Copyright ©1994-2007 by Mike Quigley. No reproduction of any kind without permission. Original air dates are taken from information supplied by the Iolani Palace Irregulars and Karen Rhodes' Booking Five-O.
= One of the very best episodes, a must-see. = Better than average, worthy of attention. = Average, perhaps with a few moments of interest. = One of the very worst, a show to avoid.
A very good "contemporary issues" show. Army Sergeant Simms (Harry Guardino) and municipal employee James Watanu (James Hong) have a scam forging marriage certificates so local bar girls will receive G.I. benefits after soldiers who are their fictional husbands are killed in Vietnam. Then Simms murders the women, motivated by feelings for his brother who died after a similar encounter with a gold-digging "prostitute." The first victim in the show is Loretta Swit as Anna Stockton Shroeder. In the opening bar scene where she shares a bottle of champagne, the camera angle up through the glass looks the same as a shot at the end of the pilot episode. McGarrett grills Betsy (Barbara Nichols), owner of the club where the murdered women hung out. He lights her cigarette and says "I need some answers, Betsy baby." (As McGarrett drives up to the club, you can see the used car lot and U-Drive business of sometime Five-O character actor Lippy Espinda in the background -- thanks to Mike Granieri for pointing this out. By the way, the name in the parking spaces beside the bar suggests it is called Charley's.) In the Five-O office, McGarrett uses his transparent board. In addition to Anna's name, there are the names of two other victims -- Maria Apu Anderson and Sheila Gordon McKay. Danno goes undercover as a G.I. named Danny Carson. He drinks heavily with Yoko, one of the bar hostesses, and takes her home (do they "do it"?) Barbara Luna, who plays Yoko, gets my nomination as Top Five-O Babe of All Time! When Danno grills Yoko about her murdered friends, she starts to say, "I don't give a rat..." (sounding like it was going to be "rat's ass"). She tells Danno, "Don't expect me to act like Miss All-American choir girl from Nebraska ... or wherever it is you're from"! The two of them frolic on the beach and Danno gives her a big kiss. (Careful examination reveals some continuity problems with sand on her shoulder at one point.) Luna in a bathing suit is sexy, but even more so later on with her clothes on as she taunts Simms: "I think I'm in the mood for a screwdriver." As Simms picks up Watanu (a bogus Japanese name), the camera is at weird angles. Later, when confronted by McGarrett about the death of Watanu with a casting of a tire tread from the murder scene, Simms says "I don't have any Jap friends, Mr. McGarrett." (How McGarrett connects this piece of evidence to Simms' jeep is not made clear.) Simms subsequently refers to Watanu as "This Jap ... excuse me, this Japanese gentleman...." McGarrett shoots pool and spars verbally with Simms in an interestingly-photographed scene later on. At the end, Chin Ho is shown monitoring a reel-to-reel tape recorder which is bugging Simms' confrontation with Yoko. But if you look at the reels, the tape is moving from right to left (the opposite of normal) and the take-up reel is almost full (the scene was probably flopped). Simms abuses Yoko verbally, saying his brother "died for trash like ... because of trash like you." The cops' blasting of Simms at the end is unusually violent, similar to the film Bonnie and Clyde. More continuity problems as Betty Boop reveals: "Looks like they had to re-shoot the last scene where Sgt. Simms gets shot (to put it lightly) for whatever reason, and there wasn't time for a change of clothes. His uniform is soaked before ever hitting the pavement. Then, in the scene where he is lying on the ground his uniform is drier than when he was standing." Weird rock music during a bar scene is later used in #90, Skinhead. The score for this episode won Morton Stevens an Emmy as did his score for #121, Hookman (the only two Emmys which Five-O ever won). A good McGarrett quote: "Death always bugs me."
Words fail me for this show. The major problem is the two white actors -- Mark Lenard and Will Kuluva -- playing Japanese characters in lead roles. Surely there must have been two Asian actors capable of taking these parts! Lenard as Yoshio Nagata, who has escaped from a mental hospital after being held there for 28 years since Pearl Harbour, is particularly bad with his jerky movements, orange makeup and terrible accent (when he speaks Japanese, even my wife had difficulty understanding him). However, he pales in comparison (no pun intended) beside Will Kuluva as Yuko Takuma, the Japanese shop owner! (Kuluva already appeared in Oriental guise as Philip Lo in #9, By The Numbers, an equally wretched performance.) At Nagata's hideout, Chin Ho lights a candle which fills the already well-lit room with brightness. The ending of this show is ridiculous. In order to find Nagata with his ticking time-bomb, McGarrett enlists the help of a military team with highly sensitive microphones to check an oil-tank farm in Honolulu. How they can hear the ticking with the din of traffic in the background, not to mention the clump-clump of army boots on the metal walkways, staggers me. (When they do hear the ticking, the microphone seems to be beside the concrete base of the oil tank, not the tank itself.) As well, the microphones can't pick up the screaming of Nagata's daughter Heather (Virginia Wing), who he has taken as hostage. I like the way McGarrett disables the bomb with his fingernail clipper. Tom Fujiwara puts in his first Five-O appearance as Jerry Minobe, a martial arts instructor. Yankee Chang appears uncredited very briefly when the Five-O crew are analyzing some old maps. The title, by the way, comes from an expression used by the Japanese pilots attacking Pearl Harbor.
