The Rockford Files (TV Series) Irving the Explainer (1977) User Reviews

Nazi Episode

[zsenorsock · 9/10 · 13 January 2007]

I suppose every TV series must have its Nazi episode, and this is "The Rockford Files" one. However, the brilliant script by David Chase is a hilarious parody of overcomplicated murder mysteries that bog everyone down with details so before you know it, NOBODY quite knows what's going on! At the beginning, Rockford thinks he's being hired by Karen Hall (Barbara Babcock) to research and find old associates of a 1930's film director named Alva Korper. Before he knows what's happening he finds himself involved with a missing painting, Herman Goering, former Nazi members of the Abwehr led by Ruprecht (Peter Von Zerneck, who made a career playing out of playing cold, sadistic Prussians and Nazis) and a man who was a former German Olympic wrestler, the French police, the LAPD and several old murders. It's great.

Paul Stewart plays Julius Richards, Korper's old cameraman. He has a terrific death scene where he gives Jim all sorts of information before he dies--just as the film on his movie-ola runs out (very corny, but perfect for this script!). There's another hilarious scene at police headquarters when Rockford demands the French police tell him what's going on--and insist they start at the beginning--which is in the 1700's. The story goes on and on and on (with Dennis frantically trying to take notes throughout) and on and when its done, everyone still seems a little confused. Rockford eventually even hires an assistant who's a major in logic (Irene Tsu) to help him figure out what's going on! The bottom line is he knows there's a missing painting and a recovery fee of $100,000 if he can find it. So Jim is very, very motivated in figuring this out. Just when he thinks he has it all figured out, Irving/Patrick (Bryon Morrow, just as great here as he was in "There's One in Every Port") shows up and confesses, going on and on with new confusing details that destroys Jim's (and everyone else's) theories.

Coburn brings out some of the best in Garner in this episode as he plays the confusion so very well. But you can also see Rockford is loving trying to figure this out as well. It's not your average File. He's quite satisfied when he thinks he does figure it out and Rocky even tells him how proud he is of him, when he is instantly deflated by Irving's sudden and unexpected appearance.

Coburn appeared with Garner in "The Great Escape" and "The Americanization of Emily" as well as the "Maverick" movie. It's too bad Coburn never appeared on the show. He would have made a great character.

But hats off to David Chase on this one for providing a great script, one that all mystery and detective fans should appreciate.

So what was Rockford investigating?

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 23 November 2012]

This was one of the most memorable and original of The Rockford Files episodes. You'll enjoy it, but you'll be scratching your head when its over even more vigorously than James Garner was.

Barbara Babcock hires Garner ostensibly to look up old movie colleagues of a famous director who was known for his pro-Nazi sympathies which made him persona non grata after Pearl Harbor. Pretty soon he finds one in the person of film editor Paul Stewart, but after that it all comes unraveled.

So many people start taking an interest in this case. But does it have to do with the director's Nazi buds, a missing French masterpiece, an old murder/suicide scandal from Hollywood or even the fact that most of his films are missing at the late director's doing? These and many other questions are still puzzling this viewer.

The French Surete is involved with Maurice Marsac and the old Nazis are well represented by Peter Von Zerneck. Not to mention the LAPD with series regulars Joe Santos and James Luisi and of course various and sundry Hollywood characters.

You know the old saying about you can't tell the players without a scorecard. Doesn't mean a thing here because we're not sure what the game is.

Comedy

[bonneidee · 9/10 · 25 October 2023]

This episode has many bad reviews, but I disagree.

It's unlike other Rockford episodes. I first thought of the old film Bringing Up Baby which is a madcap comedy of intentional confusion and chaos (Cary Grant as confusion and Katherine Hepburn as chaos) when I saw this. For some reason it was replayed a few days later on TV and I noticed it mentions Howard Hawks in the beginning. That has to be intentional as he directed Bringing Up Baby.

The confusion over the various characters and the comedy are indeed intentional. Not the typical Rockford formula, but worth watching. I thought the previous episode "Quickie Nirvana" was better, but this one takes the comedy to a different level.

