Copyright ©1994-2010 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. There are more than a few similarities between this show and the classic film noir "Laura," where Dana Andrews plays a cop who becomes fascinated by the portrait of a woman. Among them is the score by Morton Stevens, which has a lyrical theme connected with the alluring full-size painting of philanthropic industrialist Mondrago's wife. The theme appears in various guises, much like David Raksin's classic tune that weaves its way through the Otto Preminger movie. Overall, this is an outstanding episode with an especially good script and powerhouse acting by Herbert Lom as Mondrago, the sexy France Nuyen as his daughter Sirone and Jeff Corey as the eccentric painter Andrew Duncan -- not to mention Jack Lord.SEASON 4! MORE TRIVIA:
- When the missing Duncan returns to Mondrago's house and gets paid off, how does Sirone know this? She was standing at the top of the stairs when the transaction took place. She is probably just guessing.
- McGarrett appears in a cool Hawaiian shirt during the teaser.
- There is overlapping dialog during the main credits.
- The Five-O main theme appears in a different arrangement for the first time.
- "William" Edwards, later intelligence bigshot Jonathan Kaye, appears briefly as Doctor Ventnor, whose car (licence number 9C-3322) blows up in spectacular fashion. This stock shot is used in some later episodes.
- Duncan says that Mondrago's wife wasn't one of those "country club broads."
- Herman "Duke" Wedemeyer is a judge at an exhumation inquiry.
- A newspaper shows part of a headline -- "moon landing" -- which is in lower case type (see #71/72).
- Wilfred (later Moe) Keale appears as Mondrago's brusque servant Akea who engages in some interesting karate moves with McGarrett near the end of the show.
- When McGarrett leaves Duncan's house, it's about a minute and 10 seconds before Duncan's house explodes. Considering he would be at least half a mile away if he was driving at 30 miles an hour (unlikely this slow), would McGarrett really hear the explosion, which is very loud? This would be more convincing if McGarrett had seen a column of smoke rising from the house, rather than the point of view of the burning house seen from the beach.
- There is no episodic promo for this show in the DVD set.
Henry Darrow -- who at times seems to be channeling Kirk Douglas -- plays the greasy gangster Johnny Oporta who arranges to have his enemies murdered and then burned in an incinerator (this idea was based on a real event which happened in Honolulu around the time of the show). Al "Ben" Harrington is Ray, one of his thugs. A garbage dumpster containing murdered people's bodies is dumped twice ... with exactly the same garbage. The same happens to a load of trash which is dumped into the incinerator. Lots of discussion of prostitution and pimps in this show. A good fight at the end between McGarrett and Ron Feinberg, who plays Furtado, the man in charge of dumping the garbage (and bodies) at the incineration plant. There a few interesting wide-angle camera shots in this show, like the one of Aporta and his mainland gangster friend in a limousine, and Morton Stevens' score occasionally uses what sounds like a synthesizer.MORE TRIVIA:
- The license number of a Five-O car is 1A-3954.
- It costs eight cents to a mail a letter to McGarrett in Honolulu.
- The stock shot of McGarrett running down the steps of the palace by tourists is used.
Vic Tanaka (Soon Taik Oh, who gets only "supporting player" credit at the end) murders women and paints their faces to look like the former Cathy Haines (Sheilah Wells), a prostitute he once frequented, who is now married and living a respectable life. Monte Markham plays Jerry Rhodes, a private detective whose wife was seemingly murdered by Tanaka. Rhodes insinuates himself into Five-O's investigation, much to McGarrett's annoyance. Some of the language in this show is pretty rank. According to Danno, the coroner says the first victim, Angela Waring (Charlotte Couch) "was not sexually assaulted." McGarrett wonders if she was a hooker. Danny Kamekona as Dr. Holmby says the killer may be "a single man without much use for women," to which McGarrett suggests "a homosexual?" Holmby says the killer "could be impotent," possibly rejected by a "mother, girl friend [or] prostitute." McGarrett asks the Five-O team to "cover the prostitute angle" and also refers to "nudie bars." Cathy's husband, Captain Henry Fields, a military officer played by Norman DuPont, says he wants his wife to be just a "nice, pretty, pregnant lady." Modern-day FBI profilers would have a field day with Tanaka's kinky actions. The above-average score by Richard Shores is very creepy, with some synthesizer-like sounds suggesting Tanaka's psychosis. There is a cool twist ending to the show.
- While Tanaka is making up the face of his first victim in the show, a green light keeps flashing on the scene from outside. This is interesting for atmosphere, but the woman lives in an apartment building, not a 1940's type hotel. After the woman parks her car in the parking lot, which is presumably ground level or underground, and exits the garage, it looks like she goes downstairs, rather than up as one might expect.
- At Honolulu Police Department headquarters, McGarrett walks past an anti-drug poster which reads "Don't get trapped," showing an addict inside a hypodermic needle.
- Sheila (Marjorie Battles), a hooker, refers to the "coconut wireless," meaning the Hawaiian equivalent to "word of mouth on the street."
- As McGarrett and Danno interview Kwan Hi Lim as Tome Yoshiko, a taxi driver with important information, you can see a crowd behind watching the filming.
- Cathy's phone number is 287-1299.
- Women's underpants are seen up their skirt twice -- once when Tanaka murders his sixth victim, and near the end when he tries to kill Cathy.
- McGarrett quote: "I want to know everything about this quadrant" (on a map of Honolulu where most of the murders take place). Later, McGarrett says of Tanaka's apartment: "I want this place searched to the floorboards."
