Bernard Kowalski Movies

When a drug dealer is found harassing local teenagers, the new operator of an inner-city clinic confronts the dealer. ~ All Movie Guide

The third season of Airwolf continues to spotlight its title "character," a state-of-the-art helicopter with a full arsenal of high-tech weaponry and the capability to fly anywhere at the fastest possible speed without the necessity of refuel. Still in charge of Airwolf are maverick pilot String Hawke (Jan-Michael Vincent), his mechanic buddy Dom Santini (Ernest Borgnine), and spunky female pilot Caitlin O'Shaughnessy (Jean Bruce Scott). And, as before, the Airwolf team accepts various dangerous assignments -- ranging from rescue missions to thwarting government takeovers -- from Michael Archangel (Alex Cord), the mysterious, white-suited emissary from the Firm, the top secret organization for whom Airwolf was created. Naturally, the Firm would like Airwolf all to themselves, but the fiercely independent String continues to hold off turning the vehicle over to them until his brother, a MIA from the Vietnam War era, is located and rescued. Keeping a close eye on the Airwolf team's activities is another rep from the Firm, the bold and beautiful Marella (Deborah Pratt) -- formerly a series regular, now a recurring character. Canceled by CBS at the end of season three, Airwolf would return to the airwaves courtesy of cable's USA Network beginning in January of 1987 -- but not without several sweeping cast changes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Higgins (John Hillerman) enthusiastically mounts a production of Gilbert & Sullivan's "The Mikado" to entertain his distinguished visitor Sir Cedric Brooke (Terence Knapp). Meanwhile, Magnum is hired by Sally DeForrest (Kay Lenz) to locate her brother Eric (Christopher Mitchum), who has apparently been spirited away by a religious cult. The two plotlines converge--or more accurately, collide--when Sally is invited to sing a major role in Higgins' operetta, thereby setting the stage (no pun intended) for a not-so-melodic political assassination. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Having long carried a torch for the beautiful Vivian Brock Jones--aka Lady Wilkerson, the Duchess of Witt--Higgins (John Hillerman) gallantly offers to protect the lady from thieves who covet her priceless jewels. Rather forgetting himself, Higgins composes a love letter to the lady, which she thinks has been sent by HER dream man Magnum (Tom Selleck). This comedy of errors turns deadly serious thanks to a kidnapping scheme which inconvenently occurs just as Magnum is preparing for Rick's annual surf-ski race. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

