Tag Archives: William Devane

Brad reviews THE BADGE (2002), starring Billy Bob Thornton!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Being an Arkansan, and living in the same county where SLING BLADE was filmed, I’ve always been a big fan of Billy Bob Thornton. One of the things I like about him is his ability to somehow make the most miserable human beings just a little bit sympathetic. So many of his characters seem like they have no redeeming characteristics on the surface, but way down deep, in places they may have forgotten about, there’s a decent man trying to get out. That’s certainly the case with his Sheriff Darl Hardwick in THE BADGE.

Darl is a small-town Louisiana sheriff who spends most of his time dealing with the drunks, unruly youth and other assorted troublemakers. He’s not a model law enforcement officer, either. He drinks too much, womanizes, has a short temper and seems to take his marching orders from the politically powerful and corrupt Judge (William Devane). When the dead body of a transgender woman is discovered, Darl initially treats the investigation like any other. But it soon becomes clear that certain powerful people in the community want the situation to quietly disappear. Things get more interesting when the deceased woman’s spouse Scarlett (Patricia Arquette) shows up from New Orleans, with Darl ultimately deciding to confront some ugly things about his past and the community he serves.

THE BADGE is a movie that’s not afraid to get dirty and uncomfortable. Everything here feels sweaty, rundown and a little bit rotten. And that’s whether we’re in the porn shops and strip clubs of New Orleans or a majestic mansion near Shreveport. On multiple occasions, Darl comments on the bad smells that are around him. When you consider the ever present political corruption that we witness throughout the movie, it seems clear that the filmmakers are pounding that stench into our heads. It’s a heavy handed approach, but it gives the movie an atmosphere that fits its story of small town power and prejudice versus the LGBTQ+ community. 

As I mentioned earlier, Sheriff Darl Hardwick fits Billy Bob Thornton like a glove. He’s a deeply flawed man, but he still has a sense of right and wrong, and when he’s up against the wall, he decides to do what he thinks is right. The supporting cast is very good, with Patricia Arquette, William Devane, Ray McKinnon, Thomas Haden Church, and Sela Ward all giving strong performances. I thought Patricia Arquette is especially good as Scarlett, and she has one line that made me laugh out loud. If you know anything about Arquette’s politics, her line, “I can’t believe I’m depending on Republicans to save me,” can’t help but make you smile.

THE BADGE isn’t a perfect movie, and there are times when it sacrifices some reality in order to make its points. But thanks primarily to Thornton’s strong work, I did appreciate it as a dark crime drama about an extremely troubled man who finds enough decency to do the right thing and fight for justice when everyone else just wants him to go away.

We Watched For The Love Of Nancy (1994, Dir. by Paul Schneider)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Last night, Lisa and I were looking for something to watch.  She told me that if I let her pick the movie, then she would let me write the review.  I’m not really sure that I got the better end of the deal but I still agreed.  We ended up watching For The Love Of Nancy, a made for television movie about a girl with an eating disorder.

Nancy (Tracey Gold) is looking forward to going to college.  Everyone comments on how thin she is but no one ever seems to notice that she hardly ever eats.  That’s because she’s hiding her food underneath her bed and throwing it out whenever she gets a chance.  Nancy is anorexic but her mother (Jill Clayburgh) and her father (William Devane) are too caught up in their own lives to notice.  Even when a friend tells Nancy’s mother that Nancy is showing all the signs of being anorexic, her mother refuses to believe it.  Eventually, things get so bad that her parents have no choice but to accept that Nancy needs help.  Nancy is checked into a clinic and put on a feeding tube but even then, she still tries to get away without eating.  When Nancy is told that she’s gained 6 pounds, she freaks out.

I’m pretty sure that I saw this movie in a health class when I was younger.  I remember it freaked me out when Nancy tore a hole in a wall just so she could have a new place to hide food.  Tracey Gold also struggled with anorexia and was in recovery when she filmed this movie.  At the start of the film, there are a few scenes where she is so thin that it’s scary.  The movie really got to me when i saw it in class and it still got to me watching it today.  One thing I liked about the movie was that it was pretty realistic when it showed how other people reacted to Nancy’s eating disorder.  Her parents started off in denial, went to panic, and eventually got angry and frustrated that Nancy couldn’t just magically get better.  Nobody was portrayed as being perfect.  I felt so bad for Nancy, who didn’t want to hurt anyone but who also couldn’t defeat her eating disorder alone.

This was a good movie but it was depressing.  Tomorrow night, I’m picking the movie!

