Reviews

The opening scene pans San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge.Chief of Detectives Robert T. Ironside (Raymond Burr) complains about having to attend the Police Commissioner's committee meeting, and asks his young assistant,Mark Sanger(Don Mitchell),to bring him coffee.

Before leaving,Ironside receives a disquieting telephone message.The caller states that"unless(Ironside)does something about it,he will commit a murder." Ironside fears a sniper attack,scanning windows and rooftops as he and Sanger drive through San Francisco.At the meeting,Ironside receives another call and orders it traced.

The caller(a young man)counsels Ironside to believe him,stating next time,he'll describe how he'll do it.

Ironside deduces the call came from within the Municipal Building(where he is presently),and that the target phone is within 10 minutes of his immediate location.

Ironside and Mark find a public phone in the lobby,but "Hank"(a female concessionaire)says it is out of order.

Within seconds,Ironside receives another call at "Hank's Boutique."The taunting voice predicts Ironside won't be able to stop him.He justifies threatening murder by"doing it to secure justice."The voice finally assures Ironside he'll tell him when.

Fellow detectives Eve Whitfield(Barbara Anderson)and Ed Brown(Don Galloway)analyze the situation:the killer ambivalently wants to kill, but is crying "catch me before I kill."Mark,however,fears the caller is trying to lure Ironside outside to kill him.

The Police Commissioner calls Ironside.Terrified they are the potential victim, many people have inundated the police with names of "suspects." Ironside receives calls when the police aren't with him,so he has Sanger drive him around San Francisco in the van,then leaves it unattended, with Ironside inside,alone.

Mark checks out the surrounding area.The van phone rings;Ironside switches on a tape recorder.

Predictably,the caller waited until Ironside was alone;he tells Ironside the murder location:"where the park meets the bay." Later Eve,Mark,and Ironside listen to the tape.Ironside figures the caller has a car phone,but no numbers called went through the mobile operator.

Mark and Eve agree the voice is neutral,redolent of a radio announcer. Ironside suggests they investigate all such Bay area schools and students.

Next day,Ironside and Mark head to the place"where the park meets the bay." The van phone starts ringing, while Mark is outside.The caller is changing his plan;he's going to commit murder the next day,no later than midnight - and "make it look like an accident." When Ironside expresses frustration over finding the caller before his murderous deadline,Mark jokes that perhaps the suspect has a phone in his pocket - triggering a brainstorm in Ironside.

He and Mark visit a dealer who sells an attaché case with a portable phone inside.The coded calls no longer go through the mobile operator.

The number calling Ironside,WP56715,is assigned to a salesman,Eddie Street - young,in his early 20's,with a soft voice(like Ironside's caller.) Ironside searches Eddie Street's vacant rental room,finding a sugar packet from a downtown grill.

Ironside questions a waitress there about Eddie Street;she calls the owner,Vern Emmerich,who cannot give Ironside any leads about Street, either.

As Mark is driving,Ironside notices a street sign,Eddy Street,close to Emmerich's café - obliquely pointing a finger at Emmerich.

Ironside is startled to hear an individual named Charles Borrow dropped out of his radio announcer class.

In 1955,Police Sgt. Charles Borrow,Sr.shot and killed a burglary suspect (presumably armed),though later determined to have been unarmed.Borrow insisted a witness could exonerate him.The witness,however,vanished,and Borrow was fired.

Ironside goes to visit Mrs. Borrow,who informs him her husband died several years before.

Her son,Charles Jr.left home four years earlier at age 18,and would be 22 now - the right age of the suspected caller.

Ironside confronts Emmerich,who provides an alibi for events happening 15 years before.

Ed is dispatched to surveille Emmerich.Ed calls in:Emmerich has fled for the airport in the airport bus.Ironside orders him to follow Emmerich and leaves also.

On the bus,a well-dressed young man sits behind a fidgety Emmerich. Ironside wants the police to stop the bus.Ed is standing at the back.

The young man leans over and whispers to Emmerich:"You'll never make it to the airport." Police cars pursue the bus, sirens and lights blazing...

Emmerick looks green.The young man leans forward,again,murmuring: "Time is running out."Emmerich winces,squirming in his seat.

As the bus grinds to a halt,surrounded by police cars,the young man hisses:"This is it,buster." Terrified,a wild-eyed Emmerich shrieks:"No! NO!",opens the emergency door,propels himself onto the highway,and is yanked to his feet by waiting police officers.

Ironside confronts Emmerich,who screams: "A man wants to kill me!" Ironside orders him arrested,then addresses young Borrow:"You thought we wouldn't make it." Borrow replies: "I was getting a little worried." Back at Ironside's apartment,Borrow, Jr.(Ironside's mystery caller) admits he concocted his war of nerves to trap Emmerich,because evidence pointed to Emmerich as the witness who wouldn't admit it(since he was the car thief/hit-and-run driver.) Ironside informs Charles the Commissioner will decide what charges Charles may face for his disruptive actions.Charles Borrow looks crestfallen until Ironside orders him to call his mother and tell her he is all right.Charles grins, and starts dialing...

The two guest stars gave this episode its special appeal.

Character actor Dane Clark(Vern Emmerich)imparted to his role the sense of cowardly desperation felt by a shifty individual,whose dark secret was known by someone intent upon killing him over it.

As Charles Borrow,Jr.(son of the wrongfully-disgraced police officer), Barry Brown's characterization was superior,as were all his performances in a promising career - sadly, cut short by an early death.

I highly recommend this tensely thrilling episode of "Ironside."

The scene opens with a train thundering across the prairie.A father and son are dozing.In the aisle,an angry man demands to look at a sleazily-handsome young man named Ira Pickett,whom the older man insists murdered his brother.

A scuffle ensues,and Pickett guns the man down.An elderly man says Pickett committed murder,and Ira backhands him savagely.

The father and son are awakened by the turmoil.The son smashes Pickett in the head and grabs a gun,training it on the killer.The son announces"he is holding Pickett for the Marshal in Dodge City."The father grabs Pickett's gun,also holding him at bay.Pickett lolls back in his seat,laughing ruefully at the irony.

An older man in black and a younger one arrive in Dodge to see a body loaded onto a wagon.A man declares there was a shooting on the train involving an "Ira Pickett,"but the body is his victim's;Pickett is in jail.

The old man(who peppers his speech with Biblical aphorisms)is Osgood Pickett,with his older son,Joseph.Osgood Pickett is the paterfamilias of a ruthless clan of gunslingers.

In Dodge,the witnesses(Arnie Sprague and son,Jared)will testify against Ira Pickett when Judge Booker arrives at 3 p.m.

The annoyingly talkative Edda Sprague picks up her father and brother in a wagon;she hectors Jared about his capturing Pickett.As they leave,the Picketts ride up, encountering the old man whom Ira assaulted(one Beecher),who praises the courageous Spragues.

The Picketts visit Beecher at his farm.He is under a wagon(supported by a wooden block),making repairs.Osgood Pickett kicks out the prop;the wagon falls on Beecher,killing him.

With Beecher dead,the Picketts go to intimidate the Spragues.Osgood Pickett hints to Arnie Sprague that if Ira is hanged,Sprague's wife and daughter will suffer,also.The Picketts remain at Sprague's to ensure "compliance."Osgood Pickett suggests that Arnie and Jared stop by the Beecher farm on their way into town.

The father(terrified of the Picketts)tells his unwitting hostage wife and daughter that the Picketts are cattle buyers from Oklahoma - Mr.Osgood,and son Joseph.

The Spragues find Beecher crushed to death.Arnie Sprague(mad with fear) recants his testimony,distressing his son and disquieting the Marshal.

A smirking Ira Pickett is freed;he sneeringly tells Festus Hagen about making his fortune soon in the "Clark Couty fence war."

Arnie and Jared return(Jared,ashamed of his father's cowardice.)Osgood Pickett tauntingly demands "restitution":Arnie Sprague's hundred head of cattle.

After hearing from Festus about Ira's involvement in Clark County,Matt Dillon sends a telegram to the local sheriff.

Edda Sprague rides off to fetch a wandering cow.Jared,sawing meat outside,starts to enter the smokehouse when he sees Ira Pickett ride up.Jared goes berserk,rushing inside to get a rifle.His father tried to stop Jared,slapping Jared hard across the face,knocking him down.

Jared leaps up,grabs a gun and wants to starts shooting.As they argue,Osgood Pickett enters,orders them(at gunpoint) to surrender the rifle,then smashes it against a table.

Outside,Osgood Pickett sees the sheriff coming,and sends Ira after Edda for "insurance."A suspicious Matt Dillon grills Arnie Sprague over his perjurious volte face in court,but Arnie sticks to his lie.Again,Osgood and Joseph are introduced as the cattle-buying Osgoods from Oklahoma.

Ira pitches woo to an unsuspecting Edda,and as they return with the cow, Jared,irascible,retrieves a hidden revolver,loads it,and conceals it again.

Later in the parlor,Ira sings as Edda plays the piano.Edda(smitten with Ira)betrays her brother,revealing that she saw him practicing with the gun in his bedroom.Jared lunges forward,but Ira shoots him in the arm.

Having worn out their "welcome,"Ira and Joseph Pickett go out to the barn to sleep.Their father,Osgood,keeps watch from a chair on the front porch.

Arnie Sprague,ashamed of his cowardice,decides belatedly to take action.

The Clark County sheriff returns a telegram about an outlaw family named Pickett - father Osgood, and sons,Joseph and Ira.Marshal Dillon heads immediately to the Spragues.

Morning dawns,and Arnie is cooking breakfast.Joseph Pickett opines that, in addition to the cattle,the Picketts want a hostage for "safe passage" - the daughter,Edda.

Arnie Sprague seizes Jospeh,pressing a butcher knife to his throat.Sprague removes Joseph's gun,shooting him,but the injured Pickett escapes through the kitchen door.

A gun battle rages.The Picketts cannot get inside,but Osgood Pickett orders Joseph to set the house ablaze.

Marshal Dillon rides up as Ira Pickett attempts to enter the house. the Marshal fires on Ira,killing him.

Seeing his favorite son die takes the fight out of Osgood who kneels beside Ira's body,grief-stricken.The story ends as the Marshal,the Spragues,and Joseph Pickett watch Osgood Pickett looking mutely at his youngest son,realizing the dynasty of terror he envisioned has now come to an abrupt,bloody end...

Harry Morgan excelled as Osgood Pickett,the sanctimonious gunslinger with a curdled smile who,with his sociopathic sons,terrorized a rancher and his family for doing their civic duty.

Tim O'Connor was convincing as Arnie Sprague,the timorous cattleman bullied by the sadistic Osgood Pickett until Sprague decided to fight back.

Dack Rambo(Ira Pickett)played the part well of a smug outlaw,groomed for his criminal career by his equally twisted father.

Barry Brown(Jared Sprague)effectively portrayed the moralistic cattleman's son whose sense of social responsibility,and innate heroism put his father's fecklessness to shame.

This episode's ending was predictable,but enjoyable when the faint-hearted father(seeing his son injured,and his daughter threatened) ultimately decided to stand up - like a true son of the Old West - against the vile,cowardly oppressors who had been menacing his family, and subverting justice.

In the opening scene,Dr.Steve Kiley enters the Ross-McGill Clinic(a drug treatment clinic)where men are taking methadone;the last one called is a Mr.Chambers.

Kiley looks horrified;Mr.Chambers gave Kiley his first job repairing cars to earn college money.Chambers snarls that he takes methadone to keep from returning to heroin.

That morning,Dr. Welby(swamped with patients)is nettled at Kiley's absence.

Kiley,strolling the drug clinic's grounds,chats with Chambers.

Chambers turned to heroin 5 years before,after his daughter was killed in a freeway accident.His business slid,and Chambers drifted into crime to support his habit.

After serving time in prison he went to New York, but dissatisfied - returned to Los Angeles.

Undergoing withdrawal,Chambers collapsed at the Ross-McGill Clinic,where he lives.If he leaves the clinic he can't obtain methadone,without which he cannot function.

Kiley tries to get Chambers a job,but nobody will hire an ex-felon.

Kiley returns to Welby's clinic around lunchtime;Consuelo warns that Welby is furious.As Kiley sits down,Welby unnerves him with his basilisk glare.

A bus driver applicant at La Vista Academy(a boys' school)has canceled his appointment for the physical examination.Kiley immediately calls Chambers about the prospective job.

Chambers keeps the appointment,and Kiley examines him.Kiley ignores the needle scarring on Chambers's arm,and passes him. Chambers once hired an under-aged Steve Kiley as a mechanic;now Kiley reciprocates the favor.

At La Vista Academy,Chambers impresses the dispatcher by dexterously handling a school bus and is immediately hired.

On his inaugural run,Chambers notices one student missing,and the others assure him that "Greg is usually late,and his mother ends up driving him to school."

Chambers,determined that Greg will ride the school bus like everybody else,attempts to chug the aging vehicle up a steep incline;it stalls halfway.Chambers jumps off the bus,opens the hood,and revs up the motor. Back inside,the engine roars to new life,negotiating the hill successfully.

Chambers toots the horn;reluctantly,Greg Wells,Jr.lopes out.He is a swarthily-handsome,solemn-faced youth.Arriving at school,Greg(who seems "out of it")has to be reminded to leave the bus.

The next day,Chambers(who is suspicious),asks Greg why he always wears long-sleeved shirts.Greg(sweating heavily)snarls defensively,confirming Chambers's worst fears about young Wells.

Chambers drives to Welby's office.He frantically tells a confused Welby that"one of the kids is sick,"but he "doesn't want to get the boy in trouble."

In the interim,George Howe(the headmaster of La Vista Academy)storms into Welby's office and fires Chambers,while upbraiding for foisting off an ex-junkie upon his school.

Howe finds out who performed the medical examination and starts inveighing against Kiley,ranting that he is"without ethics."Welby agrees to investigate when Kiley returns.

Kiley tries to explain,but is bawled out by Welby for his stupidity.Steve admits his wrongheadedness,and Marcus offers to help Chambers.

They confront La Vista's executive committee(Howe,another man,and a Mrs. Collins.)The men want Chambers out;Mrs.Collins is compassionate and will put the matter before the board of trustees at tomorrow's public meeting.

While brainstorming,Welby,Kiley,and Mrs.Collins ask Consuelo's advice. She suggests Chambers try for another position at the school.

Mrs. Collins suggests the school's car clinic.No one was qualified to run it,but Chambers would be the perfect candidate.

