Copyright (c)1994-1998 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.
The season opener for the ninth season, and my favorite Five-O episode. An outstanding score by Morton Stevens, especially in the scenes where McGarrett is horribly tortured by Wo Fat (referred to as "behaviour modification through stress"). A harpsichord melody near the beginning suggests John Barry's From Russia with Love. Near the beginning, McGarrett engages in some sexist sparring with Dean of Students Dr. Barbara Dalton (Dina Merrill), described later as a "champion of minority rights." When she gives McGarrett some mouth about his excessive security over the deadly toxin, he tells her "You're very pretty, and I'm sure you know a lot about chemistry." I like the way Po Ling's (Yankee Chang) car blows up when it is pushed over the cliff (the same stock shot as in #73, Highest Castle, Deepest Grave). This "accident" must rattle the cops, because when Dr. Dalton and Wo Fat enter the top secret lab with her key, there are no cops guarding the opposite room which contains the toxin (according to McGarrett, the "armed guard" is supposed to be there "24 hours a day" -- "The door will be kept locked. There will be no admittance to anyone without exception."). After Danny and Duke go to visit "Doctor Sheng" (Wo Fat) and meet another bald guy at the door, there is an inexplicable cut when we see Baldy walk across the room, then Wo Fat walks onto the balcony. There's lots of gore when the security guards are shot. When Chin brings the V9 gas to McGarrett, hopefully he has first checked the canister for fingerprints. McGarrett gives an unintentional clue to the identity of the mastermind in the toxin theft when he tells central dispatch "full red alert." In Hong Kong, the cops and McGarrett are very quick to find the film developing lab which worked on the footage of McGarrett confessing! E. Lynne Kimoto is seen briefly as the Five-O secretary.
During the King Kamehameha Day parade in Honolulu, Arthur Lambert (Clu Gulager) stages a "historical re-enactment" of an attempted military takeover which is actually a coverup for a bank robbery. There is plenty of stock footage of the parade. At the beginning of the show, a piece of paper which contains the phone number 555-6465 is thrown at a convict who just got out of prison. McGarrett gets kissed by a policewoman who puts a lei around his neck and when his men laugh, he says, "What's so funny ... never saw a lei before?" Billy Roessler appears as Taxi Joe, who drives the bank robbers to the scene in a limo (his taxi company has the number 732-7577). Robert Costa is Professor Henry Kalani who is murdered at the beginning of the show (the discovery of his body produces the usual woman's scream). In the credits Costa's character is identified as "Prof. Chang"! Herbert Kobayashi is "Dr. Matzo" (yeah, right...). McGarrett mispronounces "Kaimuki" (a district in Honolulu) with the emphasis on the last syllable. At the end when McGarrett, Chin and Danno find the real participants in the pageant locked up in the middle of nowhere, McGarrett and Danno suddenly jump in the car to rush back downtown, seemingly abandoning Chin and the men. Bruce Broughton's score uses a lot of menacing low brass and woodwinds.
A "contemporary issues" show which is pretty frank about its subject -- extorting money from prostitutes. Ned Beatty plays Keith Caldwell, who works for a gangster named Pendleton (Robert Whittans, usually a clean-cut military officer, who here looks rather seedy). At the beginning of the show, when Duke says he's heard much higher prices for a single trick than the quoted $200, McGarrett asks how does he know. Duke says, "Chin told me." When Cory (Elaine Joyce), one of the hookers goes to Charlene Jenkins (Kelly Bishop) who runs a massage parlor, Cory suggests they should call the police. Charlene says, "You think the cops are gonna treat us like we raise pineapples or something?" At the end, there is a wild car chase, with McGarrett driving his Mercury Brougham like it was on a racing course. When he follows Caldwell's car over sand and grass, you can still hear McGarrett's tires squealing! If you look closely at the driver of Caldwell's car, it's obviously not him. I like the way Danno jumps into the car on the run! McGarrett calls Cory "honey" twice. The music by Morton Stevens is very good.
