The best Tim McIntire’s tv movie movies

Harry Orwell has been retired from the force ever since he caught a bullet that lodged inoperably in his back. But that doesn’t mean the man called Harry O is out of the action. Moonlighting as a private sleuth, fighting off daily back pain and typically traveling by public bus instead of his own car (“It gives a man a chance to think”), he’s on the trail of the lowlife who murdered his pal’s son-in-law. It won’t be the only time the killer strikes before Harry closes in. David Janssen (The Fugitive) portrays dogged detective Harry in the telefilm that was the second of two pilots preceding his memorable Harry O series. Among the highlights: young Jodie Foster as Liberty, the wise-beyond-her-years homeless waif Harry befriends.

Private eye Mike Hammer tries to clear his friend, Captain Chambers, who has been framed for cocaine possession.

Andy Griffith plays a philandering apartment house manager who picks up a pretty young girl (Suzanne Hildur) in a bar. He takes her home, whereupon the girl's male cronies show up armed with guns. Griffith and his wife (Ida Lupino) are held hostage by the crooks, who plan to use the apartment as headquarters while they pull off a big robbery. Director Paul Wendkos stages the action essentially from the victim's point of view; we see only what they see, and are kept guessing as to the full details of the crime and the ultimate fate of the hostages. Based on a novel by Fielden Farrington, The Strangers in 7A was first telecast on November 14th, 1972 as a CBS Movie of the Week.