2 reviews
Starting with a terrific, insightful screenplay by William Altman, this segment sums up the thrust of the East Side/West Side series' concept, pitting social worker George C. Scott against the intractable establishment. His explosive performance, paired with career-peak assignment for character actor Clifton James, makes for a riveting, intellectually stimulating hour of drama.
The story is set up as a traditional "root for the underdog" saga, the sort of sure-fire crowd-pleaser epitomized by Sly Stallone's "Rocky" a decade later. But Altman opts for a realistic, frustratingly pessimistic depiction of the world as it is, namely how a bureaucracy, in this case the NYC web of dozens of departments, encompasses compromises and big decisions that seem impenetrable to the common man - the 8,000,000 people living in the Naked City.
Clifton James plays a neighborhood grocer, whose building that he leases is condemned by the city as part of a huge urban renewal project just getting underway (after seven years of planning and fighting for approval) to replace the nearby slums with a school, housing and other modern improvements.
James is fighting to stay put, where he follows generations in the family business and to protect the nine tenants in his building from being summarily uprooted. Scott tries to convince him to make way for the greater good, and when Scott decides instead to go to bat against impossible odds to save this man's life and livelihood, George's superiors (including Elizabeth Wilson -his adversary in this episode) remind him of his duties as a city social worker and give him ultimatums to cease and desist.
Altman creates plenty of drama in delineating both sides of the story, leading to a bravura climax scene where Scott blows his top and gets violent in a vast computer room (housing perhaps a UNIVAC or IBM apparatus), railing against a smug technocrat in charge, nicely played by a young Charles Durning. He follows up in the next scene blowing up against the NY bigwig named Hollister, who has successfully been responsible for the massive city planning projects (played by Paul McGrath), clearly modeled after the infamous Robert Moses.
Unlike "Rocky" and many a Frank Capra movie, reality wins and our heroes are defeated. This series was unafraid to go against audience expectations, much to its credit, while clearly lessening its chance for success in the commercial world of network television.
The story is set up as a traditional "root for the underdog" saga, the sort of sure-fire crowd-pleaser epitomized by Sly Stallone's "Rocky" a decade later. But Altman opts for a realistic, frustratingly pessimistic depiction of the world as it is, namely how a bureaucracy, in this case the NYC web of dozens of departments, encompasses compromises and big decisions that seem impenetrable to the common man - the 8,000,000 people living in the Naked City.
Clifton James plays a neighborhood grocer, whose building that he leases is condemned by the city as part of a huge urban renewal project just getting underway (after seven years of planning and fighting for approval) to replace the nearby slums with a school, housing and other modern improvements.
James is fighting to stay put, where he follows generations in the family business and to protect the nine tenants in his building from being summarily uprooted. Scott tries to convince him to make way for the greater good, and when Scott decides instead to go to bat against impossible odds to save this man's life and livelihood, George's superiors (including Elizabeth Wilson -his adversary in this episode) remind him of his duties as a city social worker and give him ultimatums to cease and desist.
Altman creates plenty of drama in delineating both sides of the story, leading to a bravura climax scene where Scott blows his top and gets violent in a vast computer room (housing perhaps a UNIVAC or IBM apparatus), railing against a smug technocrat in charge, nicely played by a young Charles Durning. He follows up in the next scene blowing up against the NY bigwig named Hollister, who has successfully been responsible for the massive city planning projects (played by Paul McGrath), clearly modeled after the infamous Robert Moses.
Unlike "Rocky" and many a Frank Capra movie, reality wins and our heroes are defeated. This series was unafraid to go against audience expectations, much to its credit, while clearly lessening its chance for success in the commercial world of network television.
***SPOILERS***Even though up against the wall grocery store owner Dave Meltzer, Clifton James, is determined to stick it out and hold on to his grocery store and as well as the tenants, mostly senior citizens, in his building through hell and high water with the city "Fathers" planning to demolish it and build a school yard on the site. It's the kind hearted and sensitive, to the cause of urban life, social worker Neil Brock, George C. Scott, who takes up Meltzer's cause when no one else will. After trying to convince the city Fathers and their behind the scenes shyster and paid off, by big real-estate interests, elected as well as unelected local politicians not to build the schoolyard that's probably to be used by the local drug dealers for their daily transactions Brock gets so fed up by their double as well as shyster talk that he blows a fuse. This almost not only cost Brock his job but in being arrested for damaging a top city big shot's Mark Hollister's, Paul McGrath, office and terrorizing his staff.
After fighting the good fight Meltzer finally throws in the towel and gives in leaving his beloved neighborhood and family run,going back three generations, grocery store for the city projects that's provided for him and the nine people living in his about to be demolished building. As for the overly emotionally Brock, who by then has regained his composure, he soon realizes that you can't fight City Hall when all the rules laws as well as money, that pays off the local politicians, is stacked up against you. It's a sad but true story about urban plight as well as soon to follow flight with the middle and working class of the Big Apple soon fleeing the city in droves and leaving what's left to the both very rich and and very poor that are still stuck or living there. Something that's happening far too often now in major US cities like Detroit Baltimore Cleveland as well as NYC now some 50 years after this "East Side West Side" episode was broadcast!
P.S This episode had a number of actors who later became famous on TV and the movie business with the likes of Kung Fu star David Carradine as well as actors Roscoe Lee Brown & Charles Durning to name a few.
After fighting the good fight Meltzer finally throws in the towel and gives in leaving his beloved neighborhood and family run,going back three generations, grocery store for the city projects that's provided for him and the nine people living in his about to be demolished building. As for the overly emotionally Brock, who by then has regained his composure, he soon realizes that you can't fight City Hall when all the rules laws as well as money, that pays off the local politicians, is stacked up against you. It's a sad but true story about urban plight as well as soon to follow flight with the middle and working class of the Big Apple soon fleeing the city in droves and leaving what's left to the both very rich and and very poor that are still stuck or living there. Something that's happening far too often now in major US cities like Detroit Baltimore Cleveland as well as NYC now some 50 years after this "East Side West Side" episode was broadcast!
P.S This episode had a number of actors who later became famous on TV and the movie business with the likes of Kung Fu star David Carradine as well as actors Roscoe Lee Brown & Charles Durning to name a few.
- kapelusznik18
- Aug 21, 2015
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