Copyright ©1994-2000 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.
My second-favorite Five-O episode. Curt Stoner is one of the nastiest of Five-O's villains, played by real-life armless detective Jay J. Armes, who "cracked headline-making cases for Marlon Brando, Howard Hughes, Elizabeth Taylor, Yoko Ono and Elvis Presley", according to the cover of his autobiography. (Armes also has a Web site.) Many of the character's moves seem designed to highlight Armes' abilities with his hook hands. After Stoner kills the policeman Keoki at the beginning, a newspaper headline identifies him as a "roofstop sniper," and McGarrett asks "how did the rifle end up on a rooftop," but Stoner was actually on top of a hill. (The crosshairs of his rifle seem to be everywhere but on the target prior to the shooting.) McGarrett snaps his fingers more times than normal at this crime scene (at least 12 times) ... obviously he is very pissed! Donald (later Billy) Roessler briefly appears as McKinney, who engages in a wild gun battle with the cops, calling calling them "pigs" and Danno "big mouth" when the latter uses a bullhorn to try and persuade the gunman to surrender. Chin later says McKinney was on drugs, which "scrambled his brains." When McGarrett figures out that Stoner is behind the first two cop killings, McGarrett puts in an immediate call to future victim Larry Thompson. Central Dispatch says he is "off duty," but when Danno appears a minute later, he already knows that Thompson is dead! When McGarrett is in Stoner's room near the end of the show, the picture on the wall showing Hookman with hands is one supplied by Armes himself where he was wearing cosmetic arms and hands for his real-life work. The opening scene with the casket falling out of the hearse is brilliant -- it reminds me of John Waters' films. Rod Baker, who co-wrote this episode, wrote to me: "The director didn't plan that shot. My writing partner, Glen Olson, and I watched the filming of the fish-tailing of the hearse. When they were ready to move to another location, Glen and I looked at each other and said something to the effect of 'why don't they film the coffin pitching out of the hearse.' Luckily, Leonard Freeman was on the set and overheard us. He said it was a great idea and wanted the shot. The director, Allan Reisner, compiled and was not upset with our 'meddling.'". Stuntman Beau Van Den Ecker is the driver of the hearse. An outstanding score by Morton Stevens which won an Emmy. Collectors of classic cars will cry big tears at seeing Stoner's Mustang (license number E-4193) being hauled out of the harbour. All end credits from this one to the end of the series begin with "Starring Jack Lord."
Arthur (Elliott Street) is very creepy -- he's a "schizo" who is obsessed with Judy Moon, a comic strip heroine. Arthur goes around knocking off people in real life similar to those threatening Judy in the daily papers. (The size of the comic strips in the papers seem to be unusually large, by the way.) At the beginning of the show, McGarrett visits Mrs. Royce, widow of one of Arthur's victims. She is a middle-aged bag with a blond-haired beach boy stud lying in a hammock beside her. When he gets up to leave, she says "Go back to improving your mind, Bunny." After listening to her sarcastic abuse, McGarrett says "Thank you for your courtesy." Arthur works for Verna's [Dog] Grooming Parlor and drives the company truck, a Chevy van with the ubiquitous 732-5577 phone number on the side (license number is 92-572). The soundtrack has a thumping heartbeat-like noise whenever Arthur encounters any characters like those in the comics. McGarrett asks Che about a book the latter is writing: "Famous Cases Five-O Never Solved." After he has a brainstorm in the barber shop (Robert Witthans is the barber) and realizes the "gimmick" behind the killings, McGarrett phones up Eddie Sherman to get back issues of the Judy Moon comic strip from the newspaper. (Where does Arthur get the large blowup of Judy on his wall?) Jean Tarrant as Dr. Bishop says the "paranoid schizophrenic" Arthur has "never been able to make it with a real live girl." Danno tells a terrible joke at one point. This show uses a shot of garbage being dumped from #74, "No Bottles...No Cans...No People." There is a sign in HPD headquarters with info about an "on-line police information system" ... presumably the "iron brain." I like the end: Arthur shoots six times, then McGarrett plugs him in the leg! A good McGarrett quote: "Static is a way of life around here, Danno." The police artist is identified as "Joe Donner," the cop who handles the computer is "Walt." Lowell Palmer, the artist behind Judy Moon, is played by Tom Hatten, who is left-handed. During the final sequence, in the background the Pantheon Bar can be seen which has a sign on its window saying that it is the "oldest bar in Honolulu."
