The Badge or the Cross

... and maybe part of it is that it was mentioned on the cover of TV Guide the week that it played. It is about a cop (George Kennedy) whose wife is murdered who decides to leave the force and become a priest. I remember some things about the movie. One of the things that stand out is the argument that the seminary is having about "Sarge" studying for the priesthood in the first place. The controversy seemed to revolve - not around his age - but his previous marital status. Because he was married, Sarge obviously "likes" women and has had sex with women, and this is a problem for some of the priests running the seminary, oddly enough. Ultimately they decide that he is unmarried now due to the death of his spouse, and as long as he remains celibate he can be a priest.

He winds up serving in the same San Diego neighborhood in which he was patrolling, finds his wife's murderer, and has to decide what to do based on whether he is really a cop at heart, or a priest.

The first two episodes of the series based on the movie were cross overs with Ironside in Season 5 of that show, and I would tell you to go watch the DVDs of Season 5 of that series to get a taste of the Sarge character, but alas Ironside DVDs ended with Season 4. So it seems Sarge is cursed to remain forever in our memories, although the cross-over episodes with Ironside sometime show up on youtube and other online sources for old orphaned TV shows.

The TV show that sprang from the movie ultimately only ran half a season because it was up against the very popular Hawaii FIve-O. I guess a priest in San Diego could just not compete with "Book Em Danno".

An unlikely plot deals with a cop, whose wife is murdered, and who then becomes ordained a Catholic priest, gets assigned to a poor parish with special needs in the district where he was a cop, and who somehow attempts to track down his wife's murderer. The cop-priest struggles to get his priorities straight--avenging the death of his wife as a cop or serving God in the role of a priest.

In my opinion, the best part of the movie is the "Mass" music. A minor subplot entails some youth pressuring the young, but stern monsignor to allow them to have a "folk mass" just once. Of course, the cop-priest intervenes; that is, up to the point the "folk mass" becomes a "rock mass." As music director at my church, I've completed the Mass music, written out the musical score, and used the music during services. Other than that, the movie--to me--was a time waster. The film offers little in the way of suspense or drama. It was nothing significant or exciting. But perhaps, I got distracted by the music??? There was a follow up to the movie, one that was equally uneventful, something about a plot to murder a number of priests. There wasn't even any good music to save the the sequel.