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Post-55th Anniversary Viewing
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The Ed Sullivan Show
Season 19, episode 22
Originally aired February 5, 1967
Performances listed on Metacritic:
- Lainie Kazan sings "My Man's Gone Now"
- The Doodletown Pipers (singers) - "Rhythm Of Life" & medley ("Hang On Sloopy," "Georgie Girl," "Hard Days Night," "California Dreamin'" and "Barefootin'")
- Gene Barry (singer-actor) - "To Life L'chaim" & reads from Charles Lownesbury's will
- Woody Allen (stand-up routine)
- Wayne And Shuster (comedy team)
- Stu Gilliam (stand-up comedian)
- The Muppets - female frog (Kermit in wig) sings "I've Grown Accustomed to His Face"
- Ugo Garrido (foot juggler)
- Audience bows: Captain Linda Bawnan, Xavier Cugat & Charo
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"The Night of the Vicious Valentine"
Originally aired February 10, 1967
Wiki said:
Jim and Artie investigate the killings of wealthy industrialists. They find that all the victims are linked to a matchmaker named Emma Valentine. Jim is held captive in Emma's matchmaking machine--his ideal woman is a combination of Aphrodite, Helen of Troy, and Lola Montez.
Agnes Moorehead won the series' only Emmy for her performance in this episode.
This brings us to
the first of a small block of episodes that I watched and reviewed back in 2017, though I was relatively new to the show at the time, and as I'm covering the surrounding installments, I may as well revisit these in more detail along the way. This is also the last one that I recorded last year, and is just coming up on Me this Saturday. So I'll have to let the subsequent episodes gather and get back to them when there's a good opening.
On Easter in Kansas City, Jim and Artie force their ways into the home of wheat tycoon Curtis Langley Dodd (J. Edward McKinley), believing his life to be in danger, but are too late to stop him from being shot by a dart fired from a really obvious tube sticking out of the piano that he's playing. Back at the train, we learn that this is the fourth in a series of "alphabet killings" of prominent businessmen, which also have the theme of always occurring on holidays. The agents' thank-you note from the widow, Elaine Dodd (Diane McBain), turns up a type similarity to a card they received after the "C" killing. They trace this to the Friendly Card Company, which they investigate without an invitation, finding a potential clue to the next victim...beef baron Paul Lambert? They're attacked by goons from a hidden room, one of whom has a distinctive habit of laughing maniacally, and a knocked-out Artie is threatened by a stock-cutting guillotine, to be rescued by Jim, who drives most of the assailants away...the straggler being shot from outside before he can be questioned.
By this point Artie suspects that Mrs. Dodd was involved in her husband's murder, and the fact that Lambert is soon to be married turns up a pattern of all of the victims having recently wed much younger women. Jim speculates that the alphabet pattern was a red herring to distract them from protecting Lambert (as if they would have had any reason to protect him in the first place). Jim revisits the shop by day to question the proprietor, Mr. Itnelav (Shephard Menken), and out from the sliding panel comes Washington socialite Emma Valentine (Endora), who, believing she's made a new "discovery," invites Jim to the exclusive Lambert reception, which she's hosting. Meanwhile, Artie tries to convince Lambert (Henry Beckman) to postpone the wedding and stay in protective custody. Lambert agrees to a minor delay, but when his fiancée, Michele LeMaster (Sherry Jackson), pays a visit, he insists that the wedding go on later that day as scheduled. Jim breaks into Valentine's mansion to snoop around, and Valentine--whom we learn had groomed the reluctant LeMaster, once a common thief, to woo Lambert--is alerted to his presence through a series of ringing bell alarms. She has her goons--including the laughing man--attack and subdue him.