Generally speaking, a well-written episode dealing with the threat of bubonic plague. There seem to be an unusually large number of rats on the contaminated boat. McGarrett has to spend most of the show in an isolation ward. When Danno asks Che Fong,"How's your French?," Che replies, "About as good as your Chinese." The contaminated trio make a reservation on United Airlines, flight 14. The Governor, in quarantining the island, uses the big word "zoonosis" to describe the plague (this word is quite correct, by the way), though he goes on to say "meaning one primarily of rodents. It is transmitted from animal to animal by certain types of fleas." The Manoa Cab Company has its usual phone number: 732-5577. Nephi Hanneman as Tamaki uses the expression "lying son of a b", cutting off at the last minute. (Tamaki's car has the license number 8E-8198.) One of the leads, Bert Convy as Thomas Brown, hangs around an "all-night grind house" -- the porno movies they show there are pretty mediocre! The death scene of Brown's wife Teresa is gross. Don Ray's score has mandolins whenever it's accompanying the Corsican gangster Leo Paoli (Nehemiah Persoff). The Governor has a blue "batphone." You can see the sailor's corpse breathing at the beginning of the show when it's on a slab at the morgue. Keith Bailey points out in the public inoculation scene, "The nurse places the used needles right next to the unused needles! No nurse would do that -- she would immediately put the used needle into a medical waste container."
A very creepy episode about a white trash family of serial killers who arrive in Hawaii after murdering 125 people (the figure is upped to 150 by McGarrett at the end of their island stay) and stealing $40,000 during the last three years on the mainland. Their M.O. is to get mundane jobs and, after a few days, murder their co-workers and rob the money on hand. In addition to Oahu, this show also features action on Hawaii and Maui. The outstanding score by Stevens is a mix of country music with a sinister violin solo reminiscent of Stravinsky's Histoire du Soldat (where this instrument is associated with the devil). Family members Bo Hopkins, Slim Pickens, Barbara Baxley, Robyn Millan and Lynette Kim play their parts to perfection. Millan as Hopkins' slutty wife Rosalie (Hopkins calls her "sexpot") asks Ric Marlow as Rene, the macho owner of a hairdressing salon, "Wanna try me?" and he replies, "You know I do, baby ... you're coolsville, baby." Rosalie's libidinous father-in-law Pickens refers to her as "nudie girl" and feels her up. She tells him that he should brush his teeth. While the family eats lunch at their hotel, clan matriarch Baxley is shocked at a couple behind them: "She's eatin' with an Oriental -- that white woman ... got no shame at all!" She tells her husband, "Next place we get to, I want you to make sure first it's for white folks only." Five-O character actor William Bigelow as Nomana (an Oriental?) tells McGarrett this family is "not normal." McGarrett is appalled at the end when Baxley tells him: "They wasn't kin ... they was all strangers ... it don't count with strangers.... It ain't stealing when they was dead first." It's quite possible that this show was based on a real case. Click here to read an excerpt that comes from a book on female serial killers.
Kwan Hi Lim, who gets larger credit than usual at the end, plays a fire investigator named Marty Portobas who carries a gun in one scene. He says he thinks the firebug may be "sexually confused" -- "the fire or even thinking about it can give them the only sexual satisfaction they can achieve." There are plenty of stock shots of fires in this episode, as well as of cops driving (like the one turning the corner by the church). McGarrett tells Danno: "See if you can come up with a Sunday torch -- anywhere in this country." How can the guard at the pharmaceutical company hear the noise the real firebug Porter (Tom Simcox) makes inside the warehouse, since it seems pretty noisy outside? This episode falls down badly when considering the method the bad guys use to choose someone with a history of pyromania like Ray (Michael Anderson Jr.) to act as a patsy. Did they really expect some "pyro" to consistently show up at the fires they set (and so they can film him)? Did they have access to Ray's medical records? Even McGarrett needs a court order to look at them! The ending, where McGarrett plots an elaborate ruse for Porter (as he is on the way to the airport) gives new dimensions to the phrase "time-compression." The violin theme is heard, normally and in a slow arrangement near the show's end.