Brad’s Scene of the Day – “Let’s Go Clean ‘Em Up” from ROLLING THUNDER!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

In celebration of William Devane’s 86th birthday, I’m sharing a scene from one of my favorite revenge films, ROLLING THUNDER (1977). In my opinion, this is the high water mark in Devane’s 60 year career. And we all need a friend like Tommy Lee Jones’ character here… someone who’s always ready to go at the drop of a hat. Things are about to get violent right after they leave, but the calmness of the two men as they get ready to unleash violent hell on a group of murderous bastards makes this scene a standout.

Happy Birthday, Bill!

Freefall: Flight 174 (1995, directed by Jorge Montesi)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

During a routine flight from Montreal to Edmonton, the two pilots (played by William Devane and Scott Hylands) discover that they do not have enough fuel to make it to their destination.  Their aircraft was one of the first in the fleet to use the metric system but a conversion era led to the ground crew measuring the plane’s fuel in pounds instead of kilograms.  With the help of an air  traffic controller (Nicholas Turturro), the pilots try to land their plane before it falls out of the sky.

Based on a true story, Freefall is one of the many airflight disaster films that were made for television in the 80s and 90s.  (Not surprisingly, the genre became less popular after 9-11.)  The emphasis is on the pilots and ground control remaining calm and professional in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.  While Devane and Hylands look for a place to land, flight attendant Shelley Hack keeps the passengers from panicking.  In typical disaster movie style, the passengers have their own dramas that are wrapped up as they wait for the plane to either land or crash.  It’s a low-budget movie but the cast does a good job.  William Devane is one of those actors who just looks credible flying an airplane.

The movie’s main lesson?  Don’t use the Metric System unless you absolutely have to,

 

I review SPACE COWBOYS (2000) – starring Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and James Garner!

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Here at The Shattered Lens, we’re definitely celebrating Clint Eastwood’s May 31st birthday. As part of that celebration, I decided to revisit his 2000 film, SPACE COWBOYS. 

SPACE COWBOYS opens in 1958 on the day that Air Force Test Pilot Frank Corvin (Clint Eastwood) and his team of Hawk Hawkins (Tommy Lee Jones), Jerry O’Neill (Donald Sutherland), and Tank Sullivan (James Garner) find out that their test program is being shutdown due to the formation of NASA. Their dreams of someday making it to space are crushed, and to make it worse, they were stabbed in the back by their leader Bob Gerson (James Cromwell) and not invited to be part of NASA’s new testing program. Fast forward to the present time, where a Soviet communications satellite seems to be unresponsive and NASA is working with Russian General Vostov (Rade Serbedzija) to figure out how to keep it from crashing back to Earth. The satellite is a relic of the Cold War that somehow ended up with a guidance system on board that’s so old that it was designed by Frank, and the young folks don’t know how to work with it. And to complicate things even further, the guidance system can only be fixed on site, which means in space. So it seems that NASA finally needs Frank after all this time, and he’ll only agree to help if he’s able to bring his old team on board. Their old nemesis Bob, the project’s manager at NASA, reluctantly agrees. We see that he’s still the same bastard he’s always been as he and General Vostov are holding back critical information about the cargo of the satellite. So let the training and preparation for the mission begin! 

The premise of SPACE COWBOYS may not be very realistic, but I think it’s one hell of a fun movie, especially during its first half. I really enjoy watching this amazing cast of veteran actors do their thing. Of course they get the cool walk into NASA headquarters wearing sunglasses and leather jackets, while N’ Sync’s “Space Cowboy” plays over the soundtrack. Clint Eastwood plays the character he has perfected over his career, that of the tough, grizzled leader with a dry sense of humor. Tommy Lee Jones is the fearless hotshot who has never been good at following orders, but has the kind of talent that everyone wishes they had. Jones is actually by far the youngest of the primary cast, a full 16 years younger than Eastwood. Donald Sutherland gets some of the best laughs as the ladies man of the team. The scene where he answers Jay Leno’s question about his reputation as a lothario made me laugh out loud! James Garner’s character became a Baptist minister after his days with the Air Force and prays often for the group. He’s good here, but his character is the least memorable. With their mission labeled “The Ripe Stuff” by the media, watching these great older actors go through their training, and deal with their much younger counterparts and the NASA brass, is a joy. I also want to shout out William Devane as the NASA flight director for the mission. He has a couple of really strong scenes. 

