N.Y.P.D. (TV series)
N.Y.P.D. is a half-hour American television crime drama of the 1960s set in the context of the New York City Police Department. The program appeared on the ABC network during the 1967-68 and 1968-69 television seasons. In both seasons, the program appeared in the evening, 9:30 p.m. time slot. During the second season, N.Y.P.D was joined by The Mod Squad and It Takes a Thief to form a 2½ hour block of crime dramas.
| N.Y.P.D. | |
|---|---|
 The cast from left: Frank Converse, Jack Warden and Robert Hooks, 1969. | |
| Genre | Crime drama |
| Created by | Arnold Perl David Susskind |
| Written by | Lonne Elder III Arnold Perl Albert Ruben David Susskind |
| Directed by | Robert Butler Alex March Daniel Petrie David Pressman |
| Starring | Jack Warden Robert Hooks Frank Converse |
| Theme music composer | Charles Gross |
| Composer(s) | Charles Gross |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 49 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Daniel Melnick |
| Producer(s) | Bob Markell |
| Editor(s) | Lyman Hallowell |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Talent Associates, in association with the ABC Television Network |
| Distributor | ABC Films |
| Release | |
| Original network | ABC |
| Original release | September 5, 1967 – March 25, 1969 |
Plot
N.Y.P.D. centers around three New York police detectives – Lt. Mike Haines (Jack Warden), Detective Jeff Ward (Robert Hooks), and Detective Johnny Corso (Frank Converse) – who fight a wide range of crimes and criminals. The show features many real New York City locations, as well as episodes based on actual New York City police cases.
Cast
- Jack Warden as Lt. Mike Haines
- Robert Hooks as Det. Jeff Ward
- Frank Converse as Det. Johnny Corso
- Ted Beniades as Det. Richie
- Denise Nicholas as Ethel
- Tom Rosqui as Det. Jacobs
Production
Development
The show was a production of Talent Associates, Ltd., a company founded by Alfred Levy and David Susskind. Talent Associates had produced 14 years of the anthology program Armstrong Circle Theatre and The Kaiser Aluminum Hour, both highly respected shows. Television producer, movie producer, and talk show host Susskind created N.Y.P.D. with screenwriter Arnold Perl (Cotton Comes to Harlem).
At the time of his death in 1971, Arnold Perl was working on a screenplay about assassinated black activist Malcolm X, which would later become the basis for Spike Lee's 1992 film, Malcolm X. Daniel Melnick, the show’s executive producer, was a partner with Susskind in Talent Associates and had brought Mel Brooks and Buck Henry together to create the TV comedy Get Smart in 1965. Producer Susskind and actor Harvey Keitel would work together again on Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974). Scripted by writers like Lonne Elder, who would later be the first African-American nominated for a Best Screenplay Oscar (for 1972's Sounder), the stories came with such titles as "Cruise to Oblivion," "Which Side Are You On?," "The Screaming Woman," and "Deadly Circle of Violence."
In N.Y.P.D. scripts, there were white cops and black cops, white suspects and black suspects, white witnesses and black witnesses, an unselfconscious racial blend that would not otherwise be seen for several years on U.S. network television (Room 222 and Hawaii Five-O were among the next series to feature casts situated similarly.)
Casting
Among the actors who appeared in the series were Al Pacino, Jill Clayburgh, Jane Elliot, Ralph Waite, Harvey Keitel, James Earl Jones, Charles Durning, Gretchen Corbett, and Roy Scheider.
Writing
In 1967, N.Y.P.D. was the first television series in America to air an episode with a gay theme ("Shakedown"). The police track down a man blackmailing gay men, prompting several suicides.
Opening credits
The series' opening credit sequence, prominently featuring a closeup of a police car emergency light as the vehicle drives through the streets of New York, would later be spoofed in the 1980s comedy series Police Squad! and subsequent movies.