Internal Revenue Service investigator Jonathan Cavel (Don Porter) grabs $600,000 from a guy he is investigating, but the money goes astray. And the guy ends up dead in the airplane washroom. Porter's office in San Francisco has the phone number (415) 392-9069. There's a stock shot of McGarrett and Danno running down the Palace steps. When he's being tailed by Five-O, how much closer can McGarrett and Danno get, judging by Porter's mirror? It looks like they are in the rear seat of Porter's stolen car! (Porter's license is 3E-1934, by the way.) McGarrett wears a weird hat when he confronts Porter at the end ... how can Porter be heard over the noise of the helicopter? James Severson plays the police artist Joe. The violin theme is heard in an arrangement with a French horn taking the solo line. There is something about this episode that I really don't like -- maybe the fact that all the major characters, Cavel, stewardess Alma Saunders (Jenny Sullivan) and the two tourists, Will and Betty Rowan (Jack Dodson and Sally Kirkland) are just so damn greedy and single-minded about the money!
The Superfly-like black pimps, referred to by mob boss Lolo Kensi (Gregory Sierra) as "pimples"), are too stereotypical for words. Near the place where the pimps hang out is a restaurant called "Bob's Place -- Soul Food." The number one pimp, Harley Dartson (Glynn Turman) seems to have a happy family life -- his blonde wife Semantha (Lynne Ellen Hollinger) acts as his answering service. When told about the hitman coming to get him, Lolo says "They care enough to send the very best." When Duke calls McGarrett, he says "The 'hos' are back on the stroll." McGarrett tells Lolo: "I'm trying to save your slimy life." Near the beginning there's a rear shot of a topless dancer. Seth Sakai appears as Kuji; Pat Morita is Phoebe, the bartender; and Wilfred (later Mo) Keale appears as Wunton. The music by George Romanis is sleazy. Both Harley and another pimp, J. Paul (Ron Glass) have customized license plates -- J. Paul's is "MR. P".
Various stock shots are used for people meeting violent deaths: a guy plunges from a building in an "accident" (a stock shot); a car blows up (from the main titles -- we can see the number of the car which is 96); another man gets run over by a car (from #101, "The Jinn Who Clears the Way"). The exploding car allows Danno to interview a busty babe on a boat ... watch where his eyes are! Chin interviews the long-haired hippie grandson of the man run over. William Bigelow plays Charles Privit, who gets blown up in a boat explosion (the special effects leave a bit to be desired). The coroner's report shows Privit has two addresses: 914 Ookala and 805 Raft Street and that he died at 9:45 a.m. on 7/5/73. Names of people other than Privit who died are Blackerman, Ambrose, Quan Loo (sp?) and Shibata. The shot of a helicopter blowing up is from #97, Death is a Company Policy. Bad guy Luke Foster has two phone numbers on his business card: 732-2144 and 923-5944. Doug Mossman plays Detective Poheni, Terry Plunkett appears as a bartender. Five-O must do a good job to plant the bogus newspaper stories about Uncle Kevin in the bound editions of the paper!
Stars the sexy E. Lynne Kimoto as Miyoshi Akura and Don Knight as the nasty Australian opal dealer Hobbs. The Tristar Auto Clinic has the ubiquitous phone number 732-5577. Its owner, Jake Willis (Robert Basso) has an unpleasant accident when a truck runs him over. When Miyoshi's co-conspirator Webber is being tailed, the color of the road in the mirror is different than that which can be seen through the front window. Later, Ben tails Hobbs in the usual obvious way, and tells McGarrett, "Hobbs must've spotted the tail." A good line from Duke in this show as he is examining a stuffed animal in Miyoshi's apartment: "Dames keep more junk!" The trombone interval theme is heard combined with the violin theme. Arthur Hee appears as a landlord. There are the usual stock shots of the HPD computer.
