Who Says You Can’t Make Friends in New York City? (Man from Taos I)

McCloud goes to help a lady in distress, but gets caught in a shootout that sends him back to Taos on Chief Clifford’s orders. At the last minute, the Chief is kidnapped to force McCloud to act as a courier to Paris.

Tacos, New Mexico

To begin, a flashback and voiceover as Chris Coughlin remembers meeting Sam McCloud in Taos, returning the following year, and finally inviting him to New York (her cousin is a police commissioner).

So there he is, Deputy Marshal McCloud, riding the range in Central Park of a Sunday, meeting Chris for dinner (they quarrel briefly, and she refers to his home town as “Tacos”), then returning to his hotel (fifth floor) where he hears a fight going on in the room across the hall. Later, it becomes so heated he has to intervene, six-shooter in hand, shirtless but wearing his hat. (“I’m just bunking across the hall there.”)

No trouble, say the couple, but she telephones him later for a rendezvous at—a deserted alley, it turns out. A hit man takes a few potshots at him with a silencer, McCloud kills him, and there you are.

The press call it frontier justice, and Chief Clifford has no choice but to pack his cowboy off to Taos (JFK-Albuquerque). Sitting on the plane at the terminal, McCloud is paged and sent to the locker room of the Freight Terminal Building, where the Chief is being held at gunpoint (this is where McCloud’s boss introduces him as a “trainee”). Object—force McCloud into delivering an attaché case past customs to a Mr. Recent, as McCloud pronounces his French name, in Paris.

The greatest glory of Part I, aside from some New York exteriors (especially a shot from Central Park that anticipates the Parisian second unit footage in Part II), is Saarinen’s JFK, maneuvered in with a distorting lens to emphasize the harmoniousness of its lines.

Susan Strasberg Anne Verdige Carl Betz Aldon F. Flanders Marj Dusay Ellen Childs Alfred Ryder Mason Marcel Hillaire Inspector Prideaux Maurice Marsac Official Ralph Story Newscaster Johnny Silver Elevator Operator Charles H. Gray 1^st Policeman Tony Ballen 2^nd Policeman Patti Heider Stewardess Jerry Crews 1^st Reporter Ray Ballard 2^nd Reporter Hollis Morrison 3^rd Reporter Gail Peters Ticket Agent Michael Carr Tony Romer Bill Fletcher Voss Len Wayland Pilot Otis Greene Co-Pilot

Written by Leslie Stevens Directed by Douglas Heyes

183A, 9.16.70

ELEVATOR OPERATOR: Best thing about not taking sides, Mac, is knowing you ain’t on the wrong one.

McCLOUD: I’m sorry I had to kill him.
2^nd POLICEMAN: If you didn’t have a look at him, how do you know you killed him?
McCLOUD: I didn’t have time not to.

CHIEF CLIFFORD: (To McCloud.) You let the sun rise on you again in New York City, and you’ll be subject to immediate arrest and imprisonment.

McCLOUD: The hair on the back o’ my neck gets to bristlin’ when things ain’t goin’ my way.

MASON: Think he can cut it?
VOSS: Perfect. Square and stupid enough for people to believe.

McCLOUD: (Deep in thought listening to earphones on airliner.) I beg your pardon, I was plugged into a little opera there.
STEWARDESS: Would you prefer the lobster à l’américaine or the bœuf bourguignon?
McCLOUD: American lobster oughta hit the spot.

DET. POLK: We’re going to Paris?
SGT. BROADHURST: McCloud says it’s a heavy emergency. That calls for heavy reinforcements.

McCLOUD: Whereabouts do ya hang your flight bag?
ANNE: I hang my flight bag at the Pension du Faisan d’Or.
McCLOUD: You’re gonna have to say that twice, just for me to misunderstand it.

INSPECTOR PRIDEAUX: Marshal McCloud?
McCLOUD: That’s me.
INSPECTOR PRIDEAUX: I recognize you by your cowboy hat.

McCLOUD: What’s the name o’ that hotel we’re staying at?
MASON: George V. [Cinq.]
McCLOUD: That ought not to be too hard to remember. George swam? No, George Sank.

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