Incident on a Dark Street (1973)

A legal drama that originally aired on NBC in 1973, INCIDENT ON A DARK STREET has a number of television veterans both in front of and behind the camera. Director Buzz Kulik helmed numerous TV movies, most well known among them BRIAN'S SONG. The cast includes TV actor James Olson and the famous William Shatner. INCIDENT ON A DARK STREET begins with the murder of a mob canary, killed on the eve of his testimony. The attorneys involved in the case must then pick up the pieces, and the investigation leads to a discovery of corruption amongst local officials with ties to the mob.Cast: David Canary, Gilbert Roland, Richard Castellano, Robert Pine, William Shatner Product Description

Shatner plays a bad guy in this rather forgettable TV movie

It ... can't ... be. Shatner ... playing ... a ... bad guy. It's ... illogical. Apparently, Shatner's 1973 bushy mustache (which, by the way, is mysteriously brushed out on some of the DVD cover images of this film) made him do it. He didn't kill anybody or anything; he was just a corrupt bureaucrat who gave a greasy mobster the in on some government contracts in order to pay off a load of money he lost in the stock market. That's not to say no one died in this movie, of course; you can't have a mob-related film without a few guys donning the old cement loafers (the first guy actually gets it with an icepick).

I've seen this 1973 NBC production referred to as a failed pilot. I don't know if that's true or not, but it certainly plays like a pilot, running a secondary storyline alongside the first, this one involving a brand new attorney (Robert Pine) faced with a moral dilemma in his very first case. The main story, though, revolves around a slimy bad guy the U.S. attorneys have been trying to nail for years. It doesn't say much for the good guys, as Dominic Leopold (Gilbert Roland) all but leaves bread crumbs for the feds to follow as he goes about buying off city planning commissioner Deaver Wallace (William Shatner) and his rather hapless colleague Ed Shilling (Murray Hamilton). David Canary stars as Peter Gallagher, the attorney who begins to put the case together after being contacted out of the blue by a greasy, two-bit mob wannabe (Richard S. Castellano) delivering a pretty uninformative message from his soon-to-be-found-dead brother. James Olson is the big kahuna; he's tough, but he's fair - and more than ready to give, at the drop of a hat, an impassioned defense of the role of U.S. attorneys in putting away scumbags like Leopold. Just as long as you don't call him "sir," you'll get along fine. Joining the fun, alongside all of these other familiar faces of TV yester-year is David Doyle, who went on to work with a much better-looking cast on Charlie's Angels; his shining moment comes in one of the most obvious good cop-bad cop routines ever scripted.

This is the kind of film I would expect to see around 2 am if I time-traveled back to 1978 or so. The story's interesting enough - barely - but the script really is rather weak. Without Shatner's presence, I imagine this film would have been forgotten many years ago. 1973 was, of course, one of the lean years for Shatner, coming midway between the end of the Star Trek TV series and the release of the first Star Trek feature film. I'm a big Shatner fan, so it was quite interesting to see him play such a different kind of role here. Speaking of seeing, the whole film is in pretty bad shape, suffering from a bad case of faded wash-out. Apparently, there is also a restored version available, but why anyone would bother to restore this forgettable little TV movie is a mystery to me. This really is bargain bin material here (and that's exactly where I found my copy of it). May 1, 2006

Ok for the price

My copy of the DVD had mediocre sound quality. The colors were washed out.

The story is decent. I suppose the only reason it is out in DVD is Shatner's presence. He plays one of the bad guys, one of the corrupt government officials. Although not the star of the movie, he plays a significant part.

The film centers around a new man in the DA's office, a man with a heart. He ends up hunting organized crime and corrupt officials, among others.

I can't say that any of the characters are particularly interesting, or that the plot is either. Giving it 2 stars seems a bit low. Two and a half, maybe.

For a dollar or two, it's not a bad flick. Shatner isn't as big a ham here as he was on Star Trek.

The whole film has a colorlessness to it. Even when one of the more important characters gets killed by a bomb, it doesn't really have any emotional impact. It is delivered in a dry way. While fairly interesting, this film isn't a great work of art, and doesn't reach you on a gut level. It's ok, for the price. July 7, 2005

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