- One wonders why McGarrett never smelled the smoke from Cathy's address book which Rhodes burned at her house after killing Tanaka (interesting the way the burning book falls on the camera). Rhodes should have kept his mouth shut at the end; instead he blabs away, totally admitting to having murdered his own wife in a copycat crime!
- Around 45:55 of the DVD, when Tanaka is trying to murder Cathy, the camera is at a peculiar angle. For a couple of seconds, you can see what looks like the cameraman's fingers in the shot.
- Danno is told to "book 'em ... murder one," but "Danno" is not said by McGarrett.
- Film noir and B movie actress Marie Windsor has a brief role as Gloria, boss of an escort service.
Buddy Ebsen is featured as the wily Professor Ambrose Pierce in this episode about a mainland gang cashing stolen travellers' checks in Hawaii. I suspect the prof's participation was enlisted primarily to make the whole enterprise more legitimate. After all, the scheme itself hardly requires an Einstein to plan -- it was more likely the idea of the two goons who robbed the armored car at the beginning of the show and who hang out with Pierce in Honolulu, making sure everything runs efficiently. As the plane approaches Hawaii, one of the bogus academics, Whitney Davis (Glenn Cannon, in his second Five-O appearance), suffers what appears to be a heart attack. Davis' real name is Floyd O'Neill, and he is later knocked off because he is babbling incoherently and likely to give away the group's real intentions. Winston Char is one of the two Physicians ambulance attendants meeting the plane. Tom Fujiwara is Frank Okawa, boss of the WORLD WIDE TRAVELER'S CHECK S CO [sic -- this is on their letterhead] at 103 N. King Street, Honolulu 96817. A scene where a cop car passes people going to church is from #36. Galen Kam appears as a cashier who is talking to Mr. Chang (Yankee Chang, uncredited): "She's a groovy chick but she's got all these hairy hangups." When Okawa is brought to Five-O headquarters in a cop car, he is first seen sitting alone on the left in the rear seat. In subsequent shots he is in the middle, the left, middle, left and finally as they arrive at the palace there are two people in the back seat! A restaurant is called the Grog and Sirloin. There are some interesting flashbacks and editing. McGarrett is really not on the ball in this episode. One would expect him to check out the legitimacy of the other charter flight passengers, especially after the assassination of Cannon's character. McGarrett, thinking that Pierce's credentials are fishy, brings an old university pal of Pierce's to his hotel room (Professor Elias Jordan, played by Bill Edwards, who was Dr. Ventnor in the season opener only three episodes earlier), but the two really are old friends. Referring to the stolen traveller's cheques, McGarrett says that "fencing this stuff is like trying to sell hot badges at a policeman's picnic." His final line to the plane load of crooks is a classic: "Aloha, suckers."MORE TRIVIA
- The show starts in Colorado. But if you look carefully at the car which approaches the screen (the first shot in the movie), the camera focuses on the license plate, which says "Hawaii." A few seconds later, there is another establishing shot which shows a Colorado plate.
- There is no episodic promo for this show in the DVD set.
"Hippie freak" Ryan Moore (John Ritter) begs money from embezzler Edward Heron, real name Ernest Hampton (Vic Morrow) who then tries to feel him up. Ryan bonks Heron on the head and steals his wallet, later commenting, "He deserved it, the closet queen". Meanwhile, Danno is trying to find Ryan's girlfriend Cleo Michaels (Dianne Hull), the daughter of his landlady when he lived in Berkeley. Ryan spouts various period clichés about "middle class morality" and generally carries on like an obnoxious jerk (which he is). A scene where a cop car turns by a bank is taken from #36. Chin says "Yo" to McGarrett at one point, and Jenny refers to him as "chief." The electronic music (by Ray) when a woman dies of a drug overdose is weird. When Heron inquires in a hippie bar as to Ryan's whereabouts, listing off various elements of Ryan's clothing, the barman says "Isn't there anything unusual about him?" The barman then offers Heron some licorice-flavored cigarette papers for "rolling your own." In the final scene, Cleo's hair keeps blowing in her mouth! How does Heron know the location of the hideout at the airport? The old lady that Ryan tries to hustle for money in the opening scene also appeared in #66-67, F.O.B. Honolulu.
Wacked-out Vietnam vet and ace marksman William T. ("Billy") Shem Jr. (Michael Burns) buys a rifle, signing the registration papers as "George C. Patton" (pretty dumb of the clerk not to catch on to this). He then chooses a spot up on a hill in an old bunker and proceeds to shoot out the tires of a woman's car. When she hails two cops, Shem shoots both of them, which promptly brings out not only McGarrett and Five-O but seemingly much of HPD. Beau Van Den Ecker appears as Ryder, the cop who dies instantly. His face is hardly seen, but he rates a credit at the end! The position of the woman behind Ryder suggests that she should also be shot, but she disappears, never to appear again. Though both cops drop beside her car, after the main titles they are back beside their own car. The view through Shem's scope seems wrong (as usual), as do numerous other angles from his point of view and that of the police throughout the show. Herman Wedemeyer appears in uniform as Duke, but his last name is Kanaha instead of Lukela. Shem's car license -- IB-1113 -- is easily seen by Danno in a helicopter. As Shem adjusts his radio to listen to crappy rock music, he is singing the theme from the Howdy Doody Show. McGarrett freaks out when Shem's shrink, Dr. Fernando (William Croarkin), tries to explain his patient's "unstable personality" as motivated by "guilt over an incestuous drive towards a mother, sometimes a sister." McGarrett screams: "What's the reality of it?" Shem's mother is flown in by plane and/or helicopter from Maui in record time. Played by Jeanne Cooper, she is an utter bitch who describes Oahu as a "pesthole" and Shem's wife (Annette O'Toole) as a "tramp." The final assault on Shem is total overkill -- compare this to later situations where McGarrett employs a negotiatory as opposed to confrontational approach. Interesting camera work in this episode. The teaser and first act are quite long compared to normal. One scene where the helicopter with Danno in it takes off is used twice. When the copter arrives with Dr. Fernando, if you look carefully, you will notice only two people in the cockpit. The passenger is wearing a sport shirt, but when Danno gets out of the cockpit in the next scene (with Dr. Fernando), he is wearing a suit. See also #116, where much of the footage from this show is re-used. There is a big goof in the teaser, pointed out by Dr. Phil in the Guestbook. After the scene where the cops move into position crouching behind the police cars, there is a shot looking down from the mountain where you can see McGarrett and Duke standing beside McGarrett's car (which can be glimpsed beside the moving cop cars a few seconds earlier). But after the show's main title, McGarrett and Danno drive up to the scene with sirens blaring, accompanying an ambulance.
