Living in a rattling house beside the Hollywood Freeway, McGavin plays a hard-luck detective, who resembles the character he played later in the "Night Stalker". He pursues a missing girl through the underbelly of 1967 Los Angeles, going from some Hollywood Hills decadence with a wild gay couple (think "Vanishing Point"), down to a go-go on the Sunset Strip, and eventually find her tripping on LSD in the Malibu shack of a part-time "guru", while the man's mother watches a game show in the other room with headphones. This scene, with McGavin waiting on the couch, both the mother and the girl on LSD laughing hysterically, is one of the weirdest. I hope this one gets released someday--it definitely stands on its own and is a a fun vehicle for McGavin, although the later show apparently failed miserably. As a noirish late 1960s portrayal of Los Angeles, this one is right up there with "The Long Goodbye" and "Marlowe". Indeed, as the writer moved on to "The Rockford Files", this is very closely linked to the stylish "Marlowe".
Review of The Outsider
