Sarge (TV series)

Last updated
Sarge
George Kennedy Sarge 1971.JPG
Promotional photo of George Kennedy for the Sarge
Genre Crime drama
Created byDavid Levy
Starring George Kennedy
Theme music composer David Shire
Composer David Shire [1]
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes16
Production
Executive producerDavid Levy
ProducerDavid Levinson
CinematographyRichard A. Kelley
Jacques R. Marquette
Camera setup Single-camera
Running time44 mins.
Production companies Universal Television
Harbour Productions
Original release
Network NBC
ReleaseSeptember 21, 1971 (1971-09-21) 
January 11, 1972 (1972-01-11)
Related

The Bold Ones: The New Doctors
Amy Prentiss
Ironside (2013)

Sarge is an American crime drama television series starring George Kennedy. [2] The series aired for one season on NBC from September 1971 to January 1972.

Contents

Overview

Kennedy stars as Samuel Patrick Cavanaugh, a San Diego police detective sergeant who decides to retire and enter the priesthood after his wife is murdered. Sarge had initially studied for the priesthood prior to his police career, but his seminary studies were interrupted by military service in the Marine Corps during World War II.

The series, which ran in 1971-72, was preceded by a pilot titled Sarge: The Badge or the Cross (February 22, 1971 airdate), which set the premise for the subsequent series. One week before the show's fall premiere, on September 14, 1971, Cavanaugh traveled to San Francisco because of the death of a friend and fellow priest. His investigation caused him to cross paths with the characters from Ironside in a two-hour special that consolidated the two series' consecutive time slots. This has been subsequently seen as a TV-movie, The Priest Killer.

The series was set in San Diego and the pilot movie was filmed primarily on location. However, when the series went into production, episodes were filmed in Los Angeles. The parish church used was St. Peter's Italian Catholic Church on North Broadway in Chinatown.

George Kennedy's character was originally Sarge Swanson in the pilot movie. Starting with the Ironside crossover episode, and for the rest of the series, his last name was changed from Swanson to Cavanaugh. Supporting actor Ramon Bieri played Sarge's police contact. In the pilot, his name was Chief Dewey, but was changed to Lt. Barney Verick, chief of detectives, for the series. Sallie Shockley (Valerie) and Harold Sakata (Kenji Takichi) reprised their roles from the pilot movie for the series. Henry Wilcoxon as Bishop Andrade and Dana Elcar as Father Frank Dismore also appeared in the pilot, as well as the series.

Episode list

No. Title Directed by Written by Original air date
0"The Badge or the Cross"Richard A. CollaDon MankiewiczFebruary 22, 1971 (1971-02-22)
1"A Terminal Case of Vengeance" John Badham Joel Oliansky September 21, 1971 (1971-09-21)
2"Ring Out, Ring In" Daniel Haller Edward DeBlasioSeptember 28, 1971 (1971-09-28)
3"Psst! Wanna Buy a Dirty Picture?" Richard Donner Howard DimsdaleOctober 5, 1971 (1971-10-05)
4"Identity Crisis"UnknownJohn McGreeveyOctober 12, 1971 (1971-10-12)
5"A Push Over the Edge"John BadhamStory by: Stanford Whitmore
Teleplay by: David Levinson
October 26, 1971 (1971-10-26)
6"John Michael O'Flaherty Presents the Eleven O'Clock War" Seymour Robbie Robert CollinsNovember 2, 1971 (1971-11-02)
7"Silent Target"Daniel HallerStory by: Edward De Blasio
Teleplay by: Joel Oliansky
November 9, 1971 (1971-11-09)
8"Quicksilver"Seymour RobbieStory by: Joel Hammil
Teleplay by: Joel Hammil & Robert Van Scoyk
November 16, 1971 (1971-11-16)
9"A Bad Case of Monogamy"Joel OlianskyRobert Van ScoykNovember 23, 1971 (1971-11-23)
10"The Combatants" Walter Doniger Walter BlackNovember 30, 1971 (1971-11-30)
11"A Company of Victims"Jeannot SzwarcRobert CollinsDecember 7, 1971 (1971-12-07)
12"A Party to the Crime"Ron WinstonArthur HeinemannDecember 28, 1971 (1971-12-28)
13"An Accident Waiting to Happen"Daniel HallerStanley HartJanuary 4, 1972 (1972-01-04)
14"Napoleon Never Wanted to Be a Cop"Georg FenadyHal SitowitzJanuary 11, 1972 (1972-01-11)

Reception

Sarge was well received but ultimately failed by being pitted against CBS's Hawaii Five-O and The ABC Tuesday Movie of the Week .