McGarrett should listen to the Governor at the beginning of the show who gives the plot away when he says, "We've got a double problem." Edith Diaz does a good job portraying both daughters of the Latin American dictator Ramos (Richard Angarola) -- Maria Ramos, the one by his wife, is whiny and wimpy, while Rita Salazar, the one by his mistress, is forceful and ruthless. Rita uses makeup to cover a mole on her cheek -- just like the one which Maria is hiding with makeup as well! (They really do look a little bit too much alike...) When Rita goes over the hotel balcony with a rope, how come no one, including people in the swimming pool below, sees her? McGarrett is much too clever in this episode. The bad guys' hideout looks suspiciously like the one Wo Fat uses in F.O.B. Honolulu. The shot at the end with Danno looking at the hideout from a helicopter is taken from #78, ...And I Want Some Candy... and from #116, Little Girl Blue. Mention is made of a pay phone number -- 768-2300. Music by Stevens. Ramos' right-hand man, Felipe Ortega (Bryan Da Silva) tells McGarrett: "In our country, unlike yours, we marry for life."
A cop is guarding Norman Cargill (George Voskovec) while he examines bonds (actually he is forging new ones). The cop is sitting in an office at a desk behind Cargill reading a book but in one shot the cop seems to have vanished! McGarrett misprounounces Cargill's name like "Car-jill" when he introduces the document expert to some bank officials. Cargill's girlfriend and accomplice Maxine Taylor (Lynn Carlin) lives at 1410 Rolana Drive, Apartment 4. They are making plans to escape on United Airlines flight number 114. Deak and Company Foreign Exchange is seen briefly. This show features use of a videotape machine which McGarrett uses in slow motion to determine a phone number that Cargill dials (355-4991). Seth Sakai appears as Raymond Sakai, a printer who is in need of a shave. Cargill and Taylor use one of the characters, Olivia Hillis (Linda Ryan) to open a bogus bank account under the bizarre name of "Oretha Hoover." First Five-O score by Bruce Broughton, who went on to score Silverado, among other things. The music behind Cargill's examination of the bonds goes on for 4 minutes, 54 seconds, one of the longest continuous musical sequences in the series.
Scientific types will laugh themselves silly with this episode. The bad guys, who want megabucks or they'll set off an atomic blast in Honolulu, send the governor a sample of "plutonium" and he handles it in his limo while sitting beside McGarrett! (See #195, Man on Fire, where Dr. Ormsbee says "any contact [with plutonium] can be fatal.") As well, "Uranium 238" is shown in tanks like propane, while "Polonium 210" is stored in acetylene tanks and a test tube. These last two components can both allegedly be purchased on the open market! Later on, the ransomers threaten to have a "modest radiation flash" in Kapiolani Park. The device to do this is hidden in an ice cream cart and after Dr. Elias Haig (Lew Ayres) moves the cart into a public washroom, there is a glowing explosion. Dr. Klaus Richter (Richard Angarola) comments, "Seal off that building, it'll be weeks [sic] before anyone can go near it." At the beginning of the show, when movers are unloading a box containing the bomb, the camera seems to be in slow motion. Robert Luck plays Harry Luck, one of the movers. His phone numer is 786-2300. When an HPD cop phones Chin Ho to say he's located a company connected with the bombing plot, Chin says something that sounds like "Go, man" or "Cool, man." Danny Kamekona plays Dr. Beaumont, Bill Edwards is Jonathan Kaye. Ed Fernandez, Les Keiter and David Espinda all appear briefly. There are Mickey Mouse balloons in Kapiolani Park -- did they pay a licensing fee to Disney?
The central character of this show, Harry Foxton (Jack Carter) expires pretty quick! (The license number on his car where he is found dead is 8E-5800.) The Five-O crew is dressed informally at the beginning of the show (even McGarrett). Later, they seem to be constantly in and out of McGarrett's office -- Chin seems particularly involved with the case. Close inspection reveals many of the characters sweating excessively throughout the episode. There's interesting focus, switching between McGarrett and Ben in one scene. A "photofax" is used to send a picture of Listie, a bad guy (played by newspaperman Eddie Sherman). His mug shot number is 38529, and the picture was taken on 5/18/73. McGarrett asks Ben to "check every distributor [of walkie-talkies] on the island." The "violin theme" is heard briefly. Various stock shots of driving and the all-knowing police computer. When McGarrett tells Danno to be careful when kicking in Listie's door, Danno says he will, adding, "I like Island living." (Listie's van has the license number 72-351.) When McGarrett discovers that someone escaped from Listie's apartment via the dumbwaiter, he says, "That went out with Bulldog Drummond." If you look carefully at Listie's corpse on the floor, you can see his eyelids moving. Doc determines that Foxton died of Lou Gehrig's disease, which is described by its official name -- amylotrophic lateral sclerosis. Yankee Chang is Peter Suyam, William Valentine plays Lewis, his butler. Louise Sorel is Foxton's sexy daughter Diane.
