacek, a Boston-based, Polish proverb-spouting insurance investigator. THE GREAT DETECTIVES of Old Time Radio With Host Adam Graham Main menu Skip to contentĪ version of this review appeared five years ago