... and if executives wanted something done, they had to do it themselves. But that doesn't mean they did it right!
Mike Kessler (Murray Hamilton) and Steven Colton (Fritz Weaver) head Colton Associates, which makes gyros for the Dept. Of Defense. They've lied on some forms about QC, and knowingly shipped equipment to Vietnam that was 85% faulty. The third partner is going to the Defense Dept. And confess to the fraud. So Kessler, with Colton's knowledge, has that partner killed.
But the hitman, Billy Milton, does it in a rather spectacular fashion, by planting a bomb on a plane where the third partner is a passenger. Milton does this by posing as a deliveryman and giving the pilot the bomb, disguised as a package, that will be picked up at the destination. Could he have not just waited for the guy in a dark alley and shot him, and made it look like a robbery gone wrong? Blowing up the aircraft gets the titular FBI involved, rather than some local police department that would have just made reports in triplicate, done some cursory investigation, and then labeled the case cold.
But wait there's more! Rather than realizing he just made things a lot hotter for himself and the guy who hired him by bringing the FBI in on the investigation, Milton feels like putting the squeeze on Kessler for even more money than he was originally paid. Kessler responds by going to the bar that the guy runs and killing him. But he doesn't even do THAT in a smart way. Kessler first shoots the entire contents of his gun, in the dark, missing Milton, and then eventually beats him to death with a pool cue, leaving his prints all over the cue. Kessler is bad at crime and bad at business, while his partner, Steve Colton, is so conscience stricken about these murders done in his name that he is turning into Lady Macbeth before our eyes. Complications ensue.
This thing really is a time capsule. In a post 9/11 world the idea of the captain of a plane just accepting at face value that somebody is a deliveryman and naively taking his bomb onboard is laughable. And then there is the greatly diminished efficiency of companies 60 years ago trying to run a business without computers. This is illustrated when the FBI goes to a large company and asks the manager of the personnel department to look for the name of anybody whoever worked there whose former profession had been boxer. The manager's response is - He looks around at his room full of filing cabinets and says - sure, I'll put six people on this task and get back to you in ten days.
This is a great look back and a pretty well acted episode of The FBI as well.