The legendary cast of this film can’t help but give a seasoned moviegoer like me a warm sense of nostalgia based on their amazing body of work. I remember introducing KELLY’S HEROES to my son when he was a boy. He watched my DVD over and over again. Seeing Eastwood and Sutherland together here brought those memories back. One of my very favorite revenge films is ROLLING THUNDER with William Devane and Tommy Lee Jones. Seeing them together here helps me remember just how great they are in that badass classic. Heck, Garner’s character name of “Tank” Sullivan takes me back to one of the very first movies our family rented when we got our VCR in the mid-80’s! Do y’all remember Garner’s film TANK from 1984? I certainly do! 

I will admit that once the crew takes off and begins the actual mission, which comprises about the last 45 minutes of the film, the entertainment level goes down a couple of notches for me. The technical aspects of completing the mission are not as interesting to me as the character interplay in the earlier portions of the film. With that said, there are still some exciting moments to be had, including the nailbiter of a landing at the end. 

I enjoyed revisiting SPACE COWBOYS after quite a few years. This movie is ultimately a crowd pleaser, and for me, it does its job well. Enjoy the trailer below:

Film Review: McCabe & Mrs. Miller (dir by Robert Altman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1971, McCabe & Mrs. Miller takes place in the town of Presbyterian Church at the turn of the 19th Century.

Presbyterian Church is a mining town in Washington State.  When we first see the town, there’s not much to it.  The town is actually named after its only substantial building and the residents refer to the various parts of the town as either being on the right side or the left side of the church.  The rest of the town is half-constructed and appears to be covered in a permanent layer of grime.  This is perhaps the least romantic town to ever appear in a western and it is populated largely by lazy and bored men who pass the time gambling and waiting for something better to come along.

When a gambler who says that he is named McCabe (Warren Beatty) rides into town, it causes a flurry of excitement.  The man is well-dressed and well-spoken and it’s assumed that he must be someone important.  Soon a rumor spreads that McCabe is an infamous gunfighter named Pudgy McCabe.  Pudgy McCabe is famous for having used a derringer to shoot a man named Atwater.  No one is really sure who Atwater was or why he was shot but everyone agrees that it was impressive.

McCabe proves himself to be an entrepreneur.  He settles down in Presbyterian Church and establishes himself as the town’s pimp.  Soon, he is joined by a cockney madam names Mrs. Miller (Julie Christie).  The two of them go into business together and soon, Presbyterian Church has its own very popular bordello.  Sex sells and Presbyterian Church becomes a boomtown.  It attracts enough attention that two agents of a robber baron approach McCabe and offer to buy him out.  McCabe refuses, thinking that he’ll get more money if he holds out.  Mrs. Miller informs him that the men that he’s dealing with don’t offer to pay more money.  Instead, they just kill anyone who refuses their initial offer.

Three gunmen do eventually show up at Presbyterian Church and we do eventually get an answer to the question of whether or not McCabe killed Atwater or if he’s just someone who has borrowed someone else’s legend.  The final gunfight occurs as snow falls on the town and the townspeople desperately try to put out a fire at the church.  No one really notices the fact that McCabe is fighting for his life at the time and, as befits a revisionist western, there’s nothing romantic or dignified about the film’s violence.  McCabe is not above shooting a man in the back.  The killers are not above tricking an innocent cowboy (poor Keith Carradine) into reaching for his gun so that they’ll have an excuse so gun him down.  McCabe may be responsible for making Presbyterian Church into a boomtown but no one is willing to come to his aid.  The lawyer (William Devane) that McCabe approaches is more interested in promoting his political career than actually getting personally involved in the situation.  Mrs. Miller, a businesswoman first, smokes in an opium den with an air of detachment while the snow falls outside.

It’s a dark story with moments of sardonic humor.  It’s also one of director Robert Altman’s best.  The story of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and the three gunmen is far less important than the film’s portrayal of community growing and changing.  Featuring an ensemble cast and Altman’s trademark overlapping dialogue, McCabe & Mrs. Miller puts the viewer right in the heart of Presbyterian Church.  There are usually several stories playing out at once and it’s often up to the viewer to decide which one that they want to follow.  Yes, the film is about Warren Beatty’s slick but somewhat befuddled McCabe and Julie Christie’s cynical Mrs. Miller.  But it’s just as much about Keith Carradine’s Cowboy and Rene Auberjonois’s innkeeper.  Corey Fischer, Michael Murphy, John Schuck, Shelley Duvall, Bert Remsen, and a host of other Altman mainstays all have roles as the people who briefly come into the orbit of either McCabe or Mrs. Miller.  Every character has a life and a story of their own.  McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a film that feels as if it is truly alive.

