Street People (1976)

Salvatore Francesco is a mafia boss in San Francisco.  He is tired of being a boss and had tried to retire from the life several years earlier.  His nephew, Ulysses (Roger Moore), takes care of all the legal and financial aspects of Sal's businesses.  Sal paid for Ulysses to go to college and served as a father figure when he was growing up.  To demonstrate that he isn't all bad, Salvatore anonymously paid to have a Sicilian crucifix imported to the United States for his church.  However, someone used his gesture of goodwill to smuggle millions of dollars' worth of heroin inside the crucifix.  Furious, Father Francis, the local priest, confronted Salvatore and excommunicated him!

Sal put his nephew on the case to find out who was responsible.  Ulysses called in his racecar driver friend, Charlie (Stacy Keach), and the pair commenced the investigation.  While Ulysses flew to Sicily to find the link on that end, Charlie went hunting for rumors of the heroin in San Francisco.  With Ulysses' list of names from Sicily and Charlie's gumshoe work, the pair are soon on the track of the three goons.  But who do they work for?

The movie has a few flashbacks to 1930s Sicily where we see a young Salvatore thrilled to be an uncle and how he brags to Francis (the same Francis who would later excommunicate him) about that.  There are also scenes of Ulysses as a toddler and Ulysses' English father.

Stacy Keach steals most scenes that he is in.  His demolition derby of a test drive with the chief goon's car is great fun.  He's a happy-go-lucky thrillseeker and lots of fun.  By contrast, Moore is charming but uninspired.  The role is not well-written and his kinship to Salvatore not well-established.  The audience is told they are close but it does not seem that way in their interactions.

The plot is a mess.  There is a good story to be had here, but the execution is poor.  Though the truck chase was entertaining, there was no explanation for it.  How did the sniper know to be on the roof?  How was it that two trucks were ready to intervene if the sniper was followed during his escape?  There are a lot of people taking part in this cover-up.  Gee, who did those truck drivers work for?  Maybe we could follow that lead?  Yes, it isn't meant to make lot of sense, but it was exciting as it progressed.

Mediocre.

Death Valley Days: David Farragut

It is June of 1856 in San Francisco and the Vigilance Committee is arresting citizens and has already hanged two men.  Doctor Ashe has managed to escape the committee and reports the troubles to Captain Farragut (Ronald Reagan).  Farragut says he can't do anything without orders from the president.  So long as the committee doesn't attack federal property, there's nothing he can do.  Nonetheless, he takes a longboat to the Barbary Coast of San Francisco to see for himself.  He is unsatisfied by the answers from a committee functionary named McCartney.  McCartney is sending bands of men to arrest all sorts of people without due process.  Farragut checks with the head of the committee, JD Calhoun.  Calhoun denies all blame for McCartney's actions.  As luck would have it, Farragut had left orders with Lt. Burnell to sail three ships to stand off the Barbary Coast.  Farragut threatens the miscreant committee men with a barrage that will flatten the area.  Everyone comes to their senses and the city is saved.

All this was new to me, so I decided to research the topic.  Sure enough, there was a Vigilance Committee that took law into its own hands, once in 1851, and again in 1856.  William Tecumseh Sherman - future arsonist of Atlanta - was a banker in San Francisco at the time and had been asked to command the city militia during this exact period.  His letters show that he was frustrated by the inaction of General Wool - the army commander in the region - and the mixed signals from Governor Johnson.  He also noted that Farragut refused to get involved without orders from President Pierce.  As Pierce had already taken a hands-off attitude in what became Bleeding Kansas, it seemed unlikely he would authorize military action in San Francisco.  In his biography of Farragut, Alfred T Mahan - author of The Influence of Sea Power Upon History - offers an oblique comment that the Navy approved of Farragut's actions during those troubled times in California.  In an article from the National Review, it was noted that Farragut dispatched a ship "for moral effect."

It would appear that The Battle of San Francisco episode vastly expanded Farragut's minimal role in the taming of the Vigilance Committee.  As an active participant in opposing the committee, it is a certainty that Sherman would have mentioned this astonishing effort by Farragut, especially since Sherman had been denied assistance by Farragut the day before the proposed events in the episode.

Farragut was in the region to establish the Mare Island Naval Station and was living aboard a sloop-of-war with his wife, Virginia.  I had thought it odd that she was living on the ship, but the episode was accurate on this point.  There were no accommodations on the island as yet and he was stationed here from 1854 to 1858.  6 years later, he would "Damn the torpedoes" and steam into Mobile Bay during the Civil War.

Disappointing.