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Saturday, May 31, 2008The Submarine Mission ImpossibleYear: 1970 Directed by Paul Krasny Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Lee Meriwether, Stephen McNally, Ramon Bieri, William Wintersole Music by Lalo Schifrin By the fourth season of Mission Impossible, the IMF team had quite a shakeup. Martin Landau and his wife, Barbara Bain had left the series, and in came Leonard Nimmoy (I am an actor, not Spock), as master magician, Paris. The shakeup didn’t really effect the series too much, but I suspect the formula was starting to wear thin. This particular episode starts in the usual manner, with Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) receiving his instructions from a miniaturised tape recorder (the recording will, of course ‘self-destruct’ afterwards). His mission is to locate a vast quantity of money stolen by the S.S. at the end of World War II. This money is to be used to fund a Neo-Nazi coup in Europe. The only person who knows the location of this money is Krueger Stelman (Stephan McNally). Stelman is about to be released from prison after a 25 year stint for war crimes. But the IMF aren’t the only people trying to track the money. Colonel Sardner (Ramon Bieri) is an interrogation officer for an un-named Communist country, and each evening he takes Stelman from his prison cell and has him delivered to his headquarters, where he grills him about the location of the money. Over 25 years Stelman has never broken. In fact, it is something that he is very proud of. Every morning, after the interrogation, Stelman is driven back to prison. On Stelman’s last day of incarceration, the IMF pull off a daring kidnapping, as Stelman is returned to prison one morning. Sardner is not happy that his prisoner has been snatched from under his nose and sets up road blocks around the city. He then orders patrols to search every building in the area until they find Stelman. Jim and the IMF team figure they have 2 hours to break Stelman before they are discovered by Sardner. The clock is ticking... Stelman wakes up on the top of a two tier bunk on a German U-boat. Below him, on the bottom tier is Tracey (Lee Meriwether), another IMF agent. It looks like she has been badly beaten. Her face is swollen and bruised and she has blood on her cheek. She is also rambling incoherently about Colonel Sardner. To Stelman, it appears that she too was interrogated by Colonel Sardner, but she broke and provided information to the enemy. Of course, being the IMF, they aren’t really on a U-boat, but an elaborately constructed set inside a warehouse, near where the abduction took place. Jim Phelps and Paris (Leonard Nimmoy) play two German officers who are taking Stelman and Tracey back to S.S. Headquarters to stand trial. When Stelman realises that he too must be looked upon as a traitor, if he is to stand trial. But he knows that he didn’t break under interrogation and he can prove his innocence by providing the location of the stolen S.S. funds. In usual Mission Impossible style, there are a few twists and turns in the plot, and of course, they have to beat the clock and get the information they require before Colonel Sardner and his goons arrive. This is a pretty slick entry in the Mission Impossible series, but the story is somewhat predictable. And for me, the biggest crime is that Lee Meriwether is almost wasted in this episode. Thankfully she appears in three other episodes in the series.  Labels: Series: Mission Impossible posted by David at 12:01 AM | 0 Comments | Links to this post Friday, May 30, 2008Odds On Evil Mission ImpossibleYear: 1966 Directed by Charles R. Rondeau Steven Hill, Barbara Bain, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Martin Landau, Nico Mindaros, Nehemiah Persoff, Vincent Van Lynn Music by Gerald Fried Mission Impossible Theme by Lalo Schifrin Odds On Evil is one of the most popular episodes from season one for spy fans because the story closely resembles Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale. But rather than relying on card sense, the IMF team rely on gadgets and card tricks to break the villain’s bank. The episode opens with IMF leader, Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) toying around in an amusement arcade. He is taken out the back by the proprietor and lead to an old moviola and then left alone. Briggs brings his eyes to the viewer and is given the details of the new mission. After the briefing, the message, naturally, self destructs. The IMF Team’s mission is to take down Prince Iben Kostas (Nehemiah Persoff), the leader of an un-named European country. Kostas intends to declare war on a neighbouring oil rich country. To do this, he has ordered 1.5 million dollars worth of weapons from arms dealer Oliver Borgman (Vincent Van Lynn). The weapons are on their way by ship, and Kostas has agreed to pay for them on delivery. Kostas, apart from being his countries leader also runs the countries casino. The IMF intend to obtain the money that Kostas intends to pay for the arms shipment, by breaking the bank at Kostas’ casino. The team selected for this mission are IMF electronics wizard, Barney Collier (Greg Morris), who set about putting together some gadgets that can help the team in it’s quest. Next is Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), the teams master of disguise and deception. In preparation, he works on his card handling skills and sleight-of-hand. Willy Armitage (Peter Lupus) is the muscle of the group, and Cinnamon Carton (Barbara Bain) is the beauty. The special guest agent is Andre Malif (Nico Mindaros). When they get to Kostas’ country, Cinnamon immediately makes contact with the Prince. She pretends to be a rich married woman. Andre plays her long suffering husband. Despite being ‘married’ she still throws herself at the Prince. To get revenge, Andre attempts to break the bank by playing roulette. Naturally he has a little help from one of Barney’s gadgets. Standing close by is Willy Armitage who has a ninety pound computer is hidden in the lining of his suit. This computer can work out where the ball will stop on the roulette wheel. Then the number pops up on the dial of Andre’s watch. Andre quickly amasses a small fortune as the Prince watches on. As Andre passes the $150,000 mark, the Prince shuts down the table. But Andre isn’t smart enough to take his winnings and go. No, he has to attempt to win more – this time at the Baccarat table. But Andre’s luck doesn’t hold out. He loses all his winnings to another card player; Rollin Hand. Andre walks away dejected and defeated. After his win, Rollin is looking to call it a night too. But Kostas sees Rollin as any easy mark, and that he can win the casinos money back. Everyone seems like an easy mark to Kostas, because he has marked all the casino’s playing cards and wears special contact lenses to read them. But what he doesn’t know is that Rollin has worked out Kostas’ system and is wearing contact lenses too. One aspect of the 2006 Casino Royale movie that I was disappointed in, was that the film-makers changed the card game in the story, from Baccarat to Texas Hold ‘em Poker. The reason given for this was that they believed that Baccarat was too complicated and the viewing audience would not understand it. One of the joys of Odds On Evil is that Kostas gives Cinnamon a minute long lesson in Baccarat. It’s clear and concise and drives the story along. Even those unfamiliar with the game will understand what is happening on the screen. It’s a shame that the Bond film felt the need to dumb down for it’s audience, whereas Mission: Impossible educated their audience instead. Apart from the card game, the other Bondian touch to Odds On Evil is the car that the IMF team choose to make their escape in. As you’ve no doubt guessed, it’s an Aston Martin DB5. As this is a season one episode, it has Steven Hill and the team leader, rather than Peter Graves. Graves is so indelibly linked with this show, when going back and looking at the earlier episodes, it sometimes seems rather strange that he isn’t there. But in the end Odds On Evil is a great example of the Mission: Impossible formula, and one that should be of interest to spy fans in general.  Labels: Series: Mission Impossible posted by David at 9:14 PM | 0 Comments | Links to this post |
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