kenstallings-65346

For a movie to be excellent, all parts have to rise to the same level. The Grand Duel is an example of a movie that focused so hard on style that it forgot to invest in a good story.

The plot is formulaic to the point of boredom. The acting is terribly uneven, with a good performance by Lee Van Cleef surrounded by poor performances by nearly everyone else in front of the camera.

In sum we have a B movie trying to be something more and failing. Ironically, the greatest claim to fame is having its score used in a Quentin Tarantino movie decades later.

Given how frequently this production grafted cinematography methods from far better features, it seems only poetic justice that its score was grafted onto a future effort.

For Van Cleef, it was just one more production he could cash in on and muster the best possible performance given the myriad of limitations foisted onto him by the inferior production, direction, and writing.

This episode was created as a pilot episode for a planned series starring Desi Arnaz as "Doctor Domingo." However, the network decided to cancel the series, so this is the only appearance of the character there is.

Sadly, the network executives seemed to suffer from the same myopia that most American couldn't engage with a series that starred a Latin actor, which is truly ridiculous considering that Arnaz was the co-star on TV's most successful series in history -- I Love Lucy!

The interplay between Ironside and Domingo is excellent as the two play off on each other to solve the murder in a well scripted narrative.

This series resonates for decades as powerful as it was back in 1972 when it premiered. In all fifty states of America, it is not a violation of law to walk around without ID. You have to have a drivers license on your person to operate a vehicle, but only on public roads. You can drive a vehicle of any type on your private property without an ID.

The entire premise of this episode is based upon that legal reality. Yet, people are often harassed by police, and sometimes arrested by them, because they are walking in public and cops demand to know who they are. This is a violation of law, in that the demand to know identity must first be founded on the probable cause that said person violated the law.

In short, America isn't a nation where cops are authorized to walk up to anyone of choice, and demand to see their papers!

As this episode is played out, one must keep in mind that the justice system only remains just if it keeps itself moored firmly to the law, spirit and letter. If the system devolves itself into a meat market, where people are routinely rounded up on charges conjured up from thin air, then the system is corrupt and evil.

Frankly, this episode should be required viewing and academic discussion in every single police academy in the nation. The final scene is priceless, where the protagonist (and victim) has a wordless glance with the two police officers whose conduct started the whole series of events.

Had those two officers rose above their own relatively trivial problems and performed their sworn duties properly, the next few days of events would have played out radically different.

The difference between proper police work, vice shoddy police work, or ultimately corrupt police work, is driven home powerfully in this episode.