That evening,the moody Greg Wells visits Dr.Welby,admitting he's scared he's hooked on heroin.Wells explains Chambers insisted he come - the only adult Wells could trust to tell him the truth about addiction.

Wells also says Chambers left the clinic(fearing he caused too much trouble);Kiley hastens to find him.

Chambers(back at the clinic)had visited his daughter's grave.He needs the clinic, but also,a focus in life.

Kiley assures him that Mrs.Collins and the kids care,and both he and Welby are sticking their necks out for him at the meeting,which they expect him to attend.

At the meeting,Howe insists an addict is not sick,but causes his own addiction.Welby counters that he doesn't consider guilt, but treats the disease.

Welby assures that Chambers is no longer addicted,and should be hired to supervise the Car Clinic,both for his expertise in mechanics,aw well as his empirical wisdom concerning the perils of drug addiction.

Howe demands to know how Chambers's presence has had a positive influence of a student.Greg Wells leaps up,hysterically admitting his addiction.Howe then insists that Wells tell him how Chambers made him seek help.

Wells looks confused;Chambers rushes over, puts a protective arm around him,declaring:"I told him:Cut it out,kid,or you'll wind up like I did."

Flatly,Chambers states "I'm Exhibit A,"acknowledges responsibility for past mistakes,but adds,(touchingly)that can "make a motor sing like a bird," and can serve as an example to any student considering drugs.

Chambers is lauded for his honest,heart-touching speech,and a chastened Howe hires Chambers as Car Clinic supervisor.

Later,Steve Kiley visits Chambers at the La Vista Car Clinic.Steve's motorcycle is acting up,and chambers sends his protégé - a smiling Grag Wells - out to examine the machine.The scene ends with Chambers smiling,also;he has found his purpose in life.

Jack Albertson performed superbly as Mr.Chambers,the garage owner who fell from society's grace over a family tragedy.

His emotional speech,asking for a chance at redemption was movingly tear-provoking.

Barry Brown(Greg Wells),a promising 1970's actor,had one of Hollywood's most soulful faces.

As Greg Wells,Barry Brown conveyed an almost painful look of emotional torment over his besetting problem.

Sadly,in real life,this highly talented performer was assailed by the twin demons of serious depression and alcoholism,ultimately committing suicide at the age of 27 in 1978.

While dated,this show provides a glimpse into the U.S.drug situation nearly 40 years ago,and the anti-drug message incorporated in the show is still timely,universal,and more important now than ever.

The scene opens upon a sprawling mansion which lies nestled near the foothills of tall mountains.

Inside,three men enter a large trophy room.The oldest man is a commanding presence:tall,grey-haired,possessing a surface congeniality which barely masks his true,vicious nature.He is accompanied by a middle-aged man in a dark suit(a trust officer)and a slender young man(the old man's son.)

Col.Archie Dittman,Sr. - hunter extraordinaire - takes a snifter of brandy from his body servant,Tom. Tom(son of an Igbo tribal chieftain)is Oxford-educated,but an animist who still prays to tribal gods.

A racist,Col.Dittman refers to Tom as "a specimen" and "a savage,like all of his breed."

Col.Dittman calls hunting "my life's work";the old man describes,in glowing detail,how he stalked and killed a huge lion(the head of which is on the wall)one dark,rainy night on the African veldt.

Archie Dittman,Jr.(hostile toward his reprehensible father)continues to drink brandy during his father's self-important diatribe.

Now Dittman Sr. trains his attentions upon his son,Archie Jr.,a recent college graduate.He derogates the boy as "a pallid hand wringer,"but mostly as "doing little but occupying space."

Col.Dittman's life-philosophy is sociopathically simplistic:man must kill other species before being killed himself;that is the basic equation of survival.

Mr.Pierce(the trust officer)expresses disdain for wanton,purposeless killing.Dittman Sr.counters that he kills purposefully:to show his superiority over what he kills.

Col.Dittman now discusses the reason for the trust officer.In Dittman's briefcase are $2M in stocks and bonds,to be turned over next week to Archie Jr. as an inheritance.

Dittman now wants a codicil appended:that if in 15 days his son,Archie, has not shot and killed an animal,the trust will be dissolved.

The trust officer advises that Archie could sue his father,but Col.Dittman admonishes that if Archie tries,he will dribble away the funds on highly-speculative ventures,and convert the $2M by next week into waste paper.

On the stairs,Archie screams hysterically at his father,asking maybe if he wants him to shoot a child.The father retorts,coldly,that the world is a bloody hunting jungle,and one either stalks with the hunter,or runs with the quarry.

The father taunts Archie to shoot him.Archie takes aim,but the African servant,Tom,seizes the gun.

In the trophy room,Tom tells the trust officer that he has stayed for the boy's sake,in order to protect him.

Col.Dittman confronts Tom,standing in native attire before the fireplace,invoking his tribal gods.Dittman asks Tom to pray for a successful hunt.Tom replies that that is not his objective.

Tom also informs Dittman that the Igbo hunt for survival,not for the pleasure of killing.

The next day,Col.Dittman takes Archie out to hunt whitetail deer.He tells Archie to hit the deer in the shoulder,above the middle of the body,for a clean kill.

Archie aims,but doesn't fire.Enraged,Col.Dittman slaps Archie hard across the head,causing the gun to misfire.The deer,wounded,sprints off;the father snarls that they will have to track the blood trail of the dying animal.

At the mansion,Col.Dittman savagely excoriates an emotionally-prostrate Archie.The old man growls about a 3-1/2 hour trek because Archie shot the deer in the lungs.Although Archie made the required kill - it was not a "clean" one.

Dittman enters the trophy room,demanding that Tom open a window;Tom stands there,impassively.Dittman complains that his head feels hot - and peculiar.

The trust officer wants to take formal leave of Col.Dittman.Tom tells him not to enter the trophy room because the father has been punished. The trust officer enters anyway - and stares at the wall in open-mouthed horror.

Tom informs the man that his African gods have show the hunter what it is like to be the victim.

Tom tells the trust officer to take the boy with him;a traumatized Archie shambles down the stairs,and leaves.

Inside the trophy room,Tom pours a snifter of brandy and elevates the glass to the source of Mr.Pierce's horror:a wonder of taxidermic(and occultic)magic - Col.Dittman's head,carefully preserved and mounted on a wooden shield attached to the wall.Tom proclaims,solemnly:"Now there is a trophy - the king of the jungle."

Raymond Massey's performance as the sadistic,bullying Col.Dittman was magnificent.Dittman was just as powerful,leonine - and as vulnerable - as the numerous species he hunted,and collected, over the course of a bloody lifetime.

Tom Troupe(Mr. Pierce)was effective as the officer of the Colonel's trust fund.He was ambivalent,because of divided loyalties:he represented the father's interest,but felt a deep concern for Archie,and the soul-battering being delivered by his selfish,brutal father.

Herbert Jefferson,Jr.(Tom)was perfect as the Igbo body servant:educated, correct,polite,imperturbable - but seething underneath with rage at the TRUE savage - the hateful old man whose "masculinity" was defined by the number of creatures he killed in a lifetime.

Barry Brown(Archie Dittman,Jr.),one of the most sensitive actors of the 1970's,was absolutely convincing as the martyred son,pilloried by his sadistic father for not sharing the blood lust that pervaded - and possessed the old man's dark and violent soul.

The ending of this excursion into horror was fairly predictable,but the episode is well worth watching - not only for the offbeat outcome,but also to appreciate the talents of four very fine actors.

This episode opens with Brenda hectoring her sister,Rhoda,demanding to know if her new dress makes her look fat.Brenda is delighted over her upcoming third date with a mailman,Jimmy Klein.Brenda thinks Klein is romantic,and likens him to "a man with sensitive eyes who reads the 'Village Voice' on public transportation."

Rhoda balks when Brenda indicates that she'll be meeting Jimmy at the bus terminal to catch a bus for New Jersey, although Klein actually lives in Brooklyn.

Jimmy Klein justifies his peculiar actions because "New Jersey is quieter,and he likes to travel." He also has to be home by 11 p.m. to walk his dog.Rhoda is thoroughly suspicious of Jimmy Klein, and seriously doubts Klein's single status.

That evening,Joe(Rhoda's husband)tells her he's selling their car in order to curb expenses.Rhoda informs Joes she's worried Brenda is involved with a married man,but Joe figures that Brenda will learn better about such situations through trial and error.

Rhoda is in the basement,using one of the apartment's washing machines when she is buzzed by the loopy-sounding doorman,Carlton.He asks her to stick his uniform in the dryer on "air fluff," so "his epaulets won't shrink."

Jimmy Klein now asks Brenda to go with him for a romantic weekend in Vermont.He insists,though,they stay in separate motels because "he has to stay with the union guys..."

Exasperated,Rhoda accuses Jimmy Klein of being a married man.(A stubbornly obstinate Brenda refuses to consider the possibility.)

Rhoda is convinced when she hears that Klein has been wearing a Bandaid over his left ring finger to cover "a cut that inexplicably won't heal."

At Rhoda's insistence,Brenda gets Jimmy to commit to a dinner NOT on Thursday evening - but at a restaurant in New Jersey.

The party convenes at an ersatz Hawaiian restaurant;Jimmy and Brenda are late.Jimmy Klein is nice-looking,slightly pudgy,and very edgy;Rhoda thinks he's not only married - but looks like a fugitive...

The excitable Jimmy looks around the restaurant and starts wailing,in a skittery voice,about "the number and the brightness of the lights,and the current energy crisis."Jimmy favors his hosts with a tight,furtive smile and a shifty-eyed,fearful expression.

Brenda commiserates with Jimmy for having to change his uniform for a suit at a gas station,instead of at home.Joe hastily orders "tropical" drinks from a sarcastic waitress clad in little more than a grass skirt, judiciously diverting the enraged Rhoda from exploding at the latest news.

Joe starts to discuss the car he's put up for sale,and Jimmy admits he'd like to trade in his 1959 DeSoto station wagon.Rhoda comments mordantly that married people usually drive station wagons.Jimmy Klein babbles nervously,and a face-saving toast with the ridiculously-large tropical drinks is proposed.

Rhoda,determined,has Jimmy Klein in her sights,and transfixes the frightened Klein with a look that would stun a Bengal tiger.

She confronts Jimmy Klein - finally accusing him,point-blank,of being married.

Jimmy grimaces,shifts uneasily,then admits(with a candid stupidity):"A little bit - sort of - well, yeah,yeah - but only for three years!"

Wounded,Brenda upbraids Jimmy Klein,who temporizes: "Well, I'm a very weak person."

Brenda,feeling duped and heartsick,gets up and leaves;Rhoda follows.Joe pays the tab,but as he leaves,tells the feckless philanderer:"I think you're a creep."

Jimmy Klein looks unhappy for being revealed so publicly,but philosophically returns to his free drink...

Back at the apartment,Brenda pleads with Rhoda not to interfere in her life again. (An impossibility:Rhoda is committed to protecting Brenda at all costs.)

Actually,Brenda figured something was amiss when she saw the incriminating Bandaid,but ignored the obvious in favor of potential romance.

Brenda jokes sardonically that she can now write a book entitled:"Where It's At In Jersey."

The show ends when Carlton,the doorman calls Brenda in her apartment and becomes emotional over his lost laundry basket containing an important item.Rhoda checks her laundry basket,and pulls out a partially-consumed pint of whiskey.Asking Carlton to describe the item,he responds,boozily: "Half empty."Rhoda then indicates,sarcastically,that she DOES have Carlton's "lost property."

Kudos go to guest star Barry Brown who(as Jimmy Klein)played a witless bumbler whose pathetic attempts at adultery are so transparently amateurish,he makes an excellent case for marital fidelity - not because it is simply the right thing to do,but because it is far less ludicrous than the ridiculous extremes resorted to keeping his faithless behavior from being discovered.

The lunkheaded Lothario,Klein,is exposed almost immediately.And even after Brenda,Rhoda,and Joe indignantly leave the restaurant(and the parasitical Jimmy Klein to his own devices) - Klein still sits there,greedily draining the free tropical drink to the dregs(as he would have the relationship with the unsuspecting Brenda.)

Barry Brown's rare comedic performance was in a medium which he should have pursued further,in addition to his intense,emotional dramatic roles (usually costume dramas,such as "Bad Company,""Testimony of Two Men," and "Daisy Miller."Sadly,Barry Brown's premature death at age 27 in 1978 cut short a potentially promising career.

Although this episode of "Rhoda" is over 30 years old,it is not dated,and the humor is still timely.

The outcome of the show was eminently predictable,but it was still very amusing,and well worth a half-hour of one's time for some warm,satisfied chuckles.

The opening scene is Miller Springs,at "Lloyd's Garage."Capt.Adam Greer of the Mod squad is being beaten.A large,mustachioed man holds a gun on a man tied up.A rope is tied to a car bumper.

The car starts,dragging the bound man out of a pickup truck's flatbed, aloft,where he hangs lifeless from a tree branch.

Chief Metcalf of the Mod Squad calls the Miller Springs sheriff to inquire about Capt.Greer,who's been missing for four days.

The chief is worried because Greer uncharacteristically missed police academy graduation.Linc,Pete,and Julie head up to Miller Springs.

Julie yells;Pete jams on the brakes.A girl stands in the middle of the roadway.Another care roars up.Out jumps her father,Al Jennings - the man with the gun.He snarls that his daughter is "mute,"drags her into the car,and speeds back to town.

In Miller Springs,The Mod Squad trio meets with silence.Lloyd,the filling station owner(the town's only black man)is hostile,especially to Linc(the black Mod Squad member.) The girl's brother,apologetic,meets the Mod Squad outside his father's hotel;inside,the father refuses them lodging.

A crash emanates from the kitchen;the Mexican cook lies on the floor,drunk.The father drags him upstairs to sleep it off.The Mod Squad witness the girl watching,tensely.

At the filling station,a dog brings Pete a fishing hat which Julie recognizes as Capt. Greer's.

The sheriff promotes Parkersburg to the Mod Squad.They pretend to be students;he directs them to camp outside town.

Come nighttime,Linc lock-picks the filling station and finds Capt. Greer's car in the garage.

Pete and Julie worry about Linc;a pickup truck slows down, and a beaten,semi-conscious Linc is dumped from the flatbed.

The sheriff won't press charges,advising Linc and Pete to accept a "complimentary" bottle of whiskey.

