10 Terrible TV Adaptations Of Classic Films (That Everybody Forgot About)

Adaptation Of – Serpico (1973)

In the wake of The Godfather’s success, Serpico was the film that established Al Pacino as an acting heavyweight and proved that his incredible performance in Francis Ford Coppola’s epic (only his second on-screen appearance) wasn’t a one-off.

Based on a twelve-year biography of undercover New York Police Department officer Frank Serpico, Sidney Lumet’s film was a dark and unforgiving look into police corruption, a subject that's still relevant to this day, earning Pacino his first of five Best Actor nominations.

Given that the film covered Serpico’s career, testimony and retirement from police work, a follow-on television series seems nonsensical in retrospect. NBC’s adaptation took the real-life individual and placed him in fictionalised situations, but lasted for just fourteen episodes. The presence of the author of the original biography, Peter Maas, on the writing team did nothing to make it stand out against the swathes of other police procedurals dominating the airwaves at the time.

Now an Italian citizen, Serpico remains a staunch opponent of police brutality and corruption to this day, speaking out against instances of the wrongdoing he fought against as a police officer. Whilst the film adaptation of his life remains well-known, the television adaptation is anything but, with its fifteenth episode remaining unaired to this day over forty years later.