User Reviews

Dean Stockwell brings great sensitivity and acting ability to the role of Charlie Blake.

This is one of the best episodes in Season Three and it the one that I remembered clear back from the 1970's when I watched these on TV when they were new. Dean Stockwell as Charlie Blake is casting and names that I've never forgotten.

Viewers should take a close look at Blake, with his 19th-century hair- do and his particular facial expressions which make his character come alive.

Also, look closely at his psychiatrist and note that many sessions held in his office were taped, including the obscene phone call which is played from a tape to the wife of the psychiatrist.

It's very heart-warming at the end of the episode to see that Blake's rehabilitation is quite complete and that he is leading a healthy and meaningful life.

Guest star Dean Stockwell is great in this episode. But while he is playing the most important role in the story, we also have a strong performance by William Smithers. During his long career, Smithers was often cast as villains. Here, Smithers is a Svengali-type psychiatrist that does not have the well-being of his patient in mind. In fact he's going to use the guy to commit murder.

The doctor is less interested in helping Charlie Blake (Stockwell's character) and more interested in helping himself...to his wife's money. But he can only get his hands on the dough if she's out of the way. So he will use Charlie to accomplish this. The doctor's wife (Sharon Acker) calls him evil during their first scene together at his office. I sort of wondered why doesn't she leave him.

At one point later in the narrative, the doctor says his rich wife bought his soul years earlier, when they married and she helped set him up in practice. Is he a victim in some way, or just manipulating the situation for sympathy?

As for Charlie, we are first introduced to him at the police station where Lt. Mike Stone (Karl Malden) is having Inspector Steve Keller (Michael Douglas) interrogate known sex offenders because of a recent rape and murder in the area. We find out right away that Charlie has a criminal past, but he is now supposedly reformed.

Stockwell seems to have a gentle way about him, despite the scruffy appearance and the character's backstory. Still there are moments as the story progresses where we get to see Stockwell portray Charlie as a bit unhinged.

There is a long brainwashing scene where the doctor records Charlie making a sexually harassing phone call. I had to ask myself if this was at all realistic. Also, would this type of scene cause viewers to distrust psychiatrists? Maybe that was one of the goals the producers had in doing this episode.

Lieutenant Stone (Malden) and Inspector Keller (Douglas) note the odd coincidences that crop up in the case. But they do not initially suspect that Charlie's being framed. It isn't until Keller sees the tapes the doctor makes of patients that he starts to piece it all together.

What I like most about this episode is that while it gets a bit too psychological and sinister, we also get to see a tender romance occurring with Charlie and his girlfriend. It's a relationship that has some lies, or omissions of fact, in it. This is because Charlie has been afraid to divulge his past to her. But after the bad doctor is nabbed, Charlie and his girl make up, and they are assured of a happy ending.

***SPOILERS*** San Francisco psychiatrist Dr. Norman Jessup, Williams Smithers, comes up with this far out plan to knock off his annoying and alcoholic wife Eleanor, Sharon Acker,by brainwashing one of his mentally disturbed clients to do it. The person that Dr. Jessup grooms or brainwashes to do the job for him is rehabilitated sex offender, who served three years behind bars, Charlie Blake played by a wide eyed and lobotomized looking Dean Stockwell. To make sure that Charlie is fit or right for the job of murdering his wife Dr. Jessup starts him on a dry run by programing him , through hypnosis, to murder a total stranger the unlucky Joan Warren, Dee Wallace, at the start of this "Streets of San Francisco" episode.It's later that Dr.Jessup sets the stage of murdering his drunken and abusive, she found out he's having a affair with another woman, wife by himself murdering her and having all the evidence of Eleanor's murder lead right to Charlie Blake!

It's by having Charlie Blake deprogrammed and having him repeat his confession to Eleanor's murder that broke the case wide open. It fooled Eleanor's murderous husband Dr. Jessup into thinking that he had the law on his side when Inspector Keller,Michael Douglas, and his partner Let. Det. Mike Stone, Karl Malden,illegally broke into his office and uses his tapes with Charlie to implicate him in both Eleanor as well as Joan Warren's murders. As it turned out by trying to use the law to save his neck he in fact admitted his guilt when it was his own patient, Charlie Blake, who words, on tape, that convicted him.

P.S As we saw the plan by Dr. Jessup was almost picture perfect. He gets poor brainwashed Charlie to be at the right place at the right time, the murder scene, to get himself arrested by the SFPD. Charlie also passes a lie detector test in admitting that he's both Eleanor as well as Joan Warren's murderer. It's , when Charlie's incriminating statement don't quite seem to add up, in him being in two places at the same time, that hot shot SFPD inspector Steve Keller, smells a rat in his bazaar confession. And that rat is non other then Charlie's personal psychiatrist Dr. Norman Jessup!