By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the 1973 airborne thriller Birds Of Prey, starring David Janssen, Ralph Meeker and Elayne Heilveil.
Though produced expressly for the small screen, a handful of vintage telemovies actually made their way into cinemas in Europe and other parts of the world, including Australia. Telemovies with a big-name star or two; an appropriate sense of cinematic sweep; or just those of a very high quality, were seen as potential money spinners by international distributors or foreign arms of major studios, and achieved that rare telemovie feat: big screen crossover success.
Some vintage telemovies (like Steven Spielberg’s 1971 on-road classic Duel and the 1969 pilot movie for the cult TV series Then Came Bronson) were even bumped up with extra, unseen footage to pad out their running times. In the case of most telemovies that achieved foreign theatrical distribution, it’s pretty easy to see how and why they made the jump, and 1973’s Birds Of Prey is no exception. First broadcast on major US network CBS on January 30, 1973 before playing in European cinemas, this is a truly crackling thriller of the first order.
The topline talent is the first sign of this excellent telemovie’s obvious quality. The director is Unsung Auteur William A. Graham (a master of the telemovie form and director of the impressive features Where The Lilies Bloom, Change Of Habit, Sounder Part 2 and Cry For Me Billy), the cinematographer is future legend Jordan Cronenweth (Brewster McCloud, Rolling Thunder, Stop Making Sense, Rattle & Hum), and the screenplay is by Robert Boris, who penned the 1973 cult classic Electra Glide In Blue, the 1982 Richard Pryor vehicle Some Kind Of Hero, and the powerful 1983 TV mini-series Blood Feud.
Birds Of Prey also boasts two solid-if-not-quite-major big screen performers in the rock-solid and reliable David Janssen (Two Minute Warning, The Green Berets, Macho Callahan, Hell To Eternity) and Ralph Meeker (Kiss Me Deadly, The Dirty Dozen, Paths Of Glory), both of whom turn in strong performances. It’s another sound entry in Janssen’s long list of exemplary TV credits alongside the likes of the series The Fugitive, O’Hara, US Treasury, and Harry O, and the telemovies Night Chase (1970), The Longest Night (1972), Moon Of The Wolf (1972), Stalk The Wild Child (1976), Superdome (1978), City In Fear (1980) and many more.
And what Birds Of Prey also has in spades is expertly choreographed, breathtakingly staged aerial action scenes. The plot is simple, but far from simplistic. Janssen is jaded, cynical, slightly boozy radio traffic reporter Harry Walker, who hovers above the thickly choked roads of Salt Lake City, Utah in his helicopter and lets listeners know what they’re in for on their trip home from work…just like Aussie radio legend Vic Lorusso! Unlike Vic Lorusso, however, Harry is a skilled US Air Force vet with a wartime history and an overripe sense of adventure.
When Harry witnesses a bank robbery in progress from his chopper, he calls his former Air Force commander and now grizzled, grumpy cop McAndrew (Ralph Meeker), and then makes chase himself. Guiding his helicopter through the picturesque canyons and above the expanisve deserts of Utah, Walker proves to be a game and expert stalker intent on stopping the robbers – identified by McAndrew as a crew of Vietnam vets – and rescuing the young bank teller (Elayne Heilveil) they’ve taken hostage.
Basically a feature-length chase sequence, the two helicopters of Birds Of Prey – and obviously their highly skilled stunt pilots – perform nothing less than an aerial dance through the course of the film, swooping around each other, hovering just above people on the ground, and dropping perilously from great heights. Being the early 1970s, all of this stunt mastery is of course achieved with actual helicopters piloted by real people, and not created by a computer jockey CGI special effects wiz. It’s hard to imagine a telemovie topping the incredible, death-defying helicopter stunts of 1977’s Escape From Bogen County, but Birds Of Prey is a true precedent setter in this field.
Though the helicopters are kind of the stars here, the strange, nihilistic qualities of Robert Boris’s screenplay (its bleakness actually rivals that of his brilliant Electra Glide In Blue, directed by Unsung Auteur James William Guercio) also set this telemovie apart. The relationship that eventually plays out between Harry and young bank teller hostage Teresa Janice “T.J.” Shaw (oddly played by Elayne Heilveil from Unsung Auteur Daryl Duke’s 1973 cult fave Payday) is nearly inexplicably weird, while the back-and-forth between Harry and his “war buddy” cop McAndrew is particularly embittered.
And without wanting to spoil anything, the ending of Birds Of Prey has more in common with Easy Rider or Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (or, indeed, Electra Glide In Blue) than your standard vintage telemovie. The finale of Birds Of Prey packs an enormous punch, and the coda that follows it literally rubs salt into what is already a gaping wound. It’s very much a cinematic move of the time, and it further makes obvious why the exhilerating Birds Of Prey ended up flying daringly into theatres around the world.
Availability: Birds Of Prey is available to rent for $4.00 on Prime in a glistening audio and visual presentation.