An outstanding show, with Wo Fat (Khigh Dhiegh) making his first appearance during the series itself. McGarrett defines Wo as a "Red Chinese agent in charge of the entire Pacific Asiatic theatre." Will Geer plays the cantankerous Dr. Harold Lochner, a genetics genius who Wo wants to kidnap and take back to China to become the boss of the "Institute for Genetic Engineering at Peking." The interaction between Lochner and Wo is delightful -- Lochner tells Wo: "I think you are a maniac." When he calls the evil agent "Mr. Fat", Wo flinches. Near the beginning of the show, McGarrett hustles Lochner's daughter Victoria (the attractive Sabrina Scharf) at the beach in Honolulu where they watch people surfing. There are a few questions, of course. If the weather institute at the beginning is so important, why aren't there guards outside as well as inside? Why is Five-O involved in the tsunami warning prior to any suspicion of sabotage? When Chin Ho captures Wo's first agent, why does Chin have to use a dime for the phone to call an ambulance? (Someone suggested this was because in Honolulu at that time you needed a dime to get a dial tone ... not very practical in an emergency! Chin dials five numbers, by the way.) Although the pharmacy where Lochner got his insulin was in the "Japanese section" of Honolulu, why does the proprietor speak Chinese? (The pharmacy is near the corner of Campbell (a real street in the area known as Kaimuki) and "Mohua" ... maybe they mean "Mooheau", which is in the same area as Campbell ... but it doesn't actually cross it.) And if Wo wants to find out the brand of insulin and where Lochner got it, why doesn't he just check the label of the insulin bottle that Lochner smashed? Oh well, never mind ... the final confrontation between McGarrett and Wo is a classic. McGarrett tells Wo, "Someone handed you the wrong fortune cookie." During the pursuit by various cop cars from the pharmacy to the docks, McGarrett plots the action on his transparent map. Almost all of the street names where McGarrett keeps directing the cars are bogus. Herman ("Duke") Wedemeyer appears very briefly in this show as a police dispatcher and bald-headed Bill Bigelow ("William F. Bigelow II" in the credits) plays Padway. Winston Char plays Ling Po, identified in the credits as "First Chinese," and Gary Ah Vah is "Second Chinese." Wright Esser, who was the nasty boat captain in the pilot, is Crighton. Danno's license number is 2H3524, the car driven from the pharmacy by Wo's second agent has plate number 6942. During one scene, Wo Fat smokes a cigar. The music by Shores is excellent.
Another excellent show about Marty Sloane (John Randolph), a middle-aged hardware salesman attending a convention who witnesses the brutal murder of a drug-addicted hooker by sleazy mobster Charley Bombay (Albert Paulsen). Marty is reluctant to testify against Bombay because of the potential for scandal back home. Bombay is a total creep, addressing the murder victim, Angela Carlson (Elaine Joyce) as "you silly broad" before he tosses her off the balcony. Five-O uses a policewoman (Anne Helm as Joyce) posing as Angela's sister, but after her job is finished, she disappears from the case. A couple of interesting prices -- a kilogram of heroin goes for $250,000, a 4-minute phone call from Honolulu to Jersey City costs $12.80 plus tax. During the final confrontation with Bombay in McGarrett's office, the microphone is very visible on the rear wall. McGarrett describes Bombay as "a cancer that feeds on society" and "a procurer." The episode is nearly derailed by McGarrett's profound speech at the end: "You know, when people like you [Marty] get involved, really involved ... wake up, the rats, the snakes like Bombay, they're dead. I read somewhere: 'any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind'." Robert Costa appears as Shoe Shine Man; the episode is directed by Nicholas Colisanto.
This show, the first directed by Reza S. Badiyi who designed the main title, starts out on the beach where Danno and Kono have just finished surfing. A passing cop makes some cracks about Kono's size, wondering if he needs just one surfboard. (Kono is later abused about his girth by both Danno and Chin Ho in the Five-O office in a scene which is not particularly amusing.) The action quickly jumps to the 72nd Battalion Armory, where Henry Silva as revolutionary leader Elpidio Acuna leads several of his followers as they break in and steal rifles -- "the guns we need for the revolution." In doing so, they overpower a guard, played by Beau Vanden Ecker. Acuna, who has "lived in the shadow of the noose for five years," is from some mysterious country 3500 miles away from Hawaii, where many of his countrymen now reside. McGarrett, dressed casually in white, drops down through the roof during a terrific gun battle, and wounds Acuna after his cohorts escape. There is an interesting dialogue later between the two in the hospital where John Stalker plays a doctor. McGarrett tells Acuna, "I'm gonna close this island tight as a rock." The Honolulu Advertiser with the headline Guerrilla Chieftain Captured at Armory has a subhead on the article which looks like "Barlow Nixed for Police Post." Other headlines on the page include "Moon Orbit Today for Apollo 10" and "Nixon, Thieu Face Moment of Truth." McGarrett uses his transparent map. When McGarrett asks Chin Ho for an estimate of how far the revolutionaries have gotten, Chin says, "I haven't got my abacus with me." McGarrett is predictably annoyed when Acuna escapes from the hospital. When Consul Vallios (Wright Esser) from Acuna's country visits McGarrett, describing Acuna as a "mad dog" and suggesting they should not track the revolutionary down, since he will probably die from his wounds, McGarrett fries the consul with several profound statements about democracy and the American way of justice. The music by Don Ray has some mediocre moments during the break-in at the armory and the final police chase to the docks. At the end, when Acuna's wife Maria (Julie Gregg) tells her husband she is going to have a baby, he asks "A son?" Maria thanks McGarrett for not killing her husband. McGarrett says "We don't like to kill, the decision was easy." A phone number on the revolutionaries' truck has only 6 digits: 898571. Ed Fernandez plays Colonel Tosaki. A shot of a cop car passing a church near the beginning of the show will be used in several subsequent episodes.