Jim is held in an interrogation chair by three pairs of artificial harem girl arms, where he learns that Valentine considers herself to be a "savior of all womankind" from "the injustices wrought by men". Jim surmises that she arranged the marriages to kill off the businessmen and use the wives as her puppets in controlling their empires...her ultimate goal to be elected president by a gratefully reshaped nation. She then demonstrates her steampunk matchmaking computer, which uses sheets of red paper with hearts cut out in them as punch cards. While Jim, left alone with LeMaster, tries to convince her to help him, Artie has infiltrated the household disguised as Lambert's tailor (which involves doing OTT Jewish schtick), but Dodd recognizes him, Valentine unwhiskers him, and he's taken prisoner by the Valentine gang.
In full-on
Batman style, Jim and Artie are tied to the chapel's stained-glass skylight, in an attic chamber rigged to deafeningly restrike and amplify notes played on the chapel's piano below. After enduring the wedding march, the agents partly free themselves with the help of Jim's boot dagger and employ a couple of concealed line-launchers to lower themselves into the chapel upon smashing the glass, where they take out Valentine's gang and Michele stops Valentine from shooting Jim. Michele offers to annul the marriage, but Lambert won't have it...and an escaped Valentine leaves a taunting rhyme for Jim on her computer.
In the coda, we learn that Valentine has been apprehended during the commercial, and the agents toss what turns out to be a gift box of chocolate-covered cherries from Michele out the train window, paranoid that it's a bomb sent by Valentine.
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Hogan's Heroes
"Heil Klink"
Originally aired February 10, 1967
IMDb said:
When an important Third Reich official wants to defect, Hogan brings him to Stalag 13--and convinces Col. Klink that the fugitive is Adolf Hitler in disguise...who is trying to elude assassins by hiding at the camp.
Hogan uses a secret passage to enter an apartment where Tiger is keeping Third Reich financial genius Wolfgang Brauner (John Banner, looking quite different but still using the same very distinctive halting delivery), who's impatient to get out of Germany. Hogan's determined that the Gestapo is watching the place and waiting to follow Brauner through the underground escape route. A comment that Brauner makes gives Hogan the idea to bring Brauner to Stalag 13 through the front gate by passing him off as Hitler in disguise.
Hogan sets the matter up by telling Klink of rumors that he's heard about a conspiracy against Hitler, then has Newkirk call Klink posing as a German general to recruit him to keep the Fuhrer at the stalag under maximum secrecy. To sell the matter, Newkirk puts Carter on the phone to do his Hitler impersonation. Brauner, hiding his features, is snuck into Klink's quarters while Schultz is under orders to see nothing. Then Carter enters through the stove passag to have Hitler request through the door that the senior prisoner be allowed in as a food tester. Klink gets a visit from the Gestapo's Major Hochstetter (Howard Caine, who's appeared twice on the show in other roles at this point, now initiating the frequently recurring role that will last the remainder of the series) about Brauner having been snuck in, and Klink assumes that Hochstetter must be one of the conspirators, though he doesn't have the nerve to arrest the major despite Hogan trying to maneuver him into it.
The prisoners intercept Klink's calls from Berlin while Hogan prepares to have Brauner's appearance changed to get him out. When Schultz enters the barracks and sees Brauner, Hogan gets an idea of who to disguise him as. Meanwhile, through the quarters door, Carter's Hitler tells Klink that he plans to make him his successor, which gives Klink the nerve to arrest Hochstetter. Then Klink gets a call from the real Himmler and is informed of Hitler's actual whereabouts in Berchtesgaden. When Klink and Hochstetter go to Klink's quarters, they only find what appears to be Sgt. Schultz, and send him out. Brauner passes a disbelieving Schultz on his way out and drives off in a staff car. Klink and Hochstetter discover after the fact that Brauner was disguised as Schultz, and Hogan convinces them to cooperate in not reporting the incident to Berlin.
Newkirk's ability to do Churchill briefly comes up in the context of his not having had to opportunity to use it yet.
Dis-missed.
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Get Smart
"The Girls from KAOS"
Originally aired February 11, 1967
Wiki said:
Miss USA, who happens to be the daughter of an important American scientist, contacts Max after finding that her life is in danger. Max has to protect her during the next competition as well as finding which of the fellow contestants is a KAOS assassin.