The obnoxious Dr. Grant Ormsbee (Pat Hingle) returns and is assigned to work with Five-O to help explain what's behind five radiation- contaminated bodies found inside an active volcano. One of the corpses, Ren, La Serre, looks suspiciously like Five-O director Alan Reisner -- but not in the later-received picture from Interpol! Ormsbee wonders why he has been called in, saying this is "a matter better suited to the infantile trappings of a police mentality." When he discovers the dead men came into contact with plutonium, Ormsbee describes the element as "one of the most dangerous and volatile elements known to science," and says it can produce "internal bleeding, nausea, vomiting. Any contact ... can be fatal" (Compare this to episode #132!). When Ormsbee brings a cigar into McGarrett's office, he is offered an ashtray to put it out. The bad guys, Donald Blair (John Hillerman) and Piet de Groot (Alan Fudge), are producing nuclear warheads in the basement of their company, Unified Resources Ltd., and selling them disgused as dental equipment. This company is supposedly beneath Diamond Head -- I thought that's where there was a top-secret U.S. military facility! Blair has a good quote: "Luck is a function of good systems analysis." When one of the Unified Resources workers, the pregnant Leila Kapehala (Lynn Howell Morse), gets sick from leaking radiation, she visits her doctor who says "the baby may have to be aborted." (The "trombone interval" theme is heard here.) When Kapehala gets someone from personnel to phone Blair earlier on to check on the now-dead father of her baby, Blair's secretary listens for about three seconds, then spends nine seconds relating the conversation! Some interesting photography with focus changing between Blair and his secretary in one scene, and in the opening where the Five-O team and the photographs of the five dead men are in a tight closeup. The ending, with McGarrett rushing into Blair's office with a huge machine gun, then in the basement avoiding cannisters filled with plutonium that Blair and de Groot roll at him and Danno (Ormsbee says "three or more of the cannisters have to nest in order to trigger radiation"!), is ridiculous.
At the beginning of the show, a mysterious CIA type is found dead on a plane sitting in "the last seat by the window on the right hand side" according to the stewardess. But he is on the left side of the plane, if you are facing towards the front. Of course, the stewardess (Susie Burke) screams when she realizes the guy is dead! McGarrett is called on the case while his car is being washed by some kids for a charity Benefit Alumni Fund. After pumping Jonathan Kaye (Bill Edwards) for information, McGarrett determines the murder is connected with an assassination attempt to be made at a top-secret meeting in Honolulu of OPEC ministers. Cliff Gorman plays Robert Houston, the nasty assassin who stabs the Ilikai Hotel's promotion director Julia Lewis (Udana Power) to death in Paradise Park (but where is the blood?) when she won't reveal info about the OPEC summit. Interesting that they end up at this location, since they were headed for "Ala Moana" -- both the park and shopping center of this name are about 3 blocks from the hotel. The Ilikai gets a credit at the end for "production assistance," by the way. Later on in the show, there is a shot of the torch lighting ceremony at the Ilikai (which takes place every evening), but the scene then cuts to Houston at his hotel, which is the Seabreeze. Chin Ho drags a suspect in the stabbing named Vaughan (Boris Aplon) from the plane to the Five-O office where he addresses McGarrett as "pal." McGarrett says, "Don't call me pal." Vaughan offers "that fat dame sitting next to me" as an alibi. When they let him go back to his golf game, Vaughan says, "I was on the fourteenth hole when Charlie Chan there picked me up." McGarrett says, "Let Charlie Chan there know where you can be reached in case we want to talk to you again." After he goes, McGarrett says to Chin: "It looks like we're back to 'go', Charlie." Chin later misprounounces Wisconsin as "Winsconsin." McGarrett has a pretty wild tie in one scene. We learn that Duke got a merit badge for drawing maps as an Eagle scout. Why don't McGarrett and Danno don't recognize Sandi Welles when she and Houston get off the plane when they return to Honolulu. Sandi and Houston take a Bernie's Cab (phone number 732-5577) to the Ilikai where he ties her up in a broom closet with a towel for a gag. When Houston gets shot at the end (in the nick of time), he plunges from the hotel balcony in the usual stock shot. It's obviously a stunt man on the Ilikai balcony prior to this, especially since he has curly hair and a different hairline than Gorman! Linda Ryan as Hazel Parr and Jerry Cox as Chuck Young give good performances as tourists.