Khigh Dhiegh as Wo Fat makes a near-cameo appearance in this episode. He meets at the Punchbowl National Cemetery lookout with his "most brilliant student" and disciple, Dr. Paul Farrar (Eric Braeden, a.k.a. Hans Gudegast), a university psychology professor who has mastered the technique of hypnotizing people to become assassins (see the film The Manchurian Candidate, where Dhiegh plays a similar role). At the beginning of the show one of Farrar's students, Karen Adamson (Sheila Larken, most recently seen as mother of FBI agent Dana Scully on The X-Files) knocks off Richard Han who tried to hustle her earlier, telling her "You're prejudiced ... they're stubborn, these Chinese, but hardly boorish and arrogant." Danno later describes Han as a "Chinese Maoist radical who's involved in a Commie spy ring." Han is played by Winston Char (uncredited), who appeared in Forty Feet High, and it Kills (#26) where he was "First Chinese" who was last seen in the hospital muttering Wo Fat's name. Danno later breaks into Adamson's locker, seemingly without a warrant, and snoops in her compact, scraping some face powder into a bag for evidence. When he closes the locker, he leaves face powder all around the lock! Adamson, who lives at 2972 Kalakaua Ave. and has a phone number of 923-9052 according to her library card, tries to commit suicide but runs out into the street where she is hit by a truck. I wonder why the truck driver (Beau Vanden Ecker, uncredited) doesn't stop -- it seems like he has plenty of time to see her. There is a lot of blood after she hits the ground. After the accident, the scene showing the ambulance departing is on a different street, assuming the large truck beside the ambulance is the same one. As in episode #1, McGarrett decides to use a policewoman as bait for Farrar, this time Marianne McAndrew as Joyce Bennett. McGarrett tells her: "I'm not worried about you, honey, I'm worried about what I'm sending you into." She tells him, "Only one thing bothers me ... I don't have a thing to wear [in her role as a university student]," which produces chuckles from Chin and Danno. Joyce and Farrar get chummy, leading to a scene on the beach with hazy photography where he hypnotizes her with this goopy music that sounds like it was used in a Star Trek episode. (She says the music "makes me think of men on the moon.") Farrar convinces her that McGarrett is the man who abused her mother. When Joyce meets McGarrett after this, she calls McGarrett "dangerous" and slaps his face, saying she believes Farrar is innocent. She eventually shoots McGarrett, who subsequently seems to be in pretty good shape when fighting Farrar. (It's interesting that Adamson can kill Han jumping off a diving board with a single shot, but Joyce only wounds McGarrett who is standing right in front of her.) Joyce comes back to reality when McGarrett grabs her, saying "Listen to me, honey, it's Steve." During the climactic scenes, McGarrett uses the expression "easy" at least 14 times! Chin Ho quote: "We have a saying -- they that shows [sic] no evil will be suspected of none." McGarrett replies, "Not so far as Five-O is concerned." Che Fong is played by Daniel Kamekona, Al (later "Doc") Eben plays Dr. Abrahams, staff psychiatrist at Island Hospital.
This show has an interesting premise similar to #46-#47, Three Dead Cows at Makapuu. Theodore Bikel as the ultra-terrorist Professor Erich Stoss (a.k.a. "The Beast") wants to wipe out the Hawaiian sugar cane industry (41.6% of the world's supply) with a fungus so countries will have to buy their sugar from a certain "island" (Cuba, which is never specifically mentioned). However, Stoss is just too bland a villain for someone with a heavy-handed nickname conjuring up images of terrorists like Carlos and Nazi sadists. As well, there are annoying gaps in plot logic. For example, at the beginning, why does McGarrett suspect the woman that intelligence agent Hendricks (Bill Reddick) sketched on the plane has any relation to the conspiracy? Hendricks is known to be a "weekend artist." The woman, Mariana de Nava (Linda Marsh) does turn out to be involved, but this is just a coincidence. When Stoss murders Hendricks by stabbing him through the back of the airplane seat, Hendricks reacts by noticeably moving up and then back into his seat. There is seemingly no one sitting beside him (if there was, they surely would have noticed this). But after the plane lands, a woman comes out of the next seat and leaves the plane. Hendricks writes on a stewardess's notepad and Bikel drops some cigar ash on it to reveal the deep indentations in the next sheet of paper. But Henricks is hardly pushing down to make the one letter we see. The doctor's explanation later as to why Hendricks made no noise when he was stabbed is totally incomprehensible. Stoss freaks when a servant tries to touch his briefcase containing various toxic substances. If Stoss was so concerned, why did he set the briefcase down in the first place? Later Danno is seen doing surveillance, and you can see Danno's face in the rear view mirror, which probably means he has a nice view of the camera in the rear seat of the car! Stoss provides a good laugh when he complains, "There used to be a day when they made cars large enough so a man could get in and out with ease." We're talking about a 1969-style car here! Chin Ho also provides some comic relief. When Chin comes up with solutions during a Five-O rap session, Kono says, "Give that man a free foo yong." Chin laughs, saying, "Haole food." Kono responds, "Not exclusively, brother!" When Chin is checking out airports, he blabs in his native tongue to Galem Kam who says, "Sorry, I don't speak Chinese." When Kam shows Chin his crop-duster that he was going to convert into a playhouse for his kids, he says, "Nice plane, eh, honorable cop?" When Stoss is about to split at the end, leaving Lao (Soon Taik Oh) behind, he tells the complaining Lao, "I would expect a little more fatalism from a man of your race." There's a stock shot of McGarrett arriving at the hospital, and the scenes of burning cane field are probably from Pray Love, Remember... A sign on the wall of the Chinese herbalist shop seems to say "POSITIVELY NO STEALING."
Four university students led by snotty rich kid Arnold Potter (Brandon ("Shane") de Wilde) steal the cloak of a Hawaiian king using an elaborate scheme going through a museum's skylight and then using a homemade tripod mechanism. I wonder if the opening scene where the cat is lowered to test the alarm was monitored by the SPCA? Five-O quickly arrives on the scene, and McGarrett says of the feline: "Take him downtown, book him for trespassing ... tell him his rights and give him some milk and catnip." Potter says of McGarrett: "He's Mr. Cop -- from the mainland to Tokyo." There is gimmicky editing between McGarrett's discussion with the museum director and a rap session at the students' pad. During the robbery, the assembly of the tripod is very noisy, and when they meet outside afterwards, the students are yelling and screaming ... why don't the guards hear them? After they pull off their heist, Potter brags, "We just knocked the establishment on their status quo." When McGarrett visits the students' place with a search warrant, Potter's girlfriend Diana Cole (Jennifer Leak) says of McGarrett: "I love the way he asks all those cute questions." Potter starts making accusations of police brutality; McGarrett responds, "I'm shaking all over." One of the students, Johnny Kalama (Vincent Eder) breaks down after Kono drops a few hints about their Hawaiian heritage and spills the beans to McGarrett. The finale features a fight between Potter and McGarrett on a moving boat. The music by Mundell Lowe (his only Five-O score) is all over the map, including a sitar, some other plucked instrument I can't recognize, big band sounds, and weird rock music. Randall Kim, who was seen in shows #9 and #11, plays Eddie, one of the students, and is given less significant billing than the other three. The Bishop Museum gets thanked in the final credits.
