You know, every time I tell myself I write about too many Disney movies for this column, my mental follow-up is, “Sure, but I can find the Disney movies.” Because once again, I have set myself the task of writing about a movie that is simply unavailable. I mean, I could’ve bought it on DVD, but I won’t watch it that often. I could, on the other hand, neither stream nor rent it. Even finding an illicit copy was extremely difficult. Several sites told me it was on the Criterion Channel; those sites were lying. Possibly it was there before, but it isn’t now.

The book tells the true story of four men. Two of them were police; two of them were criminals. Karl Hettinger was a husband and father. Jimmy Smith, aka Youngblood, had two illegitimate children that he didn’t support. Ian Campbell was also married, as well as being his widowed mother’s pride and joy. Greg Powell had been abused much of his life. Hettinger and Campbell shared an unmarked police car. Smith and Powell shared a penchant for knocking over liquor stores. And one night, for reasons—I’ve read the book several times and still can’t quite articulate it—a minor stop made Powell decide what he needed to do was hold the two policemen hostage. And once he’d kidnapped them, by his understanding of the law, his was a death penalty case no matter what happened, so he might as well kill them.

The four men got into Powell’s car. They drove north, toward Bakersfield. Partway there, Powell insisted that they get out. Powell repeated his failed understanding of the so-called “Little Lindbergh” law, and they killed Ian Campbell. Hettinger managed to escape. Powell and Smith were arrested and went on trial for the kidnapping, murder, and attempted murder. Hettinger, suffering severe PTSD and survivor’s guilt, began shoplifting; eventually, it caused him to lose his job with the police department. This was Not Helped by the fact that the LAPD published a memo telling everyone that Campbell and Hettinger were responsible for the whole thing basically because they were cowards.

The movie, while considerably less detailed than the book of course, tells the story pretty much exactly the same way; the screenplay was written by author Joseph Wambaugh. Hettinger was played by John Savage. Smith was Franklyn Seales. Campbell was, believe it or not, Ted Danson. And Powell was James Woods, one of many Sleazy Guy roles. Much of what got trimmed was biography and trial shenanigans, because there’s a lot of both, but the basic outline of the story remains and is, as far as anyone knows, accurate to the real events of that night.

Genuinely, how the LAPD handled the whole thing kind of proves that being a cop isn’t as dangerous as some people would have you believe. Because the LAPD was shocked that a pair of policemen could be treated this way. It simply didn’t happen. So that meant that those policemen couldn’t possibly have been acting the way policemen should. Wambaugh makes it explicit in the text that he’s writing the book because he disapproves of how the LAPD threw Hettinger under the bus. Obviously there was no therapy in 1963 and obviously Hettinger would not have taken it if he could’ve gotten it. That doesn’t mean the LAPD needed to actively make him worse.

One of the things you miss by watching the movie is exactly how bizarre the trial was. Because you would need, and I’m not exaggerating here, an entire miniseries to fully appreciate it. If you are at all familiar with the Manson trial, let me start by telling you that Smith was represented by Irving Kanarek. Remember how, in Helter Skelter, Vince Bugliosi mentions in some disgust how Kanarek once referred to asking for a defendant’s name as hearsay, because he’d been told the name by his mother? Yup, that was Jimmy Lee Smith. And man, I’d love to read a book about Kanarek, because his life sounds wild.

Wambaugh also went out of his way to give the history of all four men in as even-handed a way as possible. It’s clear most of his sympathy is with Karl Hettinger—but apparently Greg Powell’s only complaint about the book was that he felt he was more attractive than Wambaugh said he was. Because, you know, he may be a creep and a murderer whose misunderstanding of a basic point of law got someone killed, but he wasn’t ugly, jeez! Wambaugh also agrees that Powell and Smith had horrible, abusive childhoods. He shows some understanding and sympathy of the fact that the deck was stacked against Smith for being a poor, illegitimate black child who was abandoned by his teenage mother. Likewise, he’s justifiably horrified at the abuses Powell suffered as a child and seems to accept the idea that he may have had organic brain issues.

He still can’t justify what they did and doesn’t want to. For one, the LAPD wouldn’t have had the chance to screw over Karl Hettinger if Powell and Smith hadn’t tried to kill him first. Now, I’m not thrilled that he chose to write the dialogue of farmhand Emmanuel McFadden, who may well have saved Hettinger’s life, in an attempt at dialect. It was 1973; he should’ve known better. He doesn’t do much to Smith’s lines; he consistently drops the g’s, but the does similar to Powell. It’s a poor choice. Still, you know, given it’s written by a former member of the LAPD, it’s a surprisingly even-handed look at the crime and the criminals.

I fully get it if you decide you don’t want to take the effort to track down the movie. It’s really hard to do, and it’s got James Woods in it. It’s interesting to see Ted Danson in a dramatic role for his first film appearance—and despite Campbell’s death, it’s a surprisingly prominent role to start on. Similarly, Franklyn Seales is one of the many died-too-soon types of his era, and it’s a quality performance from him. John Savage is doing a really good job showing a man who’s torn apart on the inside and afraid to show it on the outside. And that’s just a start on how packed the cast of the movie is. But still, hard to find and James Woods, so you’ve got to go with your priorities.

A whole lot of things had to happen in just the right order for the events of the night of March 9, 1963, to play out the way they did. Just a little change one way or another, and Ian Campbell and Karl Hettinger would never have encountered Greg Powell and Jimmy Smith. Quite possibly no policeman would ever have been killed by them—though honestly I wouldn’t be shocked if someone else would’ve ended up killed by Powell at least—and we likely never would’ve heard their names. Not, it seems, that many people have.

Next month, we’re going to exploit the delights of new public domain laws and look into the book of Topper, made into a movie starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett! The book’s easy to access, and we already own the movie, but it would still be lovely if you’d keep this column running by supporting my Patreon or Ko-fi!