Brilliant pastiche

[rmj142 · 9/10 · 16 February 2021]

What all the negative reviewers fail to understand is that this episode is a send up of countless Hollywood scripts from the past 80 years. Just look at the ingredients: We have a decades old "sex murder", a mysterious old painting worth $3 million, there are Nazi's both alive and dead, the French Surete shows up, we have a graveyard and crypt at night, a young woman who just learned who she really is also learns that her father who supposedly died decades ago really just died "last year", we tour a huge old house with hidden rooms and hiding places, and a Who's On First type scene with Dennis Becker reduced to straight man, and we even have the French duo driving a silly looking little European car which Rockford chases until it runs off the road and down an embankment. The Nazis drive a Mercedes by the way. And there is even microfilm! This is a rollicking homage to decades of Hollywood's most tried and true plot devices and they're all wrapped up in one script!

One of my personal favorites

[educatingben · 10/10 · 14 August 2018]

This episode was a little off the beaten path for typical Rockford files. It requires a lot more thinking, and even on Jim's part. The World War II Nazi background story was interesting and also that it confusing names of suspects. I enjoyed the time element of the story.

The Maltese Falcon meets The Big Sleep.

[kindofblue-78221 · 10/10 · 7 July 2022]

I've always loved this episode from the day it was originally aired to just watching it on bluray.

It's a brilliant take on classic noirs. The fact it doesn't make sense is a brilliant nod to Chandler.

I won't go into the story as its just too convoluted.

Suffice to say that this episode is perfect.

It's a perfect mess.

Do not miss.

How did they fit all this into 49 minutes

[daryl42 · 8/10 · 26 July 2021]

I don't usually review things here but I watched this last night and at the end I was completely slack jawed, probably the strangest television episode I've ever seen.

As others have commented, it has EVERYTHING. A Phd student in logic, two(!) deathbed confessions, two sets of people chasing Rockford including an Olympic wrestler!

I did realize as I was watching it that it was a parody of a cliched Hollywood mystery (a la Maltese Falcon) but also of some of the complicated Rockford episodes where he has a girl in trouble and we find the mob and FBI both chasing him. But what makes it work for me is that it is not played as a joke, it is played completely seriously. Just step back and watch some of the scenes as Rockford and his Phd student run through the whole scenario or as the French policemen explain (or try to explain) the whole thing. They must have laughed themselves silly making this episode.

And directed by James Coburn. This is weird but I admire the courage to make it.

Somewhere in the middle

[hmoika · 7/10 · 3 October 2019]

Most of the reviews for this episode seem to be either praising it or trashing it.

Not having seen Rockford for years (since occasionally watching with my parents during its first run), I was curious to find out for myself just what this episode was all about.

Well, yeah, I have to admit that it was rather confusing; and yeah, I found myself not caring about the outcome. However, I also quickly realized that this maddeningly confused plot was---for me---the reason for its existence.

Granted, I doubt I would watch this particular episode again (I have the DVDs), but I did appreciate the way the script depicted all of these people trying desperately to figure out who did what.

But yes.....let's please not make an episode like this again.

Brilliantly written

[aroian-51748 · 10/10 · 19 June 2022]

This episode stuck with me since I first saw it 40 years ago. I've revisited it a few times since then and it holds up every time. Brilliantly misdirected plots, great reaction shots (especially Dennis) and enough facts to make you think you can follow it. If you're trying to figure out who did it, skip this episode. If you enjoy great dialogue, great acting, and a creative mind, then embrace it.

Well it's like this ya see

[kapelusznik18 · 7/10 · 31 December 2015]

****SPOILERS**** Non intentionally but still funny episode of the "Rockford File" about a case which ends up that by the time its over turning Jim Rockford's, James Garner, brains into scramble eggs. Private eye Jim Rockford gets this visit by a mysterious blond Karen Hall, Barbara Babcock, who claims that she knows about an art snuggling ring run by a gang of ex Nazis after world war two that the late Hollywood Hitler loving director Alva Korper- that she's writing a book about- was somehow involved with. To make things even more complicated this resulted in a string of murders over the last 30 years that had something to do with a painting that was stolen in France by the Nazis back then that the Nazis, hiding undercover, now are trying to find?

