User Reviews

Three liquor-store robbers, two men and a woman, kill a cop while escaping. The woman and the younger man get away, but the older killer is captured. When allowed to make his one phone call, he talks in Greek to the younger robber, telling him about Kojak's niece and the birthday party she is having in East River Park. The killers stake out the party and kidnap the little girl, demanding the leader's release as a ransom for letting the child go. Kojak uses a painting the little girl included in a ransom note to figure out where they might be headed.

Entertaining episode with a nice look at Kojak and his family. His determination to get his niece back as well as keeping the killer locked up is well portrayed. He really is up against the time. Richard Gere makes an early appearance as the lard-brained brother of the cop killer. Donna Mitchell plays the killer's moll and she's just as crank and cold as he is.

This episode gets real personal for Telly Savalas. It is also one of the craziest stories that Kojak ever had on a series that boasted some consistent high quality.

Three robbers, Marco St. John, Donna Martell, and a still unknown Richard Gere of Greek origins hold up a liquor store in broad daylight and get spotted by two detectives. One goes in to investigate and is shot and later dies. St. John is caught exiting the store by the partner. Gere who was the lookout and fell down on the job and Martell who was driving the getaway car split without getting spotted or caught.

When St. John who had history with Kojak from the old neighborhood sees it's Kojak in charge of the squad he calls ostensibly a lawyer but it's to his conspirators and tells them in Greek to kidnap one of Kojak's family and they kidnap his niece from a birthday party she's celebrating. The cops release St. John and the little girl goes free.

I had a lot of trouble with this episode. I could never buy the criminals would be that brazen as to pull something like this. If they knew Kojak, they would also know he'd never rest until he brought them in dead or alive. It was a story that was just too much to swallow.

I wish I could do better by this episode, but no way.

It's not just that the story for "Birthday Party" is preposterous, maudlin and full of holes, but the technical aspects are bottom of the barrel. The sound quality is wretched. The lighting was dingy. The blocking and camera movement are amateurish, and actually made every scene painful to watch. But about the story... a 9 year old girl is in the park celebrating her birthday with about 2 dozen family members, and wanders off alone just in time to meet a kidnapper, who then has a fairly long conversation with her in line of sight of the family before leading her off to be abducted. Here's another: a suspect makes his one phone call in the middle of the squad room, and should have no expectation of privacy, but Stavros, hearing that he's speaking Greek, intentionally walks away so that he won't be improperly listening in. The inane plot contrivances are non-stop. That bit follows a detective blurting out details of Kojak's niece's birthday party, for no logical reason, just in time for the bad guy to hear it. The thugs who rob a liquor story are notable for their very nice clothes ($400 suit, shops on 5th Ave). The only reason to watch this episode is for Richard Gere playing a preposterously dim-witted hood.