Stuart Walker Tilden: Unlawful Flight to Avoid Confinement; Attempted Murder
Original air date: 24 December 1972
Looks like this wasn’t rerun
We finally got to see an episode from the eighth season, on 2 December 2006, and this was the one! For years, the series never had a Christmas-themed episode, but finally, in 1972, this was made.
And it is a real gem!
Hitman Stuart Tilden shoots a businessman in Chicago while seeking the whereabouts of his intended target. The businessman reportedly became a vegetable.
The FBI launches an intense investigation, seeking to prevent Tilden from succeeding. Tilden ends up in the Denver, Colorado area, where he is seeling Richard Ghormley. Ghormley formerly worked for a criminal, William Shrack, who’s now based out of San Juan, Puerto Rico. While Ghormley wasn’t involved with illegal activities, the criminal fears that Ghormley knows too much. Ghormley is desperately trying to get home on Christmas Eve from a business trip to San Francisco and Tilden is waiting for him there.
In the meantime, Tilden becomes involved with a young lady whom he literally bumps into, Regina Mason (Sondra Locke). He ends up befriending her, but Regina’s mother, Ruth, disapproves.
In trhe process of pursuing Tilden, Assistant Director Arthur Ward will make an arrest in the field as part of the effort. Colby and other agents in Denver rescue Tilden’s children while Erskine confronts Tilden.
This episode has been broadcast as the Christmas episode for The FBI. A superb episode, it has two car chases! The episode’s atmosphere is also unusual because we see the Feds in snowy weather, a far cry from the Southern California climate in which they usually operate in.
A fine cast includes:
- Don Gordon plays the main baddie. Mr. Gordon, of course, was friends with the late Steve McQueen. Both men appeared together in films and on television. They would do so in 1973’s Papillon. He died at age 91 on 24 April 2017.
- Sondra Locke, who dated actor Clint Eastwood for a number of years, gives a fine performance here. On 13 December 2018, it was announced she died on 3 November from cancer at age 74.
- Kim Richards just finished her run as Phoebe Everett in the ABC show Nanny and the Professor. Ms. Richards acted through the 1980s, then dropped out to raise children. She is currently resuming her acting career. Her older sister is the mother of Nicky and Paris Hilton!
Credits:
Directed by: Virgil W. Vogel
Written by: Robert Heverly
Performer| Role
- Sondra Locke | Regina Mason
- Don Gordon | Stuart Walker Tilden
- John Lupton | Richard Ghormley
- Eugene Peterson | William Shrack
- Mary McAndrews | Marion Ghormley
- Mary Jackson | Ruth Mason
- Morgan Paull | Tony Baughmiller
- Charles Bateman | SAC Ed Gardner
- Kim Richards | Barbie Ghormley
- With: Tom Pace, Fred Holliday, Robert Patten, Kirby Furlong, Cliff Emmich, Paul Hahn, George Sawaya, Thomas J. Gilleran