Rockford who at first takes all this seriously soon ends up looking up a number of people who knew Korper so that he can get information that Karen needs to write a biography about the guy! The episode goes from bad to hysterical as a totally confused Rockford after a number of his leads end up dead finds out that Karen Hall isn't really Karen Hall but really the daughter of one of Korper's pro Nazi associates back in Hollywood who in fact was a good friend of Nazi regimes second in command-after Adolph Hitler-Reich Marshall and head of the German Luftwaffe Herman Goering!

This whole wild and crazy story that seems to be going nowhere is finally explained by the only man who can explain it the mysterious and out of the cold, and into the California sunshine, Irving " Irving the explainer" Patrick, Byron Morrow. It's Irving who unexpectedly, like a rabbit out of a hat, pops up after being shot and dumped from a speeding car and with his last dying breath spills the beans or information about what's been going on that turns out to be even more confusing then what we the audience as well as Jim Rockford already know! So confusing that Jim just gives up listening and lets Irving, as he's explaining, go to his final reward!

Great episode - but explains nothing

[praxagora · 30 December 2015]

As another reviewer said, "This was one of the most memorable and original of The Rockford Files episodes."

I have loved this episode, since I saw it when it upon its original release in 1977. And I've seen it multiple times since then. It is a great example of "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". The plot really doesn't make sense - it's just too twisting, and colluded. But that's how it's supposed to be.

And what a joy it is.

Go along for the ride. The cast is excellent, and the story is really fun. But don't try and have it all make sense, because you'll just end up frustrated.

One of the better episodes

[mm-39 · 8/10 · 21 February 2019]

Irving the Explainer is a mix of the old Bogart movies and Agatha Christie mysteries blended together. There is plot lines, intertwined with other sub plots. Irving the Explainer starts out with the old Nazi footage and the plunder of Europe. Jim get's stuck in the middle of the Rockford files version of the Maltese Falcon. There is a client, and old Nazi with his nick adjusters mixed with art muscle interests.. So complex is the story of where's the art and Irving old films mixed into a murder investigation that Jim hires a logic experts from U C L A. Irving the Explainer has a few chases, and turns into a big climax. With a plot twist of course. The ending has another ending with a humorous conclusion. 8 out of 10.

Don't mention the war

[safenoe · 7/10 · 7 August 2020]

This Nazi-themed episode was broadcast two years after the (in)famous Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans", and four years before Raiders of the Lost Ark which had a strong theme of Nazism and World War 2. Here Jim Rockford often refers to "the Germans" as though all Germans are Nazis, which is not the case.

Extremely sub-par Rockford

[rudyardk · 4/10 · 3 May 2016]

There are very few Rockford Files clunkers -- it was an extraordinarily consistent series that almost always operated at a high level. But David Chase is responsible for two of Rockford's rare bad episodes: this, and the supremely unentertaining back-door pilot "Just A Coupla Guys".

With this episode, Chase tries to fashion a convoluted mystery with echoes of The Maltese Falcon, in that everyone is looking for an ancient priceless art object that may not actually exist. But the convolutions are piled on arbitrarily, and what's meant to be clever is simply tedious. There is no sense that any character is behaving like a real human being; everyone just ping-pongs from one scene to the next, asking questions or expressing confusion because that's what the script tells them to do. As well, much of the story is described rather than seen, as characters endlessly rehash the events of 30-40 years ago that set Rockford's current case in motion.

Even the actors seem bored by all the exposition. Garner tries to compensate by uncharacteristically over-emoting at times, but this simply makes the episode even more cringeworthy. (Hard to know whether to blame Garner or director James Coburn for this, although it may be telling that this is Coburn's only directorial credit *ever*.) James Luisi is wasted, and then completely forgotten about, as he asks questions for a while then disappears. Later, Jim inexplicably hires an assistant (who is getting her "doctorate in logic" from UCLA) to help him sort through the case details ... though how he can afford to pay her is unclear, and why on earth he sets her up at Rocky's house (without even asking Rocky) is similarly unclear. Played by Irene Tsu, she ends up adding nothing to the story anyway. And as Jim's client, Barbara Babcock does what she can with a character whose backstory turns out to be absurdly unbelievable.

