Cannon (TV Series) Perfect Fit for a Frame (1975) User Reviews

Phil is practically indestructible....

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 14 April 2017]

When the episode begins, an obnoxious rich drunk guy, Phil, is tossed overboard many, many miles from shore. It seems the vice president of his company and his wife are just sick of him and their plans no longer include Phil! A month later, the 'grieving widow' receives a phone call...and Phil is really ticked and vows to kill her and her boyfriend. It seems that Phil is like the Terminator...and despite being 50 miles from shore he somehow made it back alive!

What follows is a very cruel episode in which the two conspirators work together to not only get Phil killed once and for all but use Cannon to achieve this. And, if Cannon ends up being sent to prison for murder...well those are the breaks!

Overall, an exciting plot and a show well worth your time. It's rare to see a woman as evil as the once in this show...and she alone makes this one worth seeing.

SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE SEASON OPENER.

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 2 December 2021]

A WOW. 10 Stars.

Shades of an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode... as you will see. Wily Ralph Meeker plays a wealthy, obnoxious and boozer executive who is bumped off by his partner and wife. About a month later (they dumped him in the middle of the ocean?) he returns from the grave to seek his revenge. OMG.

Pretty clever stuff that has Cannon up against some devious characters. Credit Robert Hamner for writing this adventure, one of the Warner Brothers/ABC TV crew who worked with William Conrad on such classic shows as HAWAIIN EYE. Hamner could write a tale, and this has sort of a noir slant to it.

Obviously, Meeker is one lucky guy. Or is he?

There's also a good car chase with the famous silver Lincoln, although that car was not built for street racing by any means. This episode, even by todays standards is violent, similar to the slam bang brawls MANNIX got himself into.

Watch Kathleen Cody (as Meeker's sly wife). Cody had appeared in several episodes of GUNSMOKE, but is best remembered playing Carrie and Hallie in the cult tv series DARK SHADOWS. Ralph Meeker is his usual tough as nails self who should have made more appearances on the show. He was one talented dramatic actor, quite popular on tv at the time.

Series director William Wiard was in charge, who went on to the ROCKFORD FILES. He also did many sitcoms, such as DORIS DAY and LOVE, AMERICAN STYLE.

Watch the ending and the trick Cannon has up his sleeve. William Wiard handled it so well, and you can tell they had fun putting this together. It my have also been thought up at the last moment as its unusual. Beautifully done.

Partly filmed in San Diego. It's about time! It's too bad the series was not based there in the first place, a beach town that's overlooked.

SEASON 4 EPISODE 16 digitally remastered (2016) color CBS dvd box set. This is the famous box set that features Cannon frowning.

One more worth Cannon episode

[searchanddestroy-1 · 14 February 2014]

It's always a real pleasure to Watch Canon épisodes. I really like this fat detective, he is so...I can't find the words to mean what I actually feel. Maybe because it seems so unrealistic.

Anyway, in this episode he has to struggle against an evil character, played one more time by the exquisite - and unfortunately so unknown - Mitch Ryan, whom he has already been against in other episode(s). I also find real pleasure to appreciate this actor's performances. I think of him in MONTE WALSH, that's where I discovered him. A great character for a great western. Ryan has an impressive physique, a perfect charismatic and tough, rough face. He should have been more enhanced in films or series. I would imagine him as a series lead character, so was Mike Connors in Mannix, for instance.

This very episode is also interesting, because there is no real boundary between evil and good characters. At the beginning, Ryan and Ralph Meeker are on a yacht, in the middle of the sea, and then, after a short argument, Ryan throws Meeker overboard and the yacht goes away. And a little later, Meeker - who has survived from the ocean - comes back to get revenge. In the mean time, you watch Ryan as the good father seeking some protection for is "daughter", and as you can guess he asks our fat private eye...

I won't tell you further, but this episode is really Worth watching.

Directed by William Wiard, the TOM HORN film maker.

Interesting but strains credibility

[kellielulu · 7/10 · 11 November 2022]

The three main guest characters have no redeeming qualities. The victim is a drunken jerk and you would never root for him. The problem is the other two are cold blooded and greedy.

The woman involved is married to one but is obviously.involved with the other. They attempt to feed him to the sharks but when that fails the character played by Mitchell Ryan hires Cannon to protect his " daughter " but it's a setup of course. Cannon ends up in jail for murder of the woman it's a little convoluted but Cannon can outsmart the small town cops to go on the run to clear his name.

We know he will but a few things are straining for credibility. Cannon's name and picture are all over the news and yet he wanders around people seeing him but never recognized him and turning him in. Seriously!?! Even back then maybe more so with only a few channels and thousands of newspapers he would be easily recognized with his prominent size. He is recognized by a San Diego tv reporter who ends up helping him.

He catches the bad guys who are arrested and Cannon does another good deed that gives the dead man's fortune to the clinic that treated his injuries by the shark.

Besides the relative ease in which Cannon avoids detection Cannon should have suspected something up sooner with this client . It's also a show that could have used another regular character or two or some recurring ones. The ones they had never lasted and by this point there were none. The reporter would have been an interesting one to have around. A reporter, a cop or corner maybe an assistant. Cannon on his own wasn't always a problem but there were times like this it would have been nice to have a familiar face around to help him out.

Typical of Weak Film Noir

[verbusen · 4/10 · 26 January 2019]

This is either a low score Cannon due to it being so ridiculous like bad film noir, or an excellent episode to make fun of along with the 70s atmosphere. So I give it a 4 or a 9 depending on why you are watching this. I have been a Cannon fan since childhood but not to the point that I watch it much now. I am recording Ralph Meeker on my DVR since I have the same first name and look like him. Ralph looks pretty rough here towards the end of his career. I think he had a stroke in the 1970s so his roles became more of people drunk or mauled by sharks (or both like in this Cannon episode). If you are watching this to laugh at old TV shows check out Ralph Meeker as a bad guy in the 1960s Tarzan TV show, that was fun to watch.

Suspension of belief issues: 1) Ralph's character is said not to be able to swim. 2) Ralph's character is mauled by a bunch of sharks in the open ocean and he lived. 3) Ralph's character went out on a boat not knowing how to swim and got blind drunk and acted to provoke his murder. 4) Ralph never reported anything to the Mexican cops. 5) Cannon has no reputation with San Diego cops even though I think he prevented a terrorist attack in the pilot and was a veteran cop or some such backstory. 6) The cops send Cannon to dig up the dead body. 7) Cannon breaks out of prison and walks around LA after driving down the freeway from Santa Barbara California. 8) ect ect ect.

I rate this single episode 4 or a 9 depending on what you are looking for.