Glaser, Selleck add wrinkles to mysteries

Connoisseurs of the later work of aging stars of old detective shows -- and you know who you are -- will find their cups runnething over this weekend. Paul Michael Glaser, who was Starsky of “and Hutch,” headlines “Ladies Night” Saturday night on the USA Network, and Tom Selleck, once the eponymous “Magnum, P.I.,” stars Sunday on CBS in “Stone Cold,” taken from a novel by Robert B. Parker (author also of the “Spenser” novels, from which sprang the Robert Urich series). Both films mix sex and murder, pair their AARP-qualified stars with nubile young things, and feature Canadian scenery sold as American.

That Glaser has for many years been largely absent from the screen -- notwithstanding a few episodes of “Third Watch” and the Nicholson-Keaton “Something’s Gotta Give” -- makes his appearance here something of an event. Playing against pop-cultural expectation, he’s the villain -- “Paul as an evil man ... should be exciting!” enthuses whoever writes the actor’s website -- which lets him do some acting with a capital “A.” A con-artist-cum-murderer, Glaser courts then kills lonely young women with easy access to company cash, using high-tech methods to research their weaknesses and so gain their favor -- an advantage that the actor, nearly 62 and no longer quite catnip, can certainly use. (Television logic dictates that these women are young and good-looking, because good-looking young women look good on television -- but the effect of putting them next to Glaser is creepy in ways perhaps not intended.) In this dark enterprise he is abetted by his weedy, tragically mustached, computer-savvy son (Kett Turton); theirs is an unhealthy relationship, any reputable therapist would agree, and it is clear that they will have some issues to work out before the final credits roll.

“Inspired by true events” -- “inspired” being, no doubt, the operative term -- the film works in bits. If you were to dial in any random three minutes, you’d be as likely as not to think you’d fallen upon something good, but sticking around will lead to disappointment, given the multiplying convenient improbabilities of the plot.

As the insurance investigators on Glaser’s tail, Colin Ferguson (of the late American “Coupling”) and Claudette Mink are beautiful too, in the usual show-business way, and appealingly laid back. Ferguson, especially, seems as if he’s taken a few minutes out from surfing to help solve the crime. They are on sure ground when required only to sift facts or give chase, but the filmmakers saddle them with occasional ill-formed hints of inner life or moral conflict, which pop up at odd times and are confusing.

Better by far is “Stone Cold” -- not quite perfect but closer to it than TV movies usually get. Set in the small coastal town of Paradise, Mass., it has a demeanor one might almost call dignified, even though it concerns an anomalously “sexy” series of yuppie thrill murders. (I give nothing away: This is not a whodunit but a howtocatchem.) Nova Scotia is close enough for Massachusetts, and the excellent photography (by Rene Ohashi) makes the most of the weather and light and creates a real place for the story to unfold.

Though Selleck never quite cut it on the big screen, he is in television terms an icon. There is something reassuringly mountainous about his presence, monumentally broad and weathered, but not yet too craggy, and if his overwhelming Selleckness limits the sort of roles he’s equipped to play -- he’s the sort of actor who’s hard to judge because he only ever seems to be a version of himself -- well, that’s what stars are made of. And like many male leads of old -- John Wayne, say, of whom he is a sort of budget version -- he’s gotten better with age, less pretty and more believable. In reruns of “Magnum, P.I.,” with his silly little shorts, he seems only half formed; nowadays he seems to have existed forever. Though he’s nearly as old as Glaser (and a quarter-century older than his character, as Parker wrote him), it is not hard to buy him as involved with a much younger woman, as he is here. His May-October affair with Courteney Cox on “Friends” was one of the few relationships on that show -- besides that of Chandler and Joey, of course -- that seemed at all likely.

Here he plays a slightly frayed hero, a police chief with an ex-wife he isn’t finished thinking about and a half-acknowledged drinking problem that got him fired from the LAPD, and which has not stood in the way of his being hired to run the show in Paradise. His professional instincts are infallible, his nerves are of steel and his clay feet are no obstacle to his standing up to whoever needs standing up to. He is, of course, too good to be true, but Selleck doesn’t let you think so while the movie’s on.

Directed by Robert Harmon, the film is deliberately paced without ever becoming boring, and more or less follows Parker’s book. It pulls the bulk of its dialogue straight from the page, and as adapted by John Fasano and Michael Brandman and delivered by a uniformly fine cast -- including Mimi Rogers, the other sort-of-big name, and the wonderfully strange Jane Adams (“Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”) -- it sounds better than it reads.

*

‘Stone Cold’

Where: CBS

When: 9-11 p.m. Sunday

Ratings: TV-14 L, S, V (may be unsuitable for children under 14, with strong advisory for language, sex and violence)

Tom Selleck...Jesse Stone

Mimi Rogers...Rita Fiore

Jane Adams...Brianna Lincoln

Reg Rogers...Andrew Lincoln

Viola Davis...Molly Crane

Alexis Dziena...Candace Pennington

Executive producers Michael Brandman, Tom Selleck. Director Robert Harmon. Teleplay John Fasano.

*

‘Ladies Night’

Where: USA Network

When: 9-11 p.m. Saturday

Ratings: TV-14 (unsuitable for children under 14)

Paul Michael Glaser...Art Kirkland

Colin Ferguson...Jesse Grant

Claudette Mink...Susan Vercillino

Executive producers Stanley M. Brooks, John Fasano, Chad Oakes. Director Norma Bailey. Teleplay, Larry Mintz and Marvin J. Wolf.