The Streets of San Francisco Season Two

Recently I've been binge-watching the first two seasons of THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, but didn't discover Mr. Mike had "anal"-yzed this show as he had done for FIVE-0 until I got to the second season of SoSF.

Here are some comments, addenda and corrections that I jotted down while watching season two.

S02E06: The Stamp of Death

Glen must phone Sturdevant to get him into the library so that Conway can shoot him, not to make the robbery more convincing, but because their plan involves faking the insurance policy to cover a stamp that never existed in Sturdevant's collection. (If he were still alive, then he could tell the police that the policy was fake.)

The trivia section mentions a "reverse tracking show" instead of "shot."

S02E07: Harem

When Diane's body is pulled from the water, she still has her purse with her somehow — and the piece of paper with phone numbers on it is still dry!

S02E08: No Badge for Benjy

Benjy is spelled as Benji a few times in the synopsis.

S02E09: The Twenty-Four Karat Plague

Re: the second cigarette, there is a reaction shot of Stone noticing this that seems to indicate that Charlie is so nervous he forgot he already had a lit cigarette and then Stone puts out the first one before he leaves, as if he's signalling to Charlie that he knows something is up.

S02E10: Shield of Honor

Re: "You couldn't pay and my sister was going to nurse a cripple for the rest of her life if I didn't help some way." I took this to mean that if Ted didn't pay off his gambling debts some mob goons would beat him up and leave him crippled.

The head vice cop in this episode is Lt. Vincent Bondini, while the vice cop two episodes prior was Milt Dedini (who shows back up in S02E15). Was Dedini originally supposed to be in this episode too, but maybe William Watson (who plays Dedini) wasn't available, so they changed one fake-sounding Italian name for another? "Bondini" is after criminal kingpin Al Lyman in this episode, just as Dedini is in "Commitment."

The truck camper that Drea drives to the stakeout is the same one Leslie Nielsen drives in the insane car chase at the beginning of "Before I Die" (S02E04).

S02E12: The Runaways

When Millie Cox first shows up, she is walking toward a door that says "MUNICIPAL COURT JUVENILE DIVISION DEPARTMENT 16" but the word "JUVENILE" is on a sign that appears to be pasted over some other word.

S02E13: Winterkill

The title word means "to die as a result of exposure to winter conditions" so maybe this is referring to the old people are in the winter of their life? A few months after this episode aired, Richard Condon's novel "Winter Kills" (later made into a 1979 movie) was published.

The gas station that is robbed at the beginning of the episode looks like same one from "The Victims" (S02E11) where the station attendants try to thwart the kidnapping and go vigilante on the prison escapee who was using the bathroom.

S02E14: Most Feared in the Jungle

The title might refer to the lioness, who is more dangerous than the lion (often called the "king of the jungle," even though lions don't live in jungles) and protective of her cubs, although if there was some reference to this in the dialogue, I missed it.

Could the fake ambulance at the beginning just be taking Talmadge from the house for unwed mothers to the fake hospital?

At the end, the name of the unseen family court judge is Mary Parkhurst — they should have made it Millie Cox, the family-court judge who figured in "The Runaways" (SE02E12) two episodes prior (although this family court appears to be a completely different building).

S02E15: Commitment

Goof: After Keller shoots Sims the second time, Sims gives up his gun to Decker, but then in the next shot the gun is still on the ground next to Sims.

Carlino (the dead undercover cop) lived in a house or apartment with an amazing view — maybe he was on the take too!

Why does the the guy who is tailing Stone (until Stone starts chasing him) then wait for Stone when Stone gets stopped at a train crossing? Is he keeping Stone busy while Jeannie is being set up?

The music tracked into the tender scene between Mike and Jeannie is the same music used for the "love theme" between the mousy schoolteacher and the hit man in "A Room with a View" (S01E18).

What does the title mean? Does it relate to Carlino being so dedicated to his job that he worked undercover for a year and half?


S02E16: Chapel of the Damned

In the two hours between the kidnapper's calls at noon and 2:00 p.m., Stone and Keller: drive from the Sloane apartment to the police lab; make inquiries with a contact-lens manufacturer; visit an optician; head to the Hotel Atlanta to search the room of the owner of the contact lens (Rubiro); visit the cold-storage facility where Dillon works and find Rubiro's dead body; then drive to Dillon's place of residence; and and finally get back to the Sloane apartment about 10 minutes after the second call comes in. All of this takes up a good portion of the episode's running time, so with all the driving around it's hard to believe they could accomplish all of this in just over two hours of real time!

The number of Cal Pacific Airlines is 555-7371.