Julie sneaks back of the garage,smashes a window and looks inside.

At the jail,the sheriff castigates Al Jennings for bringing unwelcome attention to their town.

Inside the hotel,Pete attempts to talk with Donna Jennings.Julie tells Linc the car is gone.

the Jennings boy becomes confrontational;Pete grabs him,demanding answers.He tells Pete about his sister's secret - then stops.

Linc gets the "promised"liquor,befriending the cook,who admits drinking to obliterate the memory of a recent lynching.The Mod Squad hastens to Parkersburg to call the Chief.

As they leave Miller Springs,the sheriff has Lloyd follow them.In the jail, the sheriff enters a cell where Capt. Greer is handcuffed and gagged.

Attempting to escape,Greer slugs the sheriff who saps Greer unconscious with his gun butt.

The cook is leaving town.Jennings attempts to stop him,but the cook pulls a gun and speeds off.

The hotel owner wants to kill Greer and deposit him in the lake.

At Parkersburg,the trio call Chief Metcalf about the disturbing developments.He doesn't believe them,but orders them to stay put and will fly up to their location.

Pete insists they return to Miller Springs, with Lloyd right behind.They stop,and Lloyd attacks them with a wrench.Linc beats him up;Pete disables Lloyd's truck so he can't follow.

Upon arriving,Pete and Linc demand to see the jail cells.An old drunk is in Capt. Greer's former cell.

The sheriff then pulls a rifle and herds them all to the hotel for a "town meeting." The sheriff starts questioning the "kids' interference."Linc mentions Capt. Greer,and Pete,the lynching,and Donna Jennings' troubles.

The sheriff tries to concoct a frame-up of the trio,but Linc reveals they are undercover cops.Julie and Pete assent,also.

The sheriff admits:"It's all over,"but Al wants to kill them.The sheriff admonished Al to kill the strange who raped Donna.

Donna Jennings bursts into the room,wailing the man was her lover.The father tries to beat the girl but her brother protects her,screaming that his father always resolves problems violently.

The father says things will never be the same;Capt.Greer is going to be drowned in the lake.

The sheriff and the Mod Squad race to the lake as the murderer drives there with the bound Greer,in Greer's own car.

At the lake the man slugs Greer,pushing the car into the lake with the unconscious officer inside.

Linc and Pete arrive,in time to jump in and rescue Capt.Greer.

Back in Miller Springs,an ambulance arrives from Parkersburg with Chief Metcalf to take Capt.Greer for a checkup.

Chief Metcalf states that there will be prosecutions,but the townsfolk are"losers who'll have to live with their shame." The Chief compliments the trio:"Didn't I tell you to wait for me in Parkersburg?Well,I'm glad you didn't." As the ambulance leaves,the three opine that the world will be a better place when strangers are welcomed someday as friends.

Jason Evers(Sheriff)excelled in portraying the smarmy,small-town lawman who values cover-ups over justice.

Cliff Osmond(Al Jennings)effectively depicted the bullying father whose obsession to protect the family "honor" involved him in one actual,and one attempted homicide.

Louis Gossett,Jr.(Lloyd) very skillfully played a minority mechanic in an isolated,hostile environment.

Donna Baccala(Donna Jennings)was convincing as the stressed girl with a terrible secret.

Barry Brown(the Jennings boy)displayed his considerable talent in his taut,emotionally-charged characterization of a teenager torn between doing the right thing(disclosing the truth behind his sister's situation),but hesitant(fearing another fatal response from his abusive father.) The ancientness of the cars,as well as the Mod Squad's attire date the show,but the 60's violence level of police shows was neither so realistic,nor visceral as it is today.

Still,as a barometer of 60's classical TV,it was "Really cool and groovy, man!" Be sure to watch it.

The opening scene is in northwest Missouri.The railroads are stealing the farmers' properties and dispossessing them.

In 1876 the Missouri legislature moves to grant a blanket amnesty to farmers as well as to Jesse and frank James(two celebrated Missouri outlaws.)

However,the railroad hires detective Allan Pinkerton(Dana Elcar)to "get" the Jameses.

Frank(John Pearce)and Jesse(Robert Duvall)find some newspaper upon which gang member Cole Younger(Cliff Robertson)has written plans to rob the First National Bank in Northfield,Minnesota.

They justify robbing the bank because the amnesty vote was blocked by a Pinkerton bribe.

The train carrying Pinkerton enters the area; detectives dressed as farmers disembark,positioning themselves to kill the James gang.The resulting ambush leaves Cole Younger seriously wounded and the Pinkerton detectives dead.

Although Jesse James comes from educated people,he rants himself into a mad-eyed,ecstatic state describing the upcoming bank robbery.

Jesse and Frank leave to pursue Jesse's "vision"; Younger and his group soon follow.

On the way the Youngers pick up Clell Miller(R.G.Armstrong.)Upon entering Northfield,a curious sight greets Younger and the gang: a trackless steam engine chugging down the middle of Main Street.

In front of the First National Bank is another oddity: a malfunctioning steam calliope on the sidewalk.Cole Younger repairs the calliope's pressure gauge.

In Northfield,Younger strikes a nefarious bargain with Mr.Wilcox(Robert R.Harris),the bank's owner,who plans to inveigle the unsuspecting townsfolk to invest their savings - then fleece them,and disappear.

Wilcox is seconded by his "yes-man,"Bunker(Elisha Cook,Jr.),but the upright bookkeeper,Heywood(Jack Manning)denounces them both.

Meanwhile,the Jameses and their part of the gang lodge with an elderly lady being evicted over an unpaid mortgage of $80.Jesse hears her rambling story about"don't sell the children"(a group of mannikins); Jesse buys the "Uncle Sam" doll for $80,takes it and confronting the landlord,shoots him dead.

At the town's baseball game,the Northfield team wins because Cole Younger blasts the ball to smithereens with his rifle.Younger(calling himself "Mr. King")and Wilcox "converse" over "King's" nearly being robber,and how he wants to protect his money in a safe bank.

Another comedic touch at the game is a lanky young man with a goofy grin who is marching around,shouldering a rifle.He's Henry Wheeler(Barry Brown),supposedly a medical student,but wearing impossibly thick-lensed glasses!

Younger tries to show Wheeler how to shoot correctly; Wheeler promptly shoots off a man's hat!Later,at a blacksmith's,Younger creates a device for Wheeler's gun allowing him to shoot straight - with unexpected catastrophic results,later.

A phony gold shipment "conveniently" arrives near the playing field,"guarded" by Younger's gang.The townsfolk,entranced,rush to put their money in the local bank.

Back in town Younger encounters a wild-eyed,incoherent individual, "Crazy" Gustavson(Royal Dano).He is insane because his son never returned from the Civil War.

Jesse James and his group ride into town,meeting up with the Youngers and their group.Before the robbery,Cole Younger shoots the town telegrapher through a plate-glass window.

Now inside the bank, Wilcox(outflanked in treachery by Younger)is soundly beaten.Bunker(injured)escapes out a back window,but the brave Haywood,who claims he can't open the bank vault's time lock is shot dead by James.(The vault,which opens briefly,traps Bill Chadwell(Craig Curtis)inside.)

Unexpectedly,"Crazy" Gustavson shows up raving,and is shot dead - but falls onto the steam calliope which,blasting like an air-raid siren alerts the townsfolk.

The enthusiastic kid,Wheeler,fires wildly with the modified gun and accidentally hits Clell Miller,killing him instantly.

Armed citizens pour into the streets,shooting.In the mêlée,Bob Younger is shot,rescued by his brother,and the surviving outlaws escape.

When the bank's time lock opens the trapped outlaw,Bill Chadwell,is promptly gunned down.

Back at the "doll lady's" house,Cole Younger,his brothers Bob and Jim (Luke askew),Charlie Pitts(Wayne Sunderlin)and the James brothers are hiding out.The Jameses want to leave; the Youngers want to stay.Bob Younger's condition is serious,requiring immediate medical attention; the elderly lady wants to bring back a trustworthy doctor.The Jameses accompany her.

A search party finds the remainder of the gang holed up in the house and enfilades it,killing Charlie Pitts.

Jesse and Frank James escape in a buckboard,heading for Missouri.Jesse is disguised in women's clothes.Presumably,they murdered the elderly lady and stole her wagon.

As Pinkerton's train arrives in Northfield,he is infuriated to see the prison wagon paraded through the town's streets,the townsfolk cheering the surviving desperadoes.(Footnote: Cole Younger received a life sentence for murder,and served 25 years in prison.)

Cliff Robertson(Cole Younger)played the part of the outlaw Cole Younger with a certain raffish bravado.

Robert Duvall(Jesse James)was eerie as the fanatical Jesse James whose cosmic "vision" led him to Northfield to rob the bank.

Dana Elcar(Allan Pinkerton)was convincingly self-righteous as the sinister detective who cut corners in the pursuit of "justice."

John Pearce(Frank James)was very good as Jesse's supportive brother,Frank.

Wayne Sutherlin(Charlie Pitts)was believable as the taciturn Charlie Pitts.

R.G.Armstrong(Clell Miller)imparted a "good ol'boy" flavor to his characterization of Clell Miller.

Royal Dano("Crazy" Gustavson)was convincingly demented as the ill-starred émigré.

Barry Brown(Henry Wheeler)was engaging as the enthusiastic but maladroit medical student,playing his part with just the right comedic touch.

"The Great Northfield,Minnesota Raid" is a Revisionist Western(a genre popular just after the Sixties),and is greatly at variance with the true facts surrounding the event.However, for 91 minutes of escapist diversion - it will fit the bill nicely.

The scene opens with a young woman teaching a group of preteen girls classical ballet.Dr. Steve Kiley(James Brolin)and his brother,Mike(Barry Brown)walk in on the class,and they are charmed by the young dancers.The brothers have come to see the teacher,their sister Ellen(Kathryn Hays.)

The Kileys are planning a non-alcoholic birthday party for their father, a recovering alcoholic.Included in the festivities is their sister's fiancé,Herb.

At a fine restaurant,the party is in full swing.The father,Dan Kiley(Alan Hale), an expansive Irishman who is enjoying himself(despite no liquor) suddenly collapses and is rushed to the hospital.

In the hospital waiting room Mike and Ellen wait anxiously.Steve returns with unsettling news: their father has had a CVA(cerebrovascular accident.)Worse,he has no medical insurance,thus incurring heavy expenses for treatment.Mike is a graduate student,and Ellen,a divorcée with children,so Steve elects to shoulder the entire financial burden.

Although an expensive private hospital,Steve Kiley wants to transfer his father to Lang Memorial Hospital where a Dr.Kingman practices.(He is a preeminent specialist in the care and rehabilitation of stroke victims.) Kiley asks Marcus Welby to intervene for him.Kingman(an imperious individual)does finally agree to oversee Dan Kiley's rehabilitation.

Dan Kiley mistakenly believes that joining Alcoholics Anonymous and "going on the wagon"induced his stroke.Moreover,he is ashamed of his former dereliction toward his three children,and feeling guilty about Steve's generosity,wants instead to enter the Veterans Administration Hospital, which is free.

Steve Kiley is so dedicated in maintaining a lonely vigil over his father that Kingman finally orders Steve to go home and get some real rest in bed, instead of catnapping in a chair.

Marcus visits Dan Kiley,who speaks the pithiest words of wisdom:"No drunk is happy with himself; if he were,he wouldn't need to drink."

The elder Kiley also reiterates his feelings of remorse over neglecting his children,as well as drinking heavily.

Steve,the most enlightened of the children,long ago accepted the fact that his father had the disease of alcoholism; thus,Steve forgives and respects his father,and will go to heroic lengths to save Dan Kiley's life.

Dan Kiley has indicated,however,that in a worst-case scenario he'd rather be dead than nonfunctional.

As Consuelo is fixing Steve a meal at home,Mike Kiley announces he is postponing his Ph.D.studies at M.I.T. to stay and help defray expenses.

Dan Kiley begins an intensive regimen of carbon dioxide and physical therapies.

While watching his father,Steve detects a second CVA occurring on Dan Kiley's left side and summons help.Three doctors examine the comatose Dan Kiley(now on a respirator)and determine that he suffered a massive bilateral CVA.

The prognosis is discouraging: the survival rate is only 2%,and the odds of a full recovery - a miniscule 1%.Nevertheless,Steve wants his father kept on the respirator.

Steve seeks a bank loan; his annual salary is a modest $20,000 per year,so the maximum allowable limit is $5,000.The medical costs are a staggering $200 per day.

Steve asks his sister Ellen to stay with her father but she refuses, because she plans to marry her fiancé soon.Also,she is ashamed of her alcoholic father.

Marcus Welby is feeling the strain of having to cover for Steve Kiley in their practice.Steve is anguished when his brilliant younger brother Mike comes home in a work uniform and announces that he obtained a maintenance job.The others are importuning a resistant Steve to "pull the plug" on their father,and look to Marcus(as a surrogate father figure)to influence Steve's decision.

In discussing the difficult decision with Steve,Marcus counsels him to make his own informed decision, not one influenced by the others.

Allowing Dan Kiley a dignified death by taking him off the respirator would be an ethical decision, and Marcus Welby cites an instructive personal experience.

Marcus saved a fellow doctor named Bob Burroughs after a coronary.The man,however,had been unconscious for nine minutes before CPR was administered - thus sustaining irreversible brain damage.So, a decision was made to "pull the plug..."

The final scene takes place at the cemetery where family and friends are holding Dan Kiley's funeral.All are assembled,and after the services the family are going to return to the house to hold and "Irish wake" for Dan; they will "hoist one" - a final drink - in his honor,to a man who decided to "fight the good fight" (i.e.,against his alcoholism),albeit a trifle too late...

Alan Hale(best known for his role as the Skipper in "Gilligan's Island") was eminently suited to the part of errant father Dan Kiley,and played it with just the right mixture of humor,pathos,and fatalism,all delivered in a soft Irish brogue.

Kathryn Hays(Ellen Kiley)was very convincing as the daughter whose devotion to her father was deficient,owing to his flagrant shortcomings as a strong,responsible paternal influence during their formative years.

Barry Brown(Mike Kiley)reprised his role as the family's baby brother (he also co-starred in the episode "Warn The World About Mike"),and turned in his usual excellent performance - this time,as the Kiley family's wunderkind whose stellar career stood to be underminded by his father's catastrophic(and ruinously expensive)medical emergency.

