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Fulton Mackay’s strict disciplinarian Mr Mackay and Brian Wilde’s gentle Mr Barrowclough show prison life at its extremes, while ‘Fletch’ devotes his time to getting one over on the oppressive system to make his five-year sentence more bearable.

Who can forget M. Emmet Walsh lubing up before enthusiastically plugging Chevy Chase in Fletch?

M. Emmet Walsh, 88, a prolific supporting actor who excelled in seedy and menacing roles, among them a comically deranged sniper in “The Jerk,” a double-crossing private eye in “Blood Simple” and Chevy Chase’s uncomfortably thorough exam-room doctor in “Fletch,” died Tuesday at a hospital in St. Albans, Vt. The cause was cardiac arrest.

On the comedy side, credits ranged from Christmas with the Kranks with Tim Allen to Fletch alongside Chevy Chase.

Walsh played a crazed sniper in the 1979 Steve Martin comedy “The Jerk” and a prostate-examining doctor in the 1985 Chevy Chase vehicle “Fletch.”