User Reviews

This episode might be deemed prescient. I tend to be of the view, beware of a big businessman who claims they can lead the country as successful as they run their business.

Paul Marino is looking into a major businessman Jud Grantham who has his eyes in running for governor.

Jud's insurance business and other activities were less to do with his brilliance and more to do with the investment of mob money. He was a major money launderer, his businesses were successful as the mob pressured the rivals to roll over and play dead.

One of the mobster's son Phil Manzak calls Jud, Mr Megalomania.

Now Jud has had enough with being belittled by the mobsters. He wants to tackle them head on.

There is a lot of psychology here between Phil and Jud and also between Phil and his father, whose footsteps he is expected to follow.

I did think the episode was too long and I would hate to be the one to make a secret phone call to Marino. You end up dead.

Watch out for Warren Oates as a henchman. He had star quality even back then.

Now that he plans to run for Governor, Jud Grantham tries to distance himself from those that have put him where he is, The Corruptors, namely Frank Manzak.

It's an age old story of power and corruption, with Paul Marino trying to break a racket, a web that has been so tightly woven, with the villain of the piece, Grantham so well protected, the interest comes when he tries to escape his checkered past.

Grantham was a good character, but that standout here had to be Frank Manzak, and his bizarre relationship with his oddball son Phil. There really was something unsettling about the whole Father Dear thing.

Corruption and politics go hand in hand, and this serves as a chilling reminder that people with money can do anything, and can buy anything that they want.

Quality acting throughout, Warren Oates was particularly good here I thought.

8/10.

One more tale of corruption, as you can guess...This time the evil character is played by the underrated Wendell Corey as a rotten politician. The opening sequences offer us some terrific camera angles, such as this one with the strangled man in the phone booth when he was ready to call the police. Wendell Corey gives here a tremendous performance as this ambitious man, as we'll see often later in each episode of this TV show. Watch out for every move he makes here to enhance his career. A man who will stop at nothing to build his empire in Vegas. In these episodes, you don't have many action scenes, but they would have been useless for such so brilliant stories. So well performed that you have the strong feeling that they were made for the big screen. Directed by a solid TV director; Don Medford.