Showdown at the End of the World

An ambitious junior executive in the mob uses fashion models to transport heroin into New York.

The Fair

An ambitious junior executive in the mob uses fashion models to transport heroin into New York. This apocalyptic vision concludes at the site of the 1964 World’s Fair.

The mob represented here puts likely prospects through college, builds (or anyway contemplates) shopping plazas, and keeps models at considerable expense in clothing, publicity and apartments.

The numbers on McCloud’s lapels are explained: that’s his badge number, 33.

As the adventure begins, somewhere between Friedkin’s The French Connection and Nabokov’s “Ode to a Model”, McCloud and Sgt. Broadhurst are on stakeout at the airport, where cleanup crews are offloading Paris heroin.

It’s a particular model the Marshal is after, but he rescues the wrong one on a runaway horse in Central Park during the shooting of a commercial. This is Jackie Rogers (Jaclyn Smith), who later is seen at the North Pole in a snowstorm selling perfume, until the camera pulls back and reveals it’s another commercial being filmed downtown amid traffic.

McCloud is asleep, she’s gone to Paris, he wakes to the sound of her voice, “Did you miss me? I’m back,” it’s his television set, an aftershave commercial (she’s coming toward him in slow motion).

Michael Dominick (Bradford Dillman), is running the operation. His dream is a shopping plaza with moving sidewalks. It’s expensive, however, and what with the heat from McCloud, the project is nixed by big boss Montello (Lee J. Cobb), who tells Dominick, “I like people to move, and sidewalks to stand still.”

The upper echelons of legitimacy are provided by a front company, Securitel, which runs Interaction Security, which owns the commercial film unit that in turn operates rental properties housing the models, all under the ægis of Summit Enterprises.

Antonio achieves a coup as the model calls her boss and is seen in profile, badly lit to find whatever flaws could be found in Jaclyn Smith’s face, then he pans left to her reflection in the base of a table lamp, distorted.

Bradford Dillman Michael Dominick Jaclyn Smith Jackie Rogers Lee J. Cobb Alexander Montello Eddie Egan Al Barber Arthur Batanides Andy Falco Bruce Kirby Desk Clerk Lew Palter Cab Driver Rick Weaver Jerry Connors John Finnegan Doorman Bill Walker Customs Inspector Don Hanmer Ben Jess Osuna Director (unbilled)

Written by Robert Hamner Directed by Louis Antonio

35301, 1.7.73

The actor playing Tommy Lucas is unbilled.

(McCloud astride a horse in Central Park pretends to mistakenly rescue Liz Carlson, who is riding a “runaway” horse for a commercial being filmed, but he has the wrong girl and she protests heatedly.)
JACKIE ROGERS: I’ve been on this horse since eight o’clock this morning. I’ve got sores in places I didn’t know existed.

(McCloud and Broadhurst breeze into Liz Carlson’s building.)
DOORMAN: What’s all this?
SGT. BROADHURST: (Flashing badge.) Police business.
DOORMAN: What kinda police business?

(McCloud and Broadhurst emerge from the lobby.)
DOORMAN: Well, it’s my lucky day. Quarter tips and half the police department hangin’ around the lobby.

McCLOUD: Who was in her apartment just now?
DOORMAN: Maybe she had mice.

(Another girl was there.)
McCLOUD: This friend have a name?
DOORMAN: I didn’t ask for her boith certificate.
SGT. BROADHURST: (The doorman has been warned.) Hey!

DOORMAN: She was a model, too. And not a pound that wasn’t in the right place, ynwtmn? (One quietly mumbled syllable, sc., “You know what I mean?”)

McCLOUD: I’ve got the edge on most New Yorkers, I’m from Taos, New Mexico.

McCLOUD: My goodness, this is, uh, real homey.
JACKIE ROGERS: Don’t let my decorator hear you say that. According to him, it’s superchic.

JACKIE ROGERS: That has to be at least fifteen hundred calories.
McCLOUD: You said you were hungry, didn’t ya?
JACKIE ROGERS: I’m a model. I’m always hungry.

(McCloud identifies Jackie Rogers’ accent.)
JACKIE ROGERS: (Reciting his phrase.) “The orange blossoms in the spring are fragile when you pay for them.”
McCLOUD: Houston.
JACKIE ROGERS: I guess I just blew thirteen hundred dollars worth of diction lessons.
McCLOUD: Sounds good t’ me.

AL BARBER: (Reporting to Michael Dominick.) Name’s McCloud, Sam McCloud. Some kind of a marshal from Taos (He pronounces it as a rhyme for “mouse”.), New Mexico.

McCLOUD: Ya know, Chief, you’re the kind o’ fella that would tell a punchline before a fella got the joke out.
CHIEF CLIFFORD: You know, I’ve heard that before—and it still isn’t funny.

There ya go, lookin’ like sunlight
On a laughin’ summer day.
There ya go, sayin’ my name s’ soft
It takes m’ breath away.
There ya go, with that smile o’ yours
That sets the world aglow,
Castin’ spells, ringin’ bells,
There ya go.
—Song, “There Ya Go” (Glen A. Larson, Bruce Belland, sung by David Somerville)

JACKIE ROGERS: What am I supposed to do, pack up and go back to Houston?
McCLOUD: Well, ya make it sound like it’s the last stop on a spur line.
JACKIE ROGERS: That’s exactly what it is to me.

MICHAEL DOMINICK: (To Jackie Rogers.) As you can see, we have quite a substantial investment in you. All those incidentals that go to making a no-talent hick into an international model.

JACKIE ROGERS: What if I refuse?
MICHAEL DOMINICK: Liz Carlson asked the same question.
JACKIE ROGERS: That’s why you killed her.
MICHAEL DOMINICK: She died of an overdose of stupidity. (Jackie Rogers walks out of his office.) I sincerely hope that you won’t suffer from the same disease!

JACKIE ROGERS: Those loose ends I was talking about. I’m having a little trouble tying them off.
McCLOUD: Well, I wanna tell ya, I can tie loose ends just easier’n a bear can smell honey.

(“Bioluminescence”)
McCLOUD: How’s that thing work?
CHIEF CLIFFORD: Specially cultivated micro-organisms literally light up when they come in contact with the aroma of heroin. When Miss Rogers comes through customs, we’ll know if she’s carrying a shipment without tipping her off.

(The film cans Jackie Rogers brought back from Paris actually have film in them.)
CHIEF CLIFFORD: (Expecting a bust, to Michael Dominick, expecting a shipment.) Looks like everybody’s been had. Some more than others.

ALEXANDER MONTELLO: Lost some merchandise?
MICHAEL DOMINICK: Just temporarily.
ALEXANDER MONTELLO: How much?
MICHAEL DOMINICK: (Pause.) A million.
ALEXANDER MONTELLO: Wholesale or retail?
MICHAEL DOMINICK: Wholesale.
ALEXANDER MONTELLO: That’s about thirty million on the street.

ALEXANDER MONTELLO: (To Michael Dominick.) Hah! We send you to college, and look what happens. You lose thirty million dollars worth of merchandise... I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if it was such a good idea to raise a bunch of college kids. Somehow, you lose a sense of tradition.

JACKIE ROGERS: What are you gonna do about Dominick? He has a gun, too.
McCLOUD: Well, like my daddy used to say, the best offense is a defense. No, the best defense is an offense. What the hell did he say?

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