re: #196 urbanmeemaw

I’m watching reruns on Encore every night. When I watched it in the 80’s off and on it was mostly for the Tom Selleck eye candy. Now I really appreciate what a great series it was - the variety of plots, relationships between Magnum, Higgins, TC and Rick, the exploration of social issues (PTSD, racism), balance of comedy and drama - I think it’s one of the best series in the history of television. Selleck is a great actor.

And did you know that Ivan Dixon, of Hogan’s Heroes fame, directed quite a few episodes of Magnum, P.I.?

Mr. Dixon also directed and produced a film that was not looked very kindly upon by The Man, and by ‘The Man’, I mean the FBI. There are allegations that the FBI had the film more or less suppressed by cajoling distributors into pulling the film shortly after its release. It was Tim Reid, of WKRP In Cincinnati fame, whose company got the film released on video - he tracked down a negative, which had been stored under a different name, and with that, got it released on DVD.

en.wikipedia.org

In 2012, the film was included in the National Film Registry.

imdb.com

Not many have seen the film; it is absolutely incendiary. I have it on DVD, and I highly recommend it. It’s a unique look at a particular era of American history, as well as a testament to African-American independent film-making.