McMillan & Wife
Requiem for a Bride
TV Flash files “Requiem for a Bride” as a desk essential hour — McMillan & Wife (1971–1977) on NBC, season 5, episode 2, aired 1975-10-26, 90 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S05E02: listed hour 29 of 40 in the McMillan & Wife guide, hour 2 of 7 in season 5. It aired 1975-10-26 (90 min). The listed hour before it is “Deadly Inheritance” (S05E01). Next is “Aftershock” (S05E03).
Essential hour: “Requiem for a Bride”. Requiem for a Bride is late-run elegy in a marriage franchise. Comfort crime still the brief: martini banter, home-front sleuthing, the wheel still turning on glamour and a body.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
Mac's closest friend from France, a high-ranking police inspector who recently married a San Francisco socialite, comes to town to show her off and talk business with his wealthy father-in-law. Mac can't give his buddy the royal treatment because he's just arrested a bullying lawyer for witness intimidation. The lawyer, from the inside, apparently hires a gunman to follow Mac around and fire warning shots at him. When Mac and Sally attend a fancy-dress ball, the inspector's wife (herself an old friend of Mac's) asks to talk to Mac on an outside balcony. A rifle shot rings out and she falls dead. Everyone thinks that the hired gunman fired at Mac and made a tragic miss, and the police inspector threatens to go ballistic in his search for the killer. But was Mac the real target? The plot thickens when the inspector narrowly escapes a bombing and another person -- with no ties to the gunman -- is murdered. Were the inspector, his wife or possibly both of them the targets, and why?
Viewer FAQ
Where does Requiem for a Bride sit in the McMillan & Wife guide?
S05E02 is listed hour 29 of 40 — hour 2 of 7 in season 5, season 5 episode 2.
When did McMillan & Wife S05E02 air?
Requiem for a Bride aired 1975-10-26 and is listed at 90 minutes.
Do I need Columbo or McCloud first?
No. They share the NBC Mystery Movie wheel, not a plot. McMillan is husband-wife San Francisco mystery on its own cocktail hour.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Rock Hudson's police commissioner solves murders with martini banter while Susan Saint James's Sally does the smarter half of the sleuthing. NBC Mystery Movie jewel: husband-wife crime as comfort fashion. San Francisco gloss, cocktail chemistry, and a leading-man image the tabloids later rewrote in full.
Open on martini banter that is load-bearing. NBC's McMillan & Wife (1971–1977), from Leonard Stern, rolls on the Mystery Movie wheel beside Columbo and McCloud: San Francisco police commissioner Mac McMillan solves crimes with help from clever wife Sally and a deadpan housekeeper. Rock Hudson brings movie-star scale; Susan Saint James's Sally does the smarter half of the sleuthing; John Schuck's Sgt. Enright and Nancy Walker's Mildred complete the household. Husband-wife comfort crime. San Francisco gloss.…
Filed against
- Rock Hudson as Commissioner Stewart 'Mac' McMillan
Rock Hudson's Commissioner Stewart 'Mac' McMillan solved murders with martini banter on McMillan & Wife — Susan Saint James's Sally doing the smarter half of the sleuthing, NBC Mystery Movie jewel, San Francisco gloss. Cocktail chemistry…
- Susan Saint James as Sally McMillan
Susan Saint James’s Sally McMillan did the smarter half of the sleuthing beside Rock Hudson’s martini commissioner — NBC Mystery Movie jewel, San Francisco gloss — then sunned Kate & Allie’s Greenwich Village brownstone opposite Jane…
- John Schuck as Sgt. Charles Enright
John Schuck’s Sgt. Charles Enright backed McMillan & Wife as the cop in the cocktail — Rock Hudson’s police commissioner solving murders with martini banter, Susan Saint James’s Sally doing the smarter half of the sleuthing. NBC Mystery…
- Nancy Walker as Mildred
Nancy Walker’s Ida Morgenstern nagged Rhoda home to New York — wedding America watched, then a marriage that fell apart on network air — and kept McMillan & Wife’s San Francisco gloss in martini motion as Mildred. MTM neurotic edges; NBC…