Recent discovery: Small Vices

I was a fan of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series from the moment I purchased 1978’s The Judas Goat, fifth in the series. I immediately snatched up its four predecessors, and then eagerly awaited each new release: ultimately 40 novels, one per year, until Parker died in 2010. (Although Ace Atkins has been doing an excellent job of continuing the series, he isn’t quite up to Parker’s unique style.)

The character was a natural for television, and the three seasons of Spenser: For Hire, from 1985 to ’88, proved quite popular ... with everybody except Parker’s fans, and most notably Parker himself. The character’s surface trappings were retained, but the tone was wrong; Robert Urich was too young, too handsome, and much too swaggering. Spenser is quietly smug, not boldly cocky; he knows that he’s the toughest and smartest guy in the room, and has no reason to announce it. Although Parker was involved with the show as a “consultant,” he famously said — in a 1999 Los Angeles Times interview — “I read scripts and offered comments which no one paid attention to.”

 

Urich nonetheless reprised the role for a quartet of made-for-TV movies from 1993 to ’95; although each was based on one of Parker’s novels, the results still were disappointing. That said, they were akin to Citizen Kane, when compared to 2020’s Spenser Confidential, which must’ve had Parker spinning in his grave. Everything about that Netflix original is awful, starting with the badly miscast Mark Wahlberg, but most notably the production’s jokey, action/comedy tone. Sacrilege!

 

Ah, but in between — from 1999 to 2001 — cable’s A&E Network delivered a trio of films starring Joe Mantegna, who is note-perfect as Spenser. Co-star Marcia Gay Harden is equally fine as his longtime main squeeze, psychologist Susan Silverman. Parker exercised far more creative control over these three films — Small Vices, Thin Air and Walking Shadow — all of which are adapted from his novels; he scripted the first two, and co-scripted the third with his wife, Joan. Unfortunately, the parsimonious budgets compromised the results, particularly with the second and third films ... which cut short what A&E originally had intended as a five-film series. Small Vices, however, is a little gem; Parker’s fans must’ve been delighted to hear so much of the dialogue being lifted, word for word, from the source novel.

 

David Shire was hired to score the first two films; Eric Colvin handled the third. Shire’s terrific score for Small Viceshearkens back to the sleek, jazz-based scores he delivered early in his career, notably for The Conversation and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, both in 1974. His smoky, laid-back title theme (“Main Title,” on the soundtrack album) opens with a cool descending bass riff, after which Shire introduces the melody’s primary 2-2-2-3-3 motif on soft horns, later punctuated by a saucy solo trumpet: absolutely one of the best PI themes ever composed.

 

It's heard over the credits, which appear onscreen while Spenser takes his customary morning jog through the parks and streets of his beloved Boston, rattling off a list of “bests” (among them, “Novel: Great Gatsby ... Comic strip: Tank McNamara ... Private eye: me.”) Shire’s theme then takes an unexpectedly foreboding turn, as Spenser begins to cross a bridge over the Charles River, and is confronted by an ominous individual later identified as Rugar, aka “The Gray Man” (Eugene Lipinski). This opening sequence actually is a flash-forward lifted from the novel’s Chapter 35: a typical TV “let’s grab viewer attention” decision, because the credits conclude when Spenser is shot, and possibly killed.

Events then slide back two weeks, as Spenser is hired by prosecuting attorney Rita Fiore (Laila Robins), who is concerned that her law firm — prior to her arrival — might have been involved with a miscarriage of justice: namely, incarcerating Ellis Alves (Wood Harris) for raping and murdering a Pemberton college student named Melissa Henderson. Rita is troubled; Melissa was white, Ellis is Black, and he had a wet-behind-the-ears defense attorney who represented him quite badly. Rita wants due diligence, to be sure that Ellis deserves to be behind bars ... and, if not, to free the guy. She asks Spenser to check things out.

 

From the very beginning, Spenser is warned off the case by both thugs and the moneyed individuals peripherally involved (who should have been smart enough to realize that threatening a private investigator is the fastest way to persuade him that something is very wrong).

 

As fans know, Spenser is an excellent cook; the widening investigation is interrupted occasionally, as the days pass, by seductive evening chats between Spenser and Susan, while he makes them dinner. Their playful banter — should they make love before eating, or after? — is backed by languid, delicious sexy cues highlighted by a solo horn, guitar counterpoint, and lovely bass riffs (“Spenser and Susan I” and “Spenser and Susan II”). 

Shire inserts a pensive cue when Spenser meets with Ellis, who tolerates the interview only because our hero has brought along his longtime buddy Hawk (Shiek Mahmud-Bey), to establish street cred. A second thoughtful cue backs Spenser’s subsequent chat with Tommy Miller (Dean McDermott), the aggressively racist cop who initially arrested Ellis ... on the basis of an anonymous tip. Miller nonetheless insists — rather too stridently — that justice was done. (Quite a few of the white folks involved in this case turn out to be shockingly racist assholes.)

