User Reviews

**SPOILERS*** Talking a brake from his job as a freelance photographer Mike Kovac, Charles Bronson, gets himself involve in a near lynching of a local wise-guy Phil Pike, Arthur Batanides, who's accused of assaulting a young woman Carman, Linda Lawson, in the neighborhood.

Things get really steamed up that swelteringly hot summer night as Carman's father Burt, James Westerfield, and her hot headed older brother Jerry, Harry Dean Stanon, whip up an angry mob to, with them not having the guts to do it themselves, drag the totally innocent, despite being the sleaze-ball that he is, Pike out of his hotel room and meet out justice, street justice, to him! Kovac knew that Pike was innocent of assaulting Carmam from the start since he saw the entire event that lead to her being roughed up! This lead Kovac to put his both life and safety on the line to protect Pike from being beaten and even lynched by the mindless and blood thirsty mob! That Carman, who to her credit never accused Pike of assaulting her, had a hand in stirring up!

Kovac uses his camera as well as his fists to knock some sense into the neighborhood bullies,lead by Burt & Jerry, heads in just how mindless vicious and prejudice they really are. Not the good decent and concerned American citizens that they think that they are. As things turned out Carman was in fact embarrassed by having been accused by a Mrs. Collins, Eva McVegh, of trying to steal her husband, William Kendis, away from her! Kovac saw all this happen so he knew that Pike being accused of assaulting Carman was pure bunk. It was an outraged Mrs. Collins who tore into Carman not Pike! And it was Carman by not telling the truth in who attacked her-Mrs. Collins-that almost cost an innocent man, Phil Pike, his life!

P.S It was the brave and take no BS Mike Kovac who by photographing the raw hatred and blood thirsty lust of the lynch mob and those who went along, in spirit not action, with it that in the end shamed them into seeing what a bunch of mindless monsters they really were!

It is summer, the weather is sweltering hot. In the evening tempers flare up to match the heat of the city.

Mike Kovac is riding with the cops looking for action to photograph. He hears a screaming woman. Carmen claims that a man attacked her but Mike is sure that it was a woman.

Soon her rowdy father forms a lynch mob. They go after local hoodlum Phil Pike. Mike does not like Pike but wants to protect him from being murdered.

It is a desperate situation for Mike. He himself has been threatened several times and now under attack.

The only way out, is to show the people their true faces.

Almost a philosophical episode. An attack on mob mentality. Only the shopkeeper who helps Mike is the cool one.

I could not buy why Carmen claimed that she was attacked by a man. It was all to do with a jealous housewife who jumped to conclusions.

You could almost call this "a slice of Americana." It gives you a glance at one of the New York streets in the late '50s, and how people acted, spoke and dressed.

Our hero, "Mike Kovac" turns out to be not only a good photographer but a peace-maker and a philosopher in this episode, lecturing all the people in the poor white neighborhood and showing them all their bad sides after a mob almost kills someone for the wrong reason.

Yes, it's a bit melodramatic but also a good character study of people. "Mike" is an amazing guy who does it all - whether it takes psychology or a couple of fists to the head - he can solve any problem.

Notes: For those of you who are David Lynch fans, one of his regular actors, Harry Dean Stanton," is in this story. You'll recognize him, despite his youth. In those days, he was billed as "Dean Stanton." This was Linda Lawson's first year of acting after being a showgirl. She was some looker.

Chuck takes on the role of a do-gooder with a conscience in "Six Faces of Satan", an overwritten story well-directed by Boris Sagal, after the series was helmed exclusively by Gerald Mayer up to this point.

He's doing a night-time ridealong with the cops and shoots photos of ordinary folks living on a block "at 4th Street between 9th & 10th Avenues" -namely a phony back lot setting for a nonexistent part of the West Village.

Bronson sees a couple of women arguing in an alley, making him the sole witness when one of them, the fine young actress Linda Lawson (a favorite of mine when she starred in "Night Tide") sort of cries rape, and her family (including young Harry Dean Stanton) and many neighbors fixate on the local pariah, Phil Pike (well-played by Arthur Batanides as an easy guy to hate) to take out their resentments, mob-style.

Of course, Chuck saves the day and even takes a standard liberal-stance against such awful behavior. It goes with him as a rugged individualist, though his own rise to fame as the ultimate vigilante in "Death Wish" a decade and a half later offers a fascinating contrast.