There is an air of "a bad horoscope" about this episode about a scheme to steal air cargo and sell it on the black market. The script, direction and continuity all suffer from some problems. For a start, some of the character development is annoying. Eric Ling (James Hong) has a major attitude towards McGarrett during their first meeting. Anita Putnam (Marion Ross), receptionist at the air cargo company, seems ill-suited to answering the phone (she seems more concerned with primping her hair), although she does emote well later when she reveals to McGarrett that she had to get involved in the scheme because her 18-year-old daughter got into sniffing coke and taking LSD. And Hal Sullivan (Don Chastain), mastermind of the scheme, is just plain snotty! There are several boo-boos as well. One of the phone numbers used as a "drop" is APele 79247 (why the use of word phone prefixes?), but later when Putnam is being grilled by McGarrett, she recalls it as 79277. Another phone number -- KAwena 20699 -- is mentioned. The number for the Aloha Hotel has only 6 numbers: 589850. Joanna Grayson (Sheri Rice) dies and a sheet is pulled over her face, but just before it covers her, you can see her eyelids move! There's a stock shot of Tokyo airport (complete with what looks like student demonstrators), but in the following scene where airport employees (one of them white) find James Hong's frozen body, this is obviously not in Japan. James MacArthur seems to be having memory problems in the sequence following this: "Chalk up another murder for the [pause] ring. He died about eight hours of [pause] ... uh ... before he turned up in Tokyo." A few moments later he continues: "If the Tokyo police hadn't checked with ... the ... Interpol, we'd still be looking for him." While the cops film John Malcolm (Bill Bigelow) forging invoices, a negative view is shown. When Eric Ling gets cold feet re his participation in the scheme (prior to his murder, of course), Sullivan asks, "Whatever became of our inscrutable Oriental?" Chin Ho makes inquiries of Kim Wong (Myrtle Hilo), and she says, "You sound as if you just came off the boat." Chin also comes forth with a Chinese proverb in a discussion with McGarrett. Bill Bigelow must have been annoyed after this episode aired -- although his role is fairly prominent, he gets no credit at the end, unlike Sheri Rice, who doesn't have a single line! There's a classic quote from Che Fong to McGarrett: "Very clever ... and you're not even Chinese!" McGarrett himself comes across with a snappy quote from Thoreau's Walden when testing some answering machines in Che Fong's lab: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer." I like the way the scream at the beginning leads into the main titles. The "memories" theme is heard a couple of times as is the "trombone interval" theme.
McGarrett is at the trial of Johnny Oporta on Maui (see #74) during this show, Danno is in charge. When McGarrett talks to Danno on the phone, the connection is terrible ... was the long-distance system in Hawaii really that bad? (Usually calls to the mainland or overseas suffer from these problems.) Al Harrington is Fred Noonan, one of the crooks. Glenn Cannon appears briefly as the owner of Carlson's Printing who is shot and Seth Sakai is seen as a lab assistant who utters "don't hold your breath" to Kono in Japanese (see the next show, where Che Fong does the same in Chinese). A good quote from McGarrett: "I thought the computer was a policeman's best friend." When one of the armored car guards is shot in the face, the results are particularly gory. The address of Tiki Gods Inc. is 15 Kakaako Road, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802. A date -- August 23, 1971 -- is seen, and a "real" phone number (944-1212) is mentioned. The way Danno figures out the bogus invoicing scheme at the end is a bit quick for my taste. The motivation of Hawkins (Sam Melville), the gang's leader, for the robbery is that he is an aggrieved Vietnam vet ("We'll set things right in this country ... we'll stop them from burying us with peace and poetry and pot") but this is not really developed. Danno's take-home pay is said to be $184.50 during the final phone conversation with McGarrett.
Dr. Alexander Southmore wants to knock off his wife Melissa (Linda Ryan), with whom he has a "strained relationship." So he hires David Harper (Lou Antonio), a man with leukemia, to murder her and take the rap. Harper also has a son in a private school for retarded children, to which the doctor makes a large contribution ($75,000) via Harper so the son will be looked after indefinitely. But when Harper has to perform the deed, he can't go through with it, so the doctor does it himself, though Harper flees with the wife's jewelery, to make it look like a robbery. Then the doctor rebores the gun he uses so it can't be tracked back to him -- or so he thinks. McGarrett has another brainstorm after spending a lot of time trying to figure out this case, especially since Harper had no history of violence, and in fact was a conscientious objector who said he would never kill anyone when he was called up for military service. At the end of the show, Kono goes to the doctor's house in disguise as a phone company repairman to get evidence. But he was seen at the beginning of the investigation digging a bullet out of the garage wall. Though the doctor is probably not home, isn't there a risk that someone like the servant who shows him around would recognize him? Not only that, Kono takes some filings from the doctor's workbench (the evidence) so Che Fong can prove with spectrographic analysis that the murder weapon was rebored. Wouldn't Kono need a warrant to do this? At the end, the doctor wants to talk to his lawyer. Too bad McGarrett didn't check the doctor's bank records to prove that $75,000 was recently withdrawn! As well, McGarrett should have been suspicious when Southmore described the fleeing Harper's car (license number 7C-9955) as "an older, inexpensive car" (it looks like a Dodge model from the 1950's). Considering the doctor seems to have a hobby of restoring antique cars, one would expect that he would be familiar with "older" models. The score by Ray features numerous stock musical motifs, all of which are integrated into the story very well, including the "memories" theme when Harper dies in the hospital. (He is transported there by a City and County Ambulance.) Loretta Leversee does a good job as Harper's anguished wife Harriet. The music at the very end of the show does not end on the note we expect!MORE TRIVIA:
- It's seen raining several times during the show.