As with many of Altman’s films, McCabe & Mrs. Miller was not fully appreciated when initially released.  The intentionally muddy look and the overlapping dialogue left some critics confused and the film’s status as a western that refused to play by the rules of the genre presented a challenge to audience members who may have just wanted to see Warren Beatty fall in love with Julie Christie and save the town.  But the film has endured and is now recognized as one of the best of the 70s.

Made-For-Television Movie Review: Red Alert (dir by William Hale)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1977 made-for-television movie, Red Alert, opens with a man walking through a cemetery on a rainy day.  As we watch Howard Ives (Jim Siedow) move amongst the tombstones, we hear his thoughts.  He’s a sad and bitter man, wondering why he’s wasted so many years of his life at work.  He thinks about someone close to him who has died.  He’s obviously very troubled.

(Of course, any horror fans in the audience will immediately recognize Jim Siedow from his role as the Drayton Sawyer in the the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.  He was troubled in that film as well!)

Howard works at the local nuclear power plant.  Ominously, when the film cuts to the plant, the first thing we see is a leak of very hot water.  I don’t know much about nuclear power plants but I imagine any type of leak is not a good thing.  The water leak causes the computer that runs the plant assuming that a nuclear disaster is minutes away from happening.  The compound is automatically sealed off, trapping fourteen men (including Howard), inside the reactor.  As Commander Stone (Ralph Waite) tries to keep a possible nuclear disaster from occurring, two investigators (played by William Devane and Michael Brandon) try to determined whether the accident was the result of a malfunction or of deliberate sabotage.  When the local sheriff (M. Emmet Walsh) informs them that Howard Ives’s wife has committed suicide, the investigators look into the troubled man’s history.  Eventually, the two investigators realize that the only way to prevent a nuclear disaster is by risking their lives by entering the sealed-off power plant.  The two investigators attempt to do their work under the cover of night and without causing a panic.  Needless to say, it doesn’t work.  One of them calls his wife (Adrienne Barbeau) and tells her that she needs to leave the area.  She tells her mother, who then tells her neighbor and soon the airport is crowded with people looking to get out of town.

Red Alert contrasts the intuitive approach of the two inspector with Commander Stone’s insistence that every bit of a data be fed to his computer before any decisions are made.  Stone’s hands are so tied by protocol and red tape that he stands by while the fourteen men who are trapped in the nuclear power plant die.  Wisely, though, the film doesn’t turn Stone into a cardboard villain.  He’s very much aware of what will happen if the plant suffers a core meltdown.  When one of his assistants mentions that he hasn’t been given any instructions on how to evacuate the town in case the plant does explode, Stone tells him that no plans have ever been drawn up because the plans would be useless.  There would be no way to evacuate everyone in time.

In the end, Red Alert is scary not because it deals with nuclear power but because it presents us with a world where no one — not even Devane and Brandon’s heroic investigators — seems to know what to do.  Everyone is slowed down by a combination of red tape and their own personal angst.  Devane is a strong investigator because, as a widower whose only son died in Vietnam, he has no family to worry about.  Unlike everyone else in Red Alert, he has nothing left to lose.  In the end, the film suggests that the only way to save the world is to cut yourself off from it.

Red Alert is a compelling and intelligent thriller, one that is well-acted by the entire cast and which builds up to strong conclusion.  The film’s anti-nuclear message is a bit heavy-handed but I imagine it was an accurate reflection of the fears that people were feeling at the time.  Today, the film works best as a warning about bureaucracy and depending too much on AI to make important, life-or-death decisions.  In the end, it’s human ingenuity that saves the day and that message is timeless.

14 Days of Paranoia #5: Payback (dir by Brian Hegeland)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1999 film, Payback, opens with Porter (Mel Gibson) lying on a kitchen table while a grubby-looking doctor digs two bullets out of his back.  The scene takes place in almost nauseating close-up, with the emphasis being put on the amount of pain that Porter endures to get rid of those bullets.  Immediately, we know that Porter is not someone who can safely go to a regular hospital.  Porter is someone who exists in the shadows of mainstream society.

