L'homme de fer

Robert Ironside the chief of San Francisco's police force is gunned down causing him to be confined to a wheelchair for life, but he traps the attacker.

Pretty good pilot for a hugely successful TV series which ran between 1968-1974. The latter was always watchable and made something worth while out of the most routine story lines.

Late 60's San Francisco is more than the backdrop, it's the fore-drop for this most remarkable 1967 TV-Movie. A haunting melange of establishment and counterculture, impeccably acted and scripted, this be one of the most cerebral movies ever made for TV. There's also no shortage of marvelous acting and character development.

While on his first holiday for about 25 years, tough Detective Ironside is shot and left for dead at a remote farmhouse. He survives but is disabled – never able to walk again. The city is shocked and the news media enjoy the opportunity to show how the hardnosed man has been softened. However Bob Ironside is determined not to be trapped in his chair and volunteers to work within the police department, taking his own case on as his very first. With the help of Mark Sanger, Ironside is mobile and out to show the criminal element of San Francisco that not being able to walk has had no impact on his tough approach to life.

On the basis that this pilot spawned a television show that still is famous decades later, I decided to give this film a try (despite not really remembering the TV show itself). What I found was a fairly standard television cop show from the period, complete with tough detective who tells it like it is and wants justice done. None of this surprised me and although the film does have an investigation to follow, the majority of the film is just about showing us this tough character, his methods and the little cracks in his character that will be explored over many series to come (in theory). This in itself wasn't enough for me because I wasn't watching the start of a series, I was watching a film that had to stand on its own. The investigation itself involves picking through old enemies of Ironside while building this very basic character – a character clearly designed to appeal to those who did not appreciate the relaxed morals and apologistic nature of sixties youth. Suffice to say I didn't think it worked as a detective mystery and generally it wasn't delivered that well – not helped by the TV direction and the bewildering use of large numbers of fast edits in scenes that just didn't need it.

The cast are pretty standard. To me Burr is only Perry Mason simply because it was his Mason films that I grew up with. As Ironside he is a simple tough character who is as much a caricature as a person – the only thing it did do was make me wonder how Ironside would view Burr's personal life! The support cast are just filler with nobody really doing anything of note. Mitchell works reasonably alongside Burr but his character isn't convincing; meanwhile the only other person that stuck in my mind was someone listed in the final credits called "Eddie Firestone" who played a character called "Wheels" – not that funny but it amused me enough to remember at least.

Overall a fairly standard television cop show that has much about it that has dated. The plot is average at best and didn't really engage me while the main character was a simply thing that seemed designed to appeal to the "stay at home and watch telly" demographic that didn't approve of the relaxed morals of the sixties. Worth a look if you liked the TV series I suppose but probably not good enough for the casual viewer to bother with.

After being shot and left for dead near his house,Chief Ironside learns that he would never be able to walk again. He then decides to be a specific consultant fighting crime with his own team of handpicked assistants and policemen including Eve Whitfield and Sergent Brown. He will also introduce Mark Sanger to his team despite Mark dislikes cops and is reluctant. Ironside will discover and find who shoot him and left him paralyzed for the rest of his life. The action and the subplots were superb. Plus the filming on various the locations was done superbly. I recommend this film as a necessary introduction to the Ironside TV series.

Normally, I dismiss TV pilots as movies, but this is one notable exception; this is a great TV-movie that happened to lead to a TV Show. Raymond Burr is electrifying as he injects the character with many very real dimensions. The writing is taut and true. The Quincy Jones score is magnificent, and the movie is an extremely reflective time capsule of San Francisco in 1967 -- a most remarkable place.