Ironside

Raymond Burr is excellent as Robert T. Ironside and proves that despite being crippled by a snipers bullet, manages to trap his would be assassin and bring the culprit to book.

Great locations,(set in San Francisco), powerful score by Quincy Jones and excellent supporting cast.

This film captures the mood of the late 60's in America, better than any other film of its time.

Naturally with the above combination it was decided to make a successful tv series that ran for eight years and quite rightly so, I always thought Ironside was one of the best cop shows of the 60's & 70's and it was exciting to see how he would cope in dangerous situations when confronting crooks, when his friends were not always around to help him.

Raymond Burr as Ironside proved that he could solve cases sitting down better than any other tv cop standing and despite being paraplegic he was more than a match for any able bodied villain or crook, with his sharp mind and 26yrs experience on the SFPD.

Excellent film and tv series, its a pity there is nothing like it around like it today.

I lived in San Francisco from 1964-1980 and had a great fondness for the city. Raymond Burr had an immediate hit with this show and I enjoyed it immensely. It was always interesting to see the shots of where Mark Sanger was driving and how they would cut to a studio set when they got out of the van. I always wondered how they made the old Hall of Justice look like it was still on Montgomery Street when it had been torn down by the start of the series.

Another enjoyment was the development of the characters, particularly Mark Sanger who went from an uneducated street punk to a cop and then an attorney over the years.

Barbara Anderson got an Emmy for her work on the series as I recall.

If you look at the guest star list, there are a lot of character actors on it who appeared in everything from the 50's to the 80's including Richar Anderson, Michael Conrad, and Jack Soo.

An exciting show and I find little on TV today which makes me want to watch it every week like I did with Ironside.

George Senda Martinez, Ca

There are precious few actors who can create two successful television characters. More recent examples include Mary Tyler Moore (Mary Richards and Laura Petrie) and Bob Newhart (Bob Hartley and Dick Loudon). In 1966, Burr completed a nine-year run as the most recognizable attorney on television. In 1967, returning to television, his challenge was to create a new character that wouldn't stand in Perry Mason's shadow. The result was Ironside -- a rough, former chief of the San Francisco police forced to retire when an attempted assassination leaves him paralyzed. (The theme music is reprised in "Kill Bill Vol. 1", whenever the Bride flashes back on her paralyzing injuries.) Bob Ironside had none of Perry Mason's polish, frequently spoke without thinking, and enjoyed fast cars as much as he relished good police work. He was given a special task force that included a regular joe beat-cop, Ed Brown (even in the sixties, a more vanilla name was never given a character); a highbrow, educated female detective (Eve Whitfield); and a troubled black youth, Mark Sanger, who was to Ironside what Charlie Young is to President Bartlet on "The West Wing". Instead of the Los Angeles setting of Perry Mason, Ironside was in San Francisco. In addition, while Perry Mason kept the lights on at CBS for nearly a decade, Ironside was a steady performer for NBC for almost as long. The show was an instant critical and commercial success.

I think the reason Ironside is not as popular in reruns now as it was in the late 70s and early 80s is it will always be in the shadow of Mason, and that's a shame. The two shows are not the same, and there are many memorable episodes of Ironside. One in particular features Ironside isolated in his apartment, being stalked by a killer, that always reminded me of the climactic scene in "Rear Window" -- in which the killer was played by Raymond Burr! One of my favorite lines of dialogue, from the pilot, was his ribbing of his female detective: "By all means, ask Detective Whitfield. She's had the benefit of a classical education." That line -- which would never have passed Perry Mason's lips -- is a good sample of Ironside's tone through the series.

There have been three Halls of Justice buildings in San Francisco's history and the building that appears in every episode of Ironside, which ran from 1967 to 1975, was the 'second' Hall of Justice and it is often referred to as the 'Old' Hall of Justice. It contained the city's jail, police station, courtrooms, and District Attorneys Office. Its address was 750 Kearny Street, which placed it on the east side of Kearny between Washington and Merchant.

The 'original' and 'first' Hall of Justice stood on the same spot but was destroyed in the great San Francisco earthquake on 18th April 1906 during which it burnt to the ground. The original building bore a passing resemblance to its successor except for the addition of a tall clock tower that overlooked Kearny Street.

The Old Hall of Justice was first occupied in 1912 but by 1950 it had outgrown the purpose for which it was built. A 'third' larger Hall of Justice was built about 11/2 miles distant on a new site at 850 Bryant Street, between 7th and Harriet.

The Old Hall of Justice was finally abandoned in 1961 and was subsequently gutted of its luxurious fixtures and fittings, comprising wood and marble panelling, brass door knobs and hinges, carpets, furniture and other decorative features. It was finally demolished in 1967 after standing derelict.