Kevin McCarthy, who starred in the episode #1, returns as Hunter R. Hickey, a master forger ("paperhanger") who gives McGarrett a run for the money (no pun intended). You'd think McGarrett would be a bit more careful at the beginning when a doll is delivered to his office -- it's likely to contain a bomb (fortunately it doesn't). When the papers report on corruption in the Five-O office, about how McGarrett spent $14,302 on new furniture which never was delivered, McGarrett comments, "From a newspaper columnist and they're talking about corruption? That's funny." During this show, McGarrett is seen coming out of a Rotary Club luncheon. Chin Ho and Duke engage in the usual obvious tailing. When Hickey's female accomplice Janice Lockman (Elaine Giftos) switches places with him, can't Chin and Duke see that it's a woman? It's amazing the way Chin finds the kid who asked McGarrett for his autograph at the beginning of the show based on the fact that the kid is a little leaguer wearing a ball cap. Hickey is staying at the Ilikai Hotel. The score by Broughton sounds like Morton Stevens.
In this show, filmed with the assistance of the Coast Guard, Amanda McBroom reappears as Sandi Welles, who gets kidnapped while investigating a yacht hijacking. She's partnered with Danno, who looks silly wearing an undercover outfit consisting of "hip" clothing: bell-bottom pants, a tank top and a conch shell necklace (and Sandi tells him so). At the beginning, Chin Ho brings an elderly Chinese man to McGarrett's office. Chin tells McGarrett: "All Caucasians look alike to him." The Hong Kong cops trace a call to a Hawaiian pay phone: 555-8986. In one scene when the three bad guys are relaxing on the boat, it looks like there is someone else's shadow in the picture. Stock shots of cop cars on the freeway. Sandi's address is 137 Kapaloa Street. Paul Koslo as Charlie Turner, boss of the hijacking gang, and John Lisbon Wood as "Bama" Melton are among the best of Five-O's white trash bad guys. The ending is sucky.
Zohra Lampert (see also #243) plays Anita Newhall, "one flaky lady," who is threatened by her deceased mother's former boyfriend Jim Spier (Jack Kelly) who recently escaped from prison. When Spier goes "over the wall", it is a very tall but flimsy chain-link fence which looks like it is going to collapse! Danno says of the spiritualistically-inclined Anita, "I couldn't connect with her astral plane." McGarrett suggests, "Maybe my kharma is more in tune." Chin Ho says "Charlie Chan knows all," referring to himself when he figures out an important clue. McGarrett tells the Five-O team to "check every beauty parlor in the state" to find Claudine Hessler (Linda Ryan), a beautician friend of Spier's. McGarrett later mispronounces "alias" as "a-less" . Danno interviews a stewardess (Valli Hanley) by the ramp which leads from the Ilikai Hotel to the beach. The finale of this show requires a lot of attention. The music by Bruce Broughton is very modern-sounding, especially the final "confession" music. I like the way the Five-O crew stiff Manicote for the tab at lunch!
