All Betts Are Off

Thirty-nine-year-old actor Josh Brolin (the son of James Brolin from Marcus Welby, M.D.) has been getting plenty of good press lately for his starring role in the film adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. However, I remember him from a much earlier role, as Johnny Betts, the sidekick to Jack Cleary (Michael Woods) in the 1987 series Private Eye.

Don’t remember the show? Well, that’s ’cuz it didn’t last longer than a hooker’s compassion, even though it was brought to NBC-TV by Anthony Yerkovich, creator of the phenomenon Miami Vice. Set in 1956, with flashy finned cars and lots of decorative neon to help establish the atmosophere, Private Eye focused on Cleary, a moody former Los Angeles cop who’d been booted off the force in the wake of a bum bribery rap, and who takes over his brother Nick’s successful local private detective agency after the latter Cleary is murdered. Along with that agency’s other assets, Cleary more or less inherits his sibling’s former sidekick, Betts, “a would-be rock ’n’ roller with a J.D. rep, an attitude, and a real gift for hot-wiring,” as The Thrilling Detective Web Site recalls the character. The newly minted shamus isn’t too crazy, at first, about having Betts around (“The last thing I need in my rear-view right now,” he grouses, “is some thrill-crazy rock-and-roll delinquent with a Blackboard Jungle wardrobe, a nightmare for a car, and a haircut that needs a building permit.”) But Cleary develops a grudging respect for the younger man, if only because Betts seems to know as much about committing crimes as he does about solving them--a talent that can come in handy on occasion.

Although Private Eye worked a lot of the clichés of gumshoe fiction, I enjoyed the series. It was a kissing cousin of Crime Story, a concurrently running Dennis Farina police drama set in 1950s Chicago (before it’s action moved west to Las Vegas). The New York Times’ John J. O’Connor called Private Eye “TV noir at its best, right down to the shadows being cast by the Venetian blinds in darkened rooms.” Woods played his role a little too straight--“so stiff he could have been a ’57 Chevy,” to quote another TV critic, John Leonard. (You can see Woods for yourself in this clip on YouTube). But he was nicely balanced by Brolin, whose Betts was completely unwound and explosive. And there were lots of great period rock tunes backgrounding the episodes. In one, “Blue Movie,” Chris Isaak’s work was heavily featured.

Unfortunately, all of this wasn’t enough. NBC cut the series off after only 11 regular episodes.

I’ve never seen the show in reruns, though I did manage to pick up a couple of the novelizations of Private Eye episodes in later years. I’m still hoping that the series will make it to DVD someday. Meanwhile, every time I spot Josh Brolin on TV or in a film, my mind reels back to memories of bad boy Betts. We lost you too soon, Johnny.