55.5th Anniversary Viewing
12 O'Clock High
"V for Vendetta"
Originally aired April 16, 1965
Xfinity said:
A deskbound, envious general (Lin McCarthy) accuses Savage of bombing a target because of a vendetta; guest Gary Lockwood.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-classic-retro-pop-culture-thread.278375/page-71#post-12260116
It's hard to take the episode seriously when Ken Berry from F Troop is playing one of the officers.
Anyway, the general in question gets himself killed by being the first and only to bail out while flying a mission with Savage, which casts suspicions of foul play on Savage's part. Lockwood's character, Gus Denver, whose issues with having lost an entire crew from his previous appearance on the show I only vaguely remember at this point, begins to doubt Savage and threatens to testify against him. It all kind of conveniently ties together over the fact that Savage was in hot water with the dead general because he's been continually aborting planned missions to hit German fighter manufacturing in Mannheim, which was the location of Denver's previous incident. In the end, Savage helps Denver get through another incident that echoes his prior one, and Denver doesn't point the finger at Savage when he goes before the board/committee/whatever.
I found this one to be a bit messy/contrived. Not one of the stronger installments. It's another episode formula that the show tends to lean on...Savage in hot water with his superiors over how he's carrying out his missions, but proving that he's right in the end.
The episode opens with the returning Major Gus Denver (Gary Lockwood) as Savage's co-pilot on a mission, where Savage makes the unlikely announcement that there's a VIP coming to the base who's out for his job...one General Hoagland (Lin McCarthy), who, when he meets Savage on the ground, accuses him of fighting the war as a "one-man band" instead of following regs. It's a really odd plot point, though, that McCarthy wants Savage's position, as Savage is supposed to be overranked for the job, so why would another, apparently even higher-ranking general expect to take his place, as opposed to replacing him with a properly ranked colonel? Nevertheless, Hoagland itends to dig up dirt in Savage's operations to get him sent back stateside, with the help of his aide Major Bragg (Ken Berry).
Hoagland grills Denver about Savage's tendency to divert to hitting Mannheim and whether the primary target could have been hit. There's another odd plot point at work here, I think, though I'd have to rewatch to be sure...in this episode they seemed to be playing it as if Denver was involved firsthand in the incident in which he lost his crew...but as I recall, his guilt in his previous appearance was fueled by his having been temporarily sent stateside when his plane went down in a mission. Anyway, Denver later goes to Savage's office to overhear an argument between the generals. Savage challenges the eager desk jockey to fly a mission with him to see what it's rally like. The bombing itself goes easy, but they're jumped by FWs on the way back. Two of Savage's engine are damaged, so he orders the crew to bail, and Hoagland, despite his rank, is quick to be the first one out, bypassing other crewmen who are tending to a wounded comrade. Thus he ends up being the only one who's bailed when one of the engines comes back on and Savage aborts the bailout. Hoag is shot going down in his chute by an FW via a laughably bad rear projection effect.
General Pritchard tells Savage that the Inspector General will investigate the circumstances of Hoagland's death. In the meantime, Gus starts to see a vendetta on Savage's part against Mannheim as being responsible for the loss of his previous crew. Savage can tell that Gus is acting strange around him, and when he confronts Denver about it, Gus expresses his suspicion that Savage let Hoagland die because Hoagland was after his job. Savage encourages Denver to tell the IG's office everything he knows about the feud between the generals.
An investigator coming to base same day that Denver's scheduled to be commanding a bomber on a dangerous mission; in the spotty tradition of General Crowe, Pritchard is worried about how that will look, as if Savage had deliberately given him the assignment in advance for that reason...
Then Savage finds out that Denver's committed himself to the hospital. Denver, too, irrationally thinks that Savage has it out for him, even though the mission was on before the inspection ever came up. Savage has a stern little talk with Denver about why he makes the tough decisions that he does, accuses Gus of withdrawing because of his issues with his crew loss incident, and insists that he has to fly the mission.
On the mission, Savage diverts to Mannheim yet again, and against Pritchard's strong suggestion beforehand. Denver finds that he's lost entire crew again...which, as touched upon above, doesn't match the circumstances related in the other episode as they seem to be going for here. Denver wants to bail just like Hoagland did, but Savage tells him via radio to stop running and man up to the responsibility of getting his plane home.