Danno is a real hustler in this episode, getting to know photographer Ann Waring (Meg Foster) very well in only a couple of hours. (She drives a Porsche, by the way.) The two of them are seen having a picnic, where Danno gives her a couple of deep kisses. Danno must have love on the brain, because he tells a hotel clerk not to touch a pair of sunglasses in Ann's mailbox, but when he finds Ann missing from her room (#759), he doesn't hesitate to pick up her phone, thus ruining any fingerprints! Thayer David plays Doyle Weston, a very creepy crippled and hypochondriac Japanophile mob boss (into "gambling, prostitution, drugs, porno") who wears kabuki-like makeup, has an opium den in his house, eats baby food and listens to the sound of some zither- like instrument. (David was only about 45 when this episode was filmed, he looks much older.) Seth Sakai is also pretty creepy, playing Vincent Kauoli, a bald- headed gangster with an earring who has "returned from the dead". George Wyner and John Gracciano as double-crossing thugs Allen Sherick and Angelo Okima respectively also give excellent performances. Beau Vanden Ecker as punk Sammy Nolo has a cool stunt, flying up onto the hood of a car, breaking its windshield. (According to Five-O stuntman John Thorp, this was likely produced by putting explosive charges around the windshield which were activated by the driver when Vanden Ecker hit the window.) This could have been one of the top episodes -- the acting, photography, editing and music (Broughton) are all outstanding. Unfortunately, the ending is appallingly stupid with McGarrett suddenly appearing out of nowhere in a helicopter and drilling everyone in sight with a machine gun. As well, Danno, who threw his gun on the ground, suddenly pulls another one out of a holster! At the 1999 Five-O reunion, Seth Sakai told me this episode was the first time he shaved his head for a part. The director, Sutton Roley, told Sakai that the plot of the show was clichéd and ridiculous, so they made the two villains (Sakai and Doyle Weston, played by Thayer David) as wacky as possible to compensate.
The main object of interest in this episode is Kwan Hi Lim in a more prominent role than usual, playing the gangster Chang Liu. Irene Yah-Ling Sun is Lee Mei Liu, his duplicitious daughter who arranges for her gangleader boyfriend Jerry Quan (Clyde Kusatsu) to steal four million dollars of her father's laundered money, then later cold-heartedly has him murdered by her father's "main man" Varna (Paul Hecht). There are a few plot inconsistencies. In Act One, Chang and Varna are seen discussing the disappearance of the money before Jerry and the Wo Ching gang have left the scene where they stash the cash and knock off two of Chang's men. (I think this is bad editing -- the scene with Chang and Varna makes more sense after the departure of the gang and discovery of the bodies.) At the show's end, when Varna forces Lee Mei to show him where the money is hidden, she says that they can't get to the money before it's dark, and that she has "arranged to stay [overnight] with a friend -- someone we can trust". This is just a plot device to give Che Fong time to reconstruct pieces of a burned map that show the location of the cash. (One has to wonder if Varna ties her up to keep her escaping ... but wouldn't "the friend" consider this rather peculiar?) At the finale after Varna and Lee Mei arrive at the water tower where the money is hidden, her father suddenly appears, having been tipped off by his loyal lieutenant. But if Lee Mai was taking Varna to the tower and not telling him about it ahead of time, how could her father know its location? Even the cops have to follow them! Chin Ho is very energetic in this episode, running after a gang member, capturing Varna at the end, and screaming at some punks in the police lockup. Duke (or his stunt double) has to jump out of the way to escape being run over by Lee Mei's car. Although McGarrett for the most part is just going through the motions in this episode, the way he busts into Chang's office saying "I don't like waiting rooms, I have a busy schedule" is arrogant. He does this with such rapidity that he probably overheard Chang telling Varna "I give you twenty-four hours to find the money"! At one point, McGarrett refers to "the honorable Chang Liu," which has a slight racist tinge. The trombone interval theme is heard briefly as Danno checks out the truck of Tony (Reggie Ho), a gang member, for evidence. Tony later calls Danno "Curly" during a grilling at the cop shop and refers to the Five-O team as "fuzz." McGarrett makes an appearance in a helicopter at the end of this show, just like the previous one. Lee Mei's house numnber is 6067, Jerry's mug shot number is 71326.
