Load of rubbish!!

Good concept, poorly executed.

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Although Jim Rockford may represent the quintessential private eye (poor, heavily in debt, prone to get in car chases), he was a breath of fresh air considering the TV detectives who came before him (Cannon, McCloud, Barnaby Jones) that sported a hell of an office. Bucking the trend of well-dressed, well-off detectives, "The Rockford Files" presented the gritty, not-so-glamorous life and times of Jim Rockford, a pardoned ex-San Quentin inmate living in a dilapidated trailer on the beach. James Garner is excellent as Rockford, making the character real and honest but also likable and charismatic. Supporting cast Noah Beery, Jr., Stuart Margolin, Joe Santos, and Gretchen Corbett are also great as Rockford's father Rocky, con artist Angel Martin, police station ally Dennis Becker, and on again-off again attorney girlfriend Beth Davenport, respectively.The guest stars also pack a punch, like Lindsay Wagner (in the pilot), Alex Rocco, Abe Vigoda, Lauren Bacall, the late Isaac Hayes, Dionne Warwick, future film director Dennis Dugan (as detective Richie Brockelman) and future "Magnum, P.I." stars Tom Selleck, Larry Manetti, and Roger E. Mosley (Selleck as the anti-Rockford, Lance White).The writing is realistic and not too dated by today's standards (although in one early episode, Jimmy asks a guy for a quarter to use a pay toilet!), and is as enjoyable as when it was first aired. Wholeheartedly recommended!

American television audiences were very undemanding in the 1970s, so we ended up with innumerable average-to-bad detective shows. All of these were pretty much variations on the same whodunit theme, but networks tried (generally unsuccessfully) to liven things up by giving their characters "unique" personal qualities. Thus, we were barraged with endless variations on the "unique detective": a fat, grumpy detective (Cannon), a wise old detective (Barnaby Jones), a blind detective (Longstreet), an ethnic, bald detective who liked candy (Kojak), a mumbling, slouching detective in an old overcoat (Columbo), a blue-collar detective with a cute pet bird (Baretta), a WASP-ish detective (Mannix), husband-and-wife detectives (McMillan and Wife), a young guy-old guy detective team (The Streets of San Francisco, Switch), a flashy Las Vegas detective (Vega$), a cowboy detective in New York (McCloud), a buddy detective team with a fast red car (Starsky and Hutch), and so on.Most of these series were mediocre to poor as entertainment, primarily because they were so ridiculously unrealistic. "Starsky and Hutch" and "Baretta" were probably the worst, which means they were REALLY bad. One series was unpretentious and had an established star, however. Of course, I'm talking about James Garner in "The Rockford Files", which ran from 1974 to 1980. Garner's tremendous easygoing appeal carried the show without gimmickry, and the scripts were generally excellent. Sure, there were car chases and fights, but "The Rockford Files" was easy to take, and was without the contrived ridiculousness of the others. Noah Beery, Jr., an established character actor in his own right, contributed to the show's charm.I miss "The Rockford Files" quite a bit. The show didn't take itself too seriously and James Garner was fun to watch. You can keep all the other detective shows of the 1970s, but let me have this one and its memories.

The Rockford Files is one of my if not my most favourite TV programme. I have the first five seasons on DVD and plan to get season six and the TV Movies of the 1990s when they come out on DVD. The show is about Jim Rockford, a Private Investigator. He isn't like the average TV PI's he doesn't have a secretary or a huge well furnished office and he can't beat up 5 people at the same time. What he has is an answering machine (which has a different message on it at the start of every episode),a desk inside his trailer on the beach and the majority of the time at the most it would only take 2 people to beat him up, although he can be tough when he wants to be. He's just a normal person trying to make a living and would probably rather go fishing instead of take the more dangerous cases. The acting on every episode by the star James Garner and the main supporting actors (Who apart for Gretchen Corbett all either won or were nominated for Emmy's) such as Joe Santos, Gretchen Corbett, Noah Beery Jr and Stuart Margolin is excellent. Jim Rockford has to be one of the coolest characters ever, and it just goes to show how cool good old Jimmy Garner is as well. He's able to make a character like Jim, Who is an ex con, sometimes refuses cases & doesn't always let his clients down gently about it, gets beaten up quite a bit & who was in prison, extremely cool. I would recommend this to everyone who likes good old fashioned action and comedy.

Probably the 2nd best detective show of the 70s - I'd put it just marginally behind Starsky and Hutch. He was like a down-market Philip Marlowe; a crabby cynic with a heart of gold.Perhaps not surprising, when he was surrounded by the likes of Angel, Rocky and Dennis who were either stiffing him out of his hard-earned cash, telling him what a mess he'd made of his life or just telling him to get lost. It certainly broke the mould of detectives-with-all-the answers shows; and Gretchen Corbett, who played Beth Davenport, his long-suffering friend and attorney, was one of my dream women back then (Funny, but I don't remember seeing her in anything else).I think it maybe went on a season or two too long, but nothing's perfect.