Unidentified Flying Field

Peter Foy, the master of stage flight who developed the rigging which let Mary Martin soar as Peter Pan and Sister Bertrile take to Puerto Rico's skies as The Flying Nun, is dead reports The New York Times.

Sure it was a silly premise but The Flying Nun was a good show in a decade of silly premises (e.g. Bewitched, My Mother the Car, Green Acres) because Sally Field was--and still is--a good actress. Not having seen her turn on ER, the last thing I saw her in was Absence of Malice, borrowed from the library, where she plays a reporter who runs a story fed to her by the cops saying Paul Newman was involved in a murder, their effort to flush out the real killers. The movie doesn't work for me--especially the leads' romance--but as always she's interesting to watch.

I was disappointed that ABC so quickly axed her Supreme Court drama The Court (2002), killed after only three weeks. (CBS's competing court drama, First Monday, lasted only a little longer that same season.) How do you dramatize the Supreme Court? They sit all day in their marble temple reading. Not a lot of action there, especially since the melodramatic William O. Douglas is long gone. You can make a drama out of anything but it is hard with material such as this. ABC didn't even give it a chance.

Maybe ABC could repent with a Flying Nun reunion film. Sister Bertrile ought to be Mother Superior material by now.