on 1/9/2023, 8:45 am
Three oddities not directly addressed in Gord's writeup: 1) It will be strange to hear Pacino using a Southern accent (though Gord's plot summary will explain this); 2) Note in the park sequence that a close-up of Pacino strong suggests that he's missing a tooth (which was fixed up in relatively short order once he became successful); 3) According to the YouTube poster, Pacino and Clayburgh were an item at the time and Pacino apparently convinced the N.Y.P.D. producers to cast her in the show as his girlfriend.
Line producer Bob Markell had previously worked for Plautus Productions in NYC, the production company responsible for THE DEFENDERS and several other highly-acclaimed/notable 60s shows.
Deadly Circle of Violence 1968
This is a 1968 episode of N.Y.P.D. which ran from 1967 to 69.
A young couple, Al Pacino and Jill Clayburgh are walking through a park when Pacino is shot by a hidden gunman. He wakes up in a hospital surrounded by detectives Jack Warden, Frank Converse and Robert Hooks.
Warden asks who would want to kill him but gets nothing. Only lightly wounded, Pacino is soon released and is tailed by Converse and Hooks. They dig into his background and discover he is a KKK member wanted for bombing a southern church the year before. There had been a small child killed and he had beat the feet north to hide in the big city.
Before the police can arrest him, Pacino is grabbed up by a group of church members who have tracked him to N.Y. They take him to a warehouse inorder to exact a little vengeance. Warden and the boys arrive and talk the men into letting the law handle Pacino. He is slapped in cuffs and led off for his date with the chair.
Rest of the cast included Graham Brown, William Jay and Denise Nicholas. This was the screen/TV debut for both Pacino and Clayburgh. The episode was directed by TV vet David Pressman. I remember watching this series back when i was a kid. They really cram quite a bit into a half hour runtime.
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