Night of the Shark
The
American mob plans an Australian expansion, with the help of a planted Chairman
on Sydney’s Police Board. McCloud, on airport duty at JFK, has a shootout with
a hit man and goes to Sydney as a witness.
We’re into Roy Rogers
McCloud
feels at one point he’s made himself unintelligible to his Australian hosts and
is about to explain when Inspector Hale stops him by saying, “That’s all right,
we’re into Roy Rogers.”
Sydney’s
Opera House is the site of a major scene, and the climax takes place at the
Australia Day Parade. The theme is Australia itself, at about the time it began
to emerge onto the world scene.
The
simple mechanism of the plot is designed so as to throw a shaft of poetic light
onto this city of transportation.
The
opening scene is peculiarly grisly, as a confab of gangsters (under
surveillance from a police raft) ends in a murder by poison and sharks.
Sydney’s
Police Superintendent Caldwell’s Anti-Organised Crime Task Force is
establishing a New York-Sydney mob connection when the superintendent is shot
at JFK Airport, and an American police commissioner is killed. McCloud merely
happens to be there on one of his routine boring assignments.
The
McCloud unit does very well in Australia, repeating its earlier success
in Mexico City with “Lady on the Run”.
We
know, on the authority of Sgt. Broadhurst in that episode, for example, that
McCloud doesn’t drink. Yet here, exceptionally, and under the imprimatur of the
show’s creator, McCloud not only accepts an Australian beer, he gets drunk,
buys drinks for the whole pub, and has to be carried out. Even in Hawaii (“A
Cowboy in Paradise”), McCloud drinks fruit juice.
He
knows Alf Donnelly as Albert Donahue, a New Mexico land developer who himself
says, “Half of Albuquerque lost money on my deal.” When Donahue’s wife was
discovered dead, homicide was suspected and a warrant was issued.
Nevertheless,
the mob has spent ten years and millions of dollars establishing him on the
Sydney Police Board in advance of expansion plans (“It’s
official, Eric,” says Officer McGee to her surveillance partner, “we’ve been
invaded,” though neither of them can see from their vantage point who is the
odd man out at the confab). If his delicate past were known, the operation
would be spoiled. (Inspector Hale, too, is bought or sold.)
So
Donnelly attempts to kill McCloud, and at the Sydney Opera House in broad daylight.
McCloud is on his way to the airport and desperate measures are called for.
Satlof’s direction shows pretty clearly, I think, Utzon’s design in its
original state, and the compromises forced upon it later, in some degree. It’s
a very close view, though not exhaustive, beginning with a shot inside the
restaurant before the wide picture window looking out on Sydney Harbour and the
Bridge. McCloud clambers over a balcony and down an exterior wall, there’s a
bit of a chase. The word “concourse” is used in the script to link Saarinen’s
JFK and Utzon’s Opera House, poetically.
McCloud
cracks the case in time to intercept the Australia Day Parade, whose Grand
Marshal is Donnelly on horseback with his wife (“you’re the boy who leads the
parade” is the explanation for not killing him when his bosses find out he’s
been gunning for McCloud). McCloud takes Mrs. Donnelly’s horse, and the chase
is on right through downtown Sydney across the Harbour Bridge and onto a
football (soccer) field, where Sydney are leading Melbourne 1-0. The announcer
describes events: “Now one of them’s pulled a pistol, and he’s shooting at the
other.” A footballer knocks the gun from Donnelly’s hand with a well-placed
throw or kick, and McCloud wraps the culprit in the goal net. He tricks Chief
Clifford into buying a round for everybody at the pub.
Satlof
has some action here that’s interesting. He tracks back at a low angle with a
wrong lens on McCloud and Inspector Hale walking down a corridor, and gets a
unique effect. On the Bridge’s pedestrian walkway, he lines up a straight shot
to good effect, then cuts to a helicopter side shot. Stu Phillips is again
inspired during the chase to his best work.
The
script by Glen A. Larson is of course authoritative. There is some brilliant
use of symmetry to set up the gag. Mrs. Donnelly spills the beans that Supt.
Caldwell is not dead but incognito at Sydney Hospital. There, Donnelly almost
bumps into McCloud, but slipping away is stopped by Officer McGee (“Remember me
from the Academy?”), who introduces him to the visiting American marshal.
|
Lloyd Bochner Alfred Donnelly |
Written by Glen A. Larson Directed by Ronald Gilbert Satlof |
43316, 3.21.76
BARKEEPER: (To McCloud.) You’re
him! The one that got the guy that got the super!
McCLOUD: There ya go. (Exits.)
INSPECTOR
HALE: What’d he say?
DOVER: There ya
go.
INSPECTOR
HALE: Go where?
DOVER: I don’t know.
At least that’s what I think he said.
INSPECTOR
HALE: I wonder if that isn’t some sort of American putdown.
DOVER: I don’t
think so. He seems like a nice bloke.
INSPECTOR
HALE: You’re very naive, Dover. Very naive.
SUPT. CALDWELL: What did he say?
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: There ya go.
SUPT.
CALDWELL: What does that mean, exactly?
CHIEF
CLIFFORD: (Searching in his mind.) Well—it means— (Nonplussed.) No-one
ever asked him!
OFC. McGEE: Hotel? You’re going to the airport!
McCLOUD: That’s
right, just as soon as I find out who tried to gullyjump me.