Episodes
Season 1 (1967–68)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Shakedown" | Daniel Petrie | Albert Ruben | September 5, 1967 | |
| A blackmail ring that targets homosexuals is investigated after it leads to a series of suicides. | ||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Fingerman" | Daniel Petrie | TBA | September 12, 1967 | |
| Ward receives a series of hysterical calls from an informer who believes he's being followed by friends of a man who helped put in jail. | ||||||
| 3 | 3 | "The Screaming Woman" | TBA | TBA | September 19, 1967 | |
| Corso is suspended after being charged with attempted rape after he and Ward investigate complaints from a woman about noisy drunks. | ||||||
| 4 | 4 | "Fast Gun" | Alex March | Albert Ruben | September 26, 1967 | |
| A man with a quick trigger finger kills a detective and then taunts the police department. | ||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Walking Target" | TBA | TBA | October 3, 1967 | |
| A high-ranking foreign police official is nearly shot by a sniper during an award ceremony at city hall. | ||||||
| 6 | 6 | "Money Man" | TBA | TBA | October 10, 1967 | |
| The presence of a loan shark results in Ward and Corso going undercover in the construction industry to find out the reason for a series of unexplained deaths. | ||||||
| 7 | 7 | "Old Gangsters Never Die" | TBA | TBA | October 17, 1967 | |
| A professional hijacker (Howard Da Silva) emerges from a lengthy prison term and immediately resumes his old bad habits. | ||||||
| 8 | 8 | "To Catch a Hero" | TBA | TBA | October 31, 1967 | |
| Haines breaks down a girl's alibi whereby she incriminates her boyfriend in the brutal killing of a drunk. | ||||||
| 9 | 9 | "Murder for Infinity" | John Moxey | Ian McLellan Hunter | November 7, 1967 | |
| A sculptor wanted for murder contacts Haines' friend and bargains for a top defense lawyer. | ||||||
| 10 | 10 | "The Pink Gumdrop" | TBA | TBA | November 14, 1967 | |
| An attractive ex-convict who is a passenger in a stolen sports car, provides the lead in helping capture the head of a car theft ring. | ||||||
| 11 | 11 | "The Witness" | TBA | TBA | November 21, 1967 | |
| Ward is accused of accepting a bribe from a frontman during a crackdown on the numbers racket. | ||||||
| 12 | 12 | "The Boy Witness" | TBA | TBA | November 28, 1967 | |
| A 13-year-old boy is the only witness in the murder of an attractive young woman. | ||||||
| 13 | 13 | "Joshua Fit the Battle of Fulton Street" | TBA | TBA | December 5, 1967 | |
| After a crime wave strikes a New York neighborhood, residents form a vigilante group. | ||||||
| 14 | 14 | "The Bomber" | TBA | TBA | December 12, 1967 | |
| A fanatical anti-Communist (Jon Voight) and his fiancee bomb multiple Iron Curtain consulates, killing and injuring a number of people | ||||||
| 15 | 15 | "Wire Finish" | TBA | TBA | December 19, 1967 | |
| A jockey (Robert Salvio) is told during mysterious phone calls that two murders were committed in his name. | ||||||
| 16 | 16 | "Cruise to Oblivion" | TBA | TBA | December 26, 1967 | |
| Haines gets a tip that a passenger aboard an incoming ocean liner is carrying narcotics into New York. | ||||||
| 17 | 17 | "The Patriots" | John Howe | TBA | January 2, 1968 | |
| The wife of an exiled Latin American dictator is murdered, with the prime suspects being the dictator's political enemies. | ||||||
| 18 | 18 | "Red Headed Piegon" | Lawrence Dobkin | George Bellak | January 16, 1968 | |
| An elusive rapist who always attacks young women with long hair results in the police department using a young policewoman just out of the academy as a decoy. | ||||||
| 19 | 19 | "Which Side Are You On?" | Alex March | Albert Ruben | January 30, 1968 | |
| After an elderly African-American high school teacher is killed, Ward goes to the neighborhood where the killing took place, but is met with cold hostility from the residents. | ||||||
| 20 | 20 | "Cry Brute" | TBA | TBA | February 6, 1968 | |
| Corso is accused of police brutality and is the central figure in a $100,000 lawsuit against the city. | ||||||
| 21 | 21 | "Last Port of Call" | TBA | TBA | February 13, 1968 | |
| A merchant seaman is accused of molesting children and instructed to stay aboard his ship, but he makes an effort to clear himself by visiting the parents of one of the children. | ||||||
| 22 | 22 | "Macho" | TBA | TBA | February 20, 1968 | |
| A Puerto Rican grocer's life is threatened and his store is boycotted after he saves a policeman from an attack by a gang of neighborhood boys. | ||||||
| 23 | 23 | "Stones" | TBA | TBA | February 27, 1968 | |
| Corso infiltrates a gang of "thrill muggers" who victimize elderly vagrants in Central Park. | ||||||
| 24 | 24 | "The Private Eye Puzzle" | TBA | TBA | March 5, 1968 | |
| A former private eye reports that he was robbed of a large sum of money, but has no witnesses to back up his story. | ||||||
| 25 | 25 | "Nothing Is Real but the Dead: Part 1" | TBA | TBA | March 12, 1968 | |
| Haines and Corso search for a young girl who left her wealthy parents to take up life as a Greenwich Village hippie. | ||||||
