Sat 7 Apr 2012
Maybe you can help.
I am going nuts trying to find the title for a crime movie I saw on TV in the mid-70’s. Only caught the last half and I don’t recall any major stars.
The plot: a group of detectives are in a police office after hours waiting for one of the number to come in. In strolls a woman with a gun and a bottle of nitroglycerin. She claims the detective killed her husband and she’s going to kill him when he arrives. If any of the other detectives interfere, she’ll shoot the bottle of nitro and blow the whole office sky-high. Much tension ensues.
Does this movie sound familiar?
— Tim Mayer
April 7th, 2012 at 1:26 pm
It sounds familiar, but no more than that. From the plot description, it has the ring of a made-for-TV movie to me, but that’s only my first reaction.
Can anyone say more?
April 7th, 2012 at 2:07 pm
This sounds like the plot of Ed McBain’s 87th Precinct novel KILLER’S WEDGE. It’s been adapted as a movie twice, once in France in 1963 and in Japan in 2005. Maybe it was used as the basis for an episode of a TV show?
April 7th, 2012 at 2:32 pm
McBain was the first thing that came to me also. Dunno if it’s ever been televised, though.
April 7th, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Vince and Jerry
You guys are good. Here’s a description of the book version of KILLER’S WEDGE:
“Determined to kill Steve Carella, Virginia Dodge takes hostages at the 87th Precinct by threatening to explode a homemade bomb.”
I’m still looking to find a filmed version of the story, though. Nothing on IMDB.
April 7th, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Even better is John Norris’s review of the book on his blog:
http://prettysinister.blogspot.com/2012/02/killers-wedge-ed-mcbain.html
April 7th, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Nothing on Google so far suggests an English language film of the book. Maybe somebody took the main idea and made a movie of it, sub rosa.
April 8th, 2012 at 12:26 pm
Reading the description, it sounds exactly like the movie I saw, down to the bottle of Nitro. But I’m sure this was an American movie.
April 8th, 2012 at 2:47 pm
I still have the feeling I mentioned in Comment #1 that I’ve seen the movie too, and I know I haven’t read the book. This is strange. Cue the TWILIGHT ZONE theme.
April 8th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
To save Steve’s sanity, Tim and Steve what else do you remember about the show?
Location?
Type of cops/how many?
Quinn Martin serious or Aaron Spelling cheese?
TV movie pilot or just TV movie or theatrical film shown on TV?
Something that was “inspired” by someone else’s work? Have you looked at the credits of two of my favorite (seriously) producers from the 70s – Roy Huggins and Glen Larson?
April 8th, 2012 at 5:15 pm
I’ll let Tim answer that from his perspective, but for me, all I have a vague idea of the basic plot line, and that’s about it. It still sounds like a made-for-TV movie to me, not a theatrical film. If anyone would like to pursue this, checking the credits of guys like Huggins and Larson sounds like a good idea to me.
April 8th, 2012 at 8:59 pm
Damn, but this is turning into a mystery in and of itself. What I read about the 87th Precinct book mirrors what I remember of the movie.
I remember the tension as the detectives tried to get the gun-and-Nitro wielding woman away from the bottle. They even turn on the heater to get her to start drinking from the water cooler so she’ll move away from the bottle. No good. They even discuss whether or not it’s real Nitro in the bottle. No one wants to risk it being genuine.
OK, here’s the ending (spoiler!):
When the detective she’s been awaiting strolls in, he’s got an (obvious) hooker handcuffed to him. The wife of the dead crook accuses him of killing her husband. He responds by telling her:”Lady, I don’t know what you’re talking about. He shot at me first and in front of 12 witnesses I took the gun off him. AND FURTHERMORE, this woman claims to be his wife!”
Realizing her dead husband has been two-timing her, the widow goes crazy and swings the gun in the direction of the bottle. But the cops over-power her and wrestle the it away.
Final scene: two detectives sitting around a phone. One is talking on it, he hangs it up. The other: “Well, what was it?”
Answer: “Nitroglycerin. Pure grade-A”.
Funny how I can remember this years later.