Frantically running from somebody, Miss United States, a.k.a. Tisha (Tisha Sterling), shows up at Max's apartment in the middle of the night claiming that somebody's trying to kidnap her, and explaining that she knows of him through her famous scientist father, Herman Heinschmidt. Max calls the Chief on the regular phone to declare a code 16, which puts CONTROL HQ on a wacky alert that involves personnel donning an assortment of odd outfits including a diving suit, being of course the wrong code. The Chief prudishly and impractically insists that Max has to spend the night with him, leaving Tisha alone in Max's apartment with a gun to protect herself.
Max returns to his apartment the next day to find Tisha hanging around in his pajama top. He takes her to HQ to talk to the Chief and warn her of who's likely been after her...
Max: Tisha, there's an organization of shrewd, determined men who have been trying to get control of this country for a number of years. Perhaps you've heard of them.
Tisha: Oh, you mean the Republicans!
Tisha insists on going through with the beauty contest, and believing that KAOS has infiltrated it via one of the contestants, Max and the Chief plan to flush them out. Max checks Tisha into her hotel and searches the suite for bugs.
Our final Frndly interruption seems to happen adjacent with a regular commercial break, so we come back mid-scene with a KAOS agent accidentally lunging out the window of Tisha's suite. Pictures of the contestants taken by Max with an umbrella camera identify the KAOS agents as Miss Transmania (Valerie Hawkins) and a man named Sokolov who's posing as her female chaperone (Sidney Clute). At the hotel Max attacks Sokolov, appearing to bystanders to be beating up a woman, then takes him and Miss Transmania into custody. Enter Miss Formosa (Virginia Lee), who wants to take Tisha for her own KAOS faction, and ends up in mutually lethal exchange of gunfire with Sokolov.
The coda has the Chief rather embarrassingly explaining that even the CONTROL computer couldn't tell girls from Formosa apart, and a reprise of Code 16, which is explained to be for an invasion from outer space.
This brings us to the point where I started covering
Get Smart as 50th anniversary viewing in 2017, so it'll be the last one covered here.
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Mission: Impossible
"The Legend"
Originally aired February 11, 1967
IMDb said:
The IMF team infiltrates a top-secret meeting of Nazis in South America, and are shocked to learn that their leader is war criminal Martin Bormann.
The big-ass reel-to-reel tape in the button panel of an elevator that's been marked as being out of service by an IMF janitor said:
Good afternoon, Mr. Briggs. The man you're looking at is Dr. Herbert Raynor [Steven Hill in old age makeup], a dedicated official in Hitler's National Socialist Party. For the last 20 years, he's been in Spandau Prison outside of Berlin. On Tuesday of next week, Dr. Raynor finishes his sentence, and with his daughter flies immediately to Porta Ubera in South America, thanks to the generosity of an anonymous benefactor who has sent him a round-trip ticket. Our informants tell us other of Hitler's top Nazis are also at this moment on their way to Porta Ubera. Whoever is bringing them together seems to be well financed, and determined to sow the seeds of Nazism across the world again.
Your mission, Dan, should you decide to accept it, is to put these Nazis out of business. As always, should you or any of your IM Force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. This tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds. Good luck, Dan.
As I recall, they just did a leftover Nazis story a few episodes ago, which I watched last year. Willy's off, though he's seen in the pile because stock footage. Dan and Cinnamon proceed to the South American chateau known to be a hub of Reich revival activity posing as Raynor and his daughter, where they're greeted by Frederick Rudd (Gunnar Hellstrom) and, along with other true believers (Gene Roth, Ben Wright, Paul Genge, and Larry Blake), are taken up to see "the kommandant"--an obscured, bedridden figure whose mouth doesn't move when he talks, with an accompanying picture in the room of Landau in glasses and a makeup job, whom Rudd introduces as Martin Bormann (Hitler's actual private secretary, whose remains hadn't been found yet at this point, and who apparently didn't wear glasses and looked nothing like Martin Landau). Later, Cinnamon sets fire to her pillow and dons an oxygen mask as a distraction so Dan can try to get at Bormann, but the gate protecting his doorway is electrified, and Dan is caught in the act by Rudd.