One of my favorite episodes. McGarrett gets a call from a witness in Singapore, Nicole Wylie (Marj Dusay), who has had a change of heart about testifying against the Hawaiian gangster Revasco. McGarrett flies to Singapore and escorts her home, overcoming various odds on the way. The "teaser" for the show is one of the best -- it really keeps us guessing as to what is going on. When McGarrett first meets Nicole, she tells him that she "had to make a living" in Singapore. McGarrett grabs her arms, wanting to check her out for needle marks. He asks, "What about behind the knees?" and she replies, "Check 'em out, cop!" She later tells him, "Whatever you may be, you are not a gentleman." The excellent score by Stevens includes several motifs which will be heard numerous times in future episodes, such as the "memories theme" when McGarrett turns out the light on the boat. When McGarrett and Nicole as "Mr. and Mrs. Henry Collins" get close, he says, "Another time, another place, Nicole." She says, "I forgot you're on duty." When Chin is about to leave for the Philippines to help McGarrett, he says he will bring back Revasco's head on a plate, which is rather odd, since isn't Revasco already in Hawaii? The film climaxes when McGarrett and Nicole arrive at a Philippine shrine which is actually the Byodo-In Temple on Oahu. During a gun battle with various thugs, McGarrett fires at least 8 shots. (Incidentally, his hair is pretty messed up by this point!) The show jumps to a post-trial scene, where McGarrett is seeing Nicole off at the Honolulu airport, telling her "Aloha, pretty girl." McGarrett lathers up for shaving without using any water during one scene. A Capitol LP (same label as the Five-O soundtrack) is seen briefly.
This episode starts with McGarrett getting his palm read by some babe at poolside. He makes some suggestions about them going dining and dancing, but he is interrupted by an attempted assassination on Charles Irwin (Jason Evers), an ambitious politician who is anxious to prosecute Mike Finney (James Gregory), a former racketeer who has been living a clean life running a wholesale flower business in Hawaii for the past nine years. Evers, who has his eyes on the attorney-general's job, is the prosecutor for a legislative investigation of the criminal infiltration of Hawaiian unions. Keye Luke as committee chairman Senator Oishi is disturbed by Evers' grandstanding. The Governor is interested in the proceedings, and as McGarrett and the Governor talk on the balcony, there is some mysterious smoke behind them! When McGarrett goes to serve Finney with a subpoena, Finney's attack dogs are quite friendly. Finney's bulky bodyguard Rudy (Charles Gilbert) tells McGarrett, "Cut that out ... you want to ruin their act?" Danno seems quite interested in Finney's daughter Judith (Karen Huston), who teaches handicapped children. When Oishi discusses Finney's past with McGarrett and how people react to it, Oishi says, "I was a Jap for five years, an Oriental for another ten, now I'm an American, but it was a long time before people stopped looking at me as if I were the enemy." Later, when McGarrett figures out that the assassin worked for Irwin's crony Joe Fletcher (Lyle Bettger), McGarrett exclaims "Ah so." When Fletcher, Evers and Senator Colt (Jim Demarest) meet, Oishi is described as "an old lady". Colt says he has to avoid upsetting "a lot of Japanese voters in my constituency." Fletcher tries to get McGarrett to accept a bribe with a hidden tape recorder under his jacket. McGarrett turns his own tape on Fletcher, who runs from the office. McGarrett says, "Open the windows, Danno, it's rank in here." When Fletcher tries to plant some evidence in Finney's office implicating McGarrett in a payoff, Fletcher himself is knocked off by a nasty hitman (Nicholas Benedict) in a particularly brutal killing. Evers is brought down to earth during the crime commission hearings. Unfortunately the hitman knocks off Finney, but McGarrett saves the day, blasting the hitman on the courthouse steps. Good performances all around!
McGarrett has his hands full when a brutal dictator's plane is diverted to Hawaii as part of an assassination conspiracy. It seems odd that the plane is flying to Geneva from Asia, though -- wouldn't it just go east? The dictator, Utomo Jhakal (Jackal?), played by Titos Vandis, wants to personally interrogate one of his countrymen who tried to ram the plane with a gasoline truck as the plane lands. (Beau Vanden Ecker (uncredited) is the driver that the truck is taken away from.) McGarrett gives Jhakal a few pointers in the way the American legal system works. This causes Consul Koryo from Jhakal's country (Paul Stevens) to tell McGarrett, "I consider this very unprofessional." The weary McGarrett replies, "And I consider it a lot of work!" Jhakal is known by some as "savior of Asia", by others as "an Asiatic Hitler." Kono comments, "Fidel Castro would be more popular in Miami." The cockpit scenes in the landing plane are very realistic, though the pilots' dialog sounds looped. The opening teaser is long. McGarrett doesn't take any crap from Koryo, whom he suspects of complicity in a plot against Jhakal along with former ruler of the country Akhbar Savang (Joe de Santis), who is currently a professor in Hawaii. Savang's daughter Banu (Cynthia Hull) tries to shoot Jhakal, and almost plugs Kono, who is standing in for the dictator. Some interesting camera work in this show -- as Kono leaves the airport in Jhakal's limo, the camera rotates 360 degrees. I wonder why they are no guards outside Jhakal's hotel since McGarrett is being so "cautious." A nice helicopter shot of the Five-O team on the way to the climactic confrontation. Hawaiian Airlines gets a credit at the end.