Various shots of rare coins are seen at the beginning, "courtesy of United National Coin Corporation, Beverly Hills, California and World Wide Coin Investments, Limited, Atlanta, Georgia." Although the title coin is seemingly in near-mint shape, what kind of condition is it in after all that it goes through -- being put in a coin box, being dropped on the street, and handled by numerous people? Jimmy Borges appears briefly at the beginning as a hotel manager, Robert Costa is the coin dealer in charge of the five cent piece. When con artist Arnie Price (Eugene Troobnick) checks out the coin box where he stashed the nickel, the binocular angle is totally wrong ... it's looking at the box from inside the hotel, instead of outside where Price is parked (car license number W-7001). However, the following binocular shot of Jennings (unidentified actor) taking the money out of the box is correct, even though it seems to be a closeup compared to the previous view. When he is frantically trying to track down the coin, Arnie has a bandage on his left elbow. The main titles don't show up until over three minutes have passed.
McGarrett spends most of this episode at the office in Honolulu while the Five-O Team investigate a bank robbery at Kahuku on the north of Oahu. After the bank robbers cut through iron bars with a special orthopedic saw, McGarrett tells Ben to "check the medical supply houses and hospital supply departments." The case could have been solved when the cop on the roadblock checked the 8-track tapes in the pineapple truck (license number B6-398). One of them is Santana's Abraxas with a "Walker Music Company" sticker on it, suggesting a bootleg! When the police computer can't come up with a suspect from the hotel's guest list, McGarrett tells the computer operator, "It's got the Iron Brain stumped." A woman screams -- probably one of the loudest screams in the entire series -- when the hotel elevator opens, revealing the body of Lou Pahia (Frank Liu) . The body is removed in a Physician's Ambulance. The score is allegedly by Ray, but the music in the first half of the show is almost all from #121, Hookman, by Morton Stevens. Several shots are repeated -- the closeup of the hands stuffing the money in the 8-track cartridges, the label on the box of tapes (the address is Art Walker, P.O. Box 3352, Los Angeles), and a black cop car racing past a roadblock. When Danno checks a tape in the pineapple truck near the end (which results in a brainstorm as to the "gimmick" in the case), the contents of the tape are as follows: 1 -- New Morning, The Man in Me, Father of Night; 2 -- If Not For You, Day of the Locusts, Winterlude; 3 -- Time Passes Slowly, Went to See the Gypsy, Sign on the Window; 4 -- If Dogs Run Free; One More Weekend, Three Angels. These contents are identical to Bob Dylan's "New Morning" and if you look closely when Danno knocks the tape on the dashboard you can see Dylan's face on the cover and the title on the flip side as well (this latter info is not visible in the frame when the contents are displayed). Thanks to Dan Stomierosky for pointing out the info about Dylan.
Credibility is stretched by some of the "camera techniques" in this episode. If Rick McDivitt (Perry King) is on the beach filming surfers, how can he take a shot of them from the side while they are riding the wave? Why does Rick pan up to the sky and then over to the beach where the killer is hiding? Seems a little artsy-fartsy. And the way that McGarrett zooms in with the projector to isolate the killer in Rick's film later is totally bogus -- the quality of the image remains sharp. One of the bad guys refers to the unknown Rick who was near the murder scene at the beginning as "some little puker up there having his own dope party." Rick steals the wallet of the murdered Edward J. Huffman containing Global Express National Credit Card number 317 9090 842 -- it has the same colours as Chargex/Visa. McGarrett tells Ben and Duke to "check all fences and hock shops" after Rick uses the card to buy expensive goods and then tries to pawn them. A primitive credit card approval machine is shown. As the Five-O team search for clues, some of the music from "The Finishing Touch" is reused, as is a shot of Ben talking to an old bald guy. The babely Elissa Dulce as Leila, petite girlfriend of menacing thug Andrew Koa (Rudy Diaz), tells McGarrett in his office "Let's cut the bull!" and gives McGarrett a lot of mouth. The number on Rudy's mug shot is 95483 -- there is no date. When McGarrett arrives and finds the wounded Rick and his surfing friend Roger (Nicholas Hammond) on the beach, he tells Danno: "Get an ambulance and HPD backup -- they've been shot!" (Seems rather obvious...) In the hospital, it sounds like Seth Sakai's voice on the soundtrack giving orders, though Sakai is nowhere to be seen. Rick's driver's license is shown in detail. His address is 14899 Tupukei Road, North Shore, Hawaii. It expires on 4/30/76. His birthday is 4/30/48, he has brown hair, weighs 170 pounds, is 6 feet tall and has blue eyes. The number of the license is 546 10 8740. There is a picture of President Nixon on the wall in the photo studio. Numerous Five-O stock actors are featured, including Bob Basso, Terry Plunkett, Josie Over, George Herman, Dick Fair and Bob Costa.
