Incident on a Dark Street Reviews

An NBC made-for-TV movie with all the earmarks of a pilot for a series about the complicated personal and professional lives of attoneys working for the Justice Department, this sober crime drama crams serveral movies' worth of plot into its 96-minute running time. The main story involves low-level crook Frank Romeo (Richard Castellano), who gets a phone call from his more accomplished brother, mob foot-soldier Vinnie (Tony Giorgio), just before Vinnie is murdered. Vinnie orders Frank to tell attorney Peter Gallagher (David Canary) all about Vinnie's work for big-time organized crime figure Dominic Leopold (silent-film star Gilbert Roland), which Vinnie has carefully documented in case of trouble. Frank knows where Vinnie's cache of incriminating records is hidden, but foolishly tries to work the situation to his own advantage. Meanwhile, Gallagher's boss, Joe Dubbs (James Olsen), encourages his staff to use a recently passed law designed to facilitate prosecution of interstate crimes to wage war on the Mafia, and newly sworn-in attorney Paul Hamilton (Robert Pine) gets caught in an ethical dilemma involving a smalltime criminal (James Davidson) and his terminally ill wife (Kathleen Lloyd). Gallagher gets enough information from Frank to realize that Deaver Wallace (William Shatner), head of the Office of Public Utilities, and his associate Ed Schilling (Murray Hamilton), are conspiring to award lucrative construction contracts to Leopold's companies. Gallagher's challenge is keeping the bumbling Frank alive long enough to build a viable case against Deaver and, through him, against Leopold. Though talky and slow-moving, this earnest drama contains some effective moments and a strikingly performance by Lloyd in the small role of the woman who begs Hamilton to keep her husband out of jail long enough that she can spend her last months with him.