cult film freak: BURT REYNOLDS WITH AHNA CAPRI & NORMAL FELL ON 'DAN AUGUST'

Burt Reynolds on DAN AUGUST Prognosis: Homicide Year: 1971 Rating: ****

One of the better episodes of the Burt Reynolds detective series DAN AUGUST has a flowing handing-off plot, beginning with a bum who finds a free bottle of whiskey, is poisoned and dies, which leads Burt's titular character and partner Norman Fell into seeking three beautiful blondes connected to an unpopular surgeon played by Fritz Weaver...

The most important in ENTER THE DRAGON dragonlady Ahna Capri, who might have the doctor's baby... and Ena Hartman, girlfriend of a lower surgeon who, along with hook-handed Ken Scott, has it in for the womanizing doc...

Burt Reynolds in DAN AUGUST Prognosis: Homicide with Jerry Ayres

Who may not be as antagonistic as he seems, and his neurotic wife Susan Oliver has a few secrets of her own, possibly as dangerous as she's vulnerable, winding up in a gunfight that provides the most action...

But DAN AUGUST is mostly a kind of slow-burn neo noir investigation of last names spouted while Reynolds, lacking the signature charm soon to unveil in his big screen career, is cold, deadly serious and always intense: particularly during heated interrogations, getting to the bottom of what's a hybrid of cop thriller and whodunnit mystery... this episode winding up on a TV-movie that producer Quinn Martin compiled after Burt became a superstar.