A mundane episode about two bunco artists, Joe Connors (Ed Flanders) and Cindy Imala (Lynnette Mettey) teaming up with various locals: Big Mardo (James J. Borges), Sunada (Tommy Fujiwara) and Elfidio (Doug Mossman in a rare "bad guy" appearance). Connors uses the aliases Tom Madrid and Gerry Spain. At the beginning, the husband of a couple who witnesses the scam artists' bogus shooting looks very much like Beau Van Den Ecker. A sign on the Ilikai advertises a show called "The Polynesian Man" starring sometime Five-O actor Nephi Hannemann, and Ben grills the barman at the hotel's outdoor watering hole (Joe Geremia, uncredited). Mitch Mitchell plays the hotel manager. Connors and Imala drive a snazzy red convertible with license number 7B-8848. When Danno shows a picture of Imala to potential victim Harry Maguire's (Michael Strong) wife Natalie (Patricia Herman), she says, "My husband doesn't know tramps like that." Danno says, "Did we say she was a tramp?" John Stalker plays the crooks' final victim Alex Anderson. I'm surprised when Maguire leaps from his hotel room to his death, they don't show the usual stock shot. Prior to Maguire's death, the "bonging bell noise" is heard. Kam Fong's son, Dennis Chun, appears briefly as a parking attendant.
I can't follow the topography at the beginning of the show, with Ted Reynolds (Mark Jenkins) keeping up with the car driven by hitman Bo Lansing (Mark Gordon). Reynolds works at the Kal Bi Restaurant, which is at 1146-C 12th Avenue and has the phone number 732-3088. Lansing drives a black Lincoln Continental, license number 4B-2322. The title card is over a freeze-frame and the opening credits are dragged out to over a minute. Reynolds drops his book (The Poetry of Robert Frost) as Lansing chases him, and his library card inside, number 23-8956, reveals his address to be 9916 Kapena Street. This is actually his previous address, his current one is apartment 801-127 Koa Street. The music accompanying this sequence is usually heard as a climax during the "wave." The body of Lansing's victim, Joe Wang, is removed in a black Physician's Ambulance. When Reynolds reads about a reward for information about the shooting in the paper, the paragraph below this has no relation to the case at all, referring to a "preliminery investigation." After the newspaper turns over a copy of Reynolds' letter to Five-O, McGarrett asks to "have some Xerox copies made." Mark Lenard does a good job playing the wisecracking mob boss Bok. When he asks McGarrett and Danno what they're doing about Joe Wang, Danno replies, "We've already observed a couple of seconds of silence in his memory." Later in McGarrett's office when Bok reaches for the suitcase full of stolen money that McGarrett is using to entrap him, the music is momentarily reminiscent of Star Trek where Lenard, among other things, played Spock's father! Lansing is one of Five-O's very nastiest villains -- at the end, he puts a gun to Reynolds' baby's head. Lansing must have good eyesight, since he can see the name and number on the mailbox of R. Tanaka (Yankee Chang) from the eighth floor. (Tanaka's phone number is 555-6571, he lives at 3539 Ewo Blvd. Other phone numbers on the same page in the phone book are either 555- or begin with KL5, the equivalent to 555. Interestingly, in the column to the right of Tanaka are names like Talsky, Talstad, Talt and Talton, all of which should come beforeTanaka, alphabetically speaking.) At the end of the show, where Lansing drills Reynolds, why doesn't Reynolds die immediately? The effect of the scene is not helped by the total lack of blood. There is some creepy electronic music as Lansing knocks on the apartment door and Reynolds' Sally-Field-like wife Sue (Cindy Williams) answers it. A bit of the Hookman score is reused, as is the trombone interval theme, which is heard on plucked strings at the beginning. A fly lands on Lansing's face at the end after he is shot. Overall, a very strong episode.
