User Reviews

Featuring an appearance of Madison Arnold as a syndicate hit-man who really loves his work, this Rockford Files episode begins once again with Stuart Margolin banging on James Garner's trailer door in the middle of the night.

For once Angel really didn't do anything other than witness Arnold murder a hooker. He's like that, Arnold will occasionally throw in a freebie and that makes him quite the syndicate loose cannon. As for Margolin that doesn't stop him from trying to exploit the situation, he's got himself a ghostwriter and a publisher to sell his story.

But when the fix is put in and the case dismissed, both Rockford and Angel are in the crapper. Arnold presents a problem to the guys who hired him as well, Frank DeKova and Vincent Baggetta, he's bringing down to much heat.

In a rather intricate way it all gets resolved in the end. And of course Angel's schemes are blown sky high. But as sure as death and taxes you know Angel will have another scheme in the next episode Stuart Margolin makes an appearance.

In this episode, Angel witnesses a shooting death of a prostitute in a seedy motel, although I'm not sure why Angel is even there to begin with, but the killer with the cool name, Del Kane, who is played solidly by Madison Arnold, sees Angel staring up the steps at Kane in surprise and starts shooting at him. After this happens, he sprints to Rockford's trailer and wakes him up, then asks for help; being a true friend, Jim is sympathetic towards Angel and gives him advice, as James Garner's acting skills are evident in this scene. A few scenes later, Angel is put in a witness protection plan, where he takes full advantage of Chapman, who's also in fine form; Angel is put up in a very nice motel, and orders Chapman to get his eggs for him, and lives like a king. What does Angel do moments after Chapman warns him to stay away from the window? You guessed it, as he's enjoying a glass of wine near the window, a bullet smashes his glass to bits in a very predictable moment. The professional killer, Kane, now wants Rockford dead, as well as Angel, and there's a cool chase scene between the Firebird and a slick Seville, although we hear police sirens during the chase, but we don't know what happened to the police car. Look for a few familiar faces including an unhealthy looking Barry Atwater(who died a few months later, mentioned by the other reviewer of this episode), and Gerald McRaney(Simon & Simon); Rocky makes a funny appearance at a hotel where Jim and Angel are hiding out, Dennis appears very late, but probably wasn't needed. It got slightly confusing to me when some mob guys didn't seem to trust each other, and some want to kill other mob members, but it's still a very fine episode. An important scene near the end has Angel thinking he won on the horses, but it's a trap, as Rockford tried to warn him, but it is in fact a trap, and Angel is taken under a bridge and questioned where Rockford is, while tied with his hands behind his back on a cement piling. A few moments later, Rockford and the police show up, and Dennis shoots one of the hoods, and all is well. This is just another solid episode, with the chemistry between Rockford and Angel the best aspect here.

Even by the standards of episodes featuring the super-entertaining Stuart Margolin (RIP) this episode is great. Angel witnesses a murder in his apartment building. He's not too enthused about being the DA's star witness. Turns out the perp is a mob hitman, so Angel gets 24-hour police protection in exchange for testifying.

Margolin gets a lot of funny lines. He absolutely owns this episode.

Nevertheless, I want to mention three of this episode's guests all intersecting at different times of their careers.

In one of his last appearances, Barry Atwater plays a gun seller who gives Rockford information about the shooter. Atwater looks like he's already had a stroke but he still has solid, dignified line delivery. You might remember him playing Spock's father from the original Star Trek. Total pro.

Then there's Barbra Rae in one of her 11 screen credits. She plays a friend of the murder victim and she's quite good in her scene with Rockford. I wonder why she had so few TV and movie credits. I hope that means she enjoyed a long career on stage.

And finally, Gerald McRaney is the DA. I wondered whether this was an early credit for "Major Dad." Turns out he'd been - and continued to be - in just about every TV show from the 70s before hitting big as the co-star of Simon & Simon. Check out the Wiki entry on that show. Nearly cancelled after Season 1, it was slotted into CBS's Thursday night lineup at Magnum P. I. where it turned into a Top 10 show for three seasons. Halfway through it's run NBC launched The Cosby Show at 8 against Magnum, and Cheers at 9 against Simon & Simon. Years later, FOX launched The Simpsons to go head-to-head vs Cosby. Talk about an all-time network battle involving iconic shows.