Although filmed a generation ago(1971),this episode addresses the same problem paramount today(as then)in medicine,viz.,the ethics and feasibility of keeping a critical patient alive vs.the excessive daily costs of that medical care.Although the outcome of the episode was predictable,it's still a memorable show; don't miss it.

At a stoplight, Jim Bronson (Michael Parks) on his trademark motorcycle speaks with a curious driver who evinces envy for Bronson's unfettered lifestyle. Bronson speeds off on the motorcycle for Reno, Nevada, where he plans to attend the marriage of his cousin, Eve Bronson (Lynne Marta) to Len (Barry Brown.)

Bronson surprises Eve by entering the store where she works, dons a silly cap, picks up an item and pokes her in the back with it. She turns around, startled - then they laugh and embrace.

At a local casino, they meet up with Eve's fiancé, Len, a fresh-faced college student (who inexplicably sports a long, trailing scarf wrapped around his neck.) Len is eager to "tie the knot," but Eve appears to be getting "cold feet"; she wants reassurance that Jimmy (as her only relative) will be around for the nuptials.

They then ride to a wedding chapel on their respective motorcycles: Bronson, on his; Len, with Eve riding behind.

Inside the modest building await Ned (presumably a minister, with string tie and Western-style attire) and his wife, Winnie Mae. Eve takes in the tackiness of the atmosphere, as well as the couple who own the chapel and bolts, crying that she wants a "real wedding."

Outside, Eve complains that she wants a "church wedding" and a wedding gown, so Jim Bronson generously gives her the money for the dress.

Eve is walking in her wedding dress to the wedding chapel where Bronson and Len are waiting. Suddenly, she rushes across the street, hops in a taxi and inexplicably goes to a casino to gamble and is "on a roll," winning heavily...

Jim and Len (who have been waiting impatiently at the "Chapel of the Bells") go off in search of her. When they find Eve, she refuses to stop gambling because of her "lucky streak."

By a lake, Len and Jim discuss Eve's gambling; Len is worried about that factor, as well as her uncertainty about the marriage. He goes to the casino to reason with her - then storms off when she refuses to leave after crapping out. He heads back to Bronson's shakedown by the river.

Bronson goes and finds Eve on a winning streak at craps. He grabs the money, and gives her a letter from Len.

Eve and Len are now drinking champagne. Len finds out that ultimately Eve blew everything, and hocked his motorcycle, besides. (It will take $40 to get the motorcycle back.) Eve now emerges as a childish, and very selfish individual.

Jim wants to help Eve lose money at gambling as an object lesson, but ironically, she keeps winning. He tells her to look at the people around her who are gambling - how they are of no substance; ultimately, the lesson sinks in.

They go to look for Len. At Harrah's Automobile Museum, Eve meets Len, and they rush off to get married.

However at the chapel, the old conflicts resurface. Len and Eve meet another young couple, also getting married, but Eve and Len start fighting again. Finally, they decide not to marry after all, push the other two ahead of them, and meet Bronson outside with the news,

Grateful to be relieved of the frustrating situation, Bronson leaves Reno...

Michael Parks (Jim Bronson), a popular TV actor of the 1950's and 1960's was perfect as the cool, laid-back Jim Bronson. He embodied the dying spirit of the rugged independence of the Old West. Like the cowboy, Bronson's soul was his own; his first love - the open road, and wherever it would take him.

Lynne Marta (Eve Bronson) was also a popular performer on many shows of the 1960's and 1970's, and turned in a highly convincing performance as Bronson's mercurial cousin who sacrificed the stability of marriage for the ephemeral hedonism of the gambling tables.

Barry Brown (Len), who was one of the most talented and sensitive actors of the 1970's, played the handsome, clean-cut college boy Len with an energetic, genial verve. He was very expressive as he ran the emotional gamut of delight, concern, consternation, outright anger and finally, resignation in dealing with his flaky fiancée, Eve.

Although this episode was a bit thin on plot(and with the exception of the cars, which date the show), this drama might have been written yesterday; it confronts problems that are timeless: (1)compulsive gambling; and (2)individuals who will not grow up and behave responsibly.

"Then Came Bronson" was a charming (but short-lived) show; this is one episode worth seeing.

The nighttime scene opens in a young boy's bedroom.A teenager with short, bristly hair rises from his bed and sleepwalks.

In another bedroom an older man is making a person-to-person call when a rifle is fired in through the door.The man falls,mortally wounded.Before dying,he mutters "Dana" into the phone.

At the scene,police question Prentiss Marcum(Don Porter),neighbor of Col.David D.Sterling,the murder victim(Richard Webb),and are startled that the other bedroom(with 8th-grade textbooks)belongs to Sterling's 17-year-old son,David D.("Dana")Sterling,Jr.(Barry Brown.)

Marcum cares for Dana when Sterling is at the Pentagon; he's appalled to find the mentally-handicapped Dana missing.Marcum's wife,Margaret(Marj Dusay)is out of town.

"Mod Squad" undercover officers Pete(Michael Cole)and Linc(Clarence Williams III)are running in the park.Pete notices a teen-aged boy,still in pajamas,confusedly stumbling around.Pete encounters the boy who recoils in terror.

Pete determines that the boy(whose pajama top is bloody)is not mentally sound.The boy(seemingly in shock)is unresponsive.Pete invites the boy back with them to his apartment.

At Pete's apartment,the now-chatty Dana tells them that he excels at geography,has a good memory for faces,and counts cards when playing card games.(Dana Sterling is not mentally retarded,but autistic.)

Pete offers Dana some clothes to wear home.When Dana removes his shirt on the stairs,Pete and Linc stare,horrified,at welts crisscrossing the boy's back.Dana admits his father beat him,but loyally avers his father is "really a great guy!"

A psychiatrist examines Dana,who insists his father isn't dead because "he hasn't seen his body."The doctor believes Dana didn't kill his father.Police still feel Dana is the primary suspect.

Pete insists Dana stay with him.Dana tells Pete that when his father (a widower)goes to the Pentagon he stays with "Uncle Prentiss"(whom he likes),but dislikes "Aunt Margaret," Prentiss's wife(who never liked Dana.)

The police discover that Col.Sterling made the person-to-person call to Margaret Marcum at a motel in Bakersfield,California.

Dana asks to visit Lewis Park.Dana shoots skeet,shattering every clay pigeon released.Pete becomes horrified when Dana suddenly wails:"My father's dead!Somebody shot my father!"

Back at the apartment,a tearful Dana admits to Pete that his father was very abusive but he still loved him.

Marcum is questioned about his wife.He admits she was leaving him,and was intimate with David Sterling.

The police bring in Margaret,who confesses David told her he would beat Dana into submission if he objected to David's relationship with Margaret.

Upstairs at Pete's apartment,Dana sees a cruiser pull into the driveway,realizes Pete is a policeman and flees.

Pete goes to Marcum who says he hasn't seen Dana(who is hiding inside.) Pete remains at the Sterling apartment,figuring Dana might return.

Prentiss Marcum shows his true colors, eliciting from the trusting Dana the distasteful story that Sterling beat Dana,who resisted Margaret's coming to stay with them.Dana tells "Uncle Prentiss" that "Aunt Margaret" should stay with him.

Marcum presses Dana to determine how much the boy remembers.In a series of hallucinatory flashbacks,the story unfolds in Dana's tortured mind. Finally,Dana sees Prentiss handing him his own gun(which Prentiss used to kill David Sterling)and tries,mesmerically,to convince Dana he killed his father while sleepwalking.

Dana remembers and tells Prentiss,sealing his own fate.

Margaret,who hears the story,threatens to call the police.Marcum grabs Margaret and backhands her,allowing the frightened boy to escape to his own apartment.Prentiss breaks down the door; Dana,terrified,picks up a rifle and threatens to shoot.Marcum sneers; the gun is unloaded.Marcum had to load Dana's gun with his own bullets to kill David Sterling.

Dana then wields the gun butt defensively.Prentiss follows suit,advancing on the boy - but falls flat on his face;Pete trips him.(Pete,inside,heard the guilty admission.)

Prentiss attacks Pete,who beats him savagely.Pete hurries to Dana,huddled in a corner;the boy is sobbing piteously...

At the station,Capt.Greer hands Pete a letter from Dana.

Dana is flourishing in a special school,having the potential to attend college someday.

The letter ends on this touching note:"I never had a brother...you are the one I would choose.I hope you feel the same about me...your friend, Dana."

Of all TV dramas,this heart-wrenching episode is the likeliest to provoke tears.

In this challenging role,Barry Brown(one of the most promising young actors of the 1970's)was superlative - extraordinarily convincing as Dana Sterling,the mentally-challenged boy cruelly victimized,yet so winsome and charismatic he instantly won your heart.(Dana Sterling was Barry Brown's favorite character.)

Harve Bennett,the show's producer,was so impressed with Brown's meticulous characterization he nominated Brown for an Emmy.

Reportedly,Barry Brown acted in one scene with such emotional intensity that the cast applauded him enthusiastically at the end of his performance.

Tragically,this sensitive,intelligent young actor(who,at age 19,was listed as co-starring in this drama with Don Porter,a highly-respected character actor)was overwhelmed by the twin demons that haunted his life - depression and alcohol - and committed suicide in 1978,at the age of 27.

This "Mod Squad" episode not only represents the police shows that entertained the American public nearly 40 years ago,but also showcased the impressive talents of a handsome,star-crossed young actor,Barry Brown,and what might have been for him,as well as for the world of entertainment,had the Fates been kinder...

The opening scene is South Texas. Two backpackers come upon abandoned property protected by a "No Trespassing" sign.

Once inside, the two enter a large room with swimming pool and jump in. The boy shrieks, disappearing beneath the surface, as does the screaming girl.

A private investigator, Maggie McGowan, travels to the remote area in a rented jeep,searching for the missing teens.

The jeep breaks down,and Maggie confronts Paul Grogan (an unsociable alcoholic)in his cabin,whom she dragoons into accompanying her to a deserted Army test site - the same place where the teenagers disappeared.

They break in, and finding the pool, Maggie hits a switch to drain it, but is attacked by a maniac who attempts to throttle Grogan. Maggie knocks the man unconscious.

Skeletal remains are in the pool's trap.The crazed man steals Maggie's jeep, but still dazed, crashes.

Back at Grogan's, the man raves about about piranhas loose in the local waters.

Grogan who worked at a refinery) tells Maggie the land was sold to the Army, who resold it to a resort developer. He worries about his daughter at a nearby camp,insisting upon rafting down the river to warn others.

Jack, an old hermit, is the next casualty. The rafters find Jack's corpse, missing its lower legs.

These piranhas were a secret Government plan to destroy the North Vietnamese fishing industry by developing a strain of mutant tropical fish. Hoak continued the project because Government money is easier to obtain than grants. Dr. Hoak, guilt-stricken, jumps in the water but is eaten by the deadly creatures.

The survivors barely make it to shore before the piranha-gnawed raft disintegrates. Grogan hurries to prevent the dam opening into Lost River Lake.

The Army, alerted, sends a convoy with poison. Colonel Waxman and his assistant (a sinister woman, Dr. Mengers) try to silence Maggie and Paul. Paul balks, and Waxman has them detained.

Grogan and Maggie escape, stealing an Army staff car. Their speeding alerts a local "redneck" lawman, "Trooper" - superficially genial, but whose eyes don't smile. He doesn't believe their story and arrests them. The smile disappears, and Trooper's eyes harden as he brandishes his gun; he means business.

At the jail Trooper takes Colonel Waxman's phone call and is smarmy until the Colonel abruptly hangs up. Stung, Trooper goes into the jail. Grogan becomes emotional; Trooper turns on his heel, refusing to allow the screaming Grogan a phone call.

The conniving Colonel Waxman (a silent partner in the resort project, Aquarena Springs)calls his colleague "Buck" Gardner and informs him of the developments.

Maggie escapes by flooding her cell. When the jail guard investigates, she brains him, then pulls off his pants to get both cell keys, as well as cruiser keys.

Grogan and Maggie steal the police car. Trooper is exiting a diner with a cup of coffee, As he opens the lid to drink, the patrol car rockets past. Suddenly, a pair of uniform pants flies out the window, draping itself over Trooper's head, and into his coffee. Trooper looks befuddled...

The next day is the opening of the resort and the big day of the camp's swim.

Grogan races toward the camp. His daughter, Suzie hides under an overturned canoe during the tube race. A school of piranhas enter the camp waters.

The fish attack the campers. Suzie Grogan pushes an inflatable raft into the water to rescue two camp counselors; one dies.

Grogan arrives, checks on Suzie, then calls the resort. Buck Gardner hangs up on Grogan.

The resort opens. A speedboat with water skier are on the lake, but the invading piranhas kill an underwater scuba diver. the water skier sees the diver's corpse and tries to alert the speedboat's driver. Confusion occurs, the boat rams another - causing an explosion.

The piranhas now attack the swimmers - with horrific results. Colonel Waxman (on a pleasure boat) shoves an injured man back into the water, but also falls in, and is killed.

Grogan and McGowan take a speedboat to the smelting plant. If Grogan opens a valve, the toxic waste will kill the piranhas. The building is flooded; the control room, under water. Grogan swims inside, turns the valve to debouch waste into the water, but is attacked by piranhas.

The waste spews, and Maggie takes off. Grogan signals success, raising his hand from the water.

Lost River Lake is a scene of death and destruction. Buck Gardner, wandering dazedly, takes a swing at a cameraman filming the debacle.

The movie ends with Dr. Mengers, staring hypnotically and crooning: "There is nothing left to fear..."

Bradford Dillman (Paul Grogan) turned in a fine performance as the neurotic Paul Grogan who proved capable of selfless heroism.

Heather Menzies (Maggie McGowan) - the resourceful private investigator perfectly balanced her petulant partner, Paul Grogan.

Kevin McCarthy (Dr. Robert Hoak) was riveting as the "mad scientist" who chose self-interest over the well-being of others.

Keenan Wynn (Jack) had only a cameo role as the luckless hermit, Jack.

Bruce Gordan (Colonel Waxman) excelled as the cynical opportunist, ultimately hoist by his own petard.

Dick Miller (Buck Gardner) brought to the ersatz "Texan's" role the right balance of grifter and goofus.

Barbara Steele (Dr. Mengers) - seductive vixen of British horror films radiated a dangerous sexiness.

Barry Brown's appearance as Trooper was most poignant; it was his swan song.