April 8th, 2012 at 11:25 pm
The possible suspects as TV series episodes begin with the 1961-62 TV series 87th PRECINCT on NBC that adapted several of McBain’s books.
The 70’s most likely suspect would be NBC’s POLICE STORY, an anthology series that aired between 1973-78. But TV.com has synopsis of each episode and I didn’t see any that might fit this ending. There was MADIGAN (1972) starring Richard Widmark and DAN AUGUST starring Burt Reynolds (1970-71).
Most likely suspect would be a TV Movie or mini-series. ABC even had a mystery movie of the week. And there was a time when every day had one network showing a TV movie of the week.
Best chance of finding the title is to remember one of the actors, then IMDB might be able to solve the case for you.
Good luck.
April 9th, 2012 at 12:14 pm
Just back from IMDb, supplemented by my hit-&-miss memory.
– The source is indeed Evan Hunter/Ed McBain’s 87th precinct novel Killer’s Wedge.
– It’s been done on TV twice:
(1) As an episode of the ’61-’62 87th Precinct series on NBC, airing October 1, 1961, the ep titled “Lady In Waiting”.
Constance Ford (later of Another World daytime fame) played the lady with the nitro.
(2) On Bob Hope’s Chrysler Theater, airing May 17, 1967, entitled “Deadlock”.
Lee Grant was the nitro lady in this one.
The 87th cops all got different names in this version.
– These were both MCA shows (the 87th series when it was known as Revue; the Hope series as Universal).
– Hunter/McBain recieved writer credits on both shows, according to IMDb; Stanford Whitmore recieves co-credit on the Hope show.
If someone here can directly link to the IMDb pages in question (I can’t), you can find all the other details there.
Personal side note:
I remember seeing both these shows on their first airings.
I remember that when the Bob Hope show aired, my dad spotted it as an old 87th story, and did a play-by-play for the rest of the family as it played out.
Hope (no pun intended) this helps.
April 9th, 2012 at 12:35 pm
Thanks, Mike! You’re batting two for two with this one. The Chrysler Theater version is probably the one Tim remembers, but I’ll let him make the call on that.
Here’s the link to the 87th Precinct page. (No plot summary.)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0503885/
And to the Chrysler page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0528174/
…where the plot summary reads:
“A woman walks into a police station with a pistol and a vial of nitroglycerin. It turns out that she is the widow of an infamous criminal shot and killed by a detective. She notifies the police that she is waiting for the detective who shot her husband and intends to kill him in front of his fellow officers.”
This is the one. At 60m including commercials, it’s not really a movie, but I’ll bet it was shown more than once later in some sort of syndication package.
April 10th, 2012 at 12:21 am
How strange,
I was looking for this episode as well. I remember it vividly seeing it as a kid in the late ’60s or early ’70s, especially the part about the nitroglycerin and the discovery at the end when it was found out to be indeed real (Lee Grant as the actress sounds right). I was so impressed that I even made some fake nitro and scared my cousin by telling her that it was real and that I was going to blow up their house (kids can be really cruel!).
At first I thought I have found this in the 7th season of Barney Miller (episode 18) called “The Lady and the Bomb.” But I just watched it and it’s not the same. This woman had a bomb in a pot — I remember distinctly seeing the nitro vial in the other movie. Will someone let me know if they ever locate a video of it? Many thanks!
April 10th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Sounds like it must be either of the adaptations from the McBain novel – intriguingly, the original book contrasts the siege plot with a completely separate story in which Steve Carella, the investigator the woman with the nitro is waiting for, is off investigating a locked room mystery in the style of John Dickson Carr (who gets name checked in the book), so contrasting two very different traditions within the mystery genre. The book is well worth picking up.
April 10th, 2012 at 9:43 pm
I’m opting for the 60’s version with Lee Grant. For some reason, her face triggered a latent memory of the show. And the 60′ format would account for why it seemed I had come in at the 1/2 way point.
October 10th, 2017 at 7:55 pm
Tim Mayer, I’ve been looking for the same information. I watched that movIe also. I’ve read every 87th Precinct mystery, and I remember that movie well. But I can’t find any reference to it on the web.