An armored car carrying over one million dollars in gold somehow vanishes in the middle of a texas desert. Tire tracks go off-road and end at a sheer cliff. After 60 days, the insurance company is obliged to allow "anyone else" to try and recover the truck and the money... but what one company man is really afraid of is... "Banacek". He makes a living-- actually he makes a TON of money-- by collecting 10% of what he saves the insurance company from having to pay out. He's smooth and suave and BRILLIANT and never, ever seems to lose his cool.
About 3 weeks after the 1st season of The NBC Mystery Movies ended, this 2-hour pilot movie aired. I guess it was successful, as the following September, when NBC expanded the Mystery Movies to 2 nights a week (Wednesday AND Sunday), BANACEK became a regular series, rotating with MADIGAN and COOL MILLION. I came in a bit late to the party, but I eventually got hooked on the first 2 of those. MADIGAN only ran one season, but BANACEK ran two-- until its star had "creative differences" with the network. (I'm not sure what that means, but the same problem also ended HEC RAMSEY after two seasons.)
Anyone who saw THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR (1968) before this would probably recognize where a big part of it came from. In that, Steve McQueen played a bored rich guy who plans a bank heist, while Faye Dunaway played an unscruplulous investigator bent on getting the money back. McQueen's "Thomas Crown" and George Peppard's "Thomas Banacek" could have been brothers separated at birth. The series essentially took the villain of the movie and turned him into the hero.
But there's more! It was pointed out that the plot of an armored car vanishing in the desert was resued from another film from 1968-- THEY CAME TO ROB LAS VEGAS. I've seen that recently! The main difference is, that film focused mostly on the bad guys, this one sees it from the point of view of the investigator. I'll also mention one other film about an armored car heist, GUNS GIRLS AND GANGSTERS (1959), which also involves someone with a rifle shooting out a tire as part of the heist. I just love tracking down "influences" like this.
This episode reveals how Banacek's father worked for a company for 20 years before suddenly being fired and replaced by a machine. We then find out it was the very same insurance company he takes such pleasure out of being paid HUGE sums of money for doing their work for them.
Murray Matheson plays "Felix Mulholland", owner of a rare book store who provides his friend Thomas all sorts of obscure information. I've seen him in countless things, but the ones that stand out are a McCLOUD ("The Disposal Man") and a BATTLESTAR GALACTICA ("Greetings From Earth"). He's sort of "Rex Harrison-lite".
Ralph Manza is "Jay Drury", an Italian limosine driver who becomes friends with his new employer, and likes to guess how things may have been stolen. I've also seen him in countless things, including an episode of THE NANNY where he was friends with "Grandma Yetta".
George Murdock is "Cavanaugh", the head of the insurance company who realizes that in the long run, it's cheaper to pay Banacek than keep wasting money on his own investigators, or, worse, paying out the full amount of whatever is stolen. He appears in several episodes of the series.
Charles Robinson is "Arthur Patrick McKinney", a young, arrogant, insurance investigator who absolutely hates Banacek, and would do anything to see him fail. I worked with someone like that in the 80s-- a real scum. He seems set up to be a recurring foil, yet somehow never returned after the pilot movie.
Christine Belford is "Carlie Kirkland", another employee of the insurance company, who winds up getting romantic with Banacek... before she goes behind his back. When he forgives his chauffer for doing the same thing, but doesn't forgive her, he says, "All Jay and I shared was a limosine." She returned in several episodes of season 2, but by then had become just plain annoying. Murdock and Belford also later turned up on BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, he as the ship's doctor, she as a dangerous convict assigned to a suicide mission.
Ed Nelson (a very familiar face on TV for decades, including 514 episodes of PEYTON PLACE) is "Geoff Holden", a rather-crooked rich land developer who is just so much of an obvious main suspect, you kinda start hoping he WASN'T behind the robbery and several murders.
As with too many of the NBC Mystery Movies, I never got to see this pilot until some years after the series ended! It's a good film that sets up a lot, but it's never been one of my favorites, perhaps because of that extra half-hour. To me, the 90-minute format (including commercials) was perfect for these kind of movies, but when NBC started wanting them all to fit a 2-hour slot, too many of them felt terribly-padded. I'm afraid that includes this one.
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