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A big-city blackout galvanizes the plot of the made-for-TV The Night the City Screamed. Recreating recent events in New York City, the film details a crime spree that runs unchecked throughout the darkened metropolis. Mayor Raymond Burr tries to stem the tide of robberies and rapes, even as he labors to becalm the panicky citizens. An all-TV-star cast, including Robert Culp, David Cassidy, Georg Stanford Brown and Don Meredith show up in brief, interlocking vignettes of "fear, panic, greed, hostility, rage and...love" (or so says the film's press kit). The Night the City Screamed was originally telecast December 14, 1980.