"Inspector Manera": A Dazzling, Dreamy Guy Solves Murders with the Help of 10,000 Women

 Last night's Movie Night movie, Ant Man, was too heterosexist and cliched to even review: Scientist mournng dead wife, Scientist's Daughter falling in love with Superhero, whose Comic Sidekick keeps talking about girls.  In a Gay-Free San Francisco. 

 So it's off to Amazon Prime, and Inspector Manera, an Italian tv series: "The dazzling Guido Caprino stars as Inspector Manera, a dreamy man and his supervisor's worst nightmare."

I've never in my life read a blurb describing a male protagonist as attractive.  It's always "That's my boss, Jonathan Hart.  He's quite a guy.  That's his wife.  She's gorgeous!"

The male protagonist is described as "dreamy" and "dazzling."  I don't dare imagine that Inspector Manera himself will be gay, but certainly there will be gay representation.  And dazzling Italian countryside.  I'm in.  

.Wait -- the opening shows Manera kissing two women and gazing into the eyes of four, not to mention a slow closeup of a lady's legs.  Before I commit to a full hour, I'd better go through it on fast forward.

The plot: Manera starts his job as inspector at a small-town police station, spars with the new lady detective (with whom he has a history), and starts work on his first case: a wealthy professor (there are wealthy professors?) is shot in what is apparently a suicide.  But Manera thinks that it was murder.   As Boris Badenov would say, Of course is murder! Otherwise be lousy story.

Suspect #1: A lady from town who found the body. 

Suspect #2: The professor's gardener (professors have gardeners?)  Could she have been secretly in love with him?

Suspect #3: His ex-wife, who broke into the mansion later and took something from his safe.  Something incriminating?

Suspect #4: His doctor. who never actually graduated from medical school.  Could the professor have threatened to reveal his secret?

Beefcake: Manera takes his shirt off twice.  There are a few other cute guys wandering around, but in the background.  The main cast is all ladies.

Other Sights: Not nearly enough Italian countryside, and no street scenes in the city.

Women gazing at Manera as if he's a popsicle: 6.

Kissing scenes: Only the fade-out kiss.

Men finding Manera annoying: 4

Male friends: None.

Gay Characters: Two guys hug.  One says: "We can't live together anymore."  The other: "I want to live with you."  Whoops, sorry, it's the murderer being arrested and telling his son, who apparently is mentally challenged, that they can't live together anymore. Not to worry, Manera helpfully drops the son off at the nearest convent, for the sisters to take care of.

Will I Keep Watching: Heck, no: 

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium

I saw If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) on tv sometime in junior high.  It was advertised as a hilarious comedy about a group of Ugly Americans on a whirlwind tour of Europe, but I recall it as heartbreaking.   In fact, I was hesitant about revisiting it, for fear that it would bring back the intense feelings of longing and loss that had me almost in  tears as a kid.

When you find something heartbreaking that the rest of the world thinks is hilarious, there must be a subtext somewhere.

There was beefcake.  Lots of it.  Ian McShane, the Swinging Sixties Bachelor who herds the tourists around Europe, displays his body frequently as he falls for and loses prim librarian Suzanne Pleshette.

Luke Halpin, formerly a teenage hunk on Flipper (1964-67), wanders around Europe as a hippie in painted-on jeans as he falls for and loses apathetic teen Hilary Thompson.

Even the hunky Sandy Baron, fresh from his odd-couple sitcom Hey, Landlord (1966-67), displays a toned hairy chest as he rips his shirt off and dives into a Venetian canal to avoid a marriage-crazy relative.  (Incidentally, Sandy Baron would become famous thirty years later on Seinfeld, as the doddering oldster Jack Klompus).

But beefcake doesn't make for poignancy.

Sandy Baron's character doesn't seem to be interested in girls, but otherwise I find no significant gay content.  No male bonding, no same-sex rescues.

So why was it heartbreaking?

Maybe it was the metaphor of escape. Dozens of Boomer movies and tv programs were about people trapped in a dangerous alien world -- Gilligan's Island, My Favorite Martian, Danger Island,  H.R. Pufnstuf, Lost in Space.  They are desperate to get home, to return to their conventional lives, to their jobs and houses and husbands and wives and stark heterosexist conformity.  But If It's Tuesday has it backwards -- the alien world is a Paradise, an escape from their conventional lives to a world of light and color and infinite possibility.

At the end of the movie they all reject the romantic partners they've fallen in love with and go home -- you can't stay in Oz forever -- as the theme song says, "Can't wait to tell the folks back home."  But for a kid in a dull factory town, it was heartbreaking to know -- or to suspect -- that Oz existed, that there was a good place out there somewhere.

See also: "A hot groin and a tricep": Nude photos of Peter Hinwood, the original Rocky Horror. With Ian McShane, Morgan Jackson, and Chord Overstreet.

Sandy Baron's "God Save the Queens": The First Gay-Positive Comedy Album

Bill Bixby: My Favorite Martian

Bill Bixby played swinging 1960s bachelors with glamorous jobs, cool pads, boss threads, and a never-ending supply of babes -- until one day something happened that changed everything, made his heteronormative hedonism seem trite and crude.









In My Favorite Martian (1963-66), his Tim O'Hara rescued a Martian scientist from a crashed spaceship, and had to keep him hidden from the world.  But what started out as a standard "keep your unique talent hidden" sitcom like I Dream of Jeannie and Bewitched quickly developed into something more.  Tim and his so-called "Uncle Martin" share a home and a life and generally ignore the attentions of female suitors.  And though they rarely if ever disrobe on camera, they surround themselves with cute and muscular men:






In The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969-72), his Tom Corbett is widowed, left with a young son (Brandon Cruz), like the Dads on a dozen other 1960s sitcoms.  But what started out as a standard "fix up Dad with a girl" plot quickly developed into something more.  Tom isn't really interested in marrying again.  Instead, he bonds with a coworker, magazine photographer Norman (James Komack).










 In an iconic photo, the three share the same  banana split, quite an unconventional family for the 1970s:

Bill went on to buddy-bond with Lou Ferrigno off-camera, while they were both starring in The Incredible Hulk.