Ironside (TV Series) The Best Laid Plans (1973) User Reviews

Chief Ironside, one cool customer

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 30 December 2013]

The original Ironside liked to put the Chief in hostage situations every now and then. In this story Raymond Burr is at the bank discussing a proposed investment plan that branch manager Whit Bissell is trying to talk him into.

Right at the closing hour three men, Don Stroud, Rafael Campos, and Frank Marth who are customers pull guns and hold those still in the bank as hostages. Stroud's the leader, Campos is go along to get along kind of guy and wants big bucks to win his errant wife back. And Marth is already a two time loser and one more felony sends him up the river for life.

I've said it before, but Chief Ironside is one cool customer under fire. Watch how he gets word to the SFPD that there's a holdup in progress.

A really good story.

Women steal the show when Ironside gets held hostage

[TopekaBob · 9/10 · 24 March 2022]

There were a number of Ironside episodes where Ironside was held hostage. They're always good as Ironside keeps his cool, applies psychological pressure, and then figures out a way to thwart the hostage takers. This one is no different as three bank robbers hold Ironside and the bank staff hostage while they wait for the payroll truck to arrive.

This one is different, and interesting, though, because, except for Ironside, most of the male characters come across as weak and rather feckless while overall while the women (including, amazingly, Fran!) are brave and strong and wise, especially the character played by Kathy Lloyd.

In fact, the story goes out of its way to drive home the point that the men are weak fools. Kathy Lloyd, a hostage, lectures one of the bank robbers (Rafael Campos) about how he's just going to be taken by his wife; another male hostage simpers around and nearly starts crying; And Fran puts her life at risk and comes into the bank pretending to be a bank employee and pulls it off perfectly.

It's a good episode, well recommended!

And let me point out Whit Bissell, who plays the Bank Manager, Mr. Eustis. He doesn't do anything too flashy here, but Whit is a Hollywood legend and it's fun to see him in anything. He was in pretty much every TV show from the 1950's to the 1980's and specialized in westerns and playing doctors.

He also was a sci fi/horror genre actor, so if you watch that genre, whether TV series or movies, you're going to spot Whit Bissell. He was in the classic movies Creature from the Black Lagoon, I was a Teenage Werewolf, Monster on Campus, and The Time Machine. And he was in classic TV series like Perry Mason, Science Fiction Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, The Invaders, the Time Tunnel...you can go on and on. Basically, if you're watching TV from that great era, you're going to see Whit Bissell and Dabbs Greer!

Thanks Whit!

Jerks

[searchanddestroy-1 · 30 October 2017]

I like this kind of unusual scheme, in which Ironside is in a specific situation, with no boring investigation. You already had this sort of topic in some episodes, and also Don Stroud who seems to be very useful to IRONSIDE producers, who hired him as the heavy in many stories...But as a heist stories lover, the only thing I will remind here is that the robbers are unmasked, wear no gloves, and that's such unbelievable for bank robbers - jerks - to pull a heist unmasked, the same way as if they had to get into a store to buy some food. Such a scheme. I assure you that if I was a screen writer, those goofs would never happen.