- A good quote from McGarrett: "The obvious always bothers me."
- Some of the action takes place at Sea Life Park, where Harper arrives to sell the stolen jewellery to Charlie Ling (Tom Fujiwara). Five-O is waiting for Harper. The kids' song from Kiss the Queen Goodbye is heard in the background.
- Act two is very long -- over 21 minutes.
- McGarrett and Chin Ho dine on saimin, described by Chin as "Japanese chicken noodle soup." Chin says he got this food from a restaurant owned by his uncle, who is Chinese in a Japanese neighborhood. He says his uncle is "passing," which gets a chuckle out of McGarrett.
- Che Fong tells Kono in Chinese: "Don't hold your breath." (Compare to Seth Sakai saying the same thing in Japanese to Kono in the previous episode.)
- A real-looking phone number -- 946-2115 -- is mentioned when Kono goes to Southmore's house as the phone repairman.
- McGarrett is seen passing Southmore a glass of booze while he is interviewing the doctor at his house shortly after the murder.
- The Asian woman who plays Betty Viati, the doctor's mistress, a nurse in his office, does not get a credit at the end of the show, even though she has a speaking part. Betty tells Southmore that he should take some time off and let "Dr. Berdahl" take his calls, but this doctor's name is not seen on the sign at the front of the clinic where Southmore works.
- The makeup artists for this show should have gotten a prize, because Antonio really looks near death for most of the episode.
- McGarrett is seen working late in his office, using his reel-to-reel Uher tape recorder.
- There are two "bookems" during the show. The first is when Chin books Harper, the second when Danno books the doctor at the end.
Bill Cameron (Norm Alden), a cop who was kicked off the force and blames McGarrett, plots to kill the Governor, taunting the Five-O crew in truly sinister fashion. Interestingly, most of Cameron's interaction with McGarrett is over the phone -- he doesn't actually appear in person until the very end of the show. McGarrett is kind of dumb in a couple of scenes. First, he opens his desk drawer at Cameron's request and second, he opens the trunk of Danno's car to find a fish inside (he should have called the bomb squad in both cases). Danno also touches a message from Cameron with the fish in his trunk, thus spoiling any fingerprints which might be there. Chin Ho's house is different than the one seen in #43, Cry Lie, where he has a long driveway and a pagoda at the entrance. In this episode, Chin's garage is right on the street! Chin is very pissed because Cameron is harassing his wife. A typewriter with a bent and chipped letter provides an important clue. Danny Kamekona appears as Dr. Rosenstadt [sic], but he is also referred to as "Dr. Kamekona." The governor's license plate is number one (1), and his residence is Washington Place. When told by McGarrett that Cameron was "first in marksmanship" at the police academy, the Governor replies, "That's not a comforting thought." Journalist Eddie Sherman, a real newspaperman, appears as himself. A real-looking phone number -- 732-2144 -- is seen on the business card of Joe Mona, the blind owner of the key shop.
This show, where McGarrett has to deal with conflicts between four ethnic gangs, is the ultimate in Race-o-rama! Things start off at the beach, where a visiting gangster from Miami is found dead after being staked below the tide line. When his body is brought to shore, McGarrett notices the guy's left hand little finger has been chopped off (this is depicted in nauseating detail both then and later in a photo blow-up). The Five-O team bust up a pool game (a front for a gambling operation) run by the Samoan Tasi (Manu Tupou). Referring to Chin Ho, Tasi says, "I know my rights, and one of them is not to be felt by this fat-handed Oriental." Danno comments, "All men are brothers," and Chin frisks Tasi, saying "He's clean." Tasi comments, "Not any longer!" As they leave the pool hall, Danno comments, "In case you hadn't noticed, one of you sank the cueball." Things take a turn for the worse with the appearance of David Opatoshu as gang boss Li Wing. Unlike in episode #15 where Opatoshu, also doing a Peter Sellers and pretending to be Chinese, was given some moderately passable makeup, here he has no makeup at all, aside from his white hair. Trying to accept this guy as Asian really pushes "suspension of disbelief" into another galaxy! The other two bosses are Seth Sakai playing Afuso and Marc Marno as the Korean Kim Lo Lang. When Tasi is brought to the Five-O office and McGarrett suggests he will contact the other three bosses, Tasi says "I'll not go visit that stupid Jap, or that powdery Chinaman, or the Gook slob." McGarrett says "Wait a minute ... this is Hawaii, U.S.A. It's time for your English lesson. Repeat slowly after me -- Japanese, Chinese, Korean." Tasi turns and says, "You know what you can do with your English lesson, McGarrett," and gives McGarrett the raspberry! After Tasi leaves, Kono comments, "Are those lizard shoes he wears, or does he go barefooted?" McGarrett and Kono then drop in on Li Wing. At the front gate, Kono tells the guard, "Lock up those dogs ... if they bite me, they're gonna get