The Pilot America Wouldn’t Buy
According to Jack Sullivan, who uploaded this to YouTube on Monday, this aired in 1957 as a pilot that was not bought.
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The IMDB plot summary by David Bassler:
“A Chicago fire investigator attempts to apprehend the arsonist who has set a series of blazes in run-down buildings near the river. He suspects that the perpetrator might be part of the throng of on-lookers that gawk at the firefighters battling the blazes. When a deaf woman is seriously injured in one of the torched buildings, the inspector redoubles his efforts to arrest the firebug before one of his blazes results in death.”
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The clip has been uploaded and commented on before.
Whet Moser of Chicago magazine called the show “the proto-Chicago Fire” in 2012.
Lee Bey, then of WBEZ, wrote in 2011 that “54 Years Ago, The Chicago Code Was 2-1-2,” which isn’t actually an apt comparison.
As Moser noted, 2-1-2 “celebrates a time when men were men, public-safety officials were stiff bureaucrats in gray suits, and propaganda was really boring.”
Chicago Code, on the other hand, was about a time when the police chief was a woman, public-safety officials were thoroughly corrupt, and Delroy Lindo was perhaps the best Chicago alderman portrayed on camera.
2-1-2 does feature “Square-jawed, intense, no-nonsense Frank Lovejoy [who] played a succession of detectives, street cops, reporters, soldiers and such over his career,” according to IMDB.
We’ll take Lindo.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on May 20, 2014