Nathan Purdy (Don Stroud), who was paralyzed by a cop's bullet and is pretending to be an aggrieved veteran, monitors the location of cops around Honolulu with a police radio scanner and then shoots them. Perhaps Five-O was unintentionally making a positive statement about handicapped people, because Purdy can certainly get around despite his disability (and, one would suspect, the lack of handicapped facilities in early 1970's Hawaii). Attitudes of the time are in evidence when Danno and Chin Ho are checking files with the "iron brain" and come across Purdy's name. They note he is a paraplegic and say, "It can't be him"! An old lady (Dorothy Mackaill) who lives at 2809 Lanikai and witnesses the shooting of two cops insists she be called "Ms. Pelcher" when questioned by Five-O. At one point, you can see the crack in Don Stroud's ass when he falls out of his wheelchair. McGarrett quotes a poem by Edward Markham which inspires him to set a trap for Purdy. When McGarrett and Danno go to the setup location, one of the cops inside addresses them as "sweets" when they knock on the door, thinking it is some next-door stewardesses. McGarrett says to Danno, "Sweets? He must mean you." In the setup apartment, the telephone is hung up with the receiver backwards. Although Seth Sakai is addressed by McGarrett as "Captain Sakai" and refers to himself with this name, the end credits he is "Captain Charles." (Sakai told me at the 1999 reunion that Jack Lord was responsible for this name change.) Jo Pruden is a "central" Dispatcher, Bernard Ching is Officer Ichiro and Terry Plunkett plays Oni, the owner of a pawnshop ("oni" means "devil" in Japanese). I don't understand how McGarrett makes the connection between the phone call complaining about loud music and Purdy at the end, which leads to the final showdown with McGarrett and Danno both wearing HPD cops' uniforms.
An outstanding episode, with Rich Little playing himself as Johnny Kling, an impersonator who does impressions of Bogart, Cagney and W.C. Fields. When a young girl dies from a drug overdose, he seeks revenge on the three people who sold, distributed and imported the heroin. McGarrett is blunt with an informer at the beginning of the show: "Don't get snotty with me, pal." Terry Plunkett is an apartment manager who tells Danno about a "fat dame" who "sunbathes in the raw" on the roof. Jimmy Borges is the boss of the drug rehabilitation center. When Kling dials Five-O, we can see that he's calling 732-5577. Danno tells the phone company to trace the call in a voice so loud that Kling can hear him! The "wave" after the mummy-like Milton Selzer falls on the floor is accompanied by the sounds of a 78 RPM record scratching repeatedly at its end -- creepy! Why aren't there any crosshairs on Kling's rifle at the beginning of the show? When McGarrett cranks the movieola to watch White Heat, the speed is much too "regular." Kwan Hi Lim is the projectionist in the theatre. Don Knight gives a relatively restrained performance as the dope kingpin Thayler. The price of a motel room is a mere $3! Take note of the old car beside the cop cars during the finale. The episode is "suggested by a story by James Breig," the only episode with such a credit. James Brieg explains: "I am the editor of a Catholic newspaper in Albany, NY. It's called The Evangelist. But I also write a weekly syndicated TV column for several Catholic newspapers around the country. I was also a huge 'Hawaii Five-O' fan. So I wrote a column about the show and how great Jack Lord was. Somehow, he saw the column and dropped me a note of thanks. Seeing an opportunity, I wrote back and asked for a telephone interview, which he granted -- perhaps because he was pleased with my column but also perhaps because he was from New York State (he asked about the condition of the Hudson River) and was raised a Catholic. During the phone interview, I asked the cliche question: 'What's the most difficult part of doing a weekly series?' He said, 'Coming up with good scripts.' Seeing another opportunity, I decided to write a script, which turned into 'Bells.' I sent it to him and soon got a call from the producer saying they would like to buy the story. Of course, I was excited that it had been considered good enough to actually use. (By the way, I wrote it with Frank Gorshin in mind; he had been on the show a couple of times.) My script was rewritten; I don't think an original word of mine remains. But the essential story and outline of scenes is the same as my original, and the characters are my invention. The plot line -- someone who can't carry out his crimes unless he is imitating famous movie gangsters -- was later lifted for a theatrical movie, which didn't do very well (I forget its title). I was thrilled when the episode finally aired. All of my relatives and co-workers tuned in; I didn't have a VCR at that time. But later, when the episode ran in syndication and I had a VCR, I taped it and still have a copy. I tried to sell them another script, but they didn't bite. So that was the end of my Hollywood career. But out of it I got a letter from Jack Lord, a phone conversation with him, a story on TV and a check. When he died, all of these memories came back to me. Jack Lord was the target of lots of comedians, but I found him to be very cooperative and pleasant. He certainly didn't have to read my submission, much less direct it himself. It remains a high point of my life."