Syndication

Since 1973, episodes have been syndicated under The Bold Ones umbrella title, and can be seen on Cozi TV; it was previously seen on the RTV network in selected areas.

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Banacek</i> American television series (1972–1974)

Banacek is an American detective TV series starring George Peppard that aired on the NBC network from 1972 to 1974. The series was part of the rotating NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie anthology. It alternated in its time slot with several other shows, but was the only one of them to last beyond its first season.

<i>Dragnet</i> (franchise) Radio, television, and film series, mostly about LAPD detective Joe Friday

Dragnet is an American media franchise created by actor and producer Jack Webb, following Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Detective Joe Friday and his partners as they conduct by-the-book police work and solve crimes in Los Angeles. Originating as a radio drama on NBC in 1949, Dragnet has been adapted into several successful television shows and films, though the franchise's popularity has reduced since Webb's death in 1982. Its name is derived from the police term "dragnet", a system of coordinated measures for apprehending criminals or suspects.

<i>Ironside</i> (1967 TV series) American TV crime drama, 1967–1975

Ironside is an American television crime drama that aired on NBC over eight seasons from 1967 to 1975. The show starred Raymond Burr as Robert T. Ironside, a consultant for the San Francisco police department, who was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot while on vacation. The character debuted on March 28, 1967, in a TV movie entitled Ironside. When the series was broadcast in the United Kingdom, from late 1967 onward, it was broadcast as A Man Called Ironside. The show earned Burr six Emmy and two Golden Globe nominations.

<i>Columbo</i> American crime drama television film series

Columbo is an American crime drama television series starring Peter Falk as Lieutenant Columbo, a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department. After two pilot episodes in 1968 and 1971, the show originally aired on NBC from 1971 to 1978 as one of the rotating programs of The NBC Mystery Movie. Columbo then aired less frequently on ABC from 1989 to 2003.

<i>McCloud</i> (TV series) American television series (1970–1977)

McCloud is an American police drama television series created by Herman Miller, that aired on NBC from September 16, 1970, to April 17, 1977. The series starred Dennis Weaver, and for six of its seven years as part of the NBC Mystery Movie rotating wheel series that was produced for the network by Universal Television. The show was centered on Deputy Marshal Sam McCloud of the small western town of Taos, New Mexico, who was on loan to the metropolitan New York City Police Department (NYPD) as a special investigator.

The NBC Mystery Movie is an American television anthology series produced by Universal Pictures, that NBC broadcast from 1971 to 1977. Devoted to a rotating series of mystery episodes, it was sometimes split into two subsets broadcast on different nights of the week: The NBC Sunday Mystery Movie and The NBC Wednesday Mystery Movie.

<i>Cannon</i> (TV series) Television program

Cannon is an American detective television series produced by Quinn Martin that aired from 1971 to 1976 on CBS. William Conrad played the title character, private detective Frank Cannon. The series was the first Quinn Martin production to run on a network other than ABC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Father Brown</span> Character created by British writer G.K. Chesterton.

Father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective. He is featured in 53 short stories by English author G. K. Chesterton, published between 1910 and 1936. Father Brown solves mysteries and crimes using his intuition and keen understanding of human nature. Chesterton loosely based him on the Rt Rev. Msgr John O'Connor (1870–1952), a parish priest in Bradford, who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922. Since 2013, the character has been portrayed by Mark Williams in the ongoing BBC Television Series Father Brown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Wambaugh</span> American writer, former policeman (born 1937)

Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. is a best-selling American writer known for his fictional and nonfictional accounts of police work in the United States. Many of his novels are set in Los Angeles and its surroundings and feature Los Angeles police officers as protagonists. He has been nominated for four Edgar Awards, and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.

