The wonderfully funny Dick Van Dyke, insufficiently honored in his prime, has now passed into the lovable-old-codger stage.
His comic gifts are sharper than ever, and he still dances with grace, style and a naughty insouciance. He is much too good for the quirky-old-coot roles that are his lot nowadays.
In ”Diagnosis for Murder” (8 p.m. Sunday, CBS-Ch. 2), Van Dyke again plays Dr. Mark Sloan, the brilliant but goofy physician he created for an episode of ”Jake and the Fat Man.” In lesser hands, Sloan would be dismissed as an obnoxious busybody with a juvenile interest in police work, particularly police work involving murder.
But Van Dyke is a creative actor, and he makes Sloan a paragon of a doctor: wise and generous, with an undoctorly interest in tap dancing.
It`s good to report that the long-legged grace and lethal timing so fondly remembered from ”Bye Bye Birdie” (arguably his best film) have merely been enhanced by time.
The thick boyish mop of hair is tidy white now, and there is the added touch-regrettably-of a too-wide white mustache. But the old vigor and charm are still in working order.
In a script about the strangling of a sadistic big-business baron, one would hardly expect to see much dancing. But the writers have brought in an elderly black man, a retired hoofer, who is paying his medical bill by teaching Sloan the basics of tap dancing.
Naturally, the pupil surpasses the master in about 30 seconds. As a consequence, there are some exuberant interludes in which the amateur sleuthing stops, and we watch Van Dyke`s flying feet, every leap and turn belying his 70-odd years.
It`s nice that Van Dyke still dances like a young Gene Kelly, because this script needs dancing. A few old songs would have helped too.
The seedy plot carries a litter of seedy subplots, only one of which makes sense. That`s a sequence involving a sweet, tough little boy who needs heart surgery. Mysteriously, his mother can`t be found. The boy explains: ”My mom is a hooker.” Sloan finds her.
As in all made-for-TV movies, the casting is uneven, with the seasoned pros projecting all their tact and skill to carry along those not quite ready for prime time.
The most inept member of this company is the ingenue, a heavily madeup pathologist who dreams of becoming a coroner. As a coroner she can mumble all she likes; as an actress she needs lessons in voice projection, diction, body movement, the works.
Mariette Hartley, stunning in her new red hair, is exactly right as a hospital administrator. Others in the cast include Bill Bixby, veteran of many sitcoms that died young, and Barry Van Dyke, the likable son of the star.