| 26 | 26 | "Nothing Is Real but the Dead: Part 2" | TBA | TBA | March 19, 1968 | |
| Two Greenwich Village hippies who can identify a killer go into hiding out of fear of him. | ||||||
Season 2 (1968–69)
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 | 1 | "Naked in the Streets" | TBA | TBA | October 1, 1968 | |
| After a young married woman is raped, the detectives are stymied when she refuses to sign a complaint against the attacker. | ||||||
| 28 | 2 | "Encounter on a Rooftop" | TBA | TBA | October 8, 1968 | |
| Ward is accidentally shot by a rookie policeman after he's mistaken for a burglar. | ||||||
| 29 | 3 | "Day Tripper" | TBA | TBA | October 15, 1968 | |
| An attractive young girl is found murdered and all the evidence points to her boyfriend as the killer. | ||||||
| 30 | 4 | "What's a Nice Girl Like You ..." | TBA | TBA | October 29, 1968 | |
| After the death of a beautiful young girl, the damaged relationship between a spoiled son and his wealthy father becomes part of the subsequent interrogation. | ||||||
| 31 | 5 | "Deadly Circle of Violence" | David Pressman | Lonne Elder | November 12, 1968 | |
| A motive is sought for the attempted killing of a disreputable white southerner (Al Pacino), with suspicions pointing toward black militants who are seeking revenge for the bombing of an African-American church in the South. | ||||||
| 32 | 6 | "Case of the Shady Lady" | TBA | TBA | November 19, 1968 | |
| A go-go dancer accuses an influential businessman (Robert Alda) of murdering her husband. | ||||||
| 33 | 7 | "The Golden Fleece" | TBA | TBA | November 26, 1968 | |
| Detectives have difficulty tracking down a con artist who has swindled an out-of-town businessman out of $5,000. | ||||||
| 34 | 8 | "The Peep Freak" | David Pressman | Stanley H. Silverman | December 3, 1968 | |
| While investigating the murder of a young woman, the police discover a peeping Tom (Martin Sheen) who they believe is connected with the slaying. | ||||||
| 35 | 9 | "Walk the Long Pier" | TBA | TBA | December 10, 1968 | |
| Corso poses as a longshoreman in order to stop the theft of guns on the docks. | ||||||
| 36 | 10 | "The Witch of 116th Street" | TBA | TBA | December 17, 1968 | |
| An extortionist is threatening residents with his self-proclaimed powers of black magic. | ||||||
| 37 | 11 | "'L' Is for Love and Larceny" | TBA | TBA | December 24, 1967 | |
| Haines investigates the theft of an expensive pendant from the apartment of one of his friends. | ||||||
| 38 | 12 | "The Love Hustle" | TBA | TBA | December 31, 1967 | |
| A prostitute staggers into the squad room and just before she dies, she indicates that an unknown man is planning to kill her mother. | ||||||
| 39 | 13 | "The Body in the Trunk" | TBA | TBA | January 7, 1969 | |
| After the mysterious death of a young woman, the detectives are confronted with the woman's frightened boyfriend, her irate parents and an abortion doctor. | ||||||
| 40 | 14 | "The Night Watch" | TBA | TBA | January 21, 1969 | |
| The search is on for a health food addict whose fanaticism eventually leads to murder. | ||||||
| 41 | 15 | "Three-Fifty-Two" | TBA | TBA | January 28, 1969 | |
| Ward loses his gun and shield during a holdup, with the entire police squad taking action to apprehend the thieves. | ||||||
| 42 | 16 | "The Attacker" | TBA | TBA | February 4, 1969 | |
| A man who has been attacking women in a specific neighborhood eludes detection at first when he becomes part of a group that confess to all sorts of crimes. | ||||||
| 43 | 17 | "Candy Man: Part 1" | Alex March | Robert Schiltt | February 11, 1969 | |
| The detectives head to a drug rehabilitation center run by Candy Latson (James Earl Jones) in their search for a grocery store thief. | ||||||
| 44 | 18 | "Candy Man: Part 2" | Alex March | Robert Schlitt | February 18, 1969 | |
| In an attempt to capture the grocery store thief, Corso observes a group therapy session at the rehab center. | ||||||
| 45 | 19 | "Who's Got the Bundle?" | TBA | TBA | February 25, 1969 | |
| Both police and criminals are in search of a valise that contains $150,000 in stolen money. | ||||||
| 46 | 20 | "The Face on the Dart Board" | Nicholas Colasanto | Gene Radano | March 4, 1969 | |
| Haines' wife is harassed by crank calls, obscene letters and other disturbances, which are attributed as part of a vendetta against him. | ||||||
| 47 | 21 | "Boys Night Out" | TBA | TBA | March 11, 1969 | |
| A number of neighborhood bartenders are being shaken down by extortionists. | ||||||
| 48 | 22 | "Everybody Loved Him" | TBA | TBA | March 18, 1969 | |
| A film producer who appeared to have no enemies is murdered. | ||||||
| 49 | 23 | "No Day Trippers Need Apply" | TBA | TBA | March 25, 1969 | |
| A man is being blackmailed after picture appear showing him attending an orgy. | ||||||
External links
 |
Wikimedia Commons has media related to N.Y.P.D. (TV series). |
- N.Y.P.D. on IMDb
- N.Y.P.D. at TV.com
- The Robert J. Markell papers, 1967–1968 are located in the Northeastern University Libraries, Archives and Special Collections Department, Boston, MA.