THE TAKE. Columbia Pictures, 1974. Billy Dee Williams, Eddie Albert, Vic Morrow, Frankie Avalon, Sorrell Booke, Tracy Reed, Albert Salmi, A Martinez. based on the novel Sir, You Bastard by G. F. Newman. Director: Robert Hartford-Davis.

   Billy Dee Williams, who was rather young at the time, plays a San Francisco cop who comes down to Paloma, New Mexico, to help harried police chief Eddie Albert bring Vic Morrow to justice, as a local organized crime leader named Victor Manso, posing as a highly respected community leader.

   What we the viewer soon know that Williams also has a hidden identity, that of a cop on the take. Apparently he’s been accepting graft money from mobsters for quite some time now, all the while building up his resumé as a dedicated cop on his way up. He even has a middle man in Sorrell Booke to launder his money for him.

   There are some occasional good scenes in The Take, a lot of good professional actors having some solid roles to play, and a more than a sufficient amount of TV style action (vicious thuggery and endless car chase scenes). The problem is twofold: (1) Williams is cocky without being likeable, and (2) there’s no sense of continuity between the good parts, the several there are. The result, not surprisingly, is a listless, jumbled up mess. Watchable, but once seen, there’s no particular reason you’d ever want to sit through this again.