User Reviews

M-SQUAD - The Fight Charles Bronson guest stars as an up an coming 28 and 0 boxer with a problem. While relaxing in his dressing room after disposing of his last opponent, a man bursts in, pulls a gun, and takes a shot. The shot misses and the man is tackled to the floor and disarmed. It is his latest opponent's manager. The man is upset that his fighter has just dropped dead in the other dressing room. He blames Bronson for the fighter's death.

The police are called and arrest the manager. Bronson refuses to press charges and the man is released. Lee Marvin, as Police detective Frank Ballinger is assigned to keep an eye on Bronson. Bronson's training for his next fight is interrupted when a bomb is found in his gym locker. Then his dog is killed. Next a few threatening notes are slipped under his door while a bullet comes through the window of Bronson's apartment.

The deeper Marvin digs the more suspects he comes up with. Is it the other manager still seeking revenge? Is it Bronson's wife who has just filed for divorce? Or the mob trying to influence the betting odds? Could it be a publicity stunt by Bronson's own camp.

It is now the night of Bronson's next fight and he is getting pummelled. Marvin observes one of the corner men switching water bottles and grabs him up for a quick talk. A little arm twisting and the fellow gives up that the water bottle is spiked. After getting some fresh water Bronson rebounds and delivers a knockout. A little more of the old 3rd degree and Marvin discovers that the corner man had placed a large wager against Bronson. All the rest had been a ploy to throw Bronson off his game.

Neatly put together police drama.

The muscular Charles Bronson was the star here. The man was in shape and was ahead of most people bodybuilding-wise, for his day. What people forget sometimes is that the man could act, too. He wasn't just some macho man with a bit of an Eastern European accent. Even by the shooting of this episode, about 1957, he had been acting for a number of years and had a pretty long resume for a guy in his mid '30s. Despite doing tons of TV work (check his long list of roles), I don't think he really became famous until the 1963 movie "The Great Escape" when he played "The Tunnel King."

This M Squad story is interesting but when you look back at it, you see some glaring mistakes, some "hey, wait a minute" moments. I won't get into them to ruin it for anyone who gets this terrific "M Squad" set which I see now is available in retail stores, not just on the Internet.

The gist of the story is that someone is out to stop boxer "Eddie Loder" (Bronson). At first it looks like someone is trying to kill him but later it is said that they were just trying to distract him enough so he'd lose his training focus for his next big fight, and then lose the match. The credibility of the story comes into play when it's all over when you recall scenes early where that wasn't the case. Poison strong enough to kill several people isn't exactly just "distracting." Whatever.

Either way, it's interesting to try and figure out who's trying to hurt "Eddie," who receives all kinds of threats. It could be several people. I thought I had it figured out with no problem, but it turns out I was wrong. I'll bet I'm not the only one. I still rate this episode high because it was fast-moving with something interesting going on most of the time.