In the 1970s, the TV networks put a lot of money into creating their own collection of original films. The rationale was that they were about as cheap as a series pilot (indeed some, like "Marcus Nelson Murders" did become exactly that -- for "Kojak"; "The Night Stalker/Strangler" for the Kolchak series), and did not entail open-ended commitments like a series would.
This flick is certainly at the high-end of these (the low-end was things like "The Hard Ride" - - motorcycle-gang members with machine guns in Vietnam, in a low budget, low brow version of "Missing in Action"; the immortal "Killdozer"). Frank Sinatra shows his acting chops again (nearly for the last time, from here on there was only one episode of Magnum PI to be proud of), surrounded by the usual suspects of series TV and made-for-TV-movies (notably Harry Guardino, good as always.) The soundtrack is certainly movie-quality (as were most of this era's TV-movies.)
The movie suffers from having an enforced length -- 145 minutes to fill a 3-hour timeslot -- and thus there is painfully unnecessary padding of scenes and dialog, and long traveling shots with the obligatory shoe-leather-sound-effects. But there's a cracking good 90-100 minute movie in here.
This flick is certainly at the high-end of these (the low-end was things like "The Hard Ride" - - motorcycle-gang members with machine guns in Vietnam, in a low budget, low brow version of "Missing in Action"; the immortal "Killdozer"). Frank Sinatra shows his acting chops again (nearly for the last time, from here on there was only one episode of Magnum PI to be proud of), surrounded by the usual suspects of series TV and made-for-TV-movies (notably Harry Guardino, good as always.) The soundtrack is certainly movie-quality (as were most of this era's TV-movies.)
The movie suffers from having an enforced length -- 145 minutes to fill a 3-hour timeslot -- and thus there is painfully unnecessary padding of scenes and dialog, and long traveling shots with the obligatory shoe-leather-sound-effects. But there's a cracking good 90-100 minute movie in here.