Brown's excellent performance as the "good-ol-boy" lawman conveyed the archetypal undercurrent of menace, countervailed by his final, comedic scene - the best way to remember this talented actor who died tragically, shortly after the film was completed.

Although nearly 30 years old, "Piranha" is not dated. You won't be horror-stricken (maybe a little queasy), but you will be entertained.

The opening scene shows a young woman (with baby) driving from her home. A drab blonde follows her in a VW Bug.

The mother enters a baby shop with the infant, the other woman not far behind. The little blonde (a Southerner) compliments the baby and the lady, Donna Jensen is flattered.

Mrs. Jensen then enters a dress shop, wanting to try on a dress; the blonde woman (who has shown up again) offers to mind the baby. Donna accedes - and the "babysitter" kidnaps the infant.

The baby's father, Mark Jensen begs Police Detective Pepper Anderson (Angie Dickinson) to interview his wife about baby Heather's kidnapping. Apparently Mark's law partner helped them adopt her.

Pepper interviews the distraught Donna, who cannot help; she is heavily sedated.

In a cheesy apartment, the kidnapper is taking care of the baby. A brassy neighbor, Thelma, struts inside, asking questions about little "Mary Ann" (heretofore "living with a relative.") The blonde tells Thelma her husband, Scott, will be leaving the Navy soon.

Pepper interviews the partner, Denis, who pretends to have forgotten the adoption agency's name. Threatened with a court order, he "conveniently" remembers.

The adoption agency, however, refuses to open their files without a court order.

Mark Jensen offers a $10,000 reward which Thelma sees in the newspaper. Confronting the kidnapper, she demands the baby's surrender for the reward which they will split two ways.

The kidnapper screams, throwing a container of baby powder at Thelma, who sneers: "You'll be sorry." Overhearing Thelma phoning the baby's father, the kidnapper kills Thelma with scissors, grabs the baby and flees.

The kidnapper meets a kindly couple, with infant, in a parking lot. She tells them her name is Tamme, and they offer her a place to stay while her husband is mustered out of the Navy.

Actually, Scott Swanson is in jail, where Tamme visits him. Tamme annoys the bleary-eyed Swanson; when she rhapsodizes about the baby, he glares at her, snarling: "Who the hell is Mary Ann?" Reluctantly, he agrees to meet Tamme at her new lodgings.

A confrontation occurs involving the lawyer, Denis, the Jensens and the police. Heather was a "black market" baby whom Denis was trying to return to the birth mother. Tamme found the Jensen's address when looting Denis's office, closed during lunch.

The police quiz Scott Swanson, who plays dumb. He assures them Tamme seemed eager to return to Arkansas, and he will have no further contact with her.

Released, Swanson races across the street to hale a cab (unmindful he's under surveillance.)

Scott meets Tamme, and before leaving their hosts offer them refreshments. In the living room, Scott looks out the window, discovering the surveillance team.

Scott concocts a story about shipboard gambling; outside are warrant officers who'll be rough in collecting the IOUS. Scott Swanson thus involves the couple in a deception.

The VW Bug roars out of the parking lot, pursued by the police. The occupants, once corralled, prove to be the other man (wearing Scott's hat and jacket) and his family. At the apartment they admit participating in the disguise to allow Scott and Tamee time to escape from the supposed "warrant officers."

Scott calls Mark Jensen, giving directions for the ransom money drop-off.Scott finds a parked station wagon with keys inside. Stealing the car, he picks up Tamee, informing her they're going to San Francisco. Scott pumps Tamee for more information about their baby.

Tamme shows Scott a birthmark on the baby's shoulder; he calls the father, upping the ante to $15,000, and gives instructions for the baby's pickup. Scott then puts a large box in the back of the vehicle.

The father calls the police; Donna calls Pepper, telling her they are going to retrieve Heather. Pepper and her partner (Earl Holliman) leave.

Scott drives to the drop-off point. He removes the box from the car, puts the baby in it and tells Tamme someone is coming for her. While exulting over the reward, Tamme lunges at Scott, shoving him over a rock-strewn cliff, killing him. Tamme retrieves the baby and roars off.

Donna's screaming alerts the detectives to the site; she and her husband have found Swanson's body at the ravine's bottom.

The detectives catch up with the station wagon, racing desperately to save the baby.

Pepper suggests a shortcut. They set up an impromptu roadblock, effectively stopping Tamme.

Pepper runs up to Tamme, telling her she needs a lift into town. Although wanted for two murders, Tamme simplemindedly agrees, even allowing Pepper to pick up and hold her baby. Pepper's partner radios in their location; thus, the episode ends.

Brooke Bundy (Donna Jenson) skillfully portrayed the mother, anguished that her inadvertence caused her baby's kidnapping.

Michael Ebert (Mark Jensen) was convincing as the distraught father desperately attempting to recover his stolen daughter.

Donna Mills (usually glamorous) was nearly unrecognizable as Tamme Swanson, whose obsessive maternal feelings become homicidal whenever her baby seems threatened. Ms. Mills played the role to perfection, accent and all.

Barry Brown (Scott Swanson) excelled as the treacherous opportunist who viewed his child strictly in terms of dollar signs.

Brown, who superbly played the sociopathic Cory Doyle in "Barnaby Jones," as well as semi-psychotic racist Fred Tayman in "Lawman Without A Gun" could have excelled at playing movie villains, had he not died tragically at the age of 27 in 1978.

Although this episode ended weakly (the implausibility of a wanted criminal stopping for someone blocking her escape route), this show is an interesting snapshot of police shows a generation ago.

In the opening scene Consuelo, Dr. Welby's nurse (Elena Verdugo) is accosted by a loquacious young man who launches into a confusing discussion about the "coordinated medical linens" that Dr. Kiley, Welby's associate (James Brolin) ordered for the office, and compliments him for choosing the "lavender stripe on a green background."

Dr. Welby (Robert Young), who has just entered the room is given the same spiel; mystified, asserts that he is going to confront Kiley.

Presently, Kiley arrives and Welby calls him out of the room. Kiley storms in, angry over the expensive order he never placed when the young man turns and grins.

Kiley laughs, and hugging him affectionately introduces him to a relieved Dr. Welby and Consuelo as Mike, the youngest Kiley brother and the family's practical joker.

Mike Kiley is also the family genius; he is a brilliant research biochemist in Boston.

Mike has come to visit his older brother, Steve, so Marcus invites Mike to stay at his home. Up in the guest room, Mike's jaunty facade disappears. The now sad-eyed, melancholy young man pulls a tape recorder from his luggage, lies down on the bed and proceeds to record a host of painful symptoms - presumably, from which he is suffering.

Later, while having lunch on the patio outside Mike Kiley refuses Consuelo's tuna fish salad and opts for a glass of milk instead, justifying his curious choice with a humorous dissertation about all of milk's salubrious components.

The others are suspicious, and concerned about Mike's peculiar behavior, but Steve Kiley makes allowances for his brother's childishness because Mike was partially orphaned at their mother's death, leaving Steve to serve as surrogate parent.

When he goes out for dinner, Mike Kiley causes more consternation by refusing to eat, asking if he can get "carry out" instead.

Back at Dr. Welby's, Mike accepts a snifter of brandy before retiring. Upstairs, Marcus Welby hears agonized groaning coming from Mike's bedroom, and admonishes Mike that he wants to examine him the next day. Mike agrees, but when Dr. Welby leaves, Mike lies down on the bed, curled up painfully with a pillow pressed against his stomach.

The next day, Marcus examines Mike and orders him to the hospital for x-rays. Mike cheerily agrees to go (which he has no intention of doing.)

Meanwhile, Consuelo receives a call from Boston, relaying the information to Mike upstairs. Consuelo evinces interest in his tape recorder which Mike dismisses as a device for recording music.

Next day, when Consuelo goes to deliver another message she listens to the tape, and is shaken to hear Mike Kiley speculating about whether he has lymphatic cancer, or Hodgkin's disease. Mike catches her listening and runs angrily from the house.

Consuelo goes looking for Mike and finds him at the beach, glaring broodingly at the sea. Mike admits he came home for emotional support, but the illness's sudden onset convinces him the situation is hopeless.

Consuelo angrily demands that Mike fight for his life, but is dissuaded from informing Steve for fear of upsetting him.

After finding out that Mike didn't keep the appointment for the x-ray series, Steve storms up to Mike's bedroom. A confrontation ensues; Mike decides to leave and take a cab for the airport.

Consuelo, guilt-ridden, confesses everything to Dr. Welby who rushes to the airport, dragging Mike out of the waiting room before his flight. Eliciting from Mike that he neither saw a doctor, nor had a biopsy made, Marcus warns Mike Hodgkin's disease cannot be diagnosed without the medical test.

Welby pleads with Mike to stay and have the procedure done - which is fortuitous, because Mike collapses in the airport.

At the hospital Dr. Welby examines Mike, who now suffers from peritonitis and needs emergency surgery.

As they wheel Mike in for x-rays Steve Kiley rushes to his side but Mike (chagrined over his foolishness) turns away, crying, and won't look at Steve.

Marcus and Steve examine the x-rays which disclose the presence of a perforated ulcer. During the surgery a cervical section is taken for a biopsy.

After surgery Steve sits down to comfort Mike, but as Steve gets up to greet Welby (who has the results), a vulnerable Mike stretches out his hand frantically, imploring Steve to return.

Dr. Welby delivers the verdict - cervical adenitis (a bacterial infection of the lymph nodes) which appeared, coincidentally, at the same time as the ulcer - but no Hodgkin's disease.

Mike sobbingly leans over, childlike, and nestles his head in his brother's lap.

At the end, a now-recovering Mike is back to his old, bad-boy self. Upon receiving a call from his girlfriend in Boston, Mike mischievously asks Dr. Welby to keep a pretty blonde nurse away; Mike told her he was becoming an Himalayan monk and wouldn't wish to disillusion her.

Mike's visitors all laugh heartily; Dr.Welby chuckles: "We have to warn the world about Mike!" and they depart, leaving Mike chatting animatedly on the phone.

Barry Brown (the featured guest in this episode) stole the show. A handsome, highly intelligent young actor, he had natural vitality and an insouciant charm that was unarguably charismatic.

In the late 1960's-early 1970's Brown's star was in the ascendant; he was he was featured in many TV shows and several movies (notably the underground classic "Bad Company.")

However, this star-crossed performer was overwhelmed by deep depression and acute alcoholism, and what could have been a brilliant career was eclipsed.

After many years of suffering, Barry Brown tragically committed suicide in 1978, at the age of 27.

Made over a generation ago, "Marcus Welby, M.D." may seem dated, but it's worth watching, in general, for its timeless, wholesome appeal, and in particular, to appreciate the talent of one of the 1970's best young actors - the late Barry Brown.

This movie opens on a rural Alabama road in 1968, as a car containing a black family drives by. The driver passes a local lawman who follows him, stopping at the same filling station where the driver is buying soft drinks.

The lawman demands the black man clean his cruiser of mud spatter and slams him against the gasoline pumps. The man refuses and drives off - leaving the lawman fuming.

That evening, the local black community welcomes the man, Thomas Hayward, a minister/civil rights activist who has just attended the funeral of Dr. Martin Luther King. Hayward gives a stirring speech to the crowd.

Afterward, three black teenagers (two boys,one girl) are on a country road when a cruiser pulls up. Two officers demand to know if the teenagers attended the rally, arresting them when they assent. The officers attack the girl; Hayward takes her to another county for treatment.

The next day, Hayward and his followers storm the office of prosecutor Marvin Tayman, demanding justice. When refused, the group kneels, reciting the 23rd Psalm. Sheriff Harvey Johnson beats Hayward unconscious, dumping him into the street.

The black community wants Hayward to run for sheriff. An elderly black lady, Mrs. Cartwright, attempts to register to vote; she is fired as the Tayman children's nurse. (The Taymans run the town.)

At Mrs. Cartwright's rural home, Fred Tayman (nephew of Marvin, and son of George, the prevailing despot) roars up in his Cadillac, lopes up to the front door (where he is met by her hostile grandson), and demands she come babysit his children.

The grandson refuses; when Tayman attempts to force his way inside, the grandson shoves him off the porch into the mud. Humiliated, Tayman pulls a gun, shoots the teenager dead, then flees.

Fred's outrageous act causes the sheriff and Marvin Tayman to come arrest Fred, and a vicious confrontation ensues between Marvin and his brother, George, who insists Fred was home all the time. (That night, someone drives out to the bridge, and tosses an object into the river.)

The case is in abeyance,however, because the grandmother did not witness the shooting, but only recognized Fred's voice.

Outraged, the black community delegate Hayward (as a test of his commitment) to blow up Fred Tayman's house.

Outside the Tayman home, Hayward (with dynamite bomb) looks inside and sees Fred with his family. Hayward lights the fuse, but conscience-stricken - snuffs it, removes the bomb and tosses it in the river.

At church the next day, Hayward exhorts his followers that justice will be served through legal channels - not by violence.

Blacks enthusiastically vote in the sheriff's election. Hayward loses, but two Justice Department poll watchers cite irregularities, and the election reverts to Hayward.

As Hayward celebrates, his supporters present him with a sheriff's uniform (which he dons) and a gun (which he refuses to wear.)

Marvin Tayman (who secretly hates the old order) promises the new sheriff cooperation in prosecuting cases.

Tensions escalate; when Fred Tayman visits his uncle Marvin's office, his Cadillac is bombed.

Hayward warns Marvin of the plot to blow up Fred Tayman's home, and soon receives an anonymous phone call advising him to dredge the river. A gun is retrieved, the grandson's body exhumed, and the bullet removed matches the gun. Hayward then travels to Nashville, and establishes that Fred Tayman is the gun's rightful owner.

Hayward convokes his deputies, advising them of Tayman's impending arrest, but Marvin eavesdrops and calls Fred who lights out, fully armed.

Hayward finds out and rages at Marvin and George Tayman, who disclose Fred's hiding place - an abandoned factory.

State and local police have gathered at the factory, and gunfire erupts. Hayward (who wants to take Tayman alive) orders them to stand down.

Hayward enters the factory; a shot rings out and a shrill, hysterical voice warns him off. Upstairs, another shot is fired, and Tayman frenziedly screams at Hayward again.

Hayward is taxed confronting Tayman, because he is dealing with a madman; the look of insanity radiating from Tayman's huge, wild eyes is unmistakable.

Rifle trained on Hayward, Tayman giggles dementedly. Cautiously, Hayward appeals to Tayman - then puts out his hand for the gun. Tayman eventually capitulates; a rifle barrel, tied with a white rag for surrender appears. Hayward emerges with his unhinged prisoner.