An excellent episode full of snappy dialogue, with McGarrett trying to track down the kidnapper of a young boy named Scotty (played by Geoffrey Thorpe, son of Location Casting Director Ted) who escapes to freedom during the teaser. The boy's father, Gainham (William Zuckert) looks rather old. At the beginning when McGarrett and Gainham are driving there is interesting camera work with two cameras in the back of the moving car and odd camera angles as the Five-O crew approaches the cabin where the boy was held hostage. The kid reveals his escape strategy to Danno: "I had to go [to the bathroom]." Danno remarks, "Pretty clever, Scotty." James Hong gives a delightfully oily performance as the money launderer Tot Kee, who is unusually friendly with his blond receptionist Missy (Melody Patterson, Mrs. James MacArthur at the time). McGarrett yucks it up in his office with Kee as well as three other cash converters. One of them, Mr. Ming (Galen Kam -- identified in the credits as "Garoyan") is too fat to sit on his chair. Near the end the Five-O crew are seen tailing the main suspect Gibbons (Frank Marth). Chin Ho dons a frog mask (seems like police harrassment in a major way), Kono is seen stuffing his face with food, and Danno sneaks behind a forklift and then climbs up into the rafters in a deserted warehouse to overhear when Gibbons is making a crucial phone call. This last incident is kind of dumb, since it's hard to see how the cautious Gibbons missed seeing Danno climbing up the support beam. Che Fong is mentioned in this show, but not seen.
Rich blond bitch Jo Louise Mailer (Beverlee McKinsey), who has a yacht called "Daddy's Girl," and her two boyfriends Craig Howard (Kaz Garas) and Billy (Lani Kai) have an "insane game" drawing cards from a deck. On the back of the cards are various tasks ranging from setting fires to murder which they have to carry out or lose "points". Jo Louise first meets McGarrett while she's snapping pictures of one of their pranks. She addresses him as "Sergeant" to which he replies "'Mister' will do." The Hawaiian Billy is the subject of abuse by Craig who calls him "a blackie." Jo Louise says, "Billy's not black ... he's sort of ... what are you, Billy? Brown." Craig also refers to Billy as "hired help" and "boy," and Jo Louise later tells Billy he's "a born pineapple picker" with no ambition. Later, Craig sings a fragment of a song from the musical "Show Boat" -- "tote that barge" -- as Billy carries a kayak. Jo Louise drives a Corvette (license number 5B-3684) and a Cadillac which has an AAA sticker on its windshield; another non-Ford vehicle driven by Billy is a four-door green Chevrolet with license number E-8568. When she appears at McGarrett's office, Jo Louise is full of sarcasm, and Danno tells her to cut the crap. She coos, "I like that ... it's so hairy-chested!" She tells McGarrett, "My, what big teeth you have," and he says "Save it for your memoirs, honey." McGarrett also refers to her as "Angelface" and "Lucrezia Borgia." Later she teases McGarrett: "Somebody bend the points on little old badge?" Jo Louise uses the alias of Bonnie Parker (as in Bonnie and Clyde), purring to the owner of a camera shop who helps her escape from Kono, "Men like you make a girl feel so safe." Let's face it ... if this show was made today, the bitchy Jo Louise would be played by Heather Locklear! Eddie Firestone gives a good performance as Stumbles, a bum who almost becomes the trio's final victim. There is a scene of gawking tourists with Yankee Chang appearing uncredited as their guide outside the Iolani Palace -- this is lifted from the original broadcast of the pilot episode "Cocoon."TRADEMARKS
- McGarrett uses the expression "What've we got?" twice.
- McGarrett's transparent board with a map of Honolulu is seen in his office.
STOCK MATERIAL
- McGarrett drives from right to left in the shade along the Ali Wai Canal.
- McGarrett travels to the left at the beginning of the show (this shot is used twice).
- Cop car turns right in front of church.
- The musical cue "Front Street" (heard on the Five-O soundtrack LP) is used three times.
TECHNOLOGY
- A copy of the fingerprints taken from a crime scene is "photofaxed" to Washington.
- McGarrett and Danno use a GPS-like device when trailing Jo Louise.
William Windom is Connors, a career criminal who pulls off the robbery of a currency exchange (Deak & Co. -- a real name) while duping McGarrett and the Five-O crew to think that the caper will be at a bank across the street. Years before, Connors pulled off a similar robbery in Pittsburgh and when he arrived in Hawaii, he was McGarrett's "first big arrest." Philip Pine plays Toshi Nomuru, boss of the exchange -- his Oriental makeup is ghastly. (It's more likely his name would be "Nomura"; in fact, both McGarrett and Jenny say "Nomura" at least once.) Harry Endo, soon to be Che Fong, plays Kaspar, the bank president, complete with a Che Fong-like pointer! (Maybe "Kaspar" is his first name, since McGarrett calls him "Mr. Kiyoki" when McGarrett meets him (sleeping!) in his office.) Connors says that "all cops are boobs" and when confronted by a frustrated McGarrett says "you could use a bit more of the aloha spirit." McGarrett tells Connors he will put him away so long that "10 years will seem like a coffee break." The robbery gets nasty when Nomuru's wife is taken hostage and raped (the coroner says she was "criminally assaulted") and then murdered by one of Connors' two associates. When Connors knocks off both his pals, their car is later fished out of the drink by a crane. This entire sequence is lifted from #7, The Ways of Love, with some subtle editing. Pay attention when Nomuru and Connors are approaching the currency exchange parking lot -- they are driving the wrong way down a one-way street. When Danno is sitting at a bank desk, waiting for the robbers who never show up, a sign in front of him suggests the rate for Japanese yen is 370 to the dollar. How times have changed! Danno persists in using the 1940's slang expression "gunsel" ("gunman"). Connors is tracked down using a trace on a pay phone number -- 287-1299. After McGarrett uses his phone at one point, he hangs up and it falls out of its cradle. The ending, with McGarrett making a trip to Hong Kong, is a bit too fast. The final scene, supposedly taking place in a Hong Kong currency exchange, has some bad editing. As Connors is seen talking to the owner, behind him are ads promoting the use of ZIP codes -- this whole scene is "flopped" (everything is reversed). Then in a subsequent shot, where Connors has turned at a 90 degree angle, the same background is seen with everything correct (and one side of Connors' collar higher, the opposite of the previous shot). A poster for U.S. Savings Stamps is also seen (it looks like this was filmed in a sub-post office.) One scene with McGarrett arriving at the palace and running up the steps is from the beginning of #22, Six Kilos. Jackie Coogan makes a brief appearance as the informer Jerry Howe, who dies during the teaser.McGARRETT WANTS
- "I want this island locked, sealed tight by 10 o'clock in the morning."
