The Lonely Profession

I saw this television mystery film years ago and remember being impressed by it. Underrated actor Harry Guardino plays a trench coat wearing San Francisco detective who gets involved with a case that leads him to the inner circle of shadowy millionaire Dominic Savarona. The story had some nice twists and an interesting ending, so it fulfills the requirements of the detective story well. It uses some pretty Bay Area locations and the theme song is a version of the pop standard "San Francisco" that was well performed by actress Barbara McNair. It was produced by Universal Television and originally aired on NBC. The only downside here is that if you are familiar with the productions Universal TV churned out during the late 1960's to mid 1970's (McCloud, Name Of The Game), you probably already know the basic look and style of the production. Elements of this production were probably incorporated into later Universal TV investigator characters like Columbo and James Rockford. If you want to know a little about the birth of those characters, view this movie.