Cannon (TV Series) Bitter Legion (1972) User Reviews

An odd one, as Frank Cannon joins in on an armed robbery!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 14 July 2013]

"Bitter Legion" is a truly unusual episode of "Cannon". It begins with a group of men practicing for some sort of mission--but what and who are these guys?! They certainly are not military, police or any government organization. Instead, the kind of look like the A-Team! At the same time, a Vietnamese lady (Irene Tsu--who is actually a Chinese-American) comes to Cannon--asking him to find her husband. Not surprisingly, he's hooked up with this odd paramilitary group. So, Cannon decides to join them. He assumes they are crooks and poses as a slightly different Frank Cannon--a drunk who is angry, heavily in debt and was thrown off the police force. Well, the leader of the group (Lloyd Bochner) is impressed and hires Cannon--and Cannon has no idea what they are up to, but he knows it's bad!

Aside from a really dumb brief scene late in the show (where the Vietnamese lady knocks the gun away from her abductor but doesn't even pick it up!! She just runs off--allowing him to get the weapon and chase her!!), this is a very good episode. It's exciting, rather violent for 1972 and has an unusual plot. Well worth seeing.

Unusual, Somewhat Disjointed, though

[samwa-27311 · 7/10 · 3 December 2018]

Quite unusual.

Hard to follow, in some ways.

Ending is extremely violent.

Very hard to believe that the crook would accept Cannon, even with the planted stories.

All he would have to do, is talk to a few snitches, or check Cannon more closely, to verify.

Solid through and through...

[jmak_2002 · 10/10 · 24 February 2022]

It was a very entertaining episode...Cannon pretends that he's gone rogue. One memorable scene is his drunk act where his intentional obnoxious behavior convinces several members of a gang to allow him to join. One of the members secretly wants no part in the illegal plans and in order to help him out Cannon deliberately drops a gun into the back of the man's car...soon after police show up and haul the man away for possession of a stolen hand gun. Later, Cannon and the gang get into a gun battle in the stadium. The gang's plot was to show up and steal the box office money. There were a lot of plot twists but everything worked out and we realize why Cannon had the "good" gang member arrested for stolen gun possession...he wanted him in jail so the gang member wouldn't be involved in the climatic gun fight at the stadium.

TIME TO DO SOME STEALING FOR A CHANGE!

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 7 February 2023]

Who better than Michael O'Herlihy to direct this adventure. O'Herlihy directed the A TEAM, and the FALL GUY. At the time of this episode, he was behind HAWAII FIVE O, directing 36 episodes, also squeezing in a few episodes for MANNIX. He and William Conrad were also both directors at Warner Brothers/ABC, so it must have been fun to direct a fellow director?

This is a very different episode. Cannon goes it the hard way, up against an A TEAM type of operation, and extremely dangerous. He's hired by a young woman named Lorraine (played by Chinese actress Irene Tsu) to find her missing husband, who its turns out is involved with this renegade team, planning a high stakes "do or die" robbery.

Irene, who now sells real estate in Los Angeles, got her break as a dancer in FLOWER DRUM SONG, and appeared in many classic films in the 60s. She also became quite popular on tv as she was a super actress. HOWEVER... she also dated Frank Sinatra, which seems to shadow everything else! She is asked about Frank to this day.

Look for crafty Lloyd Bochner (as Ambrose) as the ringleader. He is so good at what he does. In a gag part, Cannon goes undercover as an aimless drunk (in his stained orange shirt) and is fun to watch. You'll notice how Cannon was wearing his three piece suit less and less... For all you music fans, Mickey Dolenz (the MONKEES) makes an appearance, proving himself to be a very good dramatic actor. He also did a lot of voice work and at one time was a radio DJ. One talented guy.

Buckle up as this story gets violent, a lot different than the season opener, and making up for lost time as CANNON was now in MANNIX's Wednesday night time slot, and did not want to disappoint their new audience. The series was steadily climbing in the ratings each week. Credit the fistacuffs to George Bellak, who wrote for NYPD, the grand daddy of tough cop shows.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 3 CBS/Paramount dvd box set No 1 of 2. 3 dvd set/ 10hrs. Released 2009. The box set also features the CBS episode promos, same for Season One.