TRADEMARKS
- McGarrett uses the expression "What've we got?" twice, Danno once.
- McGarrett to the coroner: "English spoken here, Doc."
TECHNOLOGY
- The safe in Kiyoki/Kaspar's bank is opened by a "computer signal."
MORE TRIVIA
- A copy of The Honolulu Advertiser is seen. The headline reads "Nomuru Robbery Ends in Shootout," but the two columns under this have sub-headlines of "Asian Arms Buildup" and "Lava Roars Towards Sea -- Then Halts."
- The name of the Hong Kong currency exchange, L. Atsukema Company, sounds similar to Matsukino, the name of the bad guy in #11, Deathwatch, played by James Shigeta.
Marion ("Happy Days") Ross gives an top-notch performance as the no-nonsense Nurse Edith Lavallo who is assigned to care for McGarrett after he's injured and blinded in a car bomb explosion. McGarrett, being very stubborn, wants to return to his office, and Lavallo makes him get dressed by himself (a shot of bare-chested Jack Lord which also reveals Lord shaved his underarm hair) and forces him to try and make his way out of the hospital totally on his own. (Of course, he doesn't succeed.) He sarcastically refers to her as "Florence Nightingale" and doesn't want to end up with a "tin cup and dark glasses." Robert Edwards plays the psycho villain Masterson, who wears glasses with Coke-bottle lenses. Harry Endo puts in his first appearance as Che Fong, whose explanation of the bomb mechanism, made from tubular steel taken from the "Westphalian Oberlin Car" (presumably a euphemism for Volkswagen) is not totally convincing. "Doctor Freeman" is paged in the hospital. At the beginning, the Governor pays a visit to the Five-O office to celebrate McGarrett's birthday along with the Five-O crew. There's ominous foreshadowing when McGarrett shakes one of his presents, asking, "It won't explode, will it?" The Governor points out that they discovered two different birthdays for McGarrett, a year apart. Sounds like Jack Lord himself!
This episode has never been seen on TV since the original broadcast, presumably because of an issue with some of the subject matter. One of the lead characters, Don Miles (Don Quine) engages in various hippie pursuits like yoga, natural foods, chanting "Hare Krishna" and -- particularly objectionable -- hanging himself by the neck from the ceiling, this supposedly being yoga-related. (Some viewer allegedly tried this at home and died, according to Mrs. Leonard Freeman.) When his girlfriend Wanda (Pamela Murphy) is found hanging and dead, McGarrett is on the case. At first it looks like a suicide, but the coroner (played by casting director Ted Thorpe) says "It's possible she was assaulted," adding, "the victim was already dead when she was hung." Her father, psychiatrist Warren Parker (William Smithers), seems very chummy in an almost incestuous manner to Wanda at the beginning of the show when he dries her off with a towel. He obviously has a good practice, because he is later seen driving a Jaguar XKE. Herman ("Duke") Wedemeyer appears at the crime scene as Lt. Grayson. When he shows some drugs from Don's pad to McGarrett, the Five-O boss comments "Let the good times roll!" The 13-year-old next door neighbor kid (Joel Berliner) is precocious, full of hip sayings like "Wanda was getting bagged all the time" and "outta sight". He describes Don as "a health freak ... he doesn't believe in dropping anything unless it's organic." The boy's father (Eugene McDunnah) is worried his son would turn into a "dope fiend" by associating with Don. When Parker gets heavy with McGarrett, McGarrett blames his problems on the "generation gap." Parker's response is to threaten to get McGarrett fired! The father of the kid next door is revealed as the real killer ... he says that Wanda "was making a big play for me ... she kept leading me on, then she turned me down." For people trying to collect a complete set of episodes, this one is the most difficult to find. There are bootleg copies of it floating around; some of them look like they were projected on a wall and filmed with a camcorder (not recommended if you are an epileptic because of the strobe-like flickering). The DVD release of season two does not contain this episode.MORE TRIVIA:
- Near the beginning of the show, Wanda's body is taken away in a Physicians Ambulance. Her corpse is NOT covered with a sheet, which means that when McGarrett looks in the ambulance window, he can identify her (leaving the dead body uncovered in this manner is not standard procedure).
- Although Weatherly's alibi falls apart when McGarrett and Danno point out inconsistencies between it and what the security guard at Weatherly's company said, the other big "clue" that Weatherly murdered Wanda is fragments of cashmere found under Wanda's fingernails, from when she struggled with her killer. Weatherly owns several cashmere sweaters, but how does anyone know this? Because of the mediocre quality of the bootleg prints in circulation, it is difficult to see if Weatherly is wearing a cashmere sweater when he is being interviewed by Five-O early on in the show.
- When Weatherly makes his big confession to Five-O, his wife is nowhere to be seen.
- Don and Wanda are hardly "hippies," but the usual Five-O version of what a "hippie" was like.
- Don's writer friend Boswell seems to be hardly the "freak" as described by Parker or the "way-out guy" as described by Hank. He acts in a very "swish" manner, however. Boswell is uncredited and is played by director John Newland.
- The title of this episode does not make any sense. Wanda is hardly "bored"!
- Here are some screen captures from the episode: #1; #2; #3.
AWOL sailor John Mala (Nephi Hanneman) seemingly shoots an MP, but McGarrett -- who helped Mala in the past -- refuses to accept this as an "open and shut case." Christopher Walken gives an exceptional performance as Walt Kramer, the shot MP's buddy. McGarrett has to quell tensions between the navy and the local community -- when sailors bust heads while searching for the escaped Mala, McGarrett tells their commander, "Your boys almost started a riot ... a race riot," and suggests the navy better watch it when "pushing 'my people' around." Kramer tells McGarrett, "You appointed yourself Big White Daddy to John Mala," and later says "You're trying to get your Kanaka boy off the hook." There's a comic scene when Kono and Chin Ho are trying to figure out the trajectory of the fatal bullet. Kono points his gun at Chin who freaks, asking if the gun is loaded. Kono replies, "Sure it's loaded!" Effective camera work and music ("stock") during a knock-down fight between McGarrett and Mala. McGarrett spends the last part of the show looking very bruised. A closeup shows that Jack Lord had very hairy hands! Overall, an excellent episode.
