Ironside (TV Series) The Leaf in the Forest (1967) User Reviews

Ironside: The Leaf in the Forest

[brandaine · 24 February 2010]

This is the second outing for consultant "Chief" Ironside ( not including the pilot).It is not one of the more memorable episodes; perhaps the cast are just finding their feet. The plot is pedestrian and the acting rather wooden.

The principal failure is the plot which fails to engage- principally because it fails to draw out the characters. The murderer's motives seem ostensibly plausible, but there is no sense in which we gain any psychological insight into the protagonist (vetern actor John Larch)and his motives.The episode title exercises only a tenuous link to the plot ( from a proverb apparently.The continuity seems to be contrived and there is little sense that it develops the plot or the characters. there are the usual shots of the paddy-wagon racing uptown but nothing really seems to come together.

The consummate eponymous Chief, Raymond Burr seems quite adrift in this rather slight plot and there is little for him to actually do.Fortunately, the series does improve and there is much to commend such a long and distinguished series.

You look for the Bayside Killer I'll look for the killer of Easter Garrison!

[sol-kay · 5/10 · 6 June 2013]

***SPOILERS*** Right from the start special police consultant Robert T. Ironside, Raymond Burr, feels that the murder of elderly 65 year old Ester Garriosn, Lillian Brosnon, was not the work of the Bayside Stragler. Ironside is certain that Mrs. Garrison was murdered by someone using the Bayside Strangler as a cover in that it didn't fit the profile of the Strangler's previous killings. As Ironside suspected he was right on target but that almost cost the life of SFPD undercover policewoman Eve Whitefield, Barbara Anderson, who was used, as an elderly and infirmed woman, as a decoy to smoke the strangler out into he open.

It In fact was Ironside's clueless assistant Mark Sanger, Don Mitchell, who finally woke up from his stake out assignment and ended up saving Officer Anderson's life when the Bayside Strangler broke into her pad and tried to murder her. As for Mrs. Garrison's killer his cover was blown when Ironside confronted him with the facts of his reasons for killing her that destroyed his alibi and had him take off. Right into the hands of a squad of SFPD officers withing for him outside his apartment. A piece of cake for Robert T. Ironside but it wasn't really that much of a case for him to solve in the first place. It was Mrs. Garrison's killer who lost his cool and freaked out, when confronted by Ironside with the evidence of his crime, that ended up doing him in.

Raymond Burr as Robert T. Ironside looked somewhat bored and uninterested here which made his solving the murder case look so easy for him. He seemed far more interested in jumping into his custom made armored paddy wagon and take a ride down to the Pier 39 Crab House Buffet and end up stuffing his face with loads of shrimp and crab lags instead!