This is one of those typical movie-of-the-week efforts that TV networks put out in the 1970s, chockful of stars from various TV shows doing cameos. In this one you'll see Ed Asner, Cloris Leachman, Kate Jackson, Tina Louise, Art Carney, etc (even Tony Dow as a suspect!). Most of the people are witnesses to a brutal murder but don't want to get involved in helping the police. Raul Julia is the cop heading the investigation.
The movie never made up its mind as to what story it wanted to tell. Does it want to be a straight-up murder investigation or does it want to get into why the bystanders wouldn't help the victim? The movie spends about 40 min on the latter story, which is the more interesting one, and finally just reverted to a usual cop chase to resolve the story.
To make the show a little more controversial, Tina Louise plays the lesbian lover of the victim and she becomes a suspect in the case. But all of the "stars" in this show are given one, maybe two scenes at the most. Tina does very well in her cameo, though. I got the sense that this movie was being put out as a pilot of sorts for a possible Raul Julia cop series. He's the typical single father/cop and they even set up a very brief love interest when he meets Kate Jackson who immediately disappears from the story.
Interesting how many awards the actors in this show had gotten in their careers. Carney, Leachman and then-kid Helen Hunt all got Oscars. Asner had a shelf of Emmys and Tina Louise once got a Golden Globe. It must've been a pretty easy paycheck to get them into this movie although Carney acquits himself very well in a serious role in huge contrast to the audience's memory of him as the idiotic Ed Norton on "The Honeymooners".
The movie never made up its mind as to what story it wanted to tell. Does it want to be a straight-up murder investigation or does it want to get into why the bystanders wouldn't help the victim? The movie spends about 40 min on the latter story, which is the more interesting one, and finally just reverted to a usual cop chase to resolve the story.
To make the show a little more controversial, Tina Louise plays the lesbian lover of the victim and she becomes a suspect in the case. But all of the "stars" in this show are given one, maybe two scenes at the most. Tina does very well in her cameo, though. I got the sense that this movie was being put out as a pilot of sorts for a possible Raul Julia cop series. He's the typical single father/cop and they even set up a very brief love interest when he meets Kate Jackson who immediately disappears from the story.
Interesting how many awards the actors in this show had gotten in their careers. Carney, Leachman and then-kid Helen Hunt all got Oscars. Asner had a shelf of Emmys and Tina Louise once got a Golden Globe. It must've been a pretty easy paycheck to get them into this movie although Carney acquits himself very well in a serious role in huge contrast to the audience's memory of him as the idiotic Ed Norton on "The Honeymooners".