William Windom was an American actor. He was known as a character actor of the stage and screen. He is well known for his recurring role as Dr. Seth Hazlitt alongside Angela Lansbury in the CBS mystery series Murder, She Wrote.

<i>Diagnosis: Murder</i> American mystery-comedy-medical crime drama television series (1993–2001)

Diagnosis: Murder is an American comedy-mystery-medical crime drama television series starring Dick Van Dyke as Dr. Mark Sloan, a medical doctor who solves crimes with the help of his son Steve, a homicide detective played by Van Dyke's real-life son Barry. The series began as a spin-off of Jake and the Fatman, became a series of three television films, and then a weekly television series that debuted on CBS on October 29, 1993. Joyce Burditt wrote the episode in Jake and the Fatman and is listed here as the creator of the spin off series.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Don Galloway</span> American stage, film and television actor (1937–2009)

Donald Poe Galloway was an American stage, film and television actor, best known for his role as Detective Sergeant Ed Brown in the series Ironside (1967–1975). He reprised the role for a TV film in 1993. He was also a politically active Libertarian and columnist.

Matlock Police is an Australian television police drama series made by Crawford Productions for the 0-10 Network between 1971 and 1976. The series focused on the police station and crime in the Victorian town of Matlock and the surrounding district, and the backgrounds and personal lives of the main policemen.

<i>Father Dowling Mysteries</i> American TV series or program

Father Dowling Mysteries, known as Father Dowling Investigates in the United Kingdom, is an American mystery television series first aired from January 20, 1989, to May 2, 1991. The series was preceded by the 1987 television movie Fatal Confession. NBC aired the first season, while ABC broadcast two additional seasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bing Russell</span> American actor and baseball club owner (1926–2003)

Neil Oliver "Bing" Russell was an American actor and Class A minor-league baseball club owner. He was the father of Hollywood actor Kurt Russell and grandfather of ex–major league baseball player Matt Franco and actor Wyatt Russell.

<i>Harry O</i> Television series

Harry O, sometimes spelled Harry-O, is an American private detective series that aired for two seasons on ABC from 1974 to 1976. The series starred David Janssen, and Jerry Thorpe was executive producer. Harry O followed the broadcast of two pilot films: firstly Such Dust as Dreams Are Made On and secondly Smile Jenny, You're Dead, both starring Janssen.

Psych is an American detective comedy-drama television series created by Steve Franks for USA Network. The series stars James Roday Rodriguez as Shawn Spencer, a young crime consultant for the Santa Barbara Police Department whose "heightened observational skills" and impressive eidetic memory allow him to convince people that he solves cases with psychic abilities. The program also stars Dulé Hill as Shawn's intelligent best friend and reluctant partner Burton "Gus" Guster, as well as Corbin Bernsen as Shawn's father Henry, a former detective with the Santa Barbara Police Department.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Anderson (actress)</span> American actress

Barbara Anderson is a retired American actress who portrayed police officer Eve Whitfield on the television series Ironside (1967–1971), which earned her a Primetime Emmy Award.

Harbour Productions Unlimited was an American television production company formed by Canadian actor Raymond Burr. It was responsible for the series Ironside and The Bold Ones: The New Doctors, which briefly combined in the crossover episode Five Days in the Death of Sgt. Brown, Pt. 2, and another crime series, Sarge, the first regular episode of which, following the TV-movie pilot The Badge or the Cross, was The Priest Killer which crossed over with Ironside.

<i>Ironside</i> (2013 TV series) American TV series or program

Ironside is an American police drama television series created by Collier Young. It aired on NBC from October 2 to October 23, 2013 during the 2013–14 television season. It was a remake of the original television series Ironside, which ran from 1967 to 1975. It starred Blair Underwood as the title character, wheelchair-using cop Robert Ironside, the only character re-created from the original series. The remade Ironside was grittier and considerably more violent than the original, and the setting was changed from San Francisco to New York City.

References

  1. Faulkner, Robert R. (1983). Music on Demand. Transaction Publishers p. 51. ISBN   978-1-4128-2923-6.
  2. Bernstein, Adam (March 1, 2016). "George Kennedy: Versatile character actor who won an Oscar for 'Cool Hand Luke' and was a mainstay of 1970s disaster films". The Independent . Retrieved April 9, 2020.