The Streets of San Francisco (TV Series) Men Will Die (1975) User Reviews

Women's Assault Center

[Jimmy_the_Gent4 · 4 July 2022]

Stone's daughter Jeannie tries to help a friend recover from a rape.

One of Season 4's best, many great guest stars. Darleen Carr returns to her occasional role as Jeannie. Vera Miles (The Searchers, Psycho) plays a lawyer who runs a center for rape victims. Jeannie's friend shoots one of her rapists with a stolen gun when he returns to her apartment. Michael Parks (best know for the cult TV show Then Came Bronson) is the other rapist. Jeannie is convinced to harass Parks with handbills telling everyone he is a rapist. Some disturbing moments when Parks corners Miles in her office.

Not my favorite

[dcdgbnstjn · 5/10 · 3 February 2023]

I'll start by saying I'm a huge fan of The Streets of San Francisco. That said, this episode was one of my least favorite. The plot deals with a pair of serial rapists who have murdered at least one victim. Their latest victim happens to be a friend of Mike Stone's daughter, which gets Jeanie involved in the case. The injustice theme is established early on when an attorney played by Vera Miles tells Jeanie that as the case proceeds, the system will make her friend feel more like the criminal than the victim. That point is prophetic when the friend is attacked again by one of her rapists and she shoots and kills him. She is subsequently charged with 1st degree Murder. That is preposterous because that charge requires an act that is premeditated. She was merely defending herself against a man who had raped her just days before. The injustice theme is then driven home throughout the remainder of the episode. Stone, in particular, is critical and dismissive of a local rape crisis center and seems to have an abundance of lectures for those characters, including his daughter, whose focus is on pushing back against the injustice.

I realize this is Hollywood, as well as the mid-70's. Perhaps the point of presenting such an extreme case was to magnify the topic of how rape victims were treated so poorly by the criminal justice system in those times (and on into present times). From my point of view, that point was somewhat lost due to the procedural discrepancies, such as charging the rape victim. Another particularly unrealistic example was when Mike and Steve finally get their man (the surviving rapist) as he was about to attack the attorney mentioned earlier, in her office. The suspect is allowed to walk out of the office, uncuffed, ahead of both detectives. Not even rookies would have made that mistake.

A Disappointment

[amylovestv · 1/10 · 29 July 2023]

I'm sorry, but this episode just missed the mark for me. Mike Stone's daughter Jeannie has already established herself as not very smart in previous episodes and yet again she makes quite a few foolish moves, even having her deeds encouraged by a fellow adult who should have known better. There were many times the characters over-acted, especially in scenes that are supposed to be intense, which just made them laughable. I got quite a chuckle at the end of Act IV where the rapist pretends to lunge at the woman lawyer and she yelps. I couldn't tell for a moment if she was serious or being sarcastic. Unfortunately, I think she was serious. If you want to watch a whiny episode with bad acting and characters making one stupid decision after another, this one's for you.