Jeff Griggs | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! On Tuesdays, I will be reviewing Pacific Blue, a cop show that aired from 1996 to 2000 on the USA Network! It’s currently streaming everywhere, though I’m watching it on Tubi.

This week, a loved one dies.

Episode 3.21 “Till Death Do Us Part”

(Dir by Michael Levine, originally aired on April 12th, 1998)

When two robbers invade a high-end clothing store and shoot a security guard, they also accidentally shoot and kill Linda, Victor’s fiancée. In fact, Linda was trying on a wedding dress when she was shot. She was accompanied by Chris. In typical Pacific Blue style, even though Victor is the one who has just lost his fiancée, Chris also gets a chance to tell everyone that it’s also something that she’ll never recover from because she was the one who was actually there when it happened. Chris is so upset that she initially refuses to even change her clothes, even though they’ve been splattered with Linda’s blood. The show seems to think that this makes Chris into a strong character. Personally, I think it makes her someone who is so self-centered that she even has to make the death of someone else’s fiancée all about her. I can only imagine how Victor feels seeing Linda’s blood all over Chris’s shirt.

As for Victor, he goes on a rampage, tearing up Santa Monica until he finds the man who shot Linda. Victor ignores regulations. He breaks rules. He nearly shoots the killer in a parking lot and his partner Cory promises to back him up if he pulls the trigger. In the end, Victor is not a cold-blooded murderer. He allows the killer to be arrested. He tells the killer that he can’t wait to witness his execution. (Good luck, Victor. You’re in California!) But, as the episode ends, it’s mentioned that Internal Affairs is going to want his badge.

(Apparently, that will be dealt with in next week’s episode, which is also the season three finale.)

Watching this episode, I can found myself asking myself if all the other cops in Santa Monica have been fired. I didn’t see anyone other than the bicycle cops investigating the robberies or the shootings. I didn’t see anyone from Homicide looking into Linda’s murder. Instead, the entire episode was full of people trying to look tough while wearing bicycle shorts.

It just can’t be done!

New York. The prohibition era. The Coll Brothers, Vincent (Christopher Bradley) and Peter (Jeff Griggs), are sick of working for the Irish gangster, O’Malley (William Anthony La Valle). They want to hang out at the Cotton Club with big time gangsters like Lucky Luciano (Matt Servitto), Legs Diamond (Will Kempe), and Dutch Schultz (Bruce Nozick). Vincent has fallen in love with Lotte (Rachel York), a singer at the club but the club’s owner, Owney Madden (Jack Conley), makes it clear that Lotte is too good for a low-rent thug. After killing O’Malley, Vincent and Peter go to work for Dutch Schultz but soon, they grew tired of the low wages that Schultz pays them. The Colls decide to strike out on their own, leading to all out war with New York’s organized crime establishment.

Vincent Coll was a real-life gangster who actually did go to war with Dutch Schultz and Lucky Luciano. After a five-year old boy was fatally caught in the crossfire of a gun battle between Coll and his rivals, Vincent was nicknamed “Mad Dog” by the New York press. Mad Dog Coll presents a highly fictionalized account of Coll’s life, suggesting that the kid was actually shot by one of Coll’s rivals and presenting Coll as an idealistic rebel who refused to be controlled by Luciano’s organized crime commission. Luciano, Vincent and Peter agree, has sold out and no longer remembers where he came from.

Mad Dog Coll was one of two gangster movies that Menaham Golan produced, back-to-back, in Russia. In fact, Mad Dog Coll may be the first American film in which Russia stood in for America instead of the other way around. Though this film was produced after Golan broke up with his longtime producing partner, Yoram Globus, Mad Dog Coll still has a definite Cannon feel to it. It is low-budget, fast-paced, unapologetically pulpy, and entertaining as Hell. For a Golan production, the performances are surprisingly good. Bruce Nozick steals the entire movie as crazy Dutch Schultz. None of it is subtle but it is enjoyable in the way that only a Greydon Clark-directed, Menahem Golan-produced gangster film can be. 1920s New York is recreated on Russian soundstages. The threadbare production design and cardboard cityscape brings a Jon Pertwee/Tom Baker-era Dr. Who feel to the movie. All that is missing is The Master brewing up moonshine and the Daleks exterminating the Chicago Outfit.

In the U.S., Mad Dog Coll was retitled Killer Instinct, probably to cash in on the recent success of Basic Instinct. The entire cast was featured in the sequel, the Menahem Golan-directed Hit the Dutchman.