Badge of the Assassin
Badge of the Assassin is a 1985 television film starring James Woods, Yaphet Kotto and Alex Rocco. It was directed by Mel Damski. The film first aired on the Columbia Broadcasting System network on November 2, 1985. The films production company was BlattSinger Productions.
Based on the true story that took place in Harlem during 1971, the Badge of the Assassin film is based on the 1979 book of the same name a truecrime account from the former district attorney and New York Times bestselling author Robert K. Tanenbaum and Philip Rosenberg. Woods played Tanenbaum in the film, whilst Tanenbaum was a coexecutive producer. Writer Lawrence Roman transferred the book into a script for a television film. The film is an account of the detective work and prosecution that resulted in the conviction in 1975 of the Black Liberation Army members who, four years earlier, had shot to death two New York City police officers, Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, in an unprovoked attack.In The Pittsburgh Press of November 1, 1985, an article under the headline TV time warp says Badge of Assassin written by Barbara Holsopple stated Television destroys time... it just eats up evenings and spits them out and theyre gone. The words came from Yaphet Kotto, one of todays most respected actors. He was ruminating on a controversy that erupted during a press conference for tomorrows CBS film, Badge of the Assassin. The film dramatizes the efforts of an assistant district attorney in New York City to capture and convict the killers of two policemen. The men, one white, one black, were gunned down in Harlem in 1971 by the Black Liberation Army, an offshoot of the Black Panthers. The film is racist, suggested a TV critic too young to remember that horrifying and bizarre era of outrageous rhetoric and rebellion when city officials hosed down peach marchers and a Michigan housewife was murdered for registering voters and offing the pigs could be a lifes commitment. For nearly a decade, society tore itself apart on the evening news. The presence of TV cameras fed the fires. And the embers are so cold now, a young man asks why the Black Liberation Armys political stance is not given a fair shake to explain why two policemen were shot repeatedly as one of their
Source: Wikipedia