Worst of all, especially for an episode that starts well then begins sliding after the first few minutes, is the final scene where Irving The Explainer comes along to explain what really happened. This scene is poorly acted, anti-climactic and even a little stupid. It simply doesn't work, and the "punchline" (SPOILER ALERT: Irving confesses, then promptly dies -- sudden freeze frame and cut to credits) is perhaps the episode's nadir.

David Chase would write good scripts both before and after this episode ... in fact, "Quickie Nirvana" was an excellent Chase-penned script that went to air just the week before this one. But "Irving The Explainer" was an episode that bit off WAY more than it could chew, and is mostly a chore to watch.

Inexplicable

[triesch-91-760720 · 2/10 · 27 August 2014]

I found this episode to be utterly confusing. I thought the writing was so bad that after I viewed the episode, I checked the Internet to see if it had been written during one of Hollywood's periodic writer's strikes. (No, it wasn't.) The episode was so confusing - even to Rockford and Dennis - that it almost seemed like a spoof. The ending - coming out of nowhere (in my opinion) - was just bizarre. The acting, throughout, seemed almost tongue-in-cheek, going beyond - or falling short of - the typical Rockford humor.

Part of the confusion stems from the fact that the key events occurred many years ago. Several prime characters are referenced, but never shown - they are long dead. It is difficult to keep the names straight because some of the primary players in the story are never seen. The genesis of the story goes back several hundred years, and the telling of the story - by some French detectives - bores and exasperates even Rockford and Dennis. The worst Rockford episode ever.

Disappointing at first and horrible in retrospect

[siegerrob76 · 2/10 · 25 February 2018]

Very disappointing, overly convoluted (intentionally) and vaguely offensive (probably due to the Nazi subplot), I get that some viewers believe it is a clever, self-deprecating noirish homage but it really is a dud.

The lovely Barbara Babcock, who, given her propensity for playing manipulative and complicated women, would seem perfect as a femme fatale, somehow falls short, as does the directing by actor James Coburn (why do actors always want to become directors?). Byron Morrow's last minute appearance -- as a character mentioned earlier but forgotten about -- speaking for some bizarre reason with an Irish accent -- is just irritating.

The writers and editors evidently hoped for an ironic coda about the pointlessness of trying to solve certain old puzzles and reaping ill-gotten gains while pointing fun at the episode's overly convoluted story-line. They did not succeed. But I still generally love the series.

Disjointed oddball effort that I couldn't follow...

[ronnybee2112 · 5/10 · 25 May 2021]

This is a busy episode. All involved with this obviously did put some serious effort into it. Unfortunately,this episode succeeded only in confusing me.

This eposode is quite busy,but it just didn't make much sense,to be honest. I was unable to follow or understand the plot in any meaningful way.

It seemed very convoluted and quite haphazardly tacked-together.

See for yourself what you can make of this episode,perhaps you will be able to get more out of it than I did.

Worst. Episode. Ever.

[ArtVandelayImporterExporter · 2/10 · 9 January 2023]

This episode was directed by James Coburn. Allegedly. Since it's his only directing credit. Maybe he just dropped by the set that week to visit ol' buddy James Garner to reminisce about The Great Escape.

That's not even the craziest thing about this episode. The opening credits feature B&W footage of the little guy with the funny moustache and the stiff-arm salute. As if the cold opening with the lovely blonde writer searching for a Natsie-sympathizing Hollywood director from the 30s wasn't clear enough. "Oh, THOSE Natsies."

The entire episode is basically exposition. Really, really boring exposition. Well, Rockford gets in a bit of a wrestling match with a couple of henchmen. And there's a car chase involving Frenchie police inspectors driving a Peugeot or Citreon or something.

My guess is that David Chase (of Sopranos fame) sold the producers a script he had laying around and they let him shape it into a goofy Rockford Files episode. A really terrible Rockford Files episode.

I'd like to know if it was Coburn's idea to have Rockford pronounce it, ''Bee-ography" or to call the Austrian painter's henchman, "HAR-mehn Gore-ing." Or whether Garner just didn't care anymore.

I know it barely took me until the 26th minute until I didn't care anymore.

This Is Absolutely Awful...

[skeebwilcox-575-686576 · 1/10 · 6 May 2022]

Not just among all episodes of "The Rockford Files", but among all TV series episodes EVER. May I reiterate: this is absolutely awful. Still brings up the question: how did this series last six seasons?