The Streets of San Francisco (TV Series) The First Day of Forever (1972) User Reviews

Poetic, intelligent, and meaningful

[Tiberius27-1 · 8/10 · 19 February 2021]

I agree 100% with the reviewer who said "Janice Rule Rules" because her performance and the humanity, wit, and intelligence she brought to her part elevated this otherwise pedestrian story tremendously.

I recognized her from the start and upon checking to make sure that I was right about who she was I confirmed it. She starred in an episode of my all time favorite series, the original run of The Twilight Zone. Her episode of that was called "Nightmare as a child" and I must say that this episode has both a better title and a better plot as well than did that episode with the younger Janice Rule. There's something haunting about her eyes and somehow sad as well. I hope that her life hasn't been as dark as her countenance has been from those 2 performances. But I hope that others will appreciate the quality that she brings to both episodes. She's a first rate actress all the way.

Decent.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 18 September 2013]

"The First Day of Forever" is a decent and fairly straight forward sort of detective show with a few clichés and a slant that makes it a bit different from the norm. A psycho is running about town stabbing prostitutes. One of the victims (Janice Rule) is slashed but survives the attack. However, the crazy guy calls her soon after to announce he won't stop until she's dead--and not surprisingly, the police put her in protective custody until they can find the freak.

The mystery of this one is certainly no mystery. Early on, the show lets you know who the killer is. What is left to work out is catching him (it wasn't hard) as well as how Inspector Keller (Michael Douglas) will work with the prostitute. She thinks he's some sort of moralist and judges him harshly, though not surprisingly through the course of the show they learn to like and respect each other.

Overall, this was an inoffensive show--neither particularly outstanding or bad. I did think the cop and prostitute angle was a bit of a cliché and the identity and motivations of the killer were a bit obvious--but otherwise a decent show.

A Slasher Stalks Hookers In The City

[gopal75 · 8/10 · 10 July 2009]

The episode opens at a crowded nightclub, where a business man sheepishly cancels a date with an elegant-looking call girl. As the girl leaves the club a man emerges from the shadows and slashes her with a knife, only to be hit by a car moments later as he flees.

Stone and Keller are called to the scene to investigate, and the call girl is taken to a fleabag hotel to spend the night under Keller's watchful eye.

Meanwhile, Lt. Stone runs down some leads taken from the hooker's little black book, which take him to another local businessman boasting a classic Horatio Alger-style tale of working his way up from the mailroom to the boardroom.

As the investigation develops, Keller's antipathy towards the woman he's protecting slowly defrosts, and the two of them end up sharing a few laughs down at Fisherman's Wharf just prior to the climactic scene.

The viewer sees the lit-up marquee for "Orphanage" in the opening scene. It turns out that this was actually a famous SF rocknroll club at one time, located on Montgomery in North Beach.

The hotel where Keller watches over the call girl is identified as the Hotel Kennedy, near the Embarcadero, south of Market. It was also apparently featured in the Steve McQueen movie, Bullitt, but is no longer in business.

Not bad!

[mm-39 · 6/10 · 11 May 2022]

The First Day of Forever has a serial killer and a lady of the night. Keller and Stone must protect the gal and solve the crime. A straight out case. Police work, of filtering out suspects, and finding witnesses I would call a basic cop story! What works is the character development between Keller and Stone. The experience with new school police work is a great story dynamic. A interesting bad guy keeps the viewer watching.. I like how Keller displays street smarts and experience in solving the case. A memorable ending with Stone and the assailant. 6 stars.

Janice Rule rules

[williamrayj · 9/10 · 22 March 2017]

This episode works because of the deft performance of Janice Rule.

She is excellent as the street wise hooker who is both elegant and hardened by the world.

She gives a rather sardonic performance and it is easy, like Keller, to be concerned about her.

Spoiler: Her reaction to Keller agreeing that "They (suspects) must all look alike after awhile" says more than 10 pages of dialogue.

From up here everybody looks the same down there

[kapelusznik18 · 5/10 · 3 December 2013]

***SPOILERS*** After being attacked and slashed by an unknown & unseen assailant call girl Beverly Landau, Janice Rule, is put under around the clock police protection in the fear that her attacker will come back to finish the job, her murder, that he started. It's up to the two cops protecting Beverly Lt. Mike Stone, Karl Malden, and his partner Inspector Steve Keller, Michael Douglas, it that her attacker not only doesn't succeed in murdering her but is captured and brought to justice. As it soon turned out Beverly's attacker has already murdered at least two other women in his quest to rid the city of San Francisco of sin and debauchery and he alerted the police to his plan by having his calling card,his name, being found in the possession of two of his victims.

It doesn't take long for both Det. Stone & Inspt. Keller to discover the crazed and religiously inspired psycho's identity but by then he has gone underground in his attempt to murder Beverly who unknown to him is being used as bait by the SFPD to bring him out into the open. As we see the guy does have issues and one of them is his frustration in not murdering Beverly as well as women like herself, hookers call girls & prostitutes, which he feels is his secrete & holy mission in life.

****SPOILERS**** It takes a lot of convincing by Inspt. Keller to get the deranged man to not only give himself up bet keep him from killing himself as well. That's by jumping off the roof of a building that he ended up on in him trying to escape from the police. Like a baby caught with his hand in the cookie jar the religious lunatic meekly gave himself up to Inspt. Keller when he convinced him that by killing himself, a mortal crime in the bible, he'll not only end up sinning but allowing or giving credit to the person who did sin, hooker Beverly Landau. Landau, to win out in the end!