Park Avenue Pirates
Racketeers
take over a record company.
Play Or Payola
A record producer who is backed by
mob associate Mr. Gregory runs the operation to finance payola for disk
jockeys. The advantage here is in having a source of capital that’s off the
books. Much footage shows the pirate presses running off LP’s for shipment
across the country (a ball of wax, or rather vinyl, is placed on a sort of
waffle iron, squeezed flat and trimmed).
The producer also needs the services
of up-and-coming talent like Shannon Forbes, whose manager still objects to
crooked operations like J & T Records. He’s dispatched with a
psychotomimetic drug overdose, Agent Lund is murdered, and so is a DJ junkie who’s
an informer.
McCloud goes undercover to Nashville
as Shannon’s new manager, Arnie Hooten. Sgt. Broadhurst is badly beaten for
snooping around the J & T plant.
Back in New York, the psychotomimetic
is slipped to McCloud at a rooftop café. He hallucinates
the fauna of New Mexico (rattlesnake, roadrunner, prairie dog, buzzards), draws
his revolver to fend off a stampede of traffic, and attacks Chief Clifford,
whom he mistakes for a wolf.
Back on his feet after receiving a dangerous
antidote, McCloud corrals Mr. Gregory in the engine of a freight train where
the engineer is being held hostage.
Shaw has composed this like a Western
of the Thirties, and Swackhamer films it that way, right down to the fight atop
the Santa Fe boxcars.
|
Barbi Benton Shannon Forbes |
Written by Lou Shaw Directed by E.W. Swackhamer |
43303, 9.21.75
Jeremy Darnel is given in the credits as Jack Darnel.
McCLOUD: I tell ya, manpower around here’s just gettin’ thinner’n
a bear in wintertime.
JEREMY: Well, I guess life’s just a little too short to keep looking
over your shoulder and not in the mirror.
McCLOUD: Them pirates ain’t no closer to
here than Taos is to Albuquerque.
LUND: Wait a
minute, what’s New Mexico got to do with this?
MIKE: (On radio.) “Supermouth” Mike Parker
likes helping new talent, you dig?
JEREMY: There are some things in this world more important
than counting money.
JESSICA: Like what?
CHIEF CLIFFORD: Tell me,
generally speaking, what are managers like?
SHANNON: Well,
most of them are sort of funky.
CLIFFORD: Funky?
SHANNON: You know.
CLIFFORD: Oh, you
mean the opposite of me. Suit, tie, short hair, language
you can understand.
McCLOUD: (To Chief Clifford.) You said
yourself that I’m funky!
There ya go making me want you,
There ya go making me care,
There I go weaving daydreams
Out of moments that we share...
There ya go looking like country
While your eyes are touching mine...
—Song,
“There Ya Go” (Glen A. Larson, Bruce Belland)
CHIEF CLIFFORD: The City of New York has cut back on
every single item in its budget except McCloud.
SHANNON: How long do you think it will take?
McCLOUD: Till she
gets hungry enough not to notice the hook.
(Title of album in J & T Records plant.)
GUILTY UNTIL PROVEN
MR. GREGORY: (To Sgt. Broadhurst.) You’re
being a bad, bad boy! Now, my men like tough guys. They can use
the exercise.
(Sgt. Broadhurst won’t talk.)
SGT. BROADHURST: (Deadpan.) A man can’t go against his nature.
THUG: That’s
good. Real good. I wish I could talk like that. All I can do is— (He hits
Sgt. Broadhurst.)
McCLOUD: Man’s a hyena, he’s just got to
stink.
McCLOUD: I never seen two hawks with
different feathers.
McCLOUD: You remember that hook I was talkin’ about? I think she
just swallowed it. Right up to the pole.
MR. GREGORY: Don’t get caught up in that “woman
scorned” thing. Emotions are bad for business.
JESSICA:
(Quietly determined.) I’m past that.
DET. SIMMS: How much is 25 times 14?
SGT.
BROADHURST: (Thinks.) 350.
DET.
SIMMS: Yeah? How about 350 x 15?
SGT.
BROADHURST: (Thinks.) 5250.
DET.
SIMMS: No kidding. How about 5250 x 187?
SGT.
BROADHURST: (Thinks.) I only made sergeant, not Einstein. What are you
trying for?
DET.
SIMMS: I’m trying to figure out how many records that trailer holds, then I’d like to know the value of the shipment. I love
puzzles like that.
SGT.
BROADHURST: No wonder you’re so popular on stakeouts.
DET.
SIMMS: (Accepting this.) Thanks!