In the Epilog, it turns out that the 918th has received a commendation for knocking out 90% of fighter production in Mannheim; and Savage mentions how Denver's testimony to the IG wasn't implicating.
I was being too kind when I previously described this one as being "a bit messy/contrived"...it was
very messy and contrived. The entire plot was driven by multiple unlikely circumstances with a dash of bad continuity tossed in for good measure.
12 O'Clock High
"P.O.W. – Part 1"
Originally aired April 23, 1965
Xfinity said:
An urbane POW-camp commandant (Alf Kjellin) sees captured Savage as a worthy adversary; guest James Farentino.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/the-classic-retro-pop-culture-thread.278375/page-105#post-12477471
Also guesting Alf Kjellin, in his first of two roles on the series as somebody who did some bad things a long time ago. In this case, he's the colonel who has Savage in the clink. Colonel Richter has made it his mission to do away with his camp's old motto, "Everybody escapes from Stalag Luft 12."
To that end, the colonel lets some of the prisoners try to escape via a tunnel, only to have them mowed down on the other end, as part of an attempt to break the other prisoners' morale. He also tries to undermine Savage's leadership of the prisoners by making a show of giving Savage conspicuously good treatment. But that doesn't deter Savage from successfully leading an escape that plays out through Part Two...one that involves taking advantage of Richter's favors, as well as a scheduled bombing raid that Savage knew about.
For once, they go out of their way to set up that the Crashed Bomber of the Week isn't the Piccadilly Lily.
There's a nice feel-good moment in Part One when the prisoners break into cheers at the sight of a flight of B-17s passing overhead.
There's a bit of pathos in Richter being honorable enough that he shoots an SS commander who plans to have Savage executed...yet ultimately ends up being shot by Savage himself in a climactic firefight during the last stage of the escape.
The episode opens with Savage chewing out three crewmen in his office for trashing an English pub (as quoted in the previous post that I linked to), and informing them that because the Lily is temporarily out of commission, he'll be flying their plane for the current mission. Said plane is jumped by a large group of fighters and badly damaged, so Savage and the crew bail (Savage being the last man out in proper tradition). Down on the ground, a German patrol sees the chutes and intercepts them, taking Savage and his men to Stalag Luft 12. The senior P.O.W. there, British group captain Brail (Donald Harron), takes his position very seriously, but isn't allowed to talk to Savage to turn over command of the prisoners. When German Captain Staufman (John van Dreelen) starts barking orders at Savage, the general reprimands him for not saluting, eliciting smiles from the prisoners and impressing the kommandant, Colonel Richter (Kjellin).
In his office, Richter extends Savage courtesies but explains how his contact with the prisoners will be restricted for a time. He also boasts of how the camp has had no successful escapes since he took command months ago, and tells Savage that he welcomes the challenge that a man like him will provide in that area. The prisoners stage a fire as a diversion so that Brail can slip into Savage's quarters to have a chat with him. The group captain impresses Savage with his organization of the men, and informs the general of an impending attempt by some of the prisoners who've been there the longest and are at the ends of their ropes. When Savage is released from quarantine, he introduces himself to the rest of the prisoners and Brail shows him their tunnel and false IDs. Savage expresses his wariness of the plan, thinking that it's too obvious for someone as sharp as Richter...but gives his permission for it to proceed, as it was in the works long before he took command.
Richter tries to undermine Savage's respect from the men by affording him conspicuously good treatment, including better food and morning drives with him in the staff car. The escape attempt proceeds, and the men engaged in it are mowed down by guards waiting at the other end of the tunnel...with Richter telling Savage afterward that he allowed the escape to get that far so he could destroy the prisoners' morale. In the barracks, Savage asserts to the men that they will continue making escape attempts, they'll just have to be more creative about them. At this point a flight of B-17s over the camp causes the men to rush outside in a rowdy outburst of cheering despite being confined to barracks after the attempt. It puts a great, big smile on Savage's face as well. Richter declares that if this sort of thing happens again, those involved will be shot.
Savage and Brail proceed with planning the next escape attempt, but Brail doesn't think that Savage will have a lot of cooperation because of the privileges he's been getting from Richter. He also shares his belief that there's been an informant among the men who've already been in the camp for the previous unsuccessful attempts. When Savage is coming back from one of his morning rides with Richter, there's another American bomber flight incident, with one man, the distinctively tall Baby (Jim Shane), rushing out and another trying to bring him back in. Richter orders his guards to shoot them both, but Savage physically shields them. Richter threatens to shoot Savage under the same order that the other prisoners were given, and Savage faces him down, making it clear to all listening what a sign of weakness shooting such a valuable prisoner would be on Richter's part. Forcing Richter to back down while machine guns are trained on him gains Savage the enthusiastic respect of the men.
