Mallory: Circumstantial Evidence

TV Movie
1976
2h

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Mallory defends the nephew of a businessman arrested for taking his car. The boy kills an inmate for trying to sexually abuse him. Mallory must defend the boy, while fighting a corrupt DA's ... Read allMallory defends the nephew of a businessman arrested for taking his car. The boy kills an inmate for trying to sexually abuse him. Mallory must defend the boy, while fighting a corrupt DA's office who want him to lose the case.Mallory defends the nephew of a businessman arrested for taking his car. The boy kills an inmate for trying to sexually abuse him. Mallory must defend the boy, while fighting a corrupt DA's office who want him to lose the case.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.4/10

YOUR RATING

2User reviews

See production info at IMDbPro

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Trivia
The movie of the week was inspired by a true story. Writer Tom Greene was discussing story ideas with a prominent Beverly Hills attorney who told him about a case he had just been involved in when one of his clients, a famous Los Angeles entrepreneur and owner of a LA based basketball team who had his nephew arrested for Grand Theft Auto, when the nephew got into an argument with him and took his expensive car out for a joy ride without asking permission. The nephew was arrested, and the entrepreneur wanted him to stay in the LA County Jail for a few days to "teach him a lesson". This attorney pleaded with his client to bail him out, since at the time the LA County Jail was a hell-hole, and not the place for a young man like his pampered nephew to spend even one second in. He finally convinced him to bail the boy out after 24 hours, however they discovered he was now remanded to maximum security since the night before he had killed an inmate who he claimed had tried to sexually attack him. The lawyer then had to defend the boy, who went in for a GTA, and now was charged with first degree murder. Much of the intrigue and misconduct by the DA's office as portrayed in the story were also based on actually events during the trial.

Connections
Featured in The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson: Raymond Burr/Robert Klein/Tom Burnam/Maude Tull (1976)

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Featured review

8/10

Good not just because of who Mark Hamil was about to be...

... but because of the actor he was at the time. Hamil plays Joe Celi, a teenage boy who borrows his uncle's sporty new car without that uncle's permission. The uncle decides to teach Joe a lesson and have him arrested like any common criminal. The problem is he ISN'T a common criminal, but he's put in a county jail full of them. So a tough guy decides to pay a debt by trading Joe's sexual favors for the debt. When Joe won't go on the prearranged "date" he is forced to defend himself ending in the death of the demanding inmate. Now a lesson in consequences has just turned into a homicide charge.

Raymond Burr plays defense attorney Mallory who is employed, ironically, by the uncle who set these tragic circumstances into motion in the first place. Don't think that Burr doesn't point that out to the uncle either. I remember this film because it was one of the first to deal realistically with prison rape and what happens when a middle class young man is housed with hardened predators. And, of course, I remember it for being a part Mark Hamil played just a year before he became Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. Recommended if you can ever find it.