This show focuses on the efforts of "psychiatric technician" George Loomis (David Arkin) to drive his fellow Vietnam vet Ted Frazer (Jeff Pomerantz) crazy, since the latter witnessed Loomis massacring his platoon during a combat action. Loomis is kidnapping young boys, trying to put the blame on Frazer, while keeping Frazer constantly doped up and haranguing him about his mother (Doreen Lang), with whom relations are strained, to put it mildly. Loomis's boss, Dr. Wong (Chapman Lam), who's aware of Ted's case, spouts off an amazing amount of psychological mumbo-jumbo and phrases like "acute psychotic breakdown," "schizophrenic," and "state of catatonic stupor" are heard in abundance. McGarrett sends the Five-O team out to investigate, telling Kono to "check every pharmacy on the island" for chloroform, used by the kidnappers (apparently you could buy this without a prescription). McGarrett asks Chin Ho: "How are your corns?" to which Chin replies, "Killing me, boss." McGarrett encounters George in the hospital, and tries to get a rise out of him by yelling, "What did you do to earn those medals, George? Did you make a sweep of some gook-infested hill" while Dr. Wong is standing right beside the two of them! There's a great scene where George falls over a wheelchair being pushed by a nurse while he is trying to escape. Doug Mossman appears as Daniels. Interestingly, of the two families whose sons are kidnapped, the white Emory family is fully mentioned in the end credits, but the Chinese Wing family is totally ignored!
John Colicos plays Lorenzo Corman, a mainland man with a criminal past attempting to track down who murdered his brother Peter (Steve Logan) during a rigged poker game. Julie Gregg, who appeared earlier in the season in #28, Savage Sunday, is Peter's wife Maggie. Colicos' performance is unusually menacing -- when he grills one of the poker players, George Byas (Mitch Mitchell) about the chain of events which led up to his brother's death, Byas is really shaking! The finale is disappointing ... McGarrett and Danno arrive at the house of Sam Quong (Jack Soo) in the nick of time without any explanation as to how they determined his identity as the killer. (Soo's performance is also a bit too laid back.) Tom Fujiwara appears as the sleazy private investigator Shogi, Kwan Hi Lim is seen briefly (uncredited) as a suspect, and Josie Over is the bar hostess Lilo whom McGarrett predictably sends Danno to check out. While Maggie talks about "the old days" with Lorenzo, the "memories" theme is heard. There is some brief humor when Kono tells McGarrett, "I wish I was as slim as those leads," and his boss replies, "Maybe you will be by the time you run 'em down." Chin Ho then points to Kono's stomach and says "You pack egg foo yong there." (But see #48!) A white Mustang is seen at the beginning, along with the usual woman screaming when she sees a body.
One of Kam Fong's favorite episodes, where Chin Ho is accused of taking bribes, reveals "the human side of Chin," giving us glimpses into his private life -- he has 8 kids, is about 5'10" and weighs between 200 and 230 pounds. At the entrance to his driveway is a Chinese pagoda, and his house number is 812. He's been a cop for 22 years, has 4 commendations and 2 citations for bravery. He likes to attend the fights on Tuesday night, go bowling, and also go to church. Four of his kids are shown watching crap on TV, while his son is hogging the telephone. McGarrett reveals his feelings for the Five-O crew, saying to Chin, "I love you like a brother and that goes for every other man on this staff." When Kono is upset because Chin turns in his badge, McGarrett says, "Kono, if I didn't love you, I'd punch you right in the mouth," saying "Crying about it doesn't help anything." (Chin is really sweating during his grilling by McGarrett.) When the Governor tells McGarrett he's turning the investigation of Chin over to the Attorney-General, McGarrett remarks, "Would you like to start digging up my back yard?" The scene where a hitman blasts the bank manager with a shotgun is taken in part from episode #33, and the sequence where Danno drives down Kaalawai Place is also taken from an earlier show. First appearance by Glenn ("John Manicote") Cannon who plays lie detector technician Ken Stone. Mrs. Chin Ho Kelly is Evelyn Carlson. Martin Sheen plays the sleazy Eddie Calhao who is behind the bribes -- I really can't figure out much about his character or his part! I don't understand why Chin goes rushing out to meet a man "with information" ... is he so emotionally overwrought that he can't see this is a setup? McGarrett utters the popular phrase "ain't no big thing" during the opening scene, and addresses Doug Mossman as "Yuki." McGarrett also says that Chin drives a "beat-up old car." It looks to be in pretty good condition to me!
A powerhouse episode, with Tom Skerritt as Lew Morgan, a cop whose wife is murdered. Dannois a long-time friend of both, and events test Danno's loyalty to both Lew and Five-O. Danno gets very emotional during this show -- one of James MacArthur's best performances. We get to see inside Danno's apartment, where he has a bar. He says he will make Lew a "wild Spanish omelet," and drinks a beer. Chin Ho smokes a pipe in McGarrett's office -- compare this with episode #175, The Defector, where such pollution is a no-no. When Danno issues an APB after the main suspect Gary Oliver (Sam Melville) escapes, the footage of the cop car approaching the Royal Hawaiian Bank is an out-take from #36 -- you can even see Beverlee McKinsey coming out of the building! The scene where a cop car enters a street and backs up and another where a cop car rounds a corner by a church are also cribbed from #36. When hot babe and Oliver's former girlfriend Gloria Warren (Linda Ryan) visits the Five-O office, McGarrett tells his receptionist "Thank you, Jenny," meaning "Get lost!" Gloria gets flirty with McGarrett, and on the way out gives her phone number to Jenny -- 737-7913. When Warren leaves, Kono is salivating, and he tells the curious McGarrett he was "just watching for the mailman." Later Gloria is seen running around in a slip and necking heavily with Oliver (there is a freeze frame during their kiss). Another witness, Mrs. Shivley (Alice Lemon) comes to the Five-O office where she tells Chin Ho, "You don't look Irish!" Arthur Hee appears uncredited as a servant, Lanikai is Lonnie (it sounds like "Lonnie Kaikili"), one of Lew's wife's boyfriends. He drives a Mustang with license number W-3470. The "memories" musical theme is used effectively. This is an unusually tense show, no doubt thanks to the extraordinary number of closeups. The tragic ending has the focus on Danno instead of McGarrett for a change. The music suffers a momentary lapse (rather banal under the circumstances) into the usual big climax as the final act comes to a close.
