Banacek

Banacek was the two-hour pilot film for the 1972-74 detective series starring George Peppard. The cigar-smoking, aphorism-spouting Peppard plays T. Banacek, Polish/American investigator for a major Boston insurance company. Independently wealthy, Banacek will only accept cases that have been deemed "unsolvable" by all previous investigators. In this pilot episode, Banacek tackles the... (read more) case of a Brink's-truck hijacking in the middle of a Texas roadway. The truck and its costly cargo has seemingly vanished into thin air, and the cops are stymied. But with Banacek on the case, we learn that the whole affair was an elaborately orchestrated inside job. The subsequent Banacek series was a component of The NBC Wednesday Movie. The pilot film has been reissued to TV as Detour to Nowhere. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Cast:

• George Peppard
• Christine Belford
• Don Dubbins
• Murray Matheson
• Russell Wiggins
• Charles Knox Robinson
• Ralph Manza
• George Murdock
• Ed Nelson
• Bill Vint
• Victor Mojica
• Lou Frizzell
• Gene Dynarski
• Mario Machado
• J. Pat O'Malley
• Dee Gardner

Director(s):

Jack Smight

Writer(s):

Anthony Wilson

Producer(s):

George Eckstein, Steven Bochco