He’s also someone who spends a lot of time getting beaten up.  Even back when he was still a big star, Mel Gibson always seemed to spend a good deal of his films getting beaten up and tortured in various ways and that’s certainly the case with Payback.  Porter gets punched.  Porter gets shot.  Porter has a encounter with an over-the-top dominatrix (played by Lucy Liu).  At one point, Porter allows two of his toes to be smashed by a hammer, just so he can trick the his enemies into doing something dumb.  As played by Gibson, Porter stumbles through the film and often looks like he’s coming down from a week-long bender.  It’s interesting to think that Payback is a remake of 1967’s Point Blank, which starred Lee Marvin as Walker, an unflappable career criminal who never showed a hint of emotion or weakness.  Porter, on the other hand, is visibly unstable and spends the entire film on the verge of a complete mental collapse.  A lot of people try to kill Porter and Porter kills almost all of them without a moment’s hesitation.

(Of course, both Porter and Point Blank‘s Walker are versions of Parker, a career criminal who was at the center of several crime novels written by Donald “Richard Stark” Westlake.)

After helping to pull off a $140,000 heist from a Chinese triad, Porter was betrayed and left for dead by his former friend Val Resnick (Gregg Henry) and his wife, Lynn (Deborah Kara Unger).  Porter, who just wants the $70,000 cut that he was promised, starts his quest for the money by tracking down Val and Lynn, and then continues it by going after the three bosses (played by William Devane, James Coburn, and Kris Kristofferson) of “The Outfit,” a shadowy organization that Val had gotten involved with.  Along the way, Porter deals with a motely crew of corrupt cops, violent criminals, and sleazy middlemen.  (David Paymer has a memorable bit as a low-level functionary with atrocious taste in suits.)  Porter also hooks up with a prostitute named Rosie (Maria Bello), who might be the only person that he can actually trust.

I have mixed feelings about Payback.  (So did director Brian Hegeland, who was reportedly fired towards the end of shooting and later released a far different director’s cut.)  Though the film does a good job of capturing the visual style of a good neo-noir, the story itself is so violent and grim that it actually gets a little bit boring.  The film’s advertising encouraged audiences to “Get ready to root for the bad guy,” but there’s really no reason to root for Porter.  He’s an inarticulate and ruthless killer with no sense of humor.  If anything, the people that he kills seem to be far more reasonable and likable than he does.  In Point Blank, Lee Marvin may have been a bastard but he was good at what he did and you at least got the feeling that he wouldn’t go after any innocent bystanders.  In Payback, Porter is such a mess that his continued survival is largely due to dumb luck.  It’s hard to root for an idiot.

That said, the film does do a good job of capturing the feeling of people living on the fringes of society.  The Outfit is not a typical Mafia family but instead, a collection of businessmen who work out of nice offices and, in the case of William Devane’s Carter, come across as being more of a senior executive than a crime boss.  (James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson, meanwhile, come across as being two former hippies who made it rich on Wall Street.  They’re elderly versions of Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin.)  The film does a good job of creating a world where no one trusts anyone and everyone is being watched by someone.  In one memorable scene, the three men sent to watch for Porter discover that he’s been watching them the entire time.  Never forget to look over your shoulder to see who might be following.

Flaws and all, this 1999 film does a good job of capturing the atmosphere of paranoia that, for many, would come to define the early part of the 21st Century.

14 Days of Paranoia:

  1. Fast Money (1996)
  2. Deep Throat II (1974)
  3. The Passover Plot (1976)
  4. The Believers (1987)

October True Crime: The Preppie Murder (dir by John Herzfield)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1989 film, The Preppie Murder, tells the story of the murder of Jennifer Levin (played by Lara Flynn Boyle), an 18 year-old teenager from an affluent family, who was found dead in Central Park on August 26,1986.

The man who was accused of murdering her was Robert Chambers (played by William Baldwin).  Tall, handsome, and popular, Robert Chambers was a former prep school student who had spent one semester at Boston University before being asked to leave because of a series of petty crimes.  Though Chambers and Levin were both a part of the same social circle, Chambers did not come from a wealthy family.  Instead, his background was working class.  (That said, his mother did once serve as a private nurse to John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Robert Chambers even met the presidential scion once.)  Chambers supported himself through stealing his girlfriend’s jewelry and selling drugs.  At the time that he started dating Jennifer Levin, he had just gotten out of rehab.  As shown in the early part of the film, Jennifer’s friends warned her that Chambers had a bad reputation but Jennifer felt that he was just someone who had made mistakes and who was trying to take advantage of his second chance.  To be honest, it’s a sentiment to which I could relate.  I think every woman has had at least one Robert Chambers in their life, the bad boy who could melt hearts with calculated moments of vulnerability but who, in the end, turned out to be an empty shell of a human being.