rabies!" Li Wing's nephew Lai Po (Michael Leong) gives McGarrett a lot of mouth, saying that his uncle "doesn't know anything ... he just told you that four times. Is there a prize for five times, Mr. McGarrett? If not, get off his back!" McGarrett refers to the local gangs as "bush leaguers" compared with the Miami mob whose man was knocked off. During a meeting of the gangs, Kim Lo calls Lai Po "second banana" and remarks to Afuso, "I bet you even put water in your saké." He later calls Afuso, "Sukiyaki." Tasi tells the assembled that he "doesn't dirty his mouth lying to cruds and foreigners." Afuso throws up his hands saying "Twenty-four hours from now we'll be street fighting with [Miami mob boss] Uncle's soldiers and I'm in the middle of inventory!" Danno is sent to Miami, and when he calls McGarrett, as usual the phone connection is terrible. The Miami gang sends a thug who looks like an Elvis impersonator (Nick Nickolas) to Honolulu. McGarrett and Chin Ho meet him at the airport, engaging in various banter with him about his constitutional rights. When the thug heads back to his plane accompanied by Chin, he says "Aloha to you, pal, and ram it!" McGarrett muses: "Someone is trying to run Five-O up a palm tree." There's a great chase with the cops and Tasi swerving dangerously in their boat-like cars around the docks. When he's caught, Tasi says to McGarrett, "Speedometer goes to 120 ... couldn't get it past 90." McGarrett replies, "Tell Ralph Nader." The plot comes down to a confrontation at Li Wing's place with the Korean ready to drill the old man in bed. McGarrett appears suddenly and plugs Kim Lo. As the Korean gangster expires, he mutters "You lousy Chink!" McGarrett whips out a ticket to Taiwan for Li Wing. Incidentally, the chopped finger at the beginning is described as a "Samoan custom," but this is also a common practice with the Japanese Yakuza (Mafia) as well.
Moses Gunn gives an excellent performance as Willy Stone, an over-the-hill boxer who smashes the hand of Robby Davis (Henry Porter), a young contender, to keep him from ruining his life in the ring. Matty Edmonds (Albert Paulsen), the mob boss who owns a piece of the action, soon arrives from the mainland and is determined to find Stone, who is in hiding. Paulsen is his usual sinister and nasty self, but his accent is distracting. When McGarrett asks why he came to Hawaii, Edmonds says for "some sun and some broads." On the lam, Stone visits Mama (Mama Luna), a restaurant owner, and begs her for some food. She is about to give him some white bread when he says, "Whole wheat ... white bread ain't no good." Later, Chin interrogates Mama, who he suspects is hiding Stone, and she says to him "What's the rap? Selling salami without a license?" McGarrett calls Mae (Lynn Hamilton), a nightclub hostess, "honey." Seth Sakai appears as Dr. Fukata, harshly abused by Edmonds as a "quack," Lippy Espinda is a janitor and Robert Costa is Davis's manager, Phelps. Another show no doubt not popular with the SPCA -- a cockfight is seen. When Edmonds and the young blonde-haired hitman are tracking down Stone, they are driving a Mercedes, which seems unusual for what is probably a rental car. There is a closeup of the phone number on McGarrett's office phone: 311-555-2368, a totally bogus number. According to Wikipedia: "311" was sometimes used as a fictitious area code in Bell System advertisements depicting telephones; often the phone in the advertisement would bear the specific number "Area Code 311 555-2368." Five-O receives some mug shots with descriptions from the Detroit police as part of their plan to identify the hitman coming from the mainland to knock off Willy Stone. One of these mug shots, seen only for a fraction of a second, has a description identifying the tough-looking guy in the picture as a woman!
Another show with an ecological theme. Five-O has to try and track down who pulled off several stunts attacking sources of pollution (a large industrial chimney, a crop-duster) when it's feared the protestor may next knock off a bigwig from some large corporation. When he sees how the chimney was covered up with a heavy metal lid, Chin Ho says, "A guy like that can go bear-hunting with chopsticks." When McGarrett inquires about rare bird feathers on a native mask left at the protest sites, he leers at the musem ornothologist, Miss Weston (Maura McGiveney): "One of these days I might take up birdwatching." According to a suspect gas station owner, "What the Japs did to this place ain't nothin' to what the Haoles and Chinks are doin' to it since." McGarrett is visited in his office by a hippie freak (Don Lev) who wants to nominate him for "pig of the year." Chin Ho picks up a skinny hippie who is doing a yoga headstand while sitar music plays. Richard Morrison plays the Asian gangster Lai Han (badly). There are numerous stock sequences: McGarrett runs down the steps of the palace by tourists, McGarrett walks across the Governor's courtyard, various shots of cops driving around. The "violin" theme is heard as the protestor approaches Lai Han's room. There are no "featured players" in the end credits, all the names are in the smaller print usually reserved for the "supporting cast."