The new plan takes shape, which involves fake uniforms and an ID lifted from one of the guards by a prisoner who allowed himself to get beaten in an altercation. It will involve kidnapping Richter, for which Brail warns Savage that he would be executed if caught. In the Epilog, on the eve of the escape, Savage has a talk with one of the American prisoners and a member of Savage's downed crew, Doc (Peter Haskell), about why the attempt is important to inspire further attempts, which involves quoting Faulkner.
James Farentino plays Moxey, the everymanish spokesman among the prisoners, and another member of the dressed-down trio that Savage flew with.
_______
Nesmith continued his brand of music established several years earlier. I wish he released more, because he definitely had moved beyond anything he last recorded with the other Monkees (including the more mature tracks of 1969's Instant Replay).
I was wondering where you were 12 weeks ago...
This one grew on me some with playlist listening, though I wasn't fond of Nesmith's country vocal style with the yodelly high, held notes.
TREK_GOD_1 said:
That's pretty funny.
This was one I held back from getting when previously populating my iTunes library, but it's got a good vibe that goes with the swamp rock of the era while also reminding me of earlier country-style story songs like "Big John".
TREK_GOD_1 said:
Eh. Never a fan of this group.
RJDiogenes said:
I'm with
RJ here...this is a good, classic pop/rock song of the era...meatier than a lot of the stuff that was making the singles chart at this point when the dominant trend was becoming softer and more mellow fare.
TREK_GOD_1 said:
What a voice, and what a decade of music she would have,
I was fascinated by this song when I first heard it, not so much because I liked it, I did, but because it sounded weird to me. I used to seek it out on the radio, trying to figure out what the heck it was with this song.
RJDiogenes said:
I absolutely love this song. I was never a big fan of Babs, but you can hardly go wrong channeling the genius of Laura Nyro.
I'm not generally a Streisand fan, and for me this was the ol' hobgoblin at work, as I already had other hits by her in the same chart range...largely from the '70s, when she had more frequent Hot 100 chart success. This was her first single in the Top 30 since "People" in 1964.
As for Peggy, it looks like her single came out in October 1968, so it was when
Mod Squad was brand spankin' new, if there was any intent to use her exposure on the show to launch a recording career. It looks like this was one of three singles by her that bubbled under the Hot 100...the others being another Laura Nyro song called "Lu," and a cover of Donovan's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven":
I think you
can go wrong trying to channel Donovan Leitch...too much is lost in the translation. I get a kick out of the instrumental nod to "Sunshine Superman" in the intro, tho.
gblews said:
Loved the Stones and Them, but both played rock that was “blues inflected,” where the Yardbirds, The Animals (when they wanted too), Cream, Led Zep, etc, played blues that was influenced by r&r.
I think the former would be my preference anyway.
RJDiogenes said:
Ah, Doonesbury-- not only one of the great classic comic strips of all time, but classic Americana. Not only was I a rabid reader, but I'd pick up the collections as soon as they appeared, so I have quite a Doones library. It's pretty much over now, with only new Sundays appearing, many of them fourth-wall breaking filler, but the strip is an amazing accomplishment. Decades of stories, featuring dozens of characters in intersecting and diverging storylines, all mapping out the contemporaneous political and cultural landscape of America. And the characters themselves are wonderful. It may have lost some of its luster in the latter years, but there are so many classic and laugh-out-loud (and heartbreakingly poignant) moments in the milieux that it seems unlikely that anything comparable will ever come along.
I figured you'd be a fan, though you may have mentioned it at some point. IIRC, I also caught early episodes of
All in the Family the same summer that I read the collection...the two being so close together chronologically and contributing a lot to shaping my impression of the state of the world as it was in this earliest era of my life.
Yeah, not a great song, though.
Diddley's 1955 original is a blues standard and was #369 on
Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004). In the interest of fairness to the song...
But while we’re on the subject, to me there was a diff between the Stones and Them with respect to blues. I don’t think of either when I think of the great British blues bands that almost shamed Americans into rediscovering blues music.
