Murder on Stage 17 (1977)

This is my entry for Carissa's Jeff Goldblum blog fest.  Click here to view the links to the other entries!

Originally I was going to write about his character in The Grand Budapest Hotel, cuz I'm a sucker for honest characters with integrity, who do the right thing regardless of risk and clear danger... but time slipped away from me.  I did, however, have time to re-watch a second season episode from one of my favorite television series, the 1970's television show, Starsky & Hutch, an ep called "Murder on Stage 17," which guest stars a ridiculously young Jeff Goldblum. How young?

This young!

This episode is not a fabulous episode, but that doesn't mean it isn't a lot of fun.  Because this ep is about making movies, specifically about making a Western!  And I love Westerns.

The basic plot of this second season episode concerns, as the title indicates, a murder on the movie set.  Starsky and Hutch go undercover as stuntmen (!) on a Western movie, to 1) keep the lead actor (Steve Hansen, played by Rory Calhoun) from being the next murder victim, and 2) catch the killer. This is highly improbable, but we just grin and go with it, as what makes this episode so fun is watching them deal with being thrown headfirst (literally) into the movie-making world. They also get to wear cheesy bad-movie Western costumes and be complete dorks. 

("We're not out of our element here, not at all.")

Their first experience on the movie set is participating in a staged fight.  However, when the real stunt guys decide these newbies are idiots and decide not to pull their punches, they get a bit more than they bargained for, not knowing the two are actually cops with plenty of street-fighting experience.  The director of the film, Harry Markham (Jeff Goldblum), thinks it's great and keeps that scene in the film.  Naturally.  Who wouldn't?

Goldblum doesn't get all that much to do, other than watch things intently (when is Goldblum not watching something intently?) and yell "action" and "cut."

 (Markham watching the fight intently)

He's also apparently convinced that the top buttons of his shirt are evil and should never be touched or fastened.  Ever.

 (and I mean ever)

Markham decides to give Hutch a bit part in the film, with one line to say, but Hutch gets stage fright so badly he can't remember his one sentence and louses the whole thing up.  But the scene gives Goldblum more dialogue and screen time, as he tries to get the performance he unfathomably thinks Hutch can give him...

(Markham directing Hutch... intently, of course)

Starsky gets his solo filming moment standing in for Hansen and getting "knocked out" with a chair in a bar room, and Markham is closely overseeing everything, so more screen time!

Then the bad guy guy makes his play, and Hansen is forced to walk alone down the middle of the backlot Western Street, in a classic walk towards a waiting bad guy.  Except Hansen has Starsky and Hutch shadowing him, so of course, they stop the bad guy (not before he does a bit of damage), and all ends well.