A disappointing follow-up to #59, Over Fifty? Steal! with Hume Cronyn reprising his role as Lewis Avery Filer, master of disguise. Unlike the previous show, where Cronyn's character was charming, in this one the obligatory description is "annoying" (with the exception of the end where he plays a drunken old woman) and his moves and changes of character are unrealistic. The opening sequence, where Filer escapes from Oahu State Prison, is ridiculous. First he steals a picture off his cell wall of well-known criminal Elmo Zigler, who just happens to look like himself. One wonders why the picture was on the wall in the first place -- was Zigler the boyfriend of Filer's cellmate? He opens two locks with a spoon and escapes into a room opposite a guard's station (narrowly missing the guard, who he has temporarily distracted, while making a lot of noise) where he makes a phone call in a very loud voice, using some gizmo that he has constructed to dial out. There are stock shots of McGarrett arriving at the prison. Warden Challis is played by Richard Morrison, who was an Asian in the previous show. Filer/Zigler then does business with Goro Shibata (Jiro Tamiya, who gives a good performance, though his voice is reportedly dubbed by Paul Frees -- too bad he couldn't play some of the Asian parts taken by white guys in previous episodes). One of Shibata's "twin" bodyguards is Wilfred "Moe" Keale. The scene where Filer threatens Shibata with the bodyguards, captive in an elevator, with "ultrasonic" noise is also pretty dumb (though it is true that ultrasonic noise can kill someone) and the ending is disappointing. Music by Morton Stevens from the previous Filer episode is reused as is a shot of the Five-O team running down the palace steps (see #61). There is a scene in Shibata's office where the twins are up against the wall, but when the camera views the room from behind Shibata's desk as Filer inspects a lamp the twins are standing beside for bugs, the duo are nowhere to be seen (it might be the camera angle). When the Five-O crew is at the yacht harbor keeping their eye on Filer, the quality of the print on the Paramount DVD set is very grainy.
When hitman Ric Marlow (character's real name Johnny Froman, identified as "The Pro" in the credits) locks his bicycle at the beginning, he just puts a padlock on the chain! The footage showing the outside of the apartment where he sets up his rifle with a tripod is scratchy and there is damage on the print in other scenes too (this extends to the season 4 DVD release). When Loretta Swit as Betty appears on the 18th storey ledge of the Ilikai Hotel, McGarrett rushes to her aid from his barber shop, where he is getting his hair cut by a woman, and Danny Kamekona as the obligatory shrink Dr. Kamekona shows up soon after. But when McGarrett later goes to search for her boyfriend who turns out to be a protected witness, he seemingly leaves her standing on the ledge! This show introduces us to District Attorney John Manicote, played by Glenn Cannon. McGarrett admits to Manicote, "I blew it!" after the boyfriend is shot and falls from the 18th floor in a scene which will be used as a stock shot in several episodes. A poster on the wall in the city jail says "When flower children go to pot, they become blooming idiots!" There is stock footage of McGarrett arriving at the hospital, and Dr. Freeman is paged. The scene where a white car is hoisted out of the water with a crane looks suspiciously like one from (#7), The Ways of Love and (#37), Which Way Did They Go? If so, you have to wonder what kind of a gangster Barry Bonamo (Malachi Throne) is, because his car is not exactly a recent model in spanking new condition. (The name of this character is very similar to the well-known polishing cleanser and powder, Bon Ami.) The ending, with the slimy lawyer Mariss (James Olson) revealed as the bad guy, is too abrupt. The Five-O emergency number is 277-2977 (ostensibly a real number), but the D.A.'s office is 555-9100. McGarrett uses the expression "professional gunsel," referring to Marlow's character.
The first half of this show is outstanding, especially the opening scenes with their nighttime photography. (This is where the shot of Danno looking in the broken window from the main titles comes from.) Cops (including Herman Wedemeyer as "Officer Ishi") and firemen have to extract McGarrett from a spectacular car crash, which is the beginning of an elaborate setup engineered by Wo Fat. (You have to wonder if the method the emergency response team uses to deal with the car McGarrett is trapped in -- so that it falls violently right-side up -- is the best solution, considering potential injuries to McGarrett's spine.) McGarrett winds up in Switzerland to check his bank account (#55-02-695) and finds that he has a double (who dubbed Jack Lord's British voice?). However, the second part, with Tim O'Connor barking orders as Jonathan Kaye and the appearance of Colonel Toptegan (Roger C. Carmel, see #66-67) in his flight suit who is suddenly buddy-buddy to the Americans, drops in quality somewhat. At least we find out the governor's name -- Paul Jameson. (Kaye's name is misspelled as Jonathon Kaye on his nameplate.) When Wo Fat asks double agent scientist Hans Vogler (Donald Pleasance) the name of a friend used as an alibi, Wo repeats it as "Yamato," but when he phones the hospital to check on the authenticity of the name, Wo says "Yamoto." Les Keiter, usually seen as a TV announcer, appears as General Cardell, and Bob Nelson is Wo Fat's "main man," identified in the credits as "Assassin #1." At the 1999 Five-O reunion Robert Witthans told me that playing Lieutenant Commander George Smallitt, an army bigshot, in this episode, he had to introduce Steve McGarrett and said "I'd like you to meet Steve McQueen" instead of "McGarrett" to the assembled brass. The whole room broke up in hysterical laughter, even Jack Lord who was normally a no-nonsense type of guy.
