Hard to believe, but it was 4o years ago that a fun and creepy mystery movie called Baffled! was shown on TV (by NBC) as a ‘movie of the week’. Nimoy played the main character, Tom Kovack, a race car driver haunted by strange and scary visions which turn out to be psychic. The beautiful Susan Hampshire played Michele Brent, the book historian fascinated with ESP who is convinced that Kovack has a gift that might save the life of a woman in danger. I remember watching it when it came out, and envying the young girl in the film (who played a girl my age), and was so disappointed when it wasn’t made into a weekly series! In fact, Baffled was made as a pilot for NBC (although it was shown in some countries as a feature film, hence the movie style poster). It was smart, funny, and suspenseful, but we can only imagine the future adventures (and romance) that would ensue for these two characters. The only thing I found a little unbelievable was that Tom was a midwesterner -seemed more New England to me. Alas, the network didn’t know what gold it had, and although ESP was becoming a hot topic in the early 70’s, NBC settled on the much less entertaining comedy The Girl With Something Extra, (with Sally Field) which only lasted one season. I would have happily taken a season of Baffled over that. Another great opportunity lost. 🙁 So in recognition of 40 years of what could have been, here’s some stills from Baffled, you can pay 4.99 and have it streamed on Amazon.
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- Poster Art for Baffled
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- Meet Sister Mary Leonard…
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- Million Dollar Smile 01
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- Yeah, I couldn’t stop watching him on TV either
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- Million Dollar Smile 02
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- Co-star Susan Hampshire — doll face!
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- Tom’s NYC apartment was hideous-That couch! That lamp!
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- …but he was happy in his kielbasa chair…
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- Shock 1
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- Throw in some cheap ‘women can’t drive’ jokes…
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- Shock 2
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- Doing his best Vincent Price…
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- And young Jennifer who went from ’12 to 15′ in a day.
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- Damn!
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- We’ve seen this look before…http://trekkerscrapbook.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/eyebrow-081.jpg
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- Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…
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- Aww…
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- Rocling a round belt buckle
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- Don’t mess with him in his driving hat.
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- On the left is an average man, on the right., Nimoy
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- By the end of the movie, Tom and Michelle are dressing alike.
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- This moment was too short
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- So was this one…
1. Baffled is my favorite ever Nimoy. Leaving Spock out of it, which one can, cos he’s real, isn’t he?
2. I absolutely love your captions to the pictures.
3. Sadly, the, or at least a, reason Baffled wasn’t picked up was that Leonard would have had to decamp to the UK with wife and children and he didn’t want to, with their schooling and all that. One of life’s great tragedies, in my opinion.
I’m sure that would have changed his home life a lot, but heck, even if it was for one season, it would have been worth it! There was potential there for a good series, although, he may have never come back to play Spock if that were the case. Oh well. I suppose there could always be fan fiction! In researching this, I discovered that Baffled was included in a 40 minute documentary called “TV’s Greatest Failures”
Nnnoooo!!! I adore Baffled! And it would have been a wonderful series. Especially if they could have sustained the is it or isn’t it supernatural theme. And yes, there was fan fiction, a lot of which I wrote, such was my craving for more Baffled.
Actually – if I understand correctly, the title was referring to shows that SHOULD have made it! I’ll have to look it up.
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