The Day New York Turned Blue
During
a New York City snowstorm, a union lawyer is placed in protective custody as a witness
to graft, a working girl is slipping out-of-towners a mickey and painting them
blue, a Federal Inspector is auditing the Department books, the mob plans an
invasion of headquarters, and patrolmen have a strike meeting.
Union Suits
The
common ant, whose intelligence is in numbers, will go to extreme lengths to get
at a crumb; remove the crumb, his legions withdraw. Similarly, the Celts have a
saying about the devil’s intelligence of your whereabouts after this your
exile.
Carl
Sandburg has a way of working with a line like this: he strings it out and lets
it play in the Rootabaga Country, and it comes out where it didn’t go in.
Swackhamer
is one with difficulties, they do not cause him the mere arch of his eyebrows,
and with every hair in place, despite enough material for half a baker’s dozen
shows, he serenely pulls this off, earning a pat on the back from the Chief for
McCloud.
The
technique is the classic television ploy of cramming the set with actors able
to deploy their forces fast and tight, because the script has a complexity that
is unusual even for McCloud. The clean lines of Swackhamer’s direction
are as good as can be imagined, because he always has the next move in his
mind, without overlooking the polish on the scene in hand. He is able to keep
transitions to a minimum, at least partly due to the script, and because his
preparations allow him to pick up the strands one by one without any
difficulty.
A
good example of this is the union meeting, led by Carl Weathers. Swackhamer films
this in two parts: first the warm-up, and then the punchline. Between them, the
Chief announces he is going to the meeting (with a gag line involving a Federal
inspector). Rather than follow the Chief to the meeting, Swackhamer can have
him pop his head back into his office to nix any warnings, and then be seen
entering the now crowded and confused meeting, so that Swackhamer has two gags
going simultaneously and one in the offing—while at the same time he has two
separate plot lines in full development (the menaced witness to pension fund graft
in protective custody, and the azure prostitute—Gig Young, Bernadette Peters).
The
finale brings every inch of film directly or by implication into play, and drops
an entirely new element (McCloud’s defense of police headquarters) into the
stretto to crown the work.
|
Gig Young Jack Hefferman |
Written by Glen A. Larson Directed by E.W. Swackhamer |
43310, 2.22.76
R.P. PEARSON: Just think of me as your Messiah.
CHIEF CLIFFORD: Aren’t you working rather late?
R.P.
PEARSON: Well, time is money. And so is racial balance.
BEBE MURCHINSON: You’re gonna get him to press
charges? You can’t even get him outta the toilet!
BEBE MURCHINSON: (In handcuffs.) They’re
gonna pack you so far off the force you’ll need a passport!
McCLOUD: Well, the
beauty of it is, ma’am, I ain’t on the force.
BEBE
MURCHINSON: (Long pause.) You’re telling me.
McCLOUD: Well, there’s nothin’ like a little stokin’ to get a fire
out of an old log.
MRS.
JOHNSON: Very poetic. Reveals a lot about your character. Honest,
forthright, down to earth. What happened to my Benny?
R.P. PEARSON: Chief Clifford, this is rather
awkward.
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: Aw, Mr. Pearson, that’s only because you’re used to issuing
regulations. Following them, ha-ha, that’s the challenge!
NURSE: The City of New York may be broke, but they’re not gonna
push us around.
BEBE MURCHINSON: You’re a listener?
R.P.
PEARSON: I’m all ears!
BEBE
MURCHINSON: (Eyeing him.) That’s a shame.
CHENEY: It was the worst thing I ever saw. Bodies lying around
everywhere, like cock-a-roaches [sic].