A show revealing that "McGarrett has a life." He's shown getting close with his foreign-accented girlfriend Cathi Ryan (Camilla Sparv), flirting with her at a fashion show, playing tennis and relaxing on his boat. Most of her appearances in this show are in flashbacks, since she gets knocked off pretty early and McGarrett is set up to make it look like he did it. When McGarrett is trying to call the operator after Cathi is murdered and he is knocked unconscious, there seems to be someone's shadow on the lamp in front of him. Detective Chick Matsuda (Terry Plunkett) later picks up the phone to check for a dial tone -- I hope someone dusted it for finger prints first! Check the articles in the newspaper with the large headline about McGarrett -- they have nothing to do with the subject. (At least the headlines are in capitals for a change.) Both McGarrett and Manicote freak out in this show. The music by Ray is a mixture of banal and weird. Elissa Dulce Hoopai appears somewhere as "Nali" (I must have blinked -- she doesn't look like either the kidnapped sister of the tennis pro Yoshi (Kimo Kahoano) or girlfriend of the hitman Malcolm Vaughan (Jonathan Goldsmith)) and Danny Kamekona is the grey-haired prison mastermind Charlie Ing. McGarrett physically threatens gangster Sam Wailua (Alan Naluai) in the Five-O office. There's a cool fight in the surf at the end as McGarrett beats the shit out of Vaughan, who killed Cathi ... and there is no swelling music as the final act comes to a close! Che Fong's hair is somewhat longer and greyer than in the previous season.
This episode features Manu Tupou playing a Japanese cop named Kimo Nahashi (hardly a Japanese name). When Nahashi is in Tokyo at the beginning of the show, the Japanese characters on walls and banners are poorly made. Some of them are more like Chinese than Japanese characters. Later when Iso Taguchi (France Nuyen) scrawls some Japanese characters on a piece of paper on her fridge to tip off Nahashi, this writing makes no sense at all. The scene in the restaurant after Nahashi talks to Iso on the beach is exactly the same as when he first calls her. Jimmy Borges as Robert Makala drives a cool Spitfire, license 3A-5579. Some of the show takes place at the Byodo-In Temple. When John Stalker appears as TV repair shop owner Hodges, his company name looks like it's glued on his back. Edward James Olmos is the slimy gangster named Dancer. The phone number 555-4897 is mentioned. When McGarrett talks to Tokyo on the phone, the connection is terrible, as usual.
William Watson gives his best Five-O performance in this near- perfect episode as the very nasty Marcus Lucien, who escapes while being transported to prison to serve a sentence for multiple rape/murders. He escapes into the mountains where Attorney-General Manicote's daughter Karen (Laurie Prange) just happens to be on a field trip where she has gotten lost and is under the care of a mute "nature boy" David (Edward Gallardo). Watson is totally psycho -- when he comes upon a hippie pad, he tells the two occupants, "Hey, you're under arrest," and laughs ... then becomes deadly serious, saying "Let's have a party." (He murders both of them.) He forces David and Karen to lead him across the mountains, leering at her and licking his lips as he tells her "We wouldn't want him [David] lookin' on when we get to know each other, would you?" When he confronts McGarrett, Lucien again flip-flops between lunatic babbling and seriousness. McGarrett wears a hat throughout much of this episode. Beau Vanden Ecker appears briefly as Lucien's karate-chopping associate Homer Womano. The only thing that bugs me about this show is Manicote suddenly whipping out a gun to shoot Lucien near the end. The guy is Attorney-General, for gosh sakes! (McGarrett manages to miraculously find his own gun which Lucien forced him to throw over a cliff.) Bruce Broughton's score is excellent and the photography, much of it hand-held, is well-suited to the mountainous locations.MORE TRIVIA:
- Duke and Chin Ho pursue a bum who hides upside-down in a garbage container from the Oahu Refuse Collection Co. The phone number seems to be a real one: 847-6581.
