Dan August: When The Shouting Dies (1970) With Vera Miles

Source:IMDB- Hollywood Goddess Vera Miles, as usual with a memorable performance.

"A beautiful blackmailer dies in a fall from an apartment balcony, and the prime suspect is Dan's old friend, Heap Canfield. 

Best episode of the ones seen so far, WHEN THE SHOUTING DIES has Burt Reynolds' titular Dan August once again having to investigate yet another old friend for possible murder, only this time he and the guy have some chemistry, that being his future SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT pursuer Mike Henry (who'd play Jackie Gleason's dimwit son): he's a former football buddy and star on his own, owner of a restaurant and blamed for throwing a woman out a window, which opens the show with her getting beaten as jazzy game show-type music plays... other guests include Victor French, Geoffrey Lewis and Burt actually mentions the actor Jon Voight, his soon-to-be DELIVERANCE co-star... This episode has the same device of going from place to place with questions only the questions and answers are intriguing, and Burt comes out of his monotone this time... just a little more than usual." 

From IMDB

If you like crime TV and fictional, Hollywood, crime shows, I think you'll really like this episode of Dan August and perhaps the rest of this series from 1970. It was only one season on ABC, but there's enough good TV and excellent supporting actors, as well as having Burt Reynolds, (yes, that Burt Reynolds) Norman Fell, and Richard Anderson, as the lead actors and a whole host of excellent supporting actors and guest stars, that I think you'll like this series, especially the When The Shouting Dies episode with Vera Miles and Mike Henry.

Mike Henry plays a former high school football star in this fictional, Southern California town of Santa Luisa, that's near Santa Barbara and Oxnard, who never quite made it in pro football (as they say) and instead is a local businessman, who seems to be loaded financially. But what most of the people in this town don't know, he's actually broke. It's his wealthy wife Carla (played by the gorgeous and adorable Vera Miles) who owns these businesses and his company, it's just in Heap Canfield's (played by Mike Henry) name. 

Heap Canfield is basically an 18 or 19 year old mentally and personally, in the body of a 34-35 football player. He cheats on his wife Carla but she knows and doesn't care. She doesn't respect him and just sees him as a boy toy that she uses to pleasure him. But Heap's latest affair with a young woman named Jenny Bowman (played by Donna Garrett) goes too far. She has blackmail on him and threatens to expose him as the immature, loser that he actually is. Heap can't handle that and beats her to death, actually she gets thrown out of her own apartment. (So to speak) The question is did Heap intentionally throw her out the window, was it unintentional, or did she accidentally fall out the window. 

Santa Luisa Police Detective Lieutenant Dan August (played by Burt Reynolds, yes that Burt Reynolds) just happens to be Heap Canfield's old friend and football teammate from high school. August's whole unit, including his partner Sergeant Charlie Wilentz (played by Norman Fell) and perhaps the whole police department, including the Chief (played by Richard Anderson) believes that Heap is guilty. Motive, means, opportunity, no alibi, he had the time to pull off the murder and get away with it. But Dan August knows that Heap is not a murderer. (At least not normally) And he's really just a big, teddy bear of a guy, who wouldn't intentionally hurt anybody. 

I love this episode for all the reasons that I just laid out. But most importantly because of Vera Miles. But 1970, she's in her early 40s (if I have her bio right) and no longer ,making movies for the most part and instead making a lot of important and starring guest appearances on fictional crime shows, like Dan August, 3 appearances on Cannon in the early and mid 1970s, Hawaii 50 in 1973, Barnaby Jones in 1977. 

Vera had a tendency to play women who were a lot tougher and sharper than they appeared. And in Dan August, she plays a gorgeous and yet pussycat looking sweetheart, who happens to also be very wicked, who knows what she wants and how to maintain it, which is Heap Canfield, her boy toy husband and gives a great performance.

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