REEL RETRO CINEMA: A BIRTHDAY TRIBUTE to the late GRAY MORROW… — UPDATED 3/7/26: The late Gray Morrow was born 92 years ago, on March 7, 1934. Perfect time to reprint this REEL RETRO CINEMA column on The Super Cops, from 2016! Dig it. — Dan — By ROB KELLY “They’re not just cops…they’re Super Cops.” — Axel Foley 1974’s The Super Cops stars Ron Leibman and David Selby as two real-life NYC cops whose antics brought them such notoriety that they came to be known on the streets as Batman and Robin. It opens with the NYPD training a whole gang of new recruits, including David Greenberg (Leibman) and Robert Hantz (Selby). On their first day, the two show an instant rapport and a complete unwillingness (or inability) to follow the rules. Upon receiving their badges, they are assigned hum-drum duties like paperwork filing and traffic duty, but they decide on their off hours to run undercover missions, busting dope peddlers and other miscreants without the supervision of their superiors. They get chewed out by their bosses, and threatened with suspension. They smile, promise to shape up, and then go right back out do it all over again. They seem on the verge of being kicked off the force but, dammit, they get results! Finally, as punishment, they are sent to the (fictionalized) 21st Precinct in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, which looks like Mad Max: Fury Road except not as friendly and inviting. Their new boss, the hangdog Capt. Krasna (Dan Frazer), tells them not to make waves, but of course they don’t listen to him either—before they’re even officially part of the precinct, they find some prostitutes and press them for info on the local drug kingpin. Greenberg starts to take a shine to one of the women, named Sara (Sheila Frazier). She initially regards Greenberg with understandable suspicion, but when she sees he and Hantz are actually trying to clean up the streets, she starts offering them valuable info. Against all odds, the Super Cops become local heroes in the neighborhood, racking up busts left and right. Little kids refer to them as Batman and Robin (“Why am I Robin?” Hantz wonders). Capt. Krasna eventually gives them his unofficial blessing to keep going, assuming that under the leadership of new Police Inspector Novick (Pat Hingle,...