Kojak (TV Series) A Souvenir from Atlantic City (1974) User Reviews

Silencing an informant

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 4 May 2016]

Before he became Captain Frank Furillo on Hill Street Blues, Daniel J. Travanti was a guest star in this Kojak episode playing another cop who is on the trail of Puerto Rican Independista terrorists. They blew up a bowling alley and killed a pair of police officers. Jaime Sanchez plays a police informant who arrived too late to save the cops and gets slightly injured himself.

But his cover is blown and the terrorists want to silence an informant. Can't say any more about this than there's a real horrifying twist to the story.

The issue of informing is always a sticky one. The points of view range as far as John Ford's The Informer and Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront. Both films take diametrically opposite points of view. This particular Kojak story is closer to the Kazan film.

The guest stars dominate here, Travanti, Sanchez, and also Maria Elena Cordero playing Sanchez's sister. She's a key player here.

An Early Look At An Actor Who Went On To TV Stardom

[ccthemovieman-1 · 9/10 · 21 January 2012]

Two guys set off a bomb in a bowling alley, killing a couple of cops that were off-duty and enjoying themselves. Another cop - an undercover guy - sees what is happening and tries to warn them but he arrives as the bomb goes off, blowing him into the sidewalk but unhurt enough to hobble away.

So, with the help of Bronx cop, Kojak tries not only to get the bombers, but who's behind it all, too, and the undercover cop who apparently was a witness. The latter, however, wants to stay unnoticed.

Ironically, the guest actor in here is Daniel J. Travanti, who went on to become a big star in another police series, "Hill Street Blues," almost decade after this episode ran. He played "Capt. Frank Furillo. In this 1974 Kojak story, he plays "Lt. Chuck Danena." Jaime Sanchez also is good as the mysterious undercover cop, "Paolo Olivarez." There is a twist in this story near the end that is a shocker.