This is one of the ranker Five-O shows in terms of subject matter. Lee Paul stars as Mitch Kenner, a huge skinhead soldier (he makes even Kono look puny). This is quite a change from episode #21, where he played a peacenik! At the beginning, the camera focuses on the bums of women dancing in the nightclub. Mitch approaches Nora Kayama (Miko Mayama) and tries to pick her up, asking her, "White meat too rich for your blood?". When she rebuffs him, he calls her a "lousy gook broad." In the parking lot, he rips her clothes off. McGarrett asks the doctor "Was she raped" and asks Nora, "Did you resist him, did you fight?" When Danno talks to McGarrett, a poster is visible behind him showing a Honolulu police badge with "Peace Symbol" underneath. McGarrett punches the table, saying of the rapist, "He's turned animal, he's gone rabid!" Nora freaks out when identifying Mitch in the lineup. McGarrett screams at the sleazy nightclub owner (played by Robert Luck) who is trying to avoid telling the truth. He says that the cops are going to put the heat on the place, watching for when "some pothead lights a joint up in the can." When the skinhead says "What are you so upset about -- she's not even white," Kono freaks out and attacks Mitch -- McGarrett has to restrain Kono. The way the computer tracks down a gas station attendant named Chris is far-fetched. Yankee Chang portrays the judge (an excellent performance), and Kwan Hi Lim plays perhaps his most oily Five-O role -- the lawyer Tosaki who confronts Nora with embarrassing questions about her sexual past, saying the defendant "extolled his own virility," and refers to "an act of intimacy" and her "physical relationship" with her boyfriend, among other things. The judge cautions Tosaki: "You're on thin ice." John Manicote is the Assistant D.A. McGarrett says "I'm getting some strange vibes" over the case and gets the Five-O team to dig up evidence that reveals that Mitch is impotent, having "ruptured his posterior urethra" in a car accident some time before on the mainland. (He was subsequently under the care of a Toronto doctor.) Gas station attendant Luke (Murray MacLeod) is revealed as the actual rapist, having stepped in after Mitch beat Nora senseless. When charged by McGarrett, Luke says "It's bull, I tell you, it's bull." Mitch reveals his shame at the end, saying he didn't want the guys in the barracks to think that he "wasn't a man any more." As the "military theme" plays in the background, McGarrett, in disgust, says "You don't have a clue [as to what 'man' means]." The framing of Kenner at the show's end is interesting, with him sitting alone on a chair.
Barry Sullivan plays Morgan Hilliard, a Howard Hughes type who has McGarrett kidnapped and brought to his boat where he describes a plot by his associates to have him declared mentally incompetent because of "emotional instability" and to take his $2.5 billion fortune. McGarrett tells Hilliard, "Nobody takes me under duress and gets away with it!" There's lots of snappy dialogue between the two of them and an excellent cast for Hilliard's conspiratorial hangers-on (Ed Flanders, Milton Selzer, H.M. Winant). The way McGarrett figures out who's responsible for the murder at the beginning of the show is a bit too quick. When McGarrett tells Chin Ho he needs a crucial seventh bullet found, Chin says, "Now that's persistence." McGarrett replies, "And the murder weapon -- that's Chinese persistence!" When McGarrett asks why the killer was using a silencer, Chin replies, "Maybe the guy hates noise." I'm surprised that Che Fong can't figure out where the bullets are coming from by analyzing the angle at which they hit the ground. The opening titles are over freeze-frames, and the way the dialog in the first scenes overlaps is interesting. Duke is played by "Harry" Wedemeyer. Why can't the approaching helicopter see the cops on the beach at the end?
One of the late Zoulou's favorite episodes. Three wheeler-dealer types all die horrible, mysterious deaths. The first of them is the faggy Ralph Mingo (Jay Robinson, who played the emperor Caligula in the film Demetrius and the Gladiators), the second is the arrogant stud Fred Akamai Loy (Ray Danton) and the third is the shifty Wallis (Jason Evers). The party during the teaser where Mingo gets knocked off is attended by "con men, grifters, pimps, and assorted playmates" according to Danno. Zoulou keeps staring at Mingo's fish and Danno asks him if there is some "deep Hawaiian symbolism" involved. Wallis calls Kono a "big kahuna" and says, "You're crazy out of your Kanaka head." The "weapon" turns out to be an extremely toxic shellfish (same name as the title of the episode) with which Jack Manoa (William Valentine), servant to the threesome, knocked them off because they corrupted his daughter ("your filth became her filth") with drugs and filmed her making home movies with a video camera and recorder. Wallis says to Danno, "Some like to play, some like to watch" and comments if he showed some of the video tapes, "you'd probably have me pinched for pornography." Yankee Chang plays the cook (uncredited). A surprise ending where McGarrett steps in after Danno has done most of the work! One of the musical cues before the end is highly reminiscent of the cue which usually accompanies the wave before a commercial break. A couple of real dates are seen -- the tag on Mingo's body says 8/3/71 and a threatening card says Akamai's birth date is July 6, 1929 and that he will die on September 10th. The toxic shellfish Cloth of Gold actually exists, though one web site I located with information about it suggests it is indigenous to Australia. A similar shellfish does not have instant fatal results as portrayed in the show -- it reportedly takes up to five hours to kill someone (there is no antivenin available for someone who has been poisoned).
The menacing William Watson plays L.B. Barker, who escapes from jail and threatens his former girlfriend, Carol Rhodes (Beth Brickell). McGarrett arrives at her hotel room and has the place surrounded with cops. When Carol offers McGarrett a drink and he refuses, she says, "I just can't imagine a guy with a name like McGarrett not having one drink." She also talks about her relationship with Alfred Townsend, an older man, which led to jealousy from Barker some years back: "It wasn't sex, he didn't use me like everybody else ... it was just kindness." We learn that McGarrett was appointed to Five-O in 1959 when Hawaii achieved statehood and that in 1968, suffering from major burnout, he took a vacation in Switzerland. Carol, a ditzy blonde, becomes more fragmented as time goes on, yet when Barker appears, she suddenly becomes very lucid. In order to get to her apartment, Barker seemingly has to crawl vertically up a heating vent for several stories and then rappel down the side of the building and no one notices him, though cops are everywhere. One wonders if these scenes are just figments of Carol's imagination, since it turns out that Barker's appearance is all part of a scam engineered by McGarrett and the D.A. to make Carol confess to a murder which Barker supposedly committed several years ago and there is a scene which suggests that Barker has been co-operatively sitting in a room under the supervision of HPD cops prior to arriving at Carol's room. McGarrett gets the whole thing on tape on his "case-sette" tape recorder. I imagine, as Carol suggests, the lawyers are going to have a field day with this case. This is pretty much a three-person show -- there are no "supporting players" in the credits. No doubt Jack Lord's theatrical experience served him well in this show, since it is almost like a filmed stage play.