During the opening drug raid, McGarrett says he was in Marseille the year before where the Surété showed him a drug "factory." Ernie Fallon (Richard Rivera), who is wounded during the raid, has the number 53984 on his police mug shot -- the date is 9/25/73. "Doctor Freeman" is paged in the hospital. Duke freaks out after a cop lets an assassin into Fallon's hospital room. Kwan Hi Lim plays the slimy druglord Lee Song, who smokes in a weird upside-down manner reminiscent of Laugh-In's Arte Johnson. Seth Sakai is his assistant, Luu Se Ngu. When Ben tails suspect Tom Morgan (Peter Strauss), it's in the usual Five-O manner and the photos Ben takes of Tom meeting the two dopelords at the War Memorial Natatorium are at the usual wrong angles. Danny refers to "[qual]ludes" when he finds Tom's girl friend Janice Wong (Luella Costello) OD'd at her apartment (211-275 Pele St.). When Danny is accompanying her to the hospital in the ambulance, there is a peculiar insert edit. When Tom's father, former treasury agent Cliff Morgan (Andrew Duggan) is breaking into the police evidence room (far too easily), the score by Stevens reverts to that composer's music from "Hookman." Duke puts his hand on Danno's knee during the final surveillance. The ending of this episode is very disturbing. Tom turns on the propane tank while talking to his father and then ignites it and the latter does nothing to stop him. The first Five-O episode directed by Jack Lord.
This show stars "John Mamo" who bears a suspicious resemblance to well-known character actor John Fujioka (see #157 -- "Hara-Kiri: Murder"). Mamo/Fujioka plays Tenjo Kayata, boss of the Asian Metal Arts Company. ("Tenjo" is a bogus name, it means "ceiling" in Japanese.) When private detective Henry Mott is found dead with gold dust on his clothes at the beginning, McGarrett tells Danno to check "all companies licensed to deal in gold in Hawaii," including Kayata's. Kayata is being scammed by his son-in-law Greg Lawrence (Peter Donat), who is in cahoots with the Cockney entrepreneur Joe Quillan (John Orchard). Lawrence and Quillan melt down stolen gold, cast it and dump it off Makapuu Point with the help of two salvage operators, Fleming (James J. Sloyan) and Boyle (James Davidson) to make it look like part of a 150-year-old shipwreck. There seem to be several extra people on both boats when the gold is being dumped into the ocean ... this increases the chance of the scheme getting known! Metals dealer Arthur Jentry is played by Peter Carew wearing glasses, a moustache and a wig (compare his appearance in #137, where he is bald). When Fleming and Boyle are found dead underwater, McGarrett says, "The finders were not keepers." (Sounds like an episode title!) Reuses "The Finishing Touch" music by Broughton, though the score is by Ray. Two other stock themes -- "echoing trumpets" and "underwater" are also heard as well as another which is reminiscent of "memories." McGarrett makes a goof when he says that the total amount of gold stolen from Kayata's was "185 pounds Troy weight" which is about "300 kilos." According to my dictionary, one pound Troy weight = .373 kilo, so 185 pounds would equal about 70 kilos.
One of the best "contemporary issue" shows with an effective dissonant score by Ray. The rapist cop Walter Stark (John Beck) is very creepy, especially since we don't know what makes him tick. Camera angles looking up at him from the passenger side of his car (license 2B-1975) add to the unease. McGarrett is extremely sympathetic to the rape victim Andrea Burdick (Katherine Justice) despite her husband Joe (Alan Fudge) who tries to prevent McGarrett's access to her and trots out the usual clichés like "a woman gets raped ... she's asking for it!" (The first shot of the terrified Andrea in the hospital is ghastly.) When Fudge says, "You're not going to make my wife out to be a tramp," McGarrett replies, "No one has more compassion for that lady in there than I have." (The end titles identify this couple as Andrea and Joe Barone, by the way.) McGarrett is so frustrated by Five-O's inability to catch the rapist that he kicks the door in his office. Doc brings up the issue of identifying the cop's blood type from analyzing his semen. McGarrett says he wants "the youngest and prettiest" policewomen to act as bait for the rapist. He addresses one of them, Laura (Elissa Dulce), as "honey" twice. Ed Fernandez plays HPD Captain Ed Harada. The tires on Stark's car that Che Fong uses to help solve the case are made by the "American Ohio Rubber Company". There's a stock shot of McGarrett arriving at the hospital. At the beginning, Danno and Ben drive up to the crime scene in the middle of nowhere with the siren at full blast!