Dan plays it as having rushed to the new Fuhrer's aid, and is then taken to see to his daughter. Once alone, Cinnamon flashlight-signals Barney and Rollin, who are hiding in the woods. Rudd holds a meeting in which he describes how each attendee will be assigned to a German city where he's to train followers and sow uprisings. Afterward, while the boys watch some inspirational footage of the original Fuhrer, Dan sneaks out onto the roof to the balcony of Bormann's room, and Barney sets off a fireworks show to make it seem like the chateau is under attack, sending the attendees and uniformed guards rushing out to defend the place. They find a speaker and tape, and assume it's an Israeli trick. (There was mention in the briefing of four incidents in which agents got to the chateau but no further.) Meanwhile, Dan gets into the room to find that Bormann is a dummy, as well as a side room with records and tapes of Bormann's speeches. Rudd checks up on Bormann in front of the others--the gate triggering a recording of "Bormann" saying "Is that you, Rudd?" every time it's opened. Dan and Cinnamon make a rendezvous with Rollin outside to send him up into Bormann's room. While he's making preparations, Cinnamon tries to keep Rudd distracted with talk of their duty to propagate the German race while also probing Rudd's motivations.
There are a couple of times when Rollin has to hide, including when Rudd uses bringing Bormann dinner as a ruse to put the dummy in a wheelchair and change him into a uniform so he can give a speech from the balcony to the men outside--the dummy's mouth hidden by the railing and a lit cigarette in its hand. Later, Rudd is reading Bormann's "manifesto," which includes unquestioningly obeying Rudd's orders, when Dan asks about seeing Bormann again before they leave. Then Bormann walks into the study to make a surprise appearance (Rollin made up to look like an older version of Landau's Bormann). Rudd tries to question Bormann and place him under arrest, but the others are either true believers or playing true believers, so Rudd finds himself having to back down to Rollin.
A desperate Rudd enlists Cinnamon's help in exposing the impostor, showing her the dummy still in its bed and confessing to her about his scam. She gives him a gun and sends him back down to the study, where he tries to rally the others to follow him. But Rollin pushes him by contradicting the assignments that Rudd was about to hand out, berating Rudd for not carrying out his orders correctly. Rudd shoots Bormann, and while Rollin's "body" is carried out to a limo, Rudd admits the truth to the others and pleads with them to let him be their fuhrer...and they angrily converge upon him. The IMFers in the limo hear an offscreen scream before driving off.
Does the basic premise seem familiar? M:I did it a year before
Trek. Steven Hill is given more to do here, but still doesn't impress me. If anything, the dual impersonations showcase a stark contrast between Hill's screen presence and Landau's.
At the end of the 2017 post linked in WWW write-up above, you'll see where I said that I was skipping a group of M:I episodes that were shown as part of a Daily Binge...the very group of episodes that I've finally circled back to!
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. . . The real stone is used as the product of the IMF's diamond machine, a large device resembling a vertical compactor complete with hydraulic compressors. "I did a lot of research on that," effects man Jonnie Burke explains, "and got descriptive literature from two or three companies that make commercial diamonds, principally for cutting tools. So, we designed and based this unit based on the principle we got from them. Technically, what we did they were actually doing at the time, on a smaller scale."
That's interesting to know.
The only problem was that Sam Elliott ended up playing the same role of a utility man as Peter Lupus
I recall his more useful medical background coming into play routinely.
If I were to do a "production" vs "airdate" order, the first half of the fifth season would be frontloaded with Sam Elliott while the latter half of the season would have Peter Lupus back in the line-up, with a few episodes in the middle where the two shared the screen together.
I was wondering about that. Substitute Artie Syndrome strikes again!
I remember that. Sincere complimentary sentiments are pretty rare.
I'll have to see if it rings a bell when the hit single comes up.
Yikes. That's pretty intense.
It was played more for show/flare than intensity.
