Luther Davis wrote Across 110th Street and this nihilistic TV movie, originally airing October 13, 1970. It’s directed by Walter Grauman, who was behind more than fifty episodes of Murder, She Wrote.
What a cast — from Jay C. Flippen (a former blackface vaudevillian known as “The Ham What Am”), Martin E. Brooks (Dr. Rudy Welles from The Six Million Dollar Man, the role originated by Martin Balsam, who is also in this), Ed Asner and Sam Jaffe to Percy Rodriguez (Genesis II, as well as the voiceover artist on the trailers for The Exorcist, Chopping Mall, House, The Great Outdoors and many more), Ruth Roman (The Baby), Diane Baker (Lorraine Warren in The Haunted), Balsam and Edward G. Robinson.
Robinson is an old man who watches his friend die and no one believes him. When he keeps telling anyone who will listen that they were attacked, his relatives try to get him psychiatric help. He decides to try to find the killers himself, but someone is watching his every step and the story grows darker and darker.
If you want to watch a real downer, the kind of rough ending that only the 1970’s can give you, this movie is on YouTube:
One thought on “The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970)”
Comments are closed.
Wow! I wish I had read this article before I decided to watch. I had not memory of ever watching this movie but it came to me via YouTube suggestion. It is great. Completely filled with great actors. I thought filmed in maybe a1955 Hollywood classic. The ages of the stars should have clued me in. Not a 1970 movie of the week! But you nailed it, describing it as a real “downer”. I hate the ending, regardless of how appropriate.