Stock footage of the derelict building was used to highlight the location of Ironside's office, which was on the top floor, left hand side, as viewed from the front of the building. A row of semi-circular windows adorned the top floor offices. Ironside's office, which also doubled as his apartment complete with semi-circular window, was recreated in the studio for the filming of the series.

Also seen in the same stock footage is the Coit Tower on Telegraph Hill, which is located a short distance to the north of Portsmouth Square. Portsmouth Square, which is located on Kearny between Washington and Clay, was once the centre of 'old' San Francisco and is now part of the Chinatown district of the city.

Looking eastward from Portsmouth Square prior to 1967, the frontal view of the Old Hall of Justice would have been instantly familiar to Ironside fans. Its sides and rear aspects were never filmed, presumably because they were far less attractive.

Midway along the front of the Old Hall of Justice was a street-level entrance to an underground car park. It was through this narrow entrance that Ironside's personal transporter, a grey-painted, blue-striped, supercharged police van, originally painted black, was occasionally seen to use. His subsequent transport, a sand-coloured Ford van, which was introduced into the series after the police van was destroyed in one episode, is never seen near the Old Hall of Justice because the building had been demolished and a new building was in the course of erection.

Today, the site is occupied by the 27-floor, Hilton San Francisco Financial District Hotel and the Chinese Cultural Centre, which share the same address. Behind the Hilton Hotel on Montgomery Street stands the famous Transamerica Pyramid, another of San Francisco's noteworthy landmark buildings.

There are ongoing arguments concerning the wisdom of demolishing a building such as the Old Hall of Justice and replacing it with a modern skyscraper structure. Many of San Francisco's inhabitants regard the design and appearance of the Old Hall of Justice as having more character and beauty than the edifices that replaced it.

Actor Raymond Burr just couldn't relax after nine seasons as defense lawyer/super sleuth Perry Mason. So,after many years on the Tiffany network,CBS-TV,the actor switched networks this time over to the Peacock Network,NBC-TV where the majority of its programming was in living color.

The show is called "Ironside" and when it premiered in the fall of 1967,it came around a time where the fight of the civil rights movement was being followed(three years after President Lyndon B. Johnson sign in into law the civil rights act in 1964),the protest of the Vietnam War,and at a time where the nation was at a crossroads with the death of two of the nation's most famous leaders were cut down at the peak of their prime(Bobby Kennedy,and Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr.)not to mention at the same time the nation's most rioting of its cities and the summer of love and so forth. This show also came about during the escalation of the Vietnam War,the fall of Watergate and ended its run with the final Presidency of Richard M. Nixon. All of this occurred during the show's run. It is also to note that this series was Raymond Burr's second successful show,after playing America's most recognizable lawyer for more than a decade. "Ironside",was a consistent ratings winner throughout the eight years that it ran on NBC-TV from its premiere episode in September of 1967 through the show's final episode of the series in April of 1975.

"Ironside" was the first crime drama series to show a person who had a disability but at the same time had a knack for catching the baddies and so forth and Raymond Burr was a master actor at what he did. Just like Perry Mason,Ironside also knew the law and how it was to be used and not abused. Burr's character was the chief of police of the San Francisco Police Department who was in charge of special cases along with his partners Don Galloway,Don Mitchell,and Barbara Anderson who were all police officers. If there was something going down,you know that Ironside was on the case! The show had everything and I do mean everything that included crooked officers not to mention social issues of its day and so forth. Oh yeah,the music....was composer Quincy Jones the greatest ever! Yes,the best theme score ever made! Also to note that this show had a array of guest stars to boot as well that made their appearances including one episode which featured a very successful and popular Motown singer making his acting debut. The others including a array of stars that were regulars or special guest starsone of which including veteran actors Severn Darren and Bernie Hamilton. The series also show some of the best drama and high octane drama anywhere and you'll see this in some of the episodes too. You also got the chance to see Ironside's helper Mark Sanger go for being his assistant, to private detective,to police officer,and by the final season of the series go from getting married to being a district attorney and from there district court justice of the peace.

The pilot was a made for TV-Movie that premiered that same year before it became a TV series as part of NBC's Saturday Night Special. The series ran on NBC-TV from 1967-75,and after it went off the air twelve years later,the peacock network brought Burr back as Ironside in a made for TV-Movie called "The Return Of Ironside" in 1987,reuniting Raymond Burr with former cast members Don Galloway and Don Mitchell and a special guest appearance from Barbara Anderson. Recently,TV-Land brought back the reruns to this classic series and it needs to be seen for those of us who have fond memories of this show from the late 60's and part of the early 70's.