Simon Oakland as the gangster Mauritany (described as a "grim Neanderthal") gets knocked off pretty early in this show accompanied by some very interesting editing. The main titles are presented one word at a time. McGarrett tells Kono to "put your ear to the coconut wireless" (local expression for "the grape vine"). The "memories" theme is heard as TV repairman Clem (Morgan Upton) eats lunch with his wife Doris (Josie Over). When the two are seen in bed later, Doris is wearing lots of lipstick! Bill Edwards, seen later in the series as Jonathan Kaye, is the sexually ambiguous Frank Wellman (described as both a homosexual and transvestite) who plunges to his death (the shot of the guy falling is taken from #87, Bait Once, Bait Twice). McGarrett looks at pictures of various women on Wellman's wall and tells Danno that these women are men! When Wellman's death is written up in the newspaper, the headlines once again have lower case type. Kwan Hi Lim, looking younger than usual, plays the very oily Chang. When Bonnie Soames (Joanne Barnes) listens to music on the airplane at the beginning, she says, "I dialed Streisand, I get Stravinsky." Chin Ho is seen doing surveillance on top of a building with a walkie-talkie -- a shot from this will be used in subsequent seasons in the main titles. When Chin reports Wellman's license number, he first says "5J5-298," then repeats it as the correct number which is just "J5-298." When McGarrett tells Danno to give witnesses something to read in the office, Danno replies, "What? The new pension plan?" Prior to the murder, Clem tells Mauritany that he is turning on the TV because he wants "the tubes to warm up." But wouldn't this be a transistorized TV? One of the pivotal characters of the show -- Charlie Saunders, an ex-detective -- is not mentioned in the end credits at all!
This episode starts with a credit saying "The producers gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Department of Defence and the United States Navy." One wonders why they were co-operative, since the show is about sailors smuggling heroin into Hawaii! Maybe the show was intended as a large-scale public service announcement, since at the beginning of the show, Admiral Sample says, "Some of our men face bigger risks from drugs than they do from bullets." (He's played by real-life Admiral Joseph McGoldrick.) Danno goes undercover on board a Navy ship posing as a doctor to try and track down the heroin. Ironically, it ends up at the White Horse Tattoo Parlor in Honolulu where Moki Palacio is the distributor of the dope. There are weird camera angles at the beginning of the show when a sailor is under the influence. When David Doyle (of Charlie's Angels fame) as "Hard Hat" goes on board the ship to pick up the heroin near the end of the show, there is a camera watching his every move (both Danno in the captain's quarters and Kono and McGarrett in a truck on the docks are watching the results on monitors). But when Doyle actually removes the heroin, the camera is at an improbable angle looking at him close-up from below. Doyle is very sweaty when he is confronted by Five-O. Near the end of the show, McGarrett and Danno are seen in civilian clothes driving a white Mustang. The "military theme" is heard briefly during the score by Ray. Che Fong at one point is shown having four men assist him to come up with some clues for McGarrett. A friend whose husband was in the military for several years says the length of haircuts for the enlisted men in this episode leaves a lot to be desired.MORE TRIVIA:
- In the opening teaser for the episode, a sailor is shown going to make a heroin drop-off at the White Horse Tattoo Parlor. He arrives at the tattoo parlor to make his delivery in a Bernie's Cab, license number 8C-6310. This cab and scene are the same as when David Birney, pursued by McGarrett and Danno in a white Mustang, makes his heroin delivery at the same location at the close of the show, but shot from a different angle. You can see the white Mustang, with McGarrett in the passenger seat, make the hard left turn in the teaser. The person in the cab in the teaser is intentionally hard to see. You even have the same vehicles behind the Mustang in the teaser as in the closing scene: a beat-up brown pickup truck and a green car off to the pickup's right. As well, on the street corner you can see a guy in a blue shirt and a man with a little kid. Thanks to Mark Lewonczyk for pointing this out.
In this second military-themed show in a row, a psycho named Ralston is knocking off the wives of men formerly in his army outfit. When the first of them that we see is stabbed during the teaser, she's shown lying in the shower but there is no blood. When her husband hears about her fate, he says "Oh, Jesus" to McGarrett. The show's second murdered wife gets pushed off a cliff in the middle of nowhere. Despite this, she is found pretty quick! There are stock shots of McGarrett running down the Palace steps past tourists and driving past the Dillingham Fountain. Both the violin and military themes are heard. This is the last show for Kono, who speaks Japanese to a souvenir vendor at one point. He has a good line to McGarrett: "I got a photogenic memory," which McGarrett corrects to "photographic." Moki Palacio, who appeared as a dope pusher in the previous show, is seen briefly as a Telegraph Clerk. When Five-O tries to grab Ralston at the airport, Chin Ho seems to be standing in front of the same sign with Japanese characters as he was in Follow the White Brick Road, except in that episode the sign was in a hotel! At the finale, McGarrett grabs Ralston's bayonet with his bare hand -- ouch!! At the beginning, the commander of the soldier whose wife is the first to get murdered says, "Did you tell them dirty old dinks [meaning Vietnamese] about our boy Syzmanski?" and later on, Ralston tells a Marine recruiter, "Shove it, Tinker Bell." When Danno is interviewing a woman about the murdered women, she is standing in front of a sign aimed at tourists that says "Have some pineapple juice."