Afterward, at church, there is a reconciliation service with both whites and blacks attending; the healing process has begun.

Louis Gossett Jr. (Thomas Hayward) gave a magnificent performance as the preacher/civil rights activist who, torn between seeking justice through the antiquated Southern courts, and seeking more instantaneous redress through revenge, wisely chose the legal route, thereby implementing more changes in the system.

Clu Gulager(Marvin Tayman), extremely convincing in his role as county prosecutor, was caught between preserving the paternalistic feudalism of the Old South and the democracy he was sworn to defend. Tayman was powerless to change until the catalyst of his spoiled, mentally unstable nephew's impulsive murder instigated him to do the right thing by bringing his nephew Fred to justice.

Although not featured prominently, Barry Brown (Fred Tayman) turned in a powerful performance as the rich man's son whose sense of "entitlement" does not preclude him from having to face consequences.

Weak and pampered, young Tayman become becomes unraveled, and his final confrontation with the law is a cinematic tour de force. Brown's expressions were positive scary; the chilling way he conveyed the irrationality of the mentally embattled murderer made for tense, gripping moments at the picture's end.

A footnote: Barry Brown's appearance in this film was posthumous; it was issued the year after his tragic death. Brown's edgy. compelling performance stands as a tribute to this talented, sensitive actor.

Although dated, this movie is a valuable historical snapshot of race relations at a turbulent time in America's history.

Although dated, this show provides plenty of nail-biting tension, and at the end, an unexpected twist.

The story begins on a country road at night, as Betty Jones (Barnaby Jones's secretary and daughter-in-law) is leaving a friend's house after a dinner engagement.

Unobtrusively, another car is parked by the roadside. Its occupant (a scruffy young man) has been watching her, and as she drives off, the man follows Betty. He crowds her off the road into a culvert, then smashes the window of her car with a tree branch. Injured and frightened, Betty runs, but is overtaken by the man who pulls a gun and blindfolds her. He is Cory Doyle, the brother of a former client now convicted of his wife's murder.

The next day, Barnaby Jones receives a call from Doyle, who informs Jones that unless he reopens his brother's case, the kidnapped Betty will die within 48 hours.

Barnaby visits Joe Doyle (Cory's older brother) in prison. Doyle insists he's innocent of his wife's murder, although he fought with her earlier. He learned his wife had been murdered when the police found her beaten body floating in the ocean.

Betty tries to persuade Cory to free her, promising that Barnaby will investigate a "mystery man" suspect. Cory smashes his fist against the table violently, and wild-eyed, yells that his brother saved him from the orphanage when their parents died; now, Cory wants to return the favor.

Cory runs outside to meet his girlfriend who has driven up. Betty removes a piece of jagged quartz from a table, and saws on the rope binding her wrists.

Cory argues with his girlfriend (who planned to flee), reminding her that she is an accessory to kidnapping. Her adoration turns to fear when Cory admits he plans to kill Betty and hide her body in the woods.

As Barnaby searches Joe Doyle's apartment, Cory confronts Jones, giving him cards with fancy initials "JD," possibly indicating the "mystery man."

Barnaby then visits the dock, meeting with an informant, "Mother McCoy." she tells Jones that Cory has a girlfriend who waitressed at the yacht club.

Cory's girlfriend brings a salad to(a now free)Betty, who slams the plate in the girl's face, stunning her. Betty escapes to the highway, flags down a car - but Cory Doyle's the driver!

Terrified, Betty flees. Cory spins out 180-degrees, and tears after Betty in an off-the-road pursuit that ends at a bluff. Cory re-kidnaps Betty.

At the yacht club, the bartender tells Barnaby Cory's girlfriend is Shannon Nelson. Barnaby sees a picture of a tugboat "Davey Jones," and recognizing the fancy capital letters from the cards.

Barnaby confronts George Harper, the tugboat skipper, who confesses to an affair with Wanda Jean Doyle, but - they had been previously married.

Barnaby notices an incongruous coil of white rope on the tug which Harper swears isn't his. Barnaby realizes somebody is trying to frame Harper.

Barnaby returns to prison and shows Joe Doyle the rope, with amateurishly spliced ends - just as he found it on Joe's boat. Joe's face falls as he realizes, sickeningly, that Cory is the culprit. Joe tells Barnaby Cory's location.

At the hideout, the police wait as Barnaby goes to the door. an armed Cory demands to know the killer's identity, and when Barnaby identifies Cory - he laughs derisively.

When pressed, though, Cory sneers that "Wanda Jean was a tramp, man!" having seen her enter a motel with Harper. Later, Cory went to Joe's apartment, made a pass at Wanda Jean, and when she threatened to tell Joe - Cory attempted to force himself on her. Wanda Jean fought and screamed - so Cory beat her to death.

Hearing the disgusting admission from Cory, the heartbroken Shannon moans. Cory's attention is diverted, and Jones knocks the gun from Cory's hand, forcing him to the ground. The police move in, arresting Cory and Shannon, and Barnaby rescues Betty.

At the dock afterward, a grateful Joe Doyle expresses ambivalence over turning his brother in, but is gratified Betty was saved, and his sick, twisted brother cannot harm anyone else.

Besides the regular cast of Buddy Ebsen (Barnaby Jones) and Lee Merriwether (Betty Jones), the guest stars all excelled in their respective roles. James Luisi (Joe Doyle) was perfect as the wrongly-convicted widower, who realizes belatedly that his "altruistic" baby brother was actually the author of his misfortune.

Really a sympathetic character, William Smith (George Harper) was so menacing as to appear, initially, a convincing suspect.

Hilary Thompson (Shannon Nelson) was especially realistic as Cory Doyle's masochistic girlfriend.

Top honors go to the villain of the piece, the late Barry Brown (Cory Doyle).

This versatile actor (who co-starred in "Bad Company" and "Daisy Miller," and who even played a lovable, naive young monk on the Emmy Award-winning series "Insight") once complained he felt typecast in "sensitive" and "gentle" roles, rarely playing a villain.

Well, as Cory Doyle - Barry Brown outdid himself. Doyle, an odious sociopath who wavered between a counterfeit geniality and flash-point violence, had no redeeming features. Granted, he felt compunction over his brother's wrongful conviction and wanted to free him from prison, but at a heavy price: Doyle planned to implicate another innocent man (the tugboat skipper, Harper), and frame him for the murder Doyle himself had committed.

After Brown's tragic death at age 27 in 1978, no less than a noted film critic wrote (in a memorial tribute) that had he lived, Barry Brown would have ultimately been "Academy Award material." The characterization of Cory Doyle certainly substantiates this.

Watch this episode to see a highly talented, sensitive actor convincingly play an extremely insensitive, nasty guy; it's an hour of taut, tense entertainment.

In the two half-hour dramas from the "Insight" series (Paulist Productions), the talent of a long-departed actor was showcased, particularly, in his starring episode.

"The Man In The Cast Iron Suit" (1976) deals with the erosive effects of ruthless striving on a successful businessman named Walter, and his epiphany, thanks to his father-in-law, Marvin Donnelley (John McLiam), a former success who divested himself of worldly goods to seek spiritual considerations.

The businessman's older son, Steve (Michael Anderson, Jr.) is like his father, but his métier is sports - the dangerous ones feed his macho persona.

His girlfriend, Janet (Jamie Smith Jackson) fears his headlong bravado, especially because she is suffering from a heart condition requiring surgery.

The mother, Claire (Susan Brown), and youngest son, Billy (Bryan Scott) are both sensitive individuals, and Claire's father, Donnelley, finds the most receptive audience there.

Trouble brews when an acerbic young businessman, Keith Forman (Barry Brown) comes to the family's home to entreat Walter for a three-month loan extension on his electronics concern; otherwise, Walter will take over the business. When Walter refuses, the desperate young businessman storms out.

Behind the scenes, Donnelley speaks to the note's holder (an old business friend, Lionel Ordway), and asks him to extend it, causing Walter's plans to fail, infuriating him.

When Billy's pet turtle, Finnegan, is killed by a car, his older brother Steve ridicules him for grieving. When Steve's girlfriend Janet enters the hospital for surgery, the erstwhile tough Steve cannot reconcile his feelings of possibly losing her; his grandfather adjures him to examine his true sentiments.

Walter wants Donnelley to enter a retirement home. Donnelley relates how he, too, used to be like his son-in-law, losing so much of value by immuring himself, psychologically, within a "Cast Iron Suit."

Upon leaving, Donnelley gives Walter a sets of keys to remind him of how man may become slave to locks and other restrictions that preclude seeking a meaningful life.

In the second production, "The Pendulum" (1975) Barry Brown stars - and shines - as Brother Francis Jefferies, an idealistic young monk who wants to change the cutthroat world of advertising to conform with a Zenlike world view of existence. The results are comic, maddening, and touching.

The scene opens with Brother Francis seated on his bed in his cell at the abbey in a lotus position. The head abbot (Ford Rainey) enters, telling Francis of a telephone conversation with Francis's mother; she wants Francis to return to the family's advertising agency after his father's death. Francis is resistant, but the abbot urges him to take a year's sabbatical.

At the agency the reluctant Francis, with his mother Alice Jeffries (Edith Atwater) encounter a top executive, Gus Mangel (John Colicos) who is less than enchanted to have Francis back, owing to Francis's conflicts with his late father over company policy.

A young copywriter, Chris Timmons (Bill Vint) enters Francis's office (where he is again meditating, in the lotus position), and instead of discussing the advertising campaign, Francis digresses about haiku poetry (a fondness for both), then suggests the ad should emphasize positive attributes instead of appealing, negatively, to fear.

Gus Mangel storms into Francis's office, breathing fire over the possibly disastrous changes - until Francis hands him the phone. The executive of the other company is raving about the fresh, new approach to his product.

However, Francis's luck with the next account doesn't hold. A photo shoot for a car ad (using a sexy model to sell the car)causes Francis to convince the model she is being exploited. Gus nearly "loses it" when he enters Francis's office, and finds Francis and the model, Lorelei Ames (Katherine Justice) sitting together on the floor, lotus style, meditating.

Francis rewrites the ad campaign, using a mechanic to sell the car, and the campaign flops miserably; sex sells, not mechanics.

The big blowup occurs when Francis becomes confrontational with Winkler (Logan Ramsey), the representative of a lucrative account, Crawford Laboratories.

Their product, "Never Gain." is a diet pill which inhibits the production of digestive enzymes. Francis fulminates over the "immorality" of producing a diet pill, when 1/3 of the world goes hungry. Francis naively suggests that the company create a pill that improves nutrition for the world's hungry, Winkler huffs out in disgust and Mangel - beside himself - declares the misguided Francis to be "certifiable"...

At length, Francis's mother (and Mangel) pronounce the experience a brave (but futile) effort. When Francis tentatively suggests that their firm should have a "token mystic" as a consultant - Mrs. Jeffries fires Francis from the family company.

Francis returns to the monastery, expressing regret to his father confessor that he failed to change the world for the good, but the abbot lauds him for his efforts.

The heartwarming story ends when the abbot hugs the young man, telling him that he can utilize his advertising talents promoting "Brother Theo's Whole Grain Bread."

Barry Brown's sensitive performance in this short drama was unarguably one of his best.

He was so convincing as the good-hearted(yet woefully inept) young monk who (miscast in the high-powered world of business) trustingly tried to change that cynical environment to his vision of Paradise.

The tears that filled Brown's large, soulful dark-brown eyes at the end of the drama were genuine. He was a superb actor whose desideratum was acting; he invested every performance with his soul.

Tragically, the twin hells of depression and alcoholism racked the already tormented life of this handsome, highly intelligent young man, and what could have been a brilliant career was cut short by Barry Brown's tragic suicide in 1978 at the age of 27.

Of the two fine dramas, I enthusiastically recommend watching "The Pendulum" for an appreciation of the artistic giftedness of the late Barry Brown, and an intuition of the greatness that might have been...

This story begins when Dr.Martin Eaton returns from the Civil War in 1865 to his home in Hambledon, Pennsylvania.

His fiancée, Marjorie Farmington has unexpectedly married another - Adrian Ferrier. In 1866, Eaton marries Flora Bumpstead; they have no children, but Marjorie has two son, Jonathan and Harold.

Martin Eaton's new sister-in-law, Hilda resembles Marjorie, and Martin, smitten,becomes romantically involved with Hilda, who bears their daughter, Mavis, in 1877.

Adrian Ferrier dies of complications from appendicitis, and at the reading of his father's will, Jonathan Ferrier finds that Adrian was a very rich, corrupt man. Jonathan decides to become a doctor.

The riverboat containing Martin Eaton's gambler brother Jerome and Jerome's wife, Hilda, explodes. All perish, though their daughter Mavis survives; Martin and his wife adopt her.

Dr. Jonathan Ferrier establishes his practice in Hambledon, and becomes a crusading doctor.

A rich German immigrant, Peter Heger, installs his wife and daughter Jenny on an island mansion. Heger, a patient of Ferrier's, is told that he is suffering from uremia, and commits suicide.

Ferrier brings charges against Dr. Jim Spaulding who causes a patient's death through unsanitary practices. With his attorney friend, Howard Best, they pursue a lawsuit against Spaulding, who loses his medical license.

After service in the Spanish-American War, Jonathan Ferrier marries Mavis Eaton. Regretfully, she proves petulant, greedy, and not maternal.

Harold Ferrier and the widow Heger marry because she wants to have a good time with a bon vivant. However, she has a serious heart condition.

At the 1900 New Year's celebration, Harold Ferrier and his sister-in-law Mavis leave the party for an illicit tryst.

Harold's wife dies, and a condition of the will forces him to live on the island 7 months of the year.

Mavis informs Harold she is pregnant by him, and wants an abortion. After her illegal operation, Mavis begins to hemorrhage and flees to her father, bearing one of Jonathan's scalpels.

In Philadelphia Jonathan meets a former patient, Mrs. Zachary Robeson, and they indulge in a tryst. At their hotel, Jonathan receives a telegram that Mavis died of her bungled abortion.

Back in Hambledon, Jonathan is arrested for Mavis's murder, and his friend Howard Best wants to impugn Mavis's reputation in court, and wants Jonathan to testify.