S02E17: Blockade

Stone calls for a "Code 3000" (not a Code 300 as mentioned in the synopsis). He had done this before in "The Year of the Locusts" (SE01E10) and would do so again in "Flags of Terror" (SE03E08).

S02E18: Crossfire

Keller says he was attending Berkeley during "the riots."

The college-campus sniper angle to the story may have been inspired by the University of Texas tower shooting, which happened on August 1, 1966.

S02E19: A String of Puppets

Special guest start Hari Rhodes gets offed four minutes into the episode if you don't count the opening credits. He appeared three times in Season One as forensics investigator Charlie Johnson and got an opening-credit mention for each of these typically brief appearances.

When seen from the truck-mounted camera, Harry's body is kneeling down in the phone booth with his legs at a strange angle and arms in front of his face to conceal the fact that this is a dummy not a real actor.

If Jackie's apartment was trashed in search of the diamonds, why didn't Tubbs stop to see if they were on Harry's body after running him over in the phone booth?

When Stone shows Jackie his ID, the card says "STAR NO. 2248" but the badge right below it has number 847. Donald M. Scott was the actual SFPD chief from September 1971 through January 1976.

Stone's wife's name was Helen.

Michael Douglas does not do a good job pretending to play the trumpet.

Keller was on a skiing vacation at Lake Tahoe, which is on the California-Nevada border, so it's possible his trip did not extend to Nevada.

While undercover, Keller refers to the city where he has supposedly just arrived as "Frisco." Mason corrects him: "It's not 'Frisco,' it's San Francisco." This will become a recurring bit in "Superstar" (S04E21), with Keller repeatedly correcting Bert D'Angelo on the same point.

S02E20: Inferno

The firefighting in the opening sequence is very obviously stock footage.

How does Stone know to find Keller at a tailor on Keller's day off?

O'Toole and Keller walk through the arson scene while there are still flareups. O'Toole is wearing a fire helmet and turnout gear, while Keller is in his custom-tailored street clothes!

Glenn Corbett's bad acting telegraphs that he is involved with the arson before "Jason" calls him to reveal his character's complicity.

S02E21: The Hard Breed

How much of the gruesome bull-riding death did they show on ABC Wide World of Sports before cutting away?

How does Stone always know where to find Keller when he is off duty (here in a restaurant on a date)? Do SFPD inspectors have to let HQ know how to reach them even when off duty?

Stone says ro-DE-o not RO-de-o.

I generally agree with Mr. Mike's star ratings, but this seems more like a 2.5-star episode than a 3.5-star episode.

S02E22: Rampage

Keller tells Stone he hasn't seen Joplin in two or three years, but then Joplin seems surprised to learn that Keller is now a cop, even though he has worked as Stone's partner for about three years by this point and was a beat cop and worked in vice for a while before that.

S02E23: Death and the Favored Few

There is a string trio providing music at the party in the opening scene, just as there is in "The Stamp of Death" (S02E06). Could the producers not afford a string quartet?

Maxwell calls Aubury a "twerp," which apparently was used as gay slur at the time.

A clock on the dashboard of the taxi that drops off Aubury right before he is shot shows that the time is 2:30 a.m.

Presumably Keller radios in to have the fire department respond to Aubury's office while he's chasing after Reed.

Keller injures the same arm where he was stabbed in the previous episode (at the end of which, Keller's arm was in a sling).

Joseph calls Etta "Morrie," apparently his pet name for her, based on the "Morris" in "Etta Morris Randolph."

Etta says that Joseph wouldn't marry her, but there doesn't seem to be reason to conclude that "nothing ever came of" their feelings for one another, just that it "wouldn't look right" for Etta to marry her servant, so they may have been "doing it" for the better part of 30 years.

Joseph confesses he knew Aubury wasn't going home right away. How? Aubury was sloshed at the party, so maybe Joseph called him a cab and overheard Aubury telling the driver to take him to a bar? Stone asks Joseph if he used Aubury's car when he left the party to kill him. Did Aubury drive to the party and leave his car there? The cops know the name of the bar where Aubury spent time before returning home, so maybe they traced the cab back to the bar, then interviewed someone at the bar and traced him back to the party?

The watches say 23 years of faithful service for Stone and 3 for Keller. But Keller has been Stone's partner for more than two (and probably at least three) years by this point, and he was on the force as a beat cop and worked in vice before then. Other episodes say Stone has been on the force years longer. Maybe this is the length of the time they have been inspectors and Etta got the wrong info from the SFPD before having the watches engraved?

Apparently the leverage that Reed has over Etta and her daughter is that he is going to sue for custody of the granddaughter, but what court would give custody of an 8-year-old girl to a heroin addict?