The Twenty-Four Karat Plague is an excellent episode. Vic Morrow plays the perfect scum bag! The Twenty-Four Karat Plague starts out as one of those 70's perfect heist movies. With a great plot twists. The stolen experimental gold has an additive which makes the gold radioactive indefinitely. A murder mystery/ heist genre turns into a 70's disaster flick! Morrow wants the money and goes with the poison plan. Can Keller and Stone stop the incoming Bay Area disaster. Ties up in cop show formula way, but entertaining. One of the better episode for season 2.
The Streets of San Francisco (TV Series)
The Twenty-Four Karat Plague (1973)
User Reviews
Review this title2 Reviews
Have you seen what the price of gold is these days
kapelusznik188 April 2015
***SPOILERS*** Hyjacking a shipment of gold bricks the robbery gang lead by the very unstable and scuzzy Vic Tolliman, Vic Morrow, never in their lives realized that it may well end up killing them due to the high levels of radiation the gold was subjected to at the California Northern University's science lab. The gang was already in hot water in killing, by inducing a fatal heart attack, on one of the university drivers that they pistol whipped. But the best or worst for them was yet to come when it was revealed by the university staff that the gold was bad news, in being highly radioactive, and instant death to anyone who comes in contact with it even the some 800,000 population of San Francisco.
With Det. Lt. Mike Stone, Karl Malden, and his youthful, some thirty years his junior, but senior partner in rank Inspector Steve Keller, Michael Douglas, on the case they search out all the deserted ship yards on San Francisco Bay to find the abandoned truck with it's gold cargo. That's to be smelted by one of the gang members flower peddler and ex-con Eddie Whitney,Anthony Zerbe, to be later fenced in Chinatown by fence-man Dale Ishimoto. It's when it became evident to Toillman that his pal Whitney is doomed to die from radiation poisoning that he keeps the fact that the gold he's melting down is radioactive hoping that by him dying he'll split the take, estimated to be $500,00.00, three with fellow hijackers Lew & Charlie, Herb Edelman & Paul Jenkins, three instead of four ways.
****SPOILERS**** Badly miscalculating his escape plan in using both Lew & Charlie to make it work Tolliman also knocks off, by smashing his brains in, the dying Whitney when he in realizing he's dying is planning to make peace with his maker by going to the police and confessing his crime. By now with both Lew & Charlie also coming clean in what they did by turning themselves over to the police. Det. Let. Mike Stone & Inspector Steve Keller, thus leaving Tolliman twisting in the wind as well as up the creek without a paddle. Making things ever worse for him Tolliman now completely losing it had also since murdered his Chinatown fence-Dale Ishimoto- for cutting the price for the gold he offered him in half:From $300,000.00 to $150,000.00. On the run with really nowhere to go and also possibly dying from radiation poisoning Tolliman makes a run for it through the streets of San Francisco with both Det. Let. Mike Stone & Inspector Steve Keller hot on his tale. Only to get hit, he should looked ahead not behind, by a car and killed with the $150,000.00 in cash he took from the murdered Dale Ishimoto strewn all over the street for anyone present to grab and stuff their pockets with!.
With Det. Lt. Mike Stone, Karl Malden, and his youthful, some thirty years his junior, but senior partner in rank Inspector Steve Keller, Michael Douglas, on the case they search out all the deserted ship yards on San Francisco Bay to find the abandoned truck with it's gold cargo. That's to be smelted by one of the gang members flower peddler and ex-con Eddie Whitney,Anthony Zerbe, to be later fenced in Chinatown by fence-man Dale Ishimoto. It's when it became evident to Toillman that his pal Whitney is doomed to die from radiation poisoning that he keeps the fact that the gold he's melting down is radioactive hoping that by him dying he'll split the take, estimated to be $500,00.00, three with fellow hijackers Lew & Charlie, Herb Edelman & Paul Jenkins, three instead of four ways.
****SPOILERS**** Badly miscalculating his escape plan in using both Lew & Charlie to make it work Tolliman also knocks off, by smashing his brains in, the dying Whitney when he in realizing he's dying is planning to make peace with his maker by going to the police and confessing his crime. By now with both Lew & Charlie also coming clean in what they did by turning themselves over to the police. Det. Let. Mike Stone & Inspector Steve Keller, thus leaving Tolliman twisting in the wind as well as up the creek without a paddle. Making things ever worse for him Tolliman now completely losing it had also since murdered his Chinatown fence-Dale Ishimoto- for cutting the price for the gold he offered him in half:From $300,000.00 to $150,000.00. On the run with really nowhere to go and also possibly dying from radiation poisoning Tolliman makes a run for it through the streets of San Francisco with both Det. Let. Mike Stone & Inspector Steve Keller hot on his tale. Only to get hit, he should looked ahead not behind, by a car and killed with the $150,000.00 in cash he took from the murdered Dale Ishimoto strewn all over the street for anyone present to grab and stuff their pockets with!.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
