The Psychiatrist: Summary
SUMMARY
- Airs Next:NBC at Wednesday 10:00 PM (60 min.)
- Status:Ended
- Premiered:September 1, 1970
- Last Aired:August 1, 1971
- Show Categories:Movie/Mini-Series, Drama
Roy Thinnes was thirty-two years old when this series was made. This was his third prime time series after playing Ben Quick in "The Long Hot Summer" (1965-66) and David Vincent in Quinn Martin's "The Invaders" (1967-68).
Executive producer Norman Felton ("Dr. Kildare", "The Man From Uncle") was updating his previous superb psychiatry series "The Eleventh Hour" (1962-64). Roy Thinnes had guest starred in a strong episode of "The Eleventh Hour" about family therapy along with Angela Lansbury, Martin Balsam, Tuesday Weld, and Don Grady.
Twenty-eight year old Jerrold Freedman was the ambitious producer of "The Psychiatrist". Freedman now writes novels under the name J. F. Freedman, and is hoping to have one of his detective novels turned into a TV movie.
The creators of "The Psychiatrist" were Richard Levinson and William LInk ("Columbo").
Steven Spielberg (at 24) brilliantly directed two of the six episodes. One of Spielberg's episodes was about a troubled 12-year old boy and the other was about a young golfer (Clu Gulager) dying of cancer. It would be a fine footnote to film history if Spielberg's two dazzling episodes of "The Psychiatrist" were captured on DVD.
The other four episodes of "The Psychiatrist" also had talented directors: Daryl Duke ("Payday", "The Thorn Birds"), Jeff Corey, Douglas Day Stewart, and producer Jerrold Freedman ("A Cold Night's Death").
Joe Alves, Jr. was the art director of "The Psychiatrist". Alves went on to be art director of "The Sugarland Express" and production designer of "Jaws" and "Close Enounters of the Third Kind".
Roy Thinnes was appealing and convincing as a serious young psychiatrist in the six episodes of this 1971 series. Luther Adler played Thinnes' mentor. "The Psychiatrist" was one of four hour-long series making up "Four in One". The other series were "McCloud" with Dennis Weaver, "Rod Serling's Night Gallery", and "San Francisco International Airport" with Lloyd Bridges and Clu...
LAST EPISODE
Par for the Course
Steven Speilberg directed this brilliant hour of television. Clu Gulager (in his best performance) plays a professional golfer who is an old friend of Dr. Whitman. Gulager is dying of cancer. Dr. Whitman tries to help Gulager deal with his emotions in the last days of his life. Joan Darling is Gulager's scared wife who feels she isn't pretty enough for him. There is no big life affirming ending but the drama is quietly devastating. Spielberg says on the new "Duel" dvd that up to this point he had been frustrated in his directing efforts at Universal. Producer Jerrold Freedman asked him to do two episodes of "The Psychiatrist" with no restrictions. Freedman told Spielberg to make avant guard art films if you want. Spielberg rewarded Freedman's faith with two superb television episodes that were almost in fact avant guard art films. All these years later, it still seem cruelly unfair that Spielberg was not nominated for an Emmy for "Par for the Course".
BLOG
NEWS
- Roy ThinnesDr. James Whitman
- Luther AdlerDr. Bernard Altman
USER REVIEWS
- The Bottom Line: "Ahead of its time"07/12/05 07:55am | report abuse
Two beautifully directed episodes by Steven Spielberg make this show impossible to forget. ...Continue »
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7,467 of 17,819 Rating Rank
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1 Reviews
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7 Votes
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