It Came From The Tube: SHE CRIED MURDER (1973)

Economy was the key to a solid TV movie back in the day; sure, now you can stretch out a story over ten episodes and watch ‘em all at once. *Pulls up pants even higher* But back in my time you had 75 to 90 minutes tops to get your point across, and we liked it! Even better, a small screen flick like She Cried Murder (1973) does it in a speedy 66, omitting unnecessary tropes such as love stories, secondary characters, and plot.

Okay, I’m just being cheeky; She Cried Murder is so lean that all it really has time for is a cat and mouse chase between a woman who witnessed a murder and the fella who did it; motive is covered quite tidily so it isn’t all chase, and what it does accomplish is effective enough. Not enough to deter folk from watching the ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week or the NBC Tuesday Mystery Movie (insert Monty Python “People’s Front of Judea” joke here), but for fans of breathless thrillers, this was the place to be.

Let’s see what our paper passport TV GUIDE has in store this week:

SHE CRIED MURDER (Tuesday, 9:30pm, CBS)

A woman witnesses a murder at a subway station, and when she reports it to the police, she discovers that the killer is one of the officers investigating the case. Lynda Day George, Telly Savalas star.

Well, that little blurb sums up the plot efficiently, but I have a word count so I’ll try to stretch it out: Model Sarah Cornell (Day George – Pieces) is riding the subway on her way to work when she witnesses a woman being pushed in front of a train by a man in a black fedora and jacket. When she gets off the train, the man turns back towards her, and it’s Kojak himself, Telly Savalas! Sarah calls the police from her photo shoot, and onto the scene arrives Stepanic (Mike Farrell – M*A*S*H) and his partner who’s supposed to be on vacation, Inspector Joe Brody…played by Savalas. Sarah clams up completely; now she says she can’t remember exactly what she saw, etc. Even her friend Maggie (Kate Reid – The Andromeda Strain) doesn’t believe her.

Perhaps the cops will come around after Brody abducts her son and tries to plea bargain with her; he explains the girl was a “ten dollar hooker” who was blackmailing him and she had to go. Sarah will have none of it and manages to get her boy back, knocking Brody unconscious in the process. When she brings the police back, Brody is gone, making her seem even crazier than before. But Stepanic digs into the dead prostitute’s past, and starts to think Sarah might be telling the truth. Can he stop Brody before he puts the kibosh on Sarah’s modeling career?

Sure it’s not horror, but it is a thriller, and a decently suspenseful one at that; director Herschel Daugherty (Star Trek, Bonanza)’s TV bonafides ensure a lean structure, and the script by Merwin Gerard (Mannix) and Timothy Bond (Happy Birthday to Me) manages to squeeze in all the exposition needed while keeping the action on the go. The result is a non stop chase through buildings and subways filmed for grown ups trying to keep their eyes open until Carson; and it works.

Helping race it along is setting the story all in one day, which is ingenious; it’s not a mystery, so there’s no need for build up, and the forceful way that Savalas operates guarantees swift police action (well, not too swift – if they came to their senses earlier the film would be the length of a sitcom). A “moment in time” then it has to be, as there isn’t enough here beyond The Girl Who Cried Cop to justify a longer runtime.

The cast is small but effective, getting everything across in the hour plus they have to work with. Day George has an inviting presence (and a lack of pretense) that puts you on her side immediately, and Farrell (who I was none too fond of on M*A*S*H) does well with a straight role, probably because he *snark alert* doesn’t have to pretend to be funny. But She Cried Murder was tailor made for Savalas; the same year this aired, CBS started the very popular Kojak series, which ended up running for five seasons on the network. And while Savalas had always veered between playing good guys and bad guys up to this point, here was a chance for them to show off his bad side before he settled into his iconic good cop with a lollipop role. Of course he pulls it off easily; a desperate cop at the end of his tether, Savalas fills Brody with a cool menace as a man who will do anything to get out of trouble.

She Cried Murder isn’t an essential release, but *pulls pants up around neck* it shows that TV could create enjoyable fast food out of the simplest ingredients. And we liked it!