L'incendiario

Tom seleck. Sgt hulka. The professor. Need more of this. Loved it. Woman looks like Suzanne plushette.

Warren Oates is superb as an arsonist with a purpose in this B-movie gem (in TV-movie form). So obscure it has no Maltin summary and is unavailable on VHS or DVD. Used to be shown more regularly on the tube, haven't seen it listed for years. Watch for Tom Selleck in a very early role for him; Arthur Kennedy is solid as one half of the police team trying to nab Oates.

There's an intriguing mystery at work in this TV-movie. An arsonist is burning down film studios and movie theaters, not to destroy buildings but to get rid of prints of a particular movie stored in these buildings. What is contained in this movie which would prompt someone to go to so much trouble to get rid of it?

Alas, the unraveling of this mystery is not handled especially well and the final revelation is neither satisfying nor plausible. The occasional use of a split-screen technique, (fashionable in 1970), is more irritating than illuminating, and the attempts to conjure up the hippie world of an Andy Warhol type are downright laughable.

However, the movie benefits from good casting. Even small, throwaway parts are filled by old pros such as Jeff Corey, Elisha Cook jr, Robert Webber, Henry Jones, Frank Campanella, etc. And, of course, this marks the debut of Tom Selleck who looks incredibly young in this movie. How young does he look? He looks so young that he probably hasn't grown any hair on his chest yet! Not that we find out because Tom doesn't once remove his shirt. What were the film-makers thinking? That we'd be drawn to Tom Selleck because of his mind?