The trial is held in Philadelphia, and Howard Best puts on an impassioned defense. Martin Eaton blames Jonathan for Mavis's death, but Mrs. Robeson is Jonathan's airtight alibi and he is acquitted, Eaton collapses, partially paralyzed from a stroke, and refuses to see Ferrier.

Ferrier's friendship with Best becomes strained when he tells Best that his daughter is dying of leukemia. Best goes berserk with grief, and must be restrained after threatening to kill Ferrier.

Later, the parish priest Father McNulty goes to Ferrier and entreats forgiveness for the Bests after their daughter dies.

Jonas Witherby, the owner of a gunpowder factory marries the town prostitute Priscilla for her money.

At the 4th of July celebration, Senator Kenton Campion presents a dynamic speech, bellowing about "Manifest Destiny",justifying our invading foreign countries "for their own good." He also prates about a "covenant with God."

After seeing his father in Washington, D.C. with a prostitute and realizing his amorality, Francis Campion (the Senator's son)botches a suicide by hanging, and father McNulty brings Dr. Ferrier to minister to the boy. Ferrier tongue lashes the father, who resolves (with Jonas Witherby) to destroy Ferrier.

They induce a Mrs. Edna Bemish from Scranton to go to Ferrier's office and cause a disturbance, claiming that he aborted her.

Also, young women without bills come into his office and pay large amounts of cash, to confirm Ferrier's supposed abortionist status.

The town madam, who is worried about Priscilla, asks Ferrier to go to her home. He finds that Jonas has addicted her to opium after embezzling her money, Jonathan takes her home and his mother ministers to her.

Witherby and Campion each give Dr. Louis Hedler (head of St. Hilda's Hospital)$10,000 if he will, in return, call a board meeting to revoke Ferrier's medical license. Witherby also visits Martin Eaton, who refuses to capitulate, despite threats of exposure concerning Mavis's true paternity.

Howard Best, Father McNulty, and Dr.Hedler confer over Ferrier's defense. Best goes to Scranton and talks to the police chief who tells him that Edna Bemish (Campion's girlfriend) could not have had an abortion, being sterile from a youthful abortion performed in Scranton.

Hedler sees that Martin Eaton wants to believe Jonathan guilty, but confesses his own secret to Hedler, and before dying, gives Hedler a written deposition stating that a Dr. Brickerman aborted Mavis, using Jonathan's scalpel to implicate him.

Ferrier goes on drunken rampages of his home and his office. Best, the priest, and Hedler find him, slap him into sensibility, and give him the copy of Martin's exonerative testimony. The medical hearing against Ferrier is canceled, and Dr. Brickerman is fired.

Jonas Witherby's unsafe munitions plant is on strike. A storm occurs, and Witherby is in the plant when it blows up. Priscilla Witherby is left a rich widow.

Jonathan finds out about Harold and Mavis's treachery, and rows to the island during the storm. A fight ensues between brothers on the mansion staircase, and Jenny Heger intervenes.

At the end, the opportunist Harold goes to see the widow Witherby about marriage.

Jonathan's mother tells him to go to Jenny Heger and court her, seeing, in retrospective, herself dancing with the man she should have married - Martin Eaton...

All performances were excellent, but the three outstanding ones were those of David Birney (Jonathan Ferrier), an actor of electrifying intensity; J.D. Cannon (Kenton Campion), whose portrayal of the demonic Senator was spellbinding; and Barry Brown (Howard Best), who invested the part with the deep emotionality of his soul.

A must-see mini-series.

The opening scene of "The Psychiatrist" shows two teenagers in the town of San Sebastian, Teddy Keller (John Rubenstein) and his girlfriend, Kendall Scofield (Joy Bang) racing toward a teen hangout, the local sawmill. Once inside, Keller pulls out a hypodermic needle and shoots up, then injects his girlfriend in her leg.

A friend, Fritz Greenfield (Barry Brown) joins them and tells them about "Apple", another friend, with whom Fritz has been doing drugs on the beach. Just then, an ambulance pulls up and the blankly-staring "Apple" is loaded inside.

At the hospital the doctor tells "Apple's" mother that his catatonia is due to a bad amphetamine reaction.

In Los Angeles, Casey Poe (Peter Duel) is wandering the tenderloin district. Seeing a drug dealer, Casey scores a "red" (secobarbital) capsule for a "dime" ($10).

Paranoid, Casey scrambles wildly through the streets, into a ghetto church. Dashing into a restroom, he cooks the drug and starts to shoot up until interrupted by a small boy, who flees.

Poe smashes the needle, lurches out into a phone booth and fumblingly tries to dial a number. The little boy's mother(knowing Casey's a junkie) makes the call for him.

A group therapy session of psychiatrist Dr. James Whitman (Roy Thinnes) is interrupted by Casey's frantic call, begging Whitman to pick him up. Whitman retrieves Casey, takes him home and castigates him about his unresponsiveness to therapy.

The doctor tells Poe that if he does not continue with him (as a condition of Poe's parole), Casey's next sojourn will be in a state hospital. Frightened, Casey capitulates.

Whitman meets a colleague, Dr. Bernard Altman ((Luther Adler) who is enraged over the San Sebastian parents refusing to believe that drug abuse is rampant in their community. Altman asks Whitman to accompany him there for a town meeting.

At the meeting, the sheriff (Norman Alden) expresses helplessness about curbing the drug problem; the townsfolk (fearing higher taxes) vote down funds for a drug task force.

In a local café, Drs. Whitman and Altman observe the drug-fueled antics of Teddy and Fritz, who smear Kendall's face and hamburger with condiments. The teenagers leave unsteadily before they are thrown out, and Dr. Altman growls about the local parents' denial of the problem.

In Los Angeles at a therapy session, a prostitute rants over the junkie boyfriend who had her street walking for his drug money. Poe attacks her as a hypocrite, and the two have to be separated before they kill each other.

Back in San Sebastian, Kendall visits the still-unresponsive "Apple" and plays him a haunting tune on her flute.

Later that night, an exuberant Fritz (on LSD) leaps from the sawmill to his death.

The tragic news spurs Dr. Whitman to return to San Sebastian. Making Casey Poe his "technical assistant", they arrive in San Sebastian that evening.

Casey Poe has staked out Teddy and Kendall, and follows them to their sanctuary. He finds a needle in Keller's shirt pocket and seizes it.

Next day, while attending Fritz's funeral, Whitman and Poe hear Keller deliver an impassioned eulogy for his dead friend, Fritz. Fritz's mother angrily interrupts Keller's peroration and denounces him and the others for having murdered her son with drugs.

After the funeral, Poe accosts Kendall and takes her to the beach to enlist her help. He shows her the scars on his arms (a legacy of 8 years' drug addiction), and Kendall agrees to set up a meeting for Casey and her friends.

Poe meets at the sawmill with the teenagers and their leader, Teddy Keller - a mouthy, self-important teenager who torpedoes the discussion by spouting 60's psychobabble about "power trips" to justify his own drug abuse. Keller ends his diatribe by challenging Casey to deliver him a "perfect world", which will change his mind. Casey, disgusted at the boy's callowness, storms out.

Disconsolately, Casey Poe meets Kendall on the beach and collapses. Kendall attempts to seduce Casey, who, repelled by the under-aged girl's promiscuity, chases her onto the highway. A patrol car happens on the scene, and Poe is seized and arrested.

Dr. Whitman (out of town on an emergency) returns and bails Poe out of jail. Then, the police chief receives a call that Kendall is missing, and Poe urges Whitman to go to the sawmill.

Kendall (strung out on LSD) wanders around, hallucinating the dead Fritz, laid out among an elaborate arrangement of candelabra.

As Whitman and Poe pull up, Kendall is dancing precariously upon an outside conveyor belt, high above the ground. Poe rushes upstairs and pursues the terrified Kendall, grabbing her just in time to keep her from falling.

The final scene shows Casey Poe back in Los Angeles, in Whitman's therapy group. Poe now admits that he is an ex-addict, and had turned his own dead wife into a streetwalker to pay for his drug habit. The movie ends, just as the story begins...

This movie is a cautionary tale about twin evils: the evil of drug abuse, and the evil of deliberate denial of this serious problem.

Ironically, this movie featured two promising young actors, one at the end of his career (Peter Duel) and one at the beginning (Barry Brown).

Both were alcoholic, and both committed suicide by shooting themselves (Duel in 1971, Brown in 1978.) Hollywood lost two great talents.

While dated, the timeless moral lesson of "The Psychiatrist" makes it a "must-see" picture.

Translating the Henry James novella "Daisy Miller" into a movie was difficult,owing to an insubstantial story line. However, Peter Bogdanovich had it fleshed out considerably to showcase Cybill Shepherd (who was woefully miscast in the role.)Instead, Bogdanovich unwittingly memorialized another, much more talented performer for posterity.

The movie begins in the hallway of a Swiss resort hotel, circa 1880. A rank of freshly-blackened boots and shoes stand just outside each door. A small boy, Randolph Miller (James McMurtry) retrieves his boots, leaves his apartment, and after stealing a walking stick downstairs, saunters outside, demanding a lump of sugar from the languid, yet congenial Frederick Winterbourne (Barry Brown) who is trying to read a newspaper.

Frederick then falls into conversation with a young, garrulous woman, Daisy Miller, the young boy's sister (Cybill Shepherd), and agrees to accompany her to visit a castle, the Chillion.

In a surrealistic scene, where Frederick and his aunt, Mrs. Costello (Mildred Natwick) are drinking tea (fully dressed, in a public bath in water up to their chests), Mrs. Costello warns her nephew away from involvement with the vulgar, nouveau riche Miller menage (daughter, son, and mother.)

That evening, Winterbourne meets Daisy and her mother during a walk, and Daisy tries to wheedle an evening boat ride with Winterbourne, but is dissuaded by the family courier, Eugenio.

The next day, Winterbourne takes Daisy to the castle and attempts to tell her its history, but Daisy is unimpressed and instead, chides Frederick about his older mistress in Geneva. She does, however, extract a promise from him to visit them in Italy next year.

While in Rome with his aunt, Frederick Winterbourne attends a party hosted by a Mrs. Walker, a sardonic woman who enlightens Winterbourne about the gossip swirling around Daisy. Daisy has taken up with a local adventurer, Giovanelli, thus adding fuel to the scandal.

Mrs. Walker tries to get Frederick to stop Daisy from parading around publicly with Giovanelli, but Daisy refuses, and Frederick (witnessing the two kissing behind Daisy's parasol) - storms off, enraged.

When Daisy brings Giovanelli to a party of Mrs. Walker's and persuades him to sing, Mrs. Walker thinks Daisy is presumptuous and cuts her cold.

In a rented hotel room (where Giovanelli and Daisy are practicing songs on a grand piano), Daisy torments Frederick by telling him that she and Giovanelli are engaged.

Afterward, riding at nighttime in a friend's carriage, a morose Frederick disembarks at the ruins of the Colosseum. Hearing laughter, he follows the sound and finds Giovanelli and Daisy, chatting. Winterbourne upbraids Giovanelli for exposing Daisy to the malarial night air, then leaves, feeling betrayed.

However, during an opera performance Winterbourne is told that Daisy has contracted malaria and rushes to her side, where he learns from her mother that Daisy was not engaged to Giovanelli (who has deserted Daisy), but was trying to make Frederick (for whom she actually cared) jealous.

As Frederick is bringing Daisy a bouquet of flowers he learns the tragic news: Daisy has died.

At Daisy's grave site are Daisy's mother, her brother, Mrs. Walker, Eugenio, Frederick, and belatedly, Giovanelli (who tells the heart-stricken Frederick that "Daisy was an innocent girl", thus confuting all the lies surrounding her.)

The others leave the grave site except Frederick, who stands there, wraith-like, as the mists envelop him...

As Daisy Miller, Cybill Shepherd was the wrong choice: too old, and no natural spark, or empathy connecting the characters of Winterbourne and Daisy. Ms. shepherd chattered her lines as though running the four-minute mile, and her delivery was by rote, without the vibrancy necessary for a convincing performance.

Modeling is Ms. Shepherd's métier; acting isn't.

Performances by such professional actresses as Mildred Natwick and Eileen Brennan were excellent. Ms. Natwick was convincing as Frederick Winterbourne's stuffy, socially correct aunt, and Eileen Brennan was delightfully feline as she unsheathed her claws over the faux pas of the outrageous Daisy Miller.

Duilio Del Prete (Giovanelli) provided comic relief as the ingratiating adventurer, and James McMurtry (Randolph) makes childlessness look inviting.

The real kudos, however, belong to the actor who actually carried the movie, and who, in the past, has been unjustifiably blamed for its failure. I am referring to the late, incomparable Barry Brown.

Barry brown was a phenomenal screen presence, and if he had lived when Hollywood was still king, he would have become a screen legend. (An early, tragic death cut a promising career short.)

Barry Brown was extremely handsome, charismatic, and intellectual. his large, lambent dark-brown eyes in his highly expressive face were capable of conveying a multiplicity of emotions throughout the movie, ranging from pleasantness through anguish, all the way to dark, smoldering hatred.

In fact, prior to the filming of "Daisy Miller", Brown sent the producer, Peter Bogdanovich a five-page précis of his own impressions and psychological insights into the James novella.

To explicate his upcoming interpretation of the Winterbourne role, Brown contrasted French vs. German formalism, citing Immanuel Kant's "The Critique of Pure Reason" to substantiate his argument. In other words, Barry Brown was an actor who could both act - and think.

However, there was apparently a "falling out" on the set, and the failure of the film consigned Barry Brown to the purgatory of "box office poison."

As acting jobs became fewer, Brown fell deeper into alcoholism and depression, and ultimately, this sensitive troubled young man committed suicide in 1978, at the age of 27.

This motion picture may have been called "Daisy Miller", but Barry Brown's acting ability was its most valuable asset. If you watch "Daisy MIller" for one reason only, watch it for Barry Brown's compelling performance as Frederick Forsyth Winterbourne.

The only redeeming features of the 1974 movie "The Ultimate Thrill" are the panoramic vistas of steep mountains blanketed with heavy layers of snow, or the symphonic music score played throughout. (Sweetly pensive, it seems more appropriate for a tropical picture.)

Set in Vail, Colorado, the story line is weak, and the film's action does not flow smoothly.

The film begins with a commuter plane landing. Two passengers who debark are Tom Moore (Michael Blodgett) - a cocky, arrogant young womanizer on the prowl, and his friend, Joe Strayker (Barry Brown) - a sensitive young author from Los Angeles on vacation.

