Episode
Frontline: The Old Man and the Gun
Overview
Viewing the conflict in Northern Ireland through the eyes of Irish Americans who support the IRA and its strategy of violence. Profiles Michael Flannery, Grand Marshal of New York City's St. Patrick's Day Parade, who participated in an ambush on British troops in Ireland some 50 years ago.
Details
- Series
- Frontline
- Season
- Season 2
- Episode
- Episode 3
- Air date
- 1984-02-06
Episode context
The Old Man and the Gun is Episode 3 in Season 2 of Frontline. It aired on 1984-02-06.
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Episode 2: We Are Driven
As American corporations begin to adopt a Japanese management style stressing worker involvement in a family-like corporate environment, Frontline looks at the darker side of Japanese labor relations at the Nissan Motor Company in both Japan and Smyrna, Tennessee.
Episode 4: Give Me That Big Time Religion
Investigating whether the tens of millions of dollars raised through the appeals of television evangelists like Jimmy Swaggart goes more to doing God's work or to keeping the preachers on TV. Should the government regulate religious fundraising?
More episodes from this season
Episode 1: Crisis at General Hospital
Investor-owned for-profit hospital chains are aggressively marketing themselves to treat only the insured or wealthy patient. But most Americans assume government and charity programs enable everyone -- no matter how poor -- to receive treatment for serious health problems.
Episode 5: The Campaign for Page One
On the eve of the 1984 New Hampshire primary, the first of four national election reports. Correspondent Richard Reeves looks behind the scenes at the presidential candidates and the political reporters who cover them -- the story behind the story and who writes it.
Episode 6: The Mind of a Murderer (1)
Kenneth Bianchi, who killed two women in Bellingham, Washington, and was one of the Hillside Strangler murderers in Los Angeles, almost escaped punishment for these crimes because he convinced a group of experts that he had multiple personalities and was not mentally competent to stand trial.
Episode 7: The Mind of a Murderer (2)
Amid questionable use of psychiatric evidence in criminal proceedings, Kenneth Bianchi is revealed to be an accomplished faker.
Episode 8: The Struggle for Birmingham
A special election report focuses on Birmingham, Alabama -- famously a battlefield for black civil rights. Frontline correspondent Richard Reeves examines black political power today and the struggle for the heart and soul of the black voter.
Episode 9: Captive in El Salvador
Filmmaker Ofra Bikel takes us into the heart of El Salvador -- a tiny Central America nation about which we know so much, and yet so little -- to examine the politics and the people the U.S. government supports there.
Episode 10: Chasing the Basketball Dream
Charlie Cobb looks at young men who make it big playing basketball, and many who will not. College recruiters promise an education in exchange for play, but 75% of players never obtain a degree. Are colleges too busy with their big-time sports programs to be concerned with educating their players?
Episode 11: The Other Side of the Track
An insider's look at the 'sport of kings' focused on tracks at Belmont, NY, where the rich indulge their interest in horse-racing, and at Great Barrington in Massachusetts where infirm horses run for purses that can barely pay the feed bill. This is America's number one spectator sport, in which tens of millions wager tens of billions every year.
Episode 12: Return of the Great White Fleet
Profiling Navy Secretary John Lehman and the growing debate inside the Navy establishment to build a multi-billion-dollar fleet which critics warn may not be suited to the kind of wars the nation is most likely to fight.
Episode 13: Warning from Gangland
Explores what Los Angeles is trying to do about its gang problem. It's the worst in the nation, killing more than 1,000 people over the past three years -- the majority of whom were not even gang members.