In the film, the murder occurs off-screen.  We watch as Robert and Jennifer leave a bar together and then we cut to the next morning, with Robert watching from a distance as a homicide detective (Danny Aiello, bringing his trademark, no-nonsense New York style to the role) investigates the scene of Jennifer’s murder.  When the police learn that Robert was the last person to see Jennifer alive, Robert is brought in for questioning.  The cocky Robert attempts to explain away the scratches on his face and body by saying that his cat scratched him.  (“Do you own a tiger?” Aiello’s detective asks him.)  When Robert finally confesses to having killed Jennifer, he claims that he Jennifer was assaulting him and that he only struck her in self-defense.  It’s a ridiculous and offensive story but it’s one that the press loves.  Robert may be the one charged with a crime but it soon becomes clear that, despite not being able to defend herself, Jennifer is the one being put on trial.

It’s an infuriating film, all the more so because it was based on a true story and stuck close to the facts of both the case and the trial.  William Baldwin is well-cast as Robert Chambers, playing him as a handsome and superficially charming man who secretly knows that he’s empty on the inside.  William Devane plays Chambers’s high-priced attorney, who puts Jennifer on trial and only briefly allows himself any feelings of guilt about his actions.  Lara Flynn Boyle wins the viewer’s sympathy in her limited screen time and Danny Aiello is, of course, the perfect New York cop.

What was particularly disturbing about the film was its portrayal of Jennifer and Robert’s friends, many of whom chose to support Robert even though they knew he had murdered Jennifer.  The film ends with clips of Robert at a party that was thrown by his friends after he got out on bail.  While Robert pretends to twist off a doll’s heads, his friends laugh in the background, either unaware or unconcerned that Robert is recreating his murder of Jennifer while they watch.

The real-life Robert Chambers eventually pled guilty to manslaughter and spent 15 years in prison.  He was released in 2003 and promptly returned to his old life of petty crime and drug dealing.  He was sent back in prison, convicted of selling $2800 worth of heroin to an undercover cop.  He was released in July of this year.

Retro Television Reviews: The Bait (dir by Leonard J. Horn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Sundays, I will be reviewing the made-for-television movies that used to be a primetime mainstay.  Today’s film is 1973’s The Bait!  It  can be viewed on YouTube!

Tracey Fleming (Donna Mills) is the widow of a cop and an undercover detective herself.  Unfortunately, her superior, Captain Maryk (Michael Constantine), is not convinced that Tracey has what it takes to be in a dangerous situation and, as a result, Tracey spends most of her time riding the bus and busting perverts and low-level drug dealers.  When four woman are raped and murdered by the same serial killer, Tracey writes up a report on what she thinks is motivating the killer.  Captain Maryk is, at first, skeptical about Tracey’s claim that the killer is fueled by a puritanical rage but, when it turns out that the killer has been wiping off his victims’s lipstick (just as Tracey speculated that he was), Maryk starts to think that Tracey might have something to offer the investigation.

Tracey becomes the bait in an operation to lure out the killer.  Leaving behind her son and her mother, Tracey moves into an apartment in the neighborhood that is believed to be the center of the killer’s activities.  Tracey is given a job as a survey taker and soon, she’s walking around the neighborhood and asking random men for their opinions on current events and women’s liberation.  A local waitress (Arlene Golonka) recognizes Tracey as a detective but Tracey lies and say that she’s no longer with the force.  When the killer makes the waitress his next victim, Tracey becomes even more determined to capture him but will she able to get Marsyk and the rest of the force to give her the room to investigate the murders?

This may sound like an intriguing whodunit but, for some reason, The Bait reveals early on that the murderer is a bus driver named Earl Stokely (played, in a very early performance, by William Devane).  There’s really nothing to be gained by revealing the killer’s identity as early as the film does.  Perhaps if the film was split between scenes of Tracey investigating the neighborhood and Earl stalking Tracey, that would have generated some sort of suspense but, with the exception of one bus ride, Tracey and Earl barely even interact before he comes after her at the film’s end.  Devane does give a good performance as a homicidal lunatic but, when viewed today, it’s impossible to watch him in this film without spending most of the time thinking, “Hey, that’s the usually Kennedyesque William Devane, playing a killer bus driver!”

I was not surprised to learn that The Bait was intended to be a pilot for a weekly television series that would have followed the future investigations of Tracey Fleming.  Donna Mills was likable in the lead role and she had a good chemistry with the other actors playing her colleagues so it’s easy to imagine a series in which Tracey solved a new case every week while Marsyk continually underestimated her.  Ultimately, though, that series never happened and The Bait would be the sole televised adventure of Detective Tracey Fleming.