 

Hawk is graced with a jazzy cue when he asks career killer Vinnie (Vinny Vella) if local crime boss Gino Fish (Vincent Guastaferro) was involved; the answer is no. (Vinny and Gino Fish are longtime series characters who have an “understanding” with Spenser; over the course of various novels, they do each other favors.)

 

Shire reprises the title theme, but with a sexy undertone — and a saucy final stinger — when Spenser ogles the babes at an indoor swimming pool, prior to interviewing Glenda and Hunt McMartin (Lara Wickes and Jeff Clarke), who served as witnesses to Ellis’ abduction of Melissa Henderson on the Pemberton campus. They continue to claim that he drove up in an old pink Cadillac, snatched her, and then roared off ... farther into the campus. (Gee ... d’ya think they’re lying?)

 

A blast of up-tempo action jazz backs an attempt by three goons to intimidate Spenser and Hawk, while they’re watching a hockey game; the goons fare badly, particularly when one attempts to escape by running across the ice. But then things turn nasty; Spenser and Susan’s evening restaurant date is interrupted by Rugar, whose warning Spenser takes very seriously. Susan is bundled off to a safe house, under constant guard, so that Spenser can focus on finding Rugar first. Ominous percussion backs the assassin’s first attempt, which misses; the cue gets more intense as Spenser runs after the guy (“Park Chase”), but — unfortunately — loses him. Spenser discusses this with Susan that evening over dinner (“Fireside Pizza”), against a soft blend of strings and guitar; the conversation becomes one of the pseudo-psychological “I am what I am” dissections of Spenser’s character, which Parker loved to insert into every book.

 

Parker also has a tendency to have cute young women strip in front of Spenser, although his response always is something along the lines of, “You’re sweet, but I’m taken.” In this case, Glenda shows up in his office, wearing nothing but a fur coat that she immediately sheds; Shire backs this with an appropriately leering little cue. The musical mood then turns threatening when Officer Miller — having finally admitted that Ellis’ arrest was dodgy — is executed by Rugar shortly thereafter.

 

At this point, the film catches up to its prologue. Shires supplies a string-laden dirge (“Spenser’s Funeral”) when Susan, Hawk and many of Spenser’s friends and colleagues attend the graveside service, while Rugar watches dispassionately from a distance. It’s a ruse, of course, and Shire lightens the mood with another sexy little cue when Susan visits the badly injured and hospitalized Spenser.

A slow, bluesy arrangement of the title theme (“Travel Montage”) follows Spenser, Hawk and Susan, when they clandestinely leave the hospital and begin a long drive to Canada. Shire shifts to a more cheerful arrangement of the same theme, as they arrive at the cabin where Spenser will slowly recover. It’s winter; an inspirational melody backs Spenser’s early efforts to merely walk up a hill without falling. Shire inserts a propulsive, Rocky-esque cue (“Rehab”) behind a montage of Hawk pushing Spenser to his limits during the subsequent weeks, climaxing when Spenser finally sprints up that same hill. Everybody then returns to Boston, where — with Gino Fish’s help — Spenser baits Rugar into a trap at a one of the city’s museums. This lengthy cue (“Strictures at an Exhibition”) begins softly, the intensity rising as Spenser spots and ambushes his prey.

 

Soft strings and guitar introduce another romantic melody (“Reunion”) when Spenser returns to a greatly relieved Susan, who genuinely worried that Rugar might succeed this time. 

 

Thanks to a bargain made with Rugar, Spenser then is able to confront the wealthy Donald Stapleton and his wife (Dave Nichols and Eve Crawford) with proof of what he already knew: that Stapleton used influence, threats and money to frame Ellis for the accidental murder done by their son, Clint (Jason Olive), during a session of rough sex with girlfriend Melissa Henderson. A percussive vamp subsequently introduces a triumphant arrangement of the title theme (“Innocent”), while Spenser and Hawk wait to see Ellis freed from prison. Later that evening, a quietly sensuous cue backs Spenser and Susan, as they stroll along a bridge surrounded by trees festooned with Christmas lights. Cue the end credits, and a reprise of the title theme (“End Title”).

 

Soundtrack albums rarely were issued for telefilms, and this was no exception. A quarter-century passed before Caldera Records issued the debut release of Shire’s score, in July 2024 ... although, after such a long wait, the result is disappointing. The album’s 12 tracks from Small Vices total just 23 minutes: barely half of Shire’s score. All of the untitled cues discussed above are missing (along with several others I didn’t cite). That’s bewildering; even if some were too brief to be individual tracks, they could have been stitched into medleys, as often has been the case with other soundtracks. In order to make the disc a more reasonable purchase, the producers included 14 cues from Shires’ scores for Jake’s Women, Broadway Bound and Texan.

Unfortunately, Shires’ score for Thin Air is officially “missing,” and assumed lost. That’s a shame; although he revives a few of the cues from Small Vices, some of the second film’s music is more powerful and propulsive, with stronger echoes of his work on Pelham.