Charles Aidman gives a deadpan performance as Royce, a research scientist whose specialty is "hydraulics and chemical detection" who's set up by revolutionaries from some mysterious country and convinced to leave Hawaii with them by submarine. Royce has developed a device which can detect metal in water called NOSE (Nautical Observation of Submerged Enemy). McGarrett finds himself again competing with federal agents under the direction of the pushy Merrill Carson (Fred Beir). Carson's men punch out Kono who's on surveillance (we learn Kono's last name in this scene from his business card -- Kalakaua -- which also has the Five-O office number: 732-5577). Kono later appears in the Five-O office with a bandage on his hair (ouch!). Kono says "It hurts only when I think about it. I think about it a lot." McGarrett expresses his disgust to Carson over this incident, saying "Just remember, this is Hawaii, the fiftieth state ... it is not Cuba, or the Dominican Republic or Vietnam or Laos ... you dig?" When Royce phones Five-O, McGarrett tells Danno to trace the call without putting the call on hold, and Danno gives the phone company instructions in a loud and obvious voice. (The pay phone number -- 287-1299 -- is the same used in episode #37.) McGarrett is far too clever in this episode. He figures out that a gun used to set up Royce with a phony shooting at the beginning of the show was held by a pair of pliers, and also locates where Royce is being held based on the sound of a pile driver in the background noise during Royce's phone call. There are some serious continuity problems as the Five-O team attempt to follow the revolutionaries on the way to the submarine. McGarrett radios to Chin Ho, and the call is taken by Kono, who not only has no bandage on his hair, but wears a darker suit (he was wearing a light grey one in the office) and seems to be answering with Chin Ho's voice. (Furthermore, Kono answers McGarrett by saying, "Got it, Steve." Kono would be more likely to address McGarrett as "Boss.") In the next scene at the beach, Kono again has no bandage, and is wearing the light grey suit again. The "memories" theme is heard at the end after Royce fishes his murdered girl friend (the attractive Pilar Seurat) out of the ocean. There's a few laughs earlier on when Chin Ho asks McGarrett what "cherchez la femme" means. We also learn that Danno made jewellery when he was a kid. Daniel Kamekona, who usually plays cops, appears unbilled as one of the revolutionaries. When Seurat's character, Theresa Dietrich, receives a letter from the Immigration and Naturalization Service, it is signed by "James Heinz" -- an in-joke referring to the episode's associate producer. This letter is addressed to her at 2120 Kaneheohe Drive, not a real address.MORE TRIVIA:
- A copy of The Honolulu Advertiser with a story about Royce's disappearance is seen during a meeting with the Five-O team in McGarrett's office. The headline and sub-head are both in lower case type (no capital letters at all): "famous scientist missing ... disappearance is believed linked to murder." The accompanying story is made up of bits and pieces of miscellaneous news items. It starts: "Several members of the youth advisory group who assembled here from all over the country..."
- McGarrett uses a blackboard in his office. Written on the board are some facts about Dr. Royce: "Born July 27, 1929, widowed, 1 daughter, does not drink, does not smoke."
- When McGarrett slows the speed of the tape recorder to determine the origin of the knocking noise heard during his conversation with Royce, the reels are turning at exactly the same speed as when the noise was heard in its "normal" state a few seconds earlier. (I like the way when someone rewinds a tape like this, it always stops at exactly the right place.)
- The first shot of the submarine which will take Royce away to a foreign land is obviously a miniature; the later shots are of a real submarine.
An excellent show with a very serious "contemporary" theme. Ed Flanders is Dr. Alexander Kline, who's going to unleash a killer germ to wipe out Hawaii (I think they only mean Oahu) as a protest against the evils of biological warfare. Federal bigshot Jonathan Kaye (Joseph Sirola) is on the scene, saying that such weapons are a "necessary deterrent power." In response to this, McGarrett says, "You people frighten me." Colonel Sindell (H.M. Wynant) says of Kline, "he's a criminal, more perverted and dangerous than Hitler." Loretta Swit gives a touching performance as Wanda Russell, a phone operator who picks up "strays," including Dr. Kline. The scene where Dr. Malden (Ken Drake) tries to coax information out of Klein with sodium pentothal and regression therapy is pretty creepy. The "memories" musical theme is heard several times during this episode. Yankee Chang appears as a research scientist.
This episode, focusing on the theft of a priceless emerald called The Queen of Polynesia, is disappointing, though the brilliant color of the outdoor photography at the Makaha Inn is a treat for the eyes. The chemistry between the two bad characters -- Camilla Carver (a.k.a. Janet Kingston, played by Joanne Linville) and Michael (Christopher Cary) -- is peculiar, to say the least. Michael sees a former Hollywood movie idol, Thurman Elliott (George Gaynes) steal a bracelet at a party. Carver uses this information to blackmail Elliott into taking her to a reception featuring the Governor where the emerald will make its first public appearance in many years. The actual theft of the jewel, where Carver hands a poisoned rose to the local girl wearing it, allowing Carver to do a slight-of-hand number after the girl promptly faints dead away, is too staged and comes off like clockwork. The Five-O team are nattily attired in servants' uniforms (McGarrett in a red jacket, Danno in blue like a waiter, Kono and Chin in white). During the ceremony surrounding the emerald, there is enough Hawaiian color and patter for several episodes. The ending is lame, not helped by the fact that the girl playing Elliott's granddaughter Amanda (Druanne Setlow) gives an uncomfortable performance. When Kono and Chin are in their servants' getup, I wonder why people are always making fun of Kono's weight -- Chin sports much more girth! There is a stock shot of McGarrett and Danno running down the Iolani Palace steps at the beginning of the show, and others of driving in Honolulu which alternate between a two-door and four-door model of their car.
