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Authors: Barney Rosenzweig
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toward shooting in what has since become known as Hollywood North.
Cliff Alsberg, who had left ABC and was now a vice president at Filmways under Rosenbloom, was inadvertently a big help with his incredibly naive and chauvinistic notes on the screenplay. The young executive unwittingly served two valuable services: a reminder to be ever on the alert for that traditional male mentality that had stymied the project for so long, and secondly, by ignoring the comments and notes from Alsberg, and simply moving on, the tone was set for how I would deal with Filmways on creative issues. It was a course from which I never deviated.
The script that Avedon had finalized, loosely based on her earlier screenplay coauthored with Corday, had many of the Cagney/Lacey/Harvey and squad room moments millions of Americans came to appreciate in the ongoing series. Unlike the series, it was very heavily plotted. The primary cop story dealt with what appeared to be a serial killer of Chasidic Jews in New York’s famed 47th Street Diamond District. In the story, much to the chagrin of the ambitious Christine Cagney, she and her partner find themselves excluded by the male cop elite from working on this prestigious case.
The killer, we eventually learn, is Schermer, a fugitive Nazi war criminal, who has effected his unlikely escape to the United States after the war by taking on the identity of a Chasidic Jew—complete with beard, peot, and tallis.
Midway through the drama, the female detectives overhear in the squad room that the serial killer just might be a regular procurer of prostitutes. Cagney and Lacey, having been relegated to the “John Detail”, now have a lead of their own, directing them to a material witness in the Chasidic neighborhood, a prostitute who reveals that, unlike other émigrés of his age group, one suspect has no Nazi death camp tattoo. (In one draft the hooker also confirmed this particular customer [Schermer] is not circumcised and therefore, despite all other outward appearances, probably not Jewish). It was a not-unclever cop story, one that was plausible in the involvement of our novice, third-grade detectives, and one that fully exploited the relationships they maintained with each other, with their loved ones, with their jobs, and with the all-male bastion of conservatism with which they came into contact on a daily basis.
Rosenbloom and director Ted Post were preparing to leave for Toronto. I would stay behind until we had a Lacey. Before I let him get away, I wanted Post to meet with Barbara Avedon. I felt by spending a few hours with this talented and brilliant woman he might gain some insight into the feminist perspective, which was such an integral part of this project. Three or four hours with Barbara Avedon could not possibly hurt my then-sixty-something-year-old male director, I reasoned. I set the appointment and instructed Barbara to give him an earful. She called early that evening. “Barney, all he wanted to talk about was Schermer!”
Director Ted Post had spent the afternoon with one of Hollywood’s foremost feminists, author of the first buddy film ever made with women leads, and what he wanted to glean from that encounter was a deeper understanding of the (male) villain’s character. According to Avedon, he sloughed off any conversation regarding the attitudes of the two women leads, their relationship, their politics, or their history. Does it help the reader to understand my incredulity if I include the information that in the screenplay Schermer has no lines of dialogue?
I determined I had better finalize the Mary Beth Lacey casting and get to Toronto, pronto.
CBS was really pressing for Michele Lee. I was weakening. I liked her as well as CBS star-of-the-time Mimi Kennedy. Besides, I was anxious to get up to Toronto and see what damage was being done. Rosenbloom and Post were on the phone from Canada. Would I take one more fight with the network for Tyne Daly ? I took two more. The
Cliff Alsberg, who had left ABC and was now a vice president at Filmways under Rosenbloom, was inadvertently a big help with his incredibly naive and chauvinistic notes on the screenplay. The young executive unwittingly served two valuable services: a reminder to be ever on the alert for that traditional male mentality that had stymied the project for so long, and secondly, by ignoring the comments and notes from Alsberg, and simply moving on, the tone was set for how I would deal with Filmways on creative issues. It was a course from which I never deviated.
The script that Avedon had finalized, loosely based on her earlier screenplay coauthored with Corday, had many of the Cagney/Lacey/Harvey and squad room moments millions of Americans came to appreciate in the ongoing series. Unlike the series, it was very heavily plotted. The primary cop story dealt with what appeared to be a serial killer of Chasidic Jews in New York’s famed 47th Street Diamond District. In the story, much to the chagrin of the ambitious Christine Cagney, she and her partner find themselves excluded by the male cop elite from working on this prestigious case.
The killer, we eventually learn, is Schermer, a fugitive Nazi war criminal, who has effected his unlikely escape to the United States after the war by taking on the identity of a Chasidic Jew—complete with beard, peot, and tallis.
Midway through the drama, the female detectives overhear in the squad room that the serial killer just might be a regular procurer of prostitutes. Cagney and Lacey, having been relegated to the “John Detail”, now have a lead of their own, directing them to a material witness in the Chasidic neighborhood, a prostitute who reveals that, unlike other émigrés of his age group, one suspect has no Nazi death camp tattoo. (In one draft the hooker also confirmed this particular customer [Schermer] is not circumcised and therefore, despite all other outward appearances, probably not Jewish). It was a not-unclever cop story, one that was plausible in the involvement of our novice, third-grade detectives, and one that fully exploited the relationships they maintained with each other, with their loved ones, with their jobs, and with the all-male bastion of conservatism with which they came into contact on a daily basis.
Rosenbloom and director Ted Post were preparing to leave for Toronto. I would stay behind until we had a Lacey. Before I let him get away, I wanted Post to meet with Barbara Avedon. I felt by spending a few hours with this talented and brilliant woman he might gain some insight into the feminist perspective, which was such an integral part of this project. Three or four hours with Barbara Avedon could not possibly hurt my then-sixty-something-year-old male director, I reasoned. I set the appointment and instructed Barbara to give him an earful. She called early that evening. “Barney, all he wanted to talk about was Schermer!”
Director Ted Post had spent the afternoon with one of Hollywood’s foremost feminists, author of the first buddy film ever made with women leads, and what he wanted to glean from that encounter was a deeper understanding of the (male) villain’s character. According to Avedon, he sloughed off any conversation regarding the attitudes of the two women leads, their relationship, their politics, or their history. Does it help the reader to understand my incredulity if I include the information that in the screenplay Schermer has no lines of dialogue?
I determined I had better finalize the Mary Beth Lacey casting and get to Toronto, pronto.
CBS was really pressing for Michele Lee. I was weakening. I liked her as well as CBS star-of-the-time Mimi Kennedy. Besides, I was anxious to get up to Toronto and see what damage was being done. Rosenbloom and Post were on the phone from Canada. Would I take one more fight with the network for Tyne Daly ? I took two more. The
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