NBC Stalks Ratings With Ramirez Story : Television: His conviction means “Trackdown” won’t need a rewrite and that the movie will be ready for the sweeps.

Sept. 20 was a “fairly jubilant day” on one particular Hollywood movie set, the producer related. That was the day on which Richard Ramirez was found guilty of conducting his reign of terror as the Night Stalker.

In two days, cast and crew would be done and--whew!--wouldn’t have to do any new scenes.

As it is now, the NBC movie of “Trackdown: The Search for the Night Stalker” ends with that festive arrest of “suspect” Ramirez in East Los Angeles and his delivery to the County Jail pending trial. The producers are putting a crawl on the screen explaining that Ramirez was subsequently found guilty of 13 murders and 30 other felonies and was sentenced to death 19 times.

Had he been found innocent, well, “It would have been a scene of him released from jail, vindicated by the court system,” said executive producer Leonard Hill. “But we didn’t have to shoot it.”

The murderous rampage took five months in 1985. The trial took 14 months and the jury deliberations 22 days. Although the movie took only 20 days to photograph, the project started about the time of Ramirez’s arrest in August, 1985. The script was done about two years ago; NBC gave the production order early last year.

Now the producers are racing like the wind to get “Trackdown” edited and scored and generally beautified for airing during the November ratings “sweeps” (the date hasn’t been set yet). NBC is paying the overtime.

The story took some of the best criminal minds in Hollywood. Consider their rapsheets:

Len Hill produced “Jack the Ripper” and “Nitti: The Enforcer” last season. Veteran TV cop-show writer Joe Gunn had 20 years in the Los Angeles Police Department before retiring as a commander; he ran all the detectives on the Westside and checked all the homicide calls. Tony Masucci, NBC vice president for movies and miniseries, has done movies on multiple killer Ted Bundy, the Billionaire Boys Club and the Hillside Strangler murderers.

The heroes of this trackdown are Los Angeles Sheriff’s Detectives Frank Salerno, who also was a key investigator on the Strangler, and Gil Carillo. They were selected as the point men in pursuit of what at first was a local character known quaintly as “The Valley Intruder.” Then, from the San Gabriel Valley, the madness exploded into the San Fernando Valley and Orange County, then San Francisco and the whole state.

The officers are portrayed by Richard Jordan as Salerno and A Martinez as Carillo. Veteran character actor Jordan knows something about demented people: He played the twisted, sweating serial killer to Kurt Russell’s reporter in the feature “Mean Season.”

Young actor Gregory Cruz was cast in the unenviable role of Ramirez. He has very few lines, and represents more of a presence than a person, since the story focuses on the tracking down and not on the persona of the satanist himself.

Shortly after Ramirez was captured, Gunn got a call from NBC saying that several writers were talking Ramirez projects and asking what he thought. He said he didn’t like the idea of focusing on the killer.

“I thought a far more interesting movie,” he said, “was from the point of view of the detectives and how they captured him and about the panic that covered not only L.A. but the whole state. The heat and the fear and the panic buying of guns. How one guy had kind of changed our whole pattern of living.”

Why wasn’t the movie done right away?

“The primary reason was a respect for law enforcement,” Hill said. “There was a sense that if we did the show, those law enforcement officials who worked very hard to apprehend Ramirez and prosecute Ramirez stood the risk potentially of mistrial based on the way we treated the movie before the trial itself was resolved.”

The movie is “scrupulously true,” said Hill, and “extremely accurate,” said Gunn. The only fictionalization of any significance is a composite journalist called Ann Clark (played by Lisa Eilbacher).

Asserted Hill: “The arc of her story is based on very pertinent events that relate to that classic quandary that every journalist dealing with these kind of stories confronts, the reporter’s responsibility to print all the news that’s fit to print--but occasionally not print because of the implications of revealing sensitive information.”

One or more of the true-life journalists--the producers won’t say who--discovered key evidence that police wanted to keep undisclosed for fear that it might undermine an important avenue of investigation. In the movie, Clark’s editor at the TV station insists that this information should be used; the reporter finally says no.

“Various reporters are taking credit for it,” Hill said. “I’ve never discussed it personally with any of them. We’ve had triple corroboration and the key corroboration came from Salerno. He said, yes, indeed, there was a problem when a reporter or a couple reporters tumbled onto footprint information which had been the one thread the cops were able to knit through a few different crimes.”

Then came the major breakthrough, an informant who turned up after the county supervisors approved a reward. The informant knew about jewelry that had been burgled and fenced by the Stalker and “said the guy’s name was Rick and he was a Latino from El Paso,” Hill explained.

Using new laser technology, they found a single print in a suspect Toyota and it led to “Rick” Ramirez. With the name, police raised his photo.

Hill said that much previously unreported information on the case will be related in the film--including a major dispute over whether to release the photo of Ramirez to the media. Investigators Salerno and Carillo insisted that distributing the photo might prompt Ramirez to take flight; Sheriff Sherman Block and Police Chief Darryl Gates felt that the public needed to know to protect itself, even if it hindered the pursuit.

Said Hill, “Well, the best drama is always an argument between people who are both right.”

Meantime, life goes on. Or, more appropriately, death goes on.

Hill’s next release is “Cross of Fire,” an NBC miniseries set for Nov. 5 and 6. Starring John Heard (as KKK Grand Dragon D. C. Stephenson), Mel Harris, David Morse and Lloyd Bridges, it’s another true tale of romance, murder and revenge in 1920s Indianapolis.

Gunn is consulting on the new-new “Adam 12” and “Dragnet”--with 104 deadly episodes ordered for syndication. There’s bound to be some murders in there. No comedies, he said.

Is Masucci planning any more mass murdering? “Certainly true-life crime is a subject that all networks and movie makers continue to go back to because there seems to be an audience fascination with that kind of stuff,” he said.

“I guess the next thing we’re doing is Joe McGinniss’ ‘Blind Faith.’ It’s not mass murder but true-life crime. It’s going into production the end of the month.”

In the miniseries, Robert Urich plays insurance executive Rob Marshall, now residing on Death Row for killing his wife.

Also coming up on the NBC longer-form schedule: “Murder in Mississippi,” “Murder in Paradise,” “Man Against the Mob II: Man in Cement,” “Perry Mason: The Case of the Murder Mystery Murder,” “Drug Wars: The Camarena Story,” “Howard Beach: Making the Case for Murder” and “Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes.”