Get Christie Love!

Taking an honored place among the black exploitation characters of the Seventies is Teresa Graves and the indelible character she created in Get Christie Love. When she walked away from the series and later from show business all together she certainly was never forgotten.

I do remember her as a regular on Rowan&Martin back in the day and she was a talented woman with the ability to take herself not too seriously. Until she decided to become a Jehovah Witness. That was taking in to the max.

Christie Love is a LAPD policewoman who's real handy both with weapon and with fighting skills. When we first meet her she's taking down a serial rapist all by herself because her backup didn't get there on time to be of assistance. But her supervisor has bigger plans for her.

Harry Guardino playing the supervisor wants Graves to go undercover to find a ledger that drug kingpin Paul Stevens is supposed to have. Since the days of Al Capone those things are kept under the tightest of hoodlum security. Stevens certainly has one tightly secured operation. In these days before computers nothing is down on paper. All that they can learn for a while is that Louise Sorel has something to do with the books.

Teresa Graves was not alone or unique in putting religion first. Dolores Hart left movies to become a nun in the 60s. Later on Kirk Cameron made the same kind of demands on the producers of Growing Pains when he got into fundamentalist Christianity. Only Kirk came back using his celebrity for evangelism. Both Graves and Hart took a more private and more respectful approach to religion.

This was a television pilot, nothing spectacular or great about it except for Teresa Graves. She was unforgettable, RIP Teresa Graves.

I really find it offensive that this site said she "ruined her career" by turning down roles due to religious views. MORE black people needed to do the same so perhaps we still wouldn't be playing prostitutes, gang members, tough cops, scared comic relief aside white actors, and buffoons. She had hire morals and this site calls that a negative? So her infamous comment of the word "nigger" is positive? I am proud of this lady and her courage to NOT play negative roles. WHAT can ANYONE say against that? In todays times it is clear that many actors such as chris Tucker, play the typical scared black man roles, or even greats like richard prior took degrading roles in movies, never playing the brains till eddie murphy gave him the chance, but alas, eddie played the joke next to the white actor when he started off as well with nick nolte. So I feel Ms graves is a hero for black actors and actresses. Better to NOT work than play a pimp... Like the classic movie "hollywood shuffle" so aptly put it, "there is work at the post office"

Christie Love's friends, enemies, and co-workers live in an alternate-reality world that attempts to depict Los Angeles in the early 1970's. Not the way it really was, but the way the scriptwriters wanted it to be. Along the way, expect Ms Love to blatantly flip off her boss and get away with it, for him to make advances to her when there's no apparent chemistry, and for her to behave like Superwoman "with emotions". One of the bad guys simply lets himself be flipped out an upper-story window. It doesn't matter that he weighs over twice what she does, if you look closely enough, he's actually helping her. What a guy! Did I say that almost everyone she knows in this movie dies? Ms. Graves also appears to be in a contest with everyone else to see who can be the worst actor. It's fun watching who's worse, it pays to actually have a scorecard. You can rank Harry Guardino first for the bad opening, and then keep notes from there.

This movie actually succeeds in points, despite itself. They put a bit of money into it, there are some good production values - I mean the now-vintage cars sometimes project better than the humans, but hey, the scale I'm using refers to television, not the cinema. You won't be crying with the actors as much as laughing at them, but you won't be turning this show off, either.

I had no trouble with the volume on my copy. But, at two DVD's for a dollar in my local supermarket, I don't feel ripped off either.

An informant tells "Captain Casey Reardon" (Harry Guardino) of the Los Angeles Police Department that a major heroin shipment is coming in and that a drug-lord's girlfriend named "Helena Varga" (Louise Sorel) has all of the information on a secret ledger. Initially an undercover police detective named "Christie Love" (Teresa Graves) is called in but when her cover is blown she is taken off the case. At least that is what Captain Reardon tells her. Christie, on the other hand, doesn't want to be taken off the case. Therefore she takes it upon herself to dig deeper in order to get Helena to cooperate. Having said all of that, I thought Teresa Graves put on a very good performance despite the inherent limitations a made-for-television movie has placed upon it. I especially liked the flirtatious interplay between Christie Love and Captain Reardon and the way she used her sex appeal to her advantage. Be that as it may, while this movie might seem a bit tame to some viewers, I enjoyed it for the most part and rate it as slightly above average.

Based on the book, "The Ledger", Get Christie Love was the first time a black female portrayed a detective on network TV. Teresa Graves is adequately compelling as the cop with some attitude whose superior, Captain Reardon (Harry Guardino), has a major open flirtation with her that she seems to occasionally encourage. The main plot concerns the search of a drug dealer's ledger through the interrogation of the wife in order to bring him down. Despite some fight scenes and car chases that attract some attention, the pace seemed mostly dreary and I almost fell asleep before the end. The most interesting discovery for me, however, was the appearance of Ron Rifkin as a serial killer of prostitutes named Normand whom Christie catches in the beginning when she dresses as one. Rifkin would, nearly three decades later, play Sloane on one of the most exciting action series ever-Alias. Compared to that show, this TV movie that later became a series doesn't have as exciting fight scenes but I guess network censorship was more stricter then. Worth a look for historical purposes.