Anthony Zerbe plays Lester Smith, a.k.a. Cord McKenzie, a right-wing crackpot who thinks he is helping McGarrett by dishing out "justice" to criminals who avoid prosecution because of technicalities, early parole and so forth. Smith is a member of a group called "Ever Vigilant" and hails from North Dakota where he served in the National Guard (shades of current-day militia types!). On the rear bumper of his car (license W-9277), Smith has a sticker which says "Support your local police." McGarrett goes on a TV talk show hosted by Freddie Dryden (Casey Kasem) with the intention of getting Smith's attention. The gimmick in this show is the background noise in the Jollyland arcade where Smith works, which Che analyzes with an "oscillograph". As well, Che determines that the ZIP code from which Smith mails his letters to McGarrett is 96813. Five-O has only a couple of hours to figure things out, but it all works, as usual. Che says that the "blotched" characters on Smith's typewriter are produced by "old age" ... I would have thought they were produced by dirt! At the beginning of the show, Ben says one of Smith's victims "had about as many friends as a guy who had bubonic plague." During the final pursuit and fight, McGarrett gets bonked on the head with a garbage can, which draws blood.
At the beginning of the show, one of the deposit slips Vincent Gordon (Keene Curtis) signs has the date of 10 Dec 73. The thug accompanying him (uncredited) has to be the ugliest actor in the entire series. One of the people coming to the kidnapped Gordon's rescue is Hawaiian Congressman Chang, who gets killed. McGarrett's car tires smoke when he skids around a corner on his way to the shooting, and there are stock shots of cop cars. Although there are supposed to be about 600 people on the ocean liner, there doesn't seem to be too many in either the dining room or at the lifeboat drill. John Byner appears as the mundane nightclub comic Duffy Malone. Elena Lewis (Gail Strickland), a feature writer for Transpacific Wire Services, buys McGarrett a bottle of champagne, which he describes as "a friendly ice-breaker at $14 a throw." He asks her why she did this, and she replies, "We're supposed to be the liberated sex." He says, "No, no, honey, I don't buy it ... with your looks, you don't have to give away bubbly." When McGarrett calls the Five-O office from the boat, the number is the familiar 732-5577. At the end where Fallon (William Devane) is escaping up the baggage conveyor, it's obviously not him. The ship is the S.S. Monterey based in San Francisco, presumably owned by Pacific Far East Lines, who are mentioned in the end credits. Peter Leeds appears as Parkins. Les Hutchens sends along an anecdote: "I was with Keene Curtis during the filming of this episode. There was an interesting problem during filming where Mr. Curtis' own suit needed to be 'altered' to make it look as if it had been shot. They had filmed for two days with his suit and now had to put a bullet hole in it. Keene had strong reservations about this so a special effects man sewed some thread into the shoulder, and brushed it with some chalk. The final effect as seen on tv was very effective, and his suit was totally undamaged." Some behind-the-scenes from this show surfaced on the auction site Ebay: #1; #2; #3; #4; #5.
A disappointing rehash of #59, "Over Fifty? Steal!" about an elderly crook named Monsieur Bordeaux, a.k.a. S.R. Horus (David Wayne) which recycles many ideas from the previous show. Even some of the music from the earlier episode is reused along with excerpts from "The Finishing Touch." Bordeaux' notepad mentions the "Hotel Ilikia." The police artist who is usually called "Joe" (James H. Severson) appears in this episode as "Frank." McGarrett and the Five-O team wear Hawaiian shirts when they are undercover. There is mention of the Central Information Bureau, where info is shared by Hawaii's various police agencies. The sign in Japanese seen briefly in front of the hotel reads: "Japanese real estate group -- Hawaiian night club tour -- see front desk for reservations." McGarrett line: "I'm a cop ... I don't drink." A video machine is seen being used for surveillance purposes.