Another passenger, Roland Parley (Eric Braeden)is met by his younger "trophy" wife, Michele (Britt Ekland). Parley (dark and craggily handsome) conveys an undercurrent of menace; he is an ogre straight out of a fairy tale. A super rich, multilingual international wheeler dealer, Parley also has plenty of time for spousal abuse.

Tom Moore is a case of arrested development: a loud, snotty "makeout artist", he has the rich industrialist's wife Michele squarely in his sights. (Having roiled Parley earlier by his insolence, Moore does not realize that Parley is a dangerous man to alienate.)

Parley is called back to his corporation on business; in his absence, Tom Moore pursues Michele Parley with an ill-considered recklessness. Ignoring her insistent demurrals, Moore shows up at Parley's lodge (deliberately wet from the snow) so that he can come inside to "dry off and change into something more comfortable." Parley comes home unexpectedly, and assuming the worst, orders Moore out. Moore compounds his stupidity by "smarting off" to Parley - which proves to be a fatal mistake.

Parley pursues the skiing Moore in a helicopter. Too late, Moore takes desperate measures to avoid the madman which, in the end, prove unavailing.

Parley then "punishes" his wife for her supposed infidelity by smashing her in the face with his fist, chasing her through the lodge, cornering her and ripping off her clothes, and finally subjecting her to a "rough sex" rape. (Michele Parley lies motionless, mutely resigned, meekly accepting her "punishment" at the hands of her psychopathic, murderous spouse.)

On the slopes afterward, Parley meets Joe Strayker, and "befriends" the unsuspecting author. the two men engage in a skiing contest, and the result is a dynamic, breathless race as both of them "hotdog" down the steep, snow-covered slopes.

Parley (impressed by the younger man's virtuoso performance)invites him back to the lodge. Again, a business call demands the industrialist's attention. Parley asks Joe to stay with his wife in his absence, but for the evilest of reasons: Parley is setting up the unassuming Strayker for the kill.

Joe lingers there awhile; he finds one of his books at the lodge, and commences to tell Michele Parley a fairy story from it. Michele is enchanted by Joe's gentle nature, and his sweet, sad smile - and falls in love with him.

Parley returns from business, sneaking into his home with a gun in his hand, ready to murder Strayker. He is enraged to find that Strayker has since headed back to the resort.

Michele, agitated by her husband's homicidal rage, rushes into town to find Joe, but won't tell him why she is upset. Joe tries to caress her cheek reassuringly, but Michele suddenly flees, leaving him perplexed.

Frustrated, Joe returns to the lodge for an explanation; confronted by Parley (who proposes a variant of the "Most Dangerous Game", in which man hunts man), Parley offers Joe a "sporting chance" for survival: a gun with one bullet in it. Joe dons his skis - and the chase is on.

Parley pursues Strayker, not by helicopter this time, but sails after Joe in a hang glider, while cradling a bow and arrows in his arms. Strayker skis with great determination, staying ahead of the deranged Parley who is gliding along lazily, waiting for the appropriate moment to strike.

Abruptly, Parley zeroes in on Strayker, kicks him from the air, knocking him down and causing him to lose the gun (which Parley retrieves.) Strayker recovers, then once again flees for his life.

However, Joe hits a rough patch while skiing and tumbles, apparently breaking a bone. Parley triumphantly hovers over him (like the Angel of Death.) He then throws Strayker the gun, ordering him to play a game of Russian roulette. In a surprise twist (at least, to Parley), Strayker uses the gun - with deadly accuracy...

In the final scene, a radio reports that search teams have been sent out to find Tom Moore, who went missing soon after having checked into the ski resort. there is also an announcement that the body of the industrialist Parley was found, shot to death upon the ski slopes.

The new widow, Michele Parley is seen hurrying along the streets of Vail, anxiously searching for someone until she sees Strayker seated at an outdoor café. Michele rushes up to him and as the movie ends, we see her hugging Strayker for dear life.

Eric Braeden (a popular soap opera star) was silkily sinister as the nefarious Roland Parley.

Britt Ekland was very convincing as the battered wife who stayed with her rich,sadistic husband not only for the money, but also for "validation" of her own shaky self-worth.

Barry Brown was darkly handsome, talented, with a smoldering intensity and movie-idol looks that would have made him a leading man in the glory days of Hollywood. He gave a subtly empathetic performance, although his considerable talents were wasted in such a limited vehicle.

With the exception of the fabulous landscape, skiing acrobatics, the haunting musical score, or unless you want to see Eric Braeden, Britt Ekland, and/or Barry Brown, the movie is not worth an hour-and-a-half of one's time; it's the ultimate disappointment.

"Superb." "Spellbinding." Those highly complimentary adjectives can be ascribed rightly to the 1976 made-for-television movie "The Disappearance of Aimee", which covers the trial (and the circumstances leading up to it)of celebrated evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, whose disappearance for over a month from May to June in 1926 sparked a nationwide manhunt. (At first, it was presumed that she had drowned; then, that she had been kidnapped.) Round-the-clock prayer vigils were held for Aimee's safe return, and Aimee's mother, ever the opportunist, capitalized very profitably upon her daughter's "probable watery demise."

However, a less-than-desirable reason came to light for Aimee's vanishing act. Aimee was apparently involved romantically with her radio engineer Kenneth Ormiston, a married man. Another unfortunate by-product of the rescue effort for her were the drowning deaths of two of the searchers.Therefore, a bill of indictment was returned against Aimee and her mother, Minnie Kennedy, charging them both with obstruction of justice.

The movie itself is an interesting collage of silent movie titles, newsreel-type snippets, and is filmed in black-and-white, as well as in color. The sets and costumes are authentic; the filming itself redolent of the style used in the 1930's and 1940's. The most outstanding feature, though, is the deportment of the actors; they do not slouch, mumble, use obscenities nor any other incongruous expressions. They behave, and express themselves faithfully in accordance with the mores of that period.

The film switches very smoothly between the testimony of the sensational trial and the equally peculiar events leading up to it. the cast of characters is "a marriage made in Heaven"; each individual player fits perfectly in the role, and suitably complements the others.

Faye Dunaway is dynamic as the flamboyant female evangelist, Aimee Semple McPherson. the electricity of her performance at a revival service is almost palpable, and Ms. Dunaway captures to perfection all of the nuances (conniving opportunism, ecstatic exaltation, counterfeit wounded innocence) of Aimee Semple McPherson's complex, carefully-constructed stage persona.

Bette Davis (as Minnie Kennedy, Aimee's mother) adds a new dimension to the term "control freak." Her performance as the cold, calculating, domineering mother is masterful - and pure Bette Davis.

James Sloyan is excellent as the hard-hitting District Attorney Asa Keyes, whose ruthless, unrelenting style of cross-examination seeks to disclose all of the sordid details of the supposed kidnapping. James Wood (who plays the Assistant District Attorney, Joseph Ryan) gives his usual taut, tense performance, culminating in a courtroom screaming match from the witness stand with Sister Aimee when he becomes exercised over her obvious lies.

Lelia Goldoni (as Emma Shaffer, Sister Aimee's secretary) is convincingly prim and pious: unshakable in her testimony (while being pounded with embarrassing questions by the prosecutor), and unswervingly loyal in her devotion to her employer and mentor, Aimee Semple McPherson.

Barry Brown (as Wallace Moore, a young reporter for the Santa Barbara Press) certainly does not disappoint, turning out his usual talented, professional performance as a nervous, eager-beaver, very kinetic newspaperman who is deployed by his city editor to wait at a spot nearby on the Pacific Coast Highway for the advent of Kenneth Ormiston and Aimee Semple McPherson (both of whom are reported to be traveling that stretch of road south from San Luis Obispo, after hiding out together in a secret "love nest" in Carmel.) Moore is then to confront, and identify the runaway lovers - thus scoring a master coup for the local newspaper.

In his youthful eagerness, however, Moore (who has waved down Ormiston's car) bungles the event, and does not get a clear look at Ormiston's passenger. First, he is pressed by the prosecutor for an identification of the mystery woman (which he cannot supply.)

Afterward, when the defense attorney grills Moore as to whether or not he identified the female passenger in Ormiston's car to his city editor as Aimee Semple McPherson, the fidgety Moore's nerves break, and he practically wails, defensively: "Yes! I said in my opinion that it wasn't Aimee!" - thus causing one of the first significant defeats for the prosecution's case.

William Jordan (as Kenneth Ormiston, Sister Aimee's lover/radio engineer) is a man very sure of himself, and unctuously agreeable (particularly to Aimee's mother, who hates him and fires him, perceiving rightly the threat that he represents to Aimee's (and her)lucrative ministry.

Other actors of note are John Lehne (who plays the deceptively soft-spoken, yet resolutely cynical Police Capt. Herman Cline; Severn Darden (as S.I. Gilbert, the defense attorney for Sister Aimee and her mother); and Sandy Ward (Judge Blake, who presides over the proceedings.)

After a enervating two-month trial (at which critical evidence important to the prosecution cannot be introduced, since during the Grand Jury hearing prior, a female juror sympathetic to Aimee had stolen and destroyed it), District Attorney Asa Keyes wearily moves to drops all charges against the defendants (citing lack of evidence), and on January 10, 1927, Sister Aimee and her mother are, in effect, exonerated (at least in the eyes of their devoted followers.)

The movie very skillfully describes a vignette from the life of a celebrated pre-Depression-era religious leader/performer, and also affords the viewer a glimpse into the world (sometimes gloomy, sometimes colorful) of the evangelist - before the age in which evangelism became a televised media event.

Still vibrant after an absence of 30 years, "The Disappearance of Aimee" is truly a rare, sparkling gem of a film; definitely do not miss this excellent movie.

To coin a new term, "Bad Company" is a "Western Noir". It is ultra-realistic: no good guys in white hats, no Tin Pan Alley scores, no happy ending.The story line probably reflects the true Old West better than the roseate "singing cowboy" fare of the 1930's-1940's.

The underlying theme of the film is the quirky friendship that springs up between two antipodal young men: Drew Dixon (played by the late Barry Brown) and Jake Rumsey (played by Jeff Bridges).

The film opens in a small Ohio town, where a group of grim-faced Yankee soldiers are dragooning reluctant young men into the Union Army during the Civil War.

Dixon, a pious, idealistic naif, escapes from the compulsory conscription and meets up with a rougher youth, Jake Rumsey,who,feigning friendship for Dixon, lures him into an alley, saps him, and steals his money.

At a church lady's home (where he has sought aid), Dixon recognizes Rumsey who has entered the home, burgling and stuffing his mouth with stolen food.

Though frailer than Rumsey, Dixon wildly attacks him with the savagery of a cornered wolverine; the ensuing damage he causes, though, necessitates Dixon's fleeing with Rumsey and joining up with his gang. Rumsey's gang (a ragtag collection of scruffy runaways) survive by strong-arming women and children, and Drew Dixon (despite his virtuousness) is not above lying to ingratiate himself with the gang. Excepting the well-bred Drew, none of the boys has any redeeming qualities, exemplified by much vulgar and profane language, some racial slurs, the torture of a cat, and the actual killing and skinning of a rabbit.

On the strength of Dixon's desire to become a silver miner in Virginia City, Nevada, the group heads west across a vast, desolate prairie, and engage in unedifying behavior: they rob, steal, curse, avail themselves of a prostitute (excepting Drew, who declares, testily, that "he's saving himself for marriage.")

However, the predators fall prey to gunslingers older and more vicious than they, and the group begins to fall apart, through defections, and a harrowing scene where the youngest (about 10 years old) is shot dead by a sod buster for stealing a pie.

Ultimately, the group is reduced to two (Jake and Drew) who have a repeat encounter with their former attackers, but this time, the tables are turned, and the two young men annihilate the older men in a particularly sanguinary spree.

But, a remarkable transformation has taken place: the erstwhile straight-laced, sanctimonious Drew Dixon has done a large share of the killing; he has now tasted blood - and enjoyed it.

After further misadventures, the transformation is complete: Drew Dixon is a cold-eyed, cynical outlaw; an individual not so dissimilar from the admittedly criminal Jake Rumsey.

Despite the overlying pessimistic tone of the film, "Bad Company" is a cinematic tour de force. The interior scenes (suggestive of the sets of Victorian melodramas), the vast panorama of fields stretching endlessly across the horizon, the mindless yet expedient brutality of the less-than-hospitable denizens of the Old West combine perfectly to form a picture, which, while not pretty, is nevertheless more vivid, and doubtlessly much truer than those accounts which are pallid, romanticized, and limned in pastel colors.

Barry Brown (in his first starring role) gave an excellent performance; disciplined, professional, yet full of the underlying passionate emotion (particularly, during the fight scene) which characterized all of his acting. (Brown, who was once described by a producer as "the only American actor you can believe ever read a book" was an extremely handsome, intellectually brilliant, yet deeply troubled young man; sadly underrated as a serious actor, he died tragically at the age of 27.)

Jeff Bridges (as Jake Rumsey) painted a convincing portrait of a genial, oafish, amoral individual. Although Rumsey pined for his mother back in Pennsylvania (some criminals are sentimental about their mothers), he nevertheless chose the lazy expedient of criminality, over the honest endeavor of hard work.

In this film, good did not triumph over evil, and finally, Drew Dixon became ethically just like his counterpart, Jake Rumsey - the same side of a trick coin.

For the viewer who wants to see a hard, gritty, no-punches-pulled Western, "Bad Company" is the movie to see; for those who like "sweetness-and-light" Western fare - I suggest reruns of "Gunsmoke" instead.

The late Steven Keats was a superb(albeit underrated)actor of the 1970's, but he was in rare form as Danny Zucco, demented protagonist of one of Kojak's best episodes,"Therapy in Dynamite."

Zucco, a loner who works in a hardware store (and reminiscent of George Metesky or Ted Kaczynski) seeks the approbation of his fellow members in a therapy group by obligingly sending bombs to anyone who has upset one of his self-styled "friends"(who are basically unaware of their seemingly "nerdy" compatriot's homicidal propensities.)

When Detective Kojak determines that Danny Zucco is the culprit in a series of bombings, Steven Keats (as the psychotic Zucco) gives a spectacular performance as he hysterically "super-novas" (with Zucco ending up shot)- leaving Kojak to try to determine if the dead Zucco has left any more unpleasant little postmortem "surprises...

A taut, tense, eminently New York drama that leads to an unnerving conclusion; if you see no other episode of "Kojak", definitely watch this one - it's well worth it.