Baretta's girlfriend seems too old for him. She's pretty, but doesn't fit him. They're probably the same age but she just looks older, and seems miscast as the only steady girlfriend Baretta ever had on the show, and her death (which is NOT a spoiler) opens this pilot episode which is a revenge story, highlighted by mobster Timothy Carey because he's always good. Blake, however, as fun as he is an actor, gets corny, all his lectures, and trying to be so cute, "I'm ITRALIAN," stuff like that. Good episode though. One of the better in Season 1. A lot like Blake's movie the year before, Busting, where he plays a cop with an eternally unlit cigarette in his mouth and is obsessed with... well... busting a kingpin.
6 Reviews
He'll Never See Daylight
Prismark108 July 2020
Baretta is a tough streetwise cop with a talking cockatoo. He is also a master of disguise.
In the first episode, Baretta has been investigating some mobsters who have been running a numbers racket.
However another cop messes it up by doing a bust. The mobsters take revenge by trying to kill Baretta but they kill his girlfriend.
Now back on the streets, Baretta targets Frank Cassell and the vulgar crime boss Matty Trifon for the hit.
I remember this as an enjoyable series, Robert Blake was very likeable as Baretta. Unfortunately in the days before video recorders. In Britain it was usually a choice between Starsky & Hutch on the BBC or Baretta on ITV. Both shown at the same time on Saturday nights.
Timothy Carey is at his best here as Matty Trifon in the Turkish restaurant scene. Ogling a belly dancer and demolishing a chicken. Baretta is also there disguised as a waiter and apparently he has done something nasty with the food.
Some of Baretta's antics now look a bit over the top. He changes into his various disguises as fast as Clark Kent transforms into Superman's costume. In one scene I was wondering how did he know the barber's car and that the baddie would be going there alone.
Baretta is assisted by a thin lanky cop called Andy. I got a shock of my life, with that moustache he was the spitting image of Big John Holmes. It was good job that Andy never took his trousers down!
The cheesy side was the depiction of the only main black character. The hustler Rooster is dressed even more loudly than Huggy Bear was in Starsky & Hutch.
In the first episode, Baretta has been investigating some mobsters who have been running a numbers racket.
However another cop messes it up by doing a bust. The mobsters take revenge by trying to kill Baretta but they kill his girlfriend.
Now back on the streets, Baretta targets Frank Cassell and the vulgar crime boss Matty Trifon for the hit.
I remember this as an enjoyable series, Robert Blake was very likeable as Baretta. Unfortunately in the days before video recorders. In Britain it was usually a choice between Starsky & Hutch on the BBC or Baretta on ITV. Both shown at the same time on Saturday nights.
Timothy Carey is at his best here as Matty Trifon in the Turkish restaurant scene. Ogling a belly dancer and demolishing a chicken. Baretta is also there disguised as a waiter and apparently he has done something nasty with the food.
Some of Baretta's antics now look a bit over the top. He changes into his various disguises as fast as Clark Kent transforms into Superman's costume. In one scene I was wondering how did he know the barber's car and that the baddie would be going there alone.
Baretta is assisted by a thin lanky cop called Andy. I got a shock of my life, with that moustache he was the spitting image of Big John Holmes. It was good job that Andy never took his trousers down!
The cheesy side was the depiction of the only main black character. The hustler Rooster is dressed even more loudly than Huggy Bear was in Starsky & Hutch.
Solid Pilot
HughBennie-77715 January 2019
Blake sells the whole package, complete with his early disguises and charming tough persona complementing the hideous presence of Timothy Carey and his pathetic gangsters. Awesome credit sequence and Dave Grusin score also provide funk and grit. Great locations.
Baretta is Blake.
Eewokofrock7 January 2006
I have been a big fan of Robert Blake from his work in The Little Rascals comedies when I was young, to his role of Perry Smith in the classic film "In Cold Blood". His personal attitude seem to form the character of Tony Baretta, who bonded with a cockatoo named Fred and a street pimp called Rooster. (Seems there is a bird thing going on there.)With the theme song sung (about a sparrow-more bird references) by Sammy Davis Jr., Bartetta was the kind of cop you could count on to be the man, and be fightin' the man, at the same time. He was always getting in the face of what Blake called "The Big Cigars" or "The Suits". As far as his personal problems, he always stood up straight and in your face, as Baretta would, and has been exonerated in the death of his wife Bonnie. He never backed down and said what he believed. We could use more like him. And that's the name of that tune.
the white parakeet
dianeward024 March 2002
i just love the film and the series, used to watch it as a child and always remember the white parakeet that used to perch on his shoulder. The music from the series is fab as well, Eye of the Sparrow, by Sammy Davis Jr. I still have the 45 in my collection and play it occasionally, can you get it on CD. Robert Blake has had it tough over the years, by all accounts, but he will stay forever young and a down to earth guy in the series of Baretta. Would love to see it back on TV sometime.
I totally agree
simon.conder4 July 2004
This is one of those American TV shows that I just loved. I can only remember parts of the show but I know that it was good. Great music as well. I remember that Baretta had a parrot or the like. I also liked Robert in Electra Glide in Blue.
This is one show that MUST come back to TV or at the very least DVD. It had and has real character and that funky kind of 70's feel to it.
It is really sad to find out that Robert has sunk so low and has found himself on hard times and eve in gaol as I understand. I guess its something of a paradox given that he played a lot of policemen in the past. I have an Electra Glide in Blue LP cover framed at home. I remember that Frank Furillo had one in his office in the show Hill Street Blues.
This is one show that MUST come back to TV or at the very least DVD. It had and has real character and that funky kind of 70's feel to it.
It is really sad to find out that Robert has sunk so low and has found himself on hard times and eve in gaol as I understand. I guess its something of a paradox given that he played a lot of policemen in the past. I have an Electra Glide in Blue LP cover framed at home. I remember that Frank Furillo had one in his office in the show Hill Street Blues.
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