B.A.D. Cats was a 1980 TV adventure series, all about a special division of the LA police department. Comprised of ex-racing drivers, the B.A.D. C.A.T. squad (Burglary Auto Detail, Commercial Auto Thefts) went after the bad guys with a vengeance-and with all cylinders running. Premiering January 4, 1980, the series was cancelled after five episodes, at which point its producers issued what amounted to a public apology. The only logical reason that two episodes of B.A.D. Cats have been released on video is that one of its stars was Michelle Pfeiffer, playing curvaceous lady-cop Samantha "Sam" Jensen. Usually clad in skimpy halter tops and cutoffs, her main purpose was to impersonate hookers and biker chicks, and get kidnapped. Funny how the B.A.D. Cats video showed up on rental shelves shortly after Michelle Pfeiffer's star-making turn in 1988's Married to the Mob; we wonder if she puts the 1980 series on her current resume. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This made-for-television biography spans the life of boxer Rocky Marciano, the only heavyweight to remain undefeated during his career. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Sian Barbara Allen guest stars as the cousin of undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake). The girl has a boy friend (Tom Skerritt) who owns a store that has just been robbed. Almost instinctively, Baretta grows suspicious when the secretive owner refuses to cooperate with the police investigation of the robbery. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Troubled teenager Don Locker (John Friedrich) takes the first step in launching a reign of terror by stealing a pickup truck. Don then persuades his older brother Ray (Brad Davis) to help him swipe 30 cases of army rifles. Undercover cop Tony Baretta (Robert Blake), aware that the combination of the unstable Don Locker and all that weaponry is potentially disastrous, races against time to foil the brothers' scheme. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Although Baretta entered its 4th season with strong ratings and an excellent timeslot (Wednesday evenings, just after the ABC ratings powerhouse Charlie's Angels and opposite such "soft" competition as NBC's Big Hawaii), things went downhill fairly rapidly thereafter. Perhaps the character of maverick undercover cop Tony Baretta had worn out its welcome, or perhaps viewers were growing weary of publicity surrounding the never-ending hostilities between series star Robert Blake and the network "suits." In addition, Blake was himself getting tired of the weekly series grind, and his lack of enthusiasm might have begun showing up on screen. Whatever the case, Baretta didn't even crack the "top 25 program" ratings during the 1977-78 season. ABC responded to this viewer dropoff with more than the usual quota of pre-emptions, and in February of 1978 the series lost its Wednesday-night berth to the more successful Starsky and Hutch. Relocated to Thursday evenings opposite CBS' unassailable Barnaby Jones, Baretta limped onward toward its inevitable cancellation, though ABC opted to rerun the series as part of the network's late-late-night manifest until the fall of 1979. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Created by Stephen J. Cannell, the weekly, hour-long crime series Baretta rose from the ashes of 1973's 'Toma, a shortlived weekly based on the exploits of David Toma, a real-life undercover cop with a penchant for elaborate disguises. For the "new" series, only two vestiges of the original Toma remained: Lead character Tony Baretta was a undercover detective, and he revelled in adopting bizarre costumes and eccentric "alternate" personalities. Otherwise, the two characters could not have been further apart. Remaining faithful to its source, Toma featured a tough but compassionate New Jersey cop who, though he preferred to buck the system and argue with his superior officers when pursuing a case, generally played by the rules; he also had a loving wife and two darling children, and lived in a modest but comfortable and well-appointed home. Conversely, Tony Baretta was a logical extension of Robert Blake, the bantam-cock actor who played the role. Like Blake, the streewise Baretta was fiercely, almost violently independent, bending and breaking the rules whenever possible and making no secret of his disdain for the by-the-book instincts of his superiors. And if Toma was diligent in his pursuit of lawbreakers, Baretta was downright savage; one suspects that he would have blown them to bits had he possessed the appropriate hardware. Also, unlike family man Toma, Baretta was single and a loner, his one bid for domestic bliss having been destroyed when his erstwhile fiancee was killed in the very first episode. Almost as if he was doing penance for allowing himself to be happy, Baretta lived in a rundown flophouse, managed by a dishevelled former cop Billy Truman. Outside of Billy and his pet cockatoo Fred, Baretta had no close friends: Certainly there was no love lost between himself and his commanding officer Insp. Shiller (Dana Elcar), while Tony's favorite street informant Rooster (Michael D. Roberts) was not exactly the sort of fellow one could call a bosom companion. Baretta was unceremoniously tossed into ABC's Friday-night schedule beginning January 17, 1975, as a midseason replacement for the cancelled Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Clearly, the network felt that the series was expendable, inasmuch as it was slated opposite NBC's ratings magnet Police Woman. Within a few weeks, however, Baretta developed a respectable following, most of which was engendered by press reports of star Robert Blake's tiltings with the "suits" (his word for network executives) over the series' violence quotient and overall authenticity. By the time the series had completed its inagural 12-episode run, Baretta was a shoo-in for renewal--and Robert Blake had earned enough clout to start calling the shots so far as program content and casting choices were concerned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Baretta may have started life as a hastily-assembled, second-echelon rehash of the failed 1973 cop series Toma, but by the time the program entered its second season in the fall of 1975, it had scored a solid hit--and, in the bargain, earned an Emmy award for its star, Robert Blake. Feeling his oats, the maverick Blake began exercising more control over such matters as story selection and casting choices, and also had the last word concerning directorial decisions. In a sense, the series became an extension of the established Blake persona, and the character of Baretta morphed into the star's alter ego. The viewer learned that undercover cop Tony Baretta had grown up in a poor, dysfunctional Italian-American family, and that he had been a street punk who miraculously turned his life around and joined the forces of law and order; similarly, in real life Blake had become a child actor to support his impoverished and fractious family, and upon growing up had endured several years of personal torment thanks to bad business decisions, his volatile temper and an on- and off-drug habit before "reinventing" himself as an actor of stature and respectability. And, like Baretta, Blake angrily bristled when told to merely follow the orders of his superiors, preferring to march to the beat of his own drummer in pursuit of professional excellence. Though the production staff underwent numerous changes of personnel, Baretta's supporting cast remained substatianally the same as in Season One, with Michael D. Roberts, as flamboyant street snitch Rooster, graduating from recurring character to series regular. The one major on-screen change was the replacement of Dana Elcar as Baretta's superior officer Insp. Schiller with Edward Grover as Lt. Hal Brubaker. Comfortably settled in a Wednesday-night timeslot just before the popular ABC crime drama Starsky and Hutch, Baretta finished off the 1975-76 season with a respectable 21.3 rating, ranking 23 out of the top 25 network shows. During its second season, the series also copped another Emmy (rather belatedly) for Harry L. Wolf's cinematography in the first-season episode "Keep Your Eye on the Sparrow." ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide