Secret Snow, Deadly Snow (1975) User Reviews (3)

When Kojak Showed a Really Righteous Anger

[theowinthrop · 7/10 · 21 August 2008]

This episode of KOJAK impressed me for the conclusion. So excuse this review if it reveals too much.

Basically in the course of an investigation Kojak is studying a fashionable doctor played by Robert Mandan (best recalled as Chester Tate in SOAP). There is the possibility that the good doctor is feathering his nest with drug dealing. His wife (Elizabeth McRae) happens to be a pitiful woman who is under his thumb, but Kojak is aware that she probably knows much about his operations.

From the start Savalas' Kojak dislikes Mandan - the man is an arrogant bastard. He notes that he is more interested and caring about his various collections of toy soldiers (he collects hundreds of them in sets based on famous military battles) than in his wife, who has health problems. And Kojak slowly gets a feeling of protectiveness towards the lady, who is just too weak to really confront her husband.

HERE IS THE SPOILER: Mandan, realizing that his wife is becoming more than a boring encumbrance to him but a potential threat as a witness poisons her slowly so that he can pass her death off as an illness. At a given point he gives her a sufficient drug overdose to finish the job. But Kojak shows up because he is concerned about the lady, and he suddenly notices something that suggests poisoning. Confronting Mandan he gives him a choice - either give his wife the antidote for the drug poison he used, or the moment she dies Mandan will be arrested for murder. Mandan can't bluff his way out of this - Savalas' fury at him is quite intense, and you can tell that he'd love to blow him away. Trembling, Mandan takes a hypodermic and fills it with another drug, and gives it to his wife. As she begins to rally Savalas eases off, but still arrests Mandan for attempted murder. It was a nice conclusion.

The paradox over the poisoning

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 3 September 2016]

Nobody liked nailing bad guys better than Lt. Theo Kojak. But there are some you enjoy nailing more than others. One of those is Robert Mandan, a successful plastic surgeon who has a sideline drug dealing and a doormat of a wife in Elizabeth MacRae.

It all starts out with the death of another doctor who caught on to what Mandan was doing. But when a certain hood shoots him it turns out he got him at the moment when he was expiring from being poisoned. There's a good old horse laugh given to Kojak and the Manhattan South Squad over that one.

But it's another doctor, the medical examiner over lunch at Childs that tells Telly Savalas about the paradox and the poisoning and they have to look elsewhere for a murderer. That scene with Savalas and Raymond Singer the ME is really a classic and a look at long gone Childs from the New York scene.

Thayer David is also good as a most deadly drug dealer and Victor Arnold as the most lucky hood.

The confrontation with Mandan and Savalas at the end is literally a heart stopping climax.

Mandan is a villain that the viewer and Kojak will hate with gusto.

The Clausens Are In A Pickle

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 7 May 2012]

More of a drama, at times, than a cops-and-robbers episode, this one is about a husband and wife. The husband is a rich, cold person who enjoys his collection of miniature soldiers and such more than he does his wife and other people. He's also into crime.

His wife, a loser-type who is afraid to say anything either to her husband or to Kojak, gets in big-time trouble when her hubby decides she would be better dead than alive.

Can Kojak figure out that "Dr. Michael Clausen (Robert Mandan) is a killer and he can he save Clausen's wife, Rob (Elizabeth MacRae)? Stay tuned.