- The license number 3B-4743 is seen on a Bronco used by the students in the opening sequences. (This license plate is used in several subsequent shows.)
- Dan Stomierosky points out that this sequence is exactly the same (except for the dialogue) as the one at the beginning of McGarrett is Missing!
John Ritter guests stars as Mike Welles, brother of officer Sandi (Amanda McBroom), who witnesses the hit-and-run killing of a policeman by Victor Palua (Nehemiah Persoff) and uses the incident for blackmail purposes. The killer car has the license number 6B-4913. Several characters are seen saying the name of Palua's travel agency, Surf and Sand International, but their words don't match their lips. They are actually saying "Sand and Surf International" (thanks to Karen Rhodes for this). Sandi's badge number is 244. When McGarrett arrives at the beginning of the show, he is driving a car which is not the Mercury Grand Brougham, but equally as large. When McGarrett talks about interviewing the old "madam" Margie Clayton (Jorie Remus), Danno chuckles, "Want to see Marj alone, Steve?" Mike's boss Jed Rucker is played by Joe Moore, recently the news anchorman on one of Honolulu's TV stations. McGarrett gives Sandi words of wisdom regarding Mike's addiction to gambling: "Gambling is a disease just as chronic as alcoholism and the only way to heal it is through professional help."
A good show dealing with the concerns of displaced senior citizens. Barnard Hughes stars as Clinton Palmer, who takes over Jimmy Borges' stage show at the Palm Plaza Hotel, threatening to blow up several people if the Governor doesn't respond to Palmer's demands. Borges gives a very good performance as a night-club entertainer (which is what he is in real life). The Governor is identified as "Paul Jameson." There's interesting hand-hand camera work at the beginning when the Governor arrives as well as some overlapping dialog. Palmer's house from which he was evicted was at 2709 Waioli Avenue. Dick Davalos, who plays George Hawley, the Elvis-imitation crook being transported to the mainland, was James Dean's brother in "East of Eden." Hawley refers to McGarrett as "the big hog." Sharon Farrell gives an off-the-wall performance at the end as Hawley's desperate girlfriend Mary Beth Rogers. The "natives" at the beginning of Borges' show are acting like Maoris from New Zealand.
A crappy episode, where two "irrational and unpredictable" punks -- played by Christopher Connelly and Stephen Young -- kidnap singer Bobbie Jo (Pamela Franklin) to extort half a million bucks from her manager Stanley Ducco (Tommy Leonetti). McGarrett is quite right when he says their plan is "feeble- minded"! As well, Bobbie Jo hardly puts up any resistance. I don't understand why she mentions a helicopter as a method of transportation shortly after the three first arrive on Kauai. Is this some kind of foreshadowing for when one of the kidnappers later asks the grocery store owner? The song that Bobbie Jo sings is awful. The hippies -- Bible Jim (Lee Jay Lambert), his flute-playing "partner" Amanda (Mary Taylor) and "organic man" Colin Lamb (Kevin Coates) are all pretty corny. It's amazing how quickly Danno manages to determine exactly where the kidnappers are holed up (but then, don't forget -- he "used to surf over there"). The trombone interval theme is heard played by the horns at one point.
This show is full of sarcastic lines. At the beginning, the football team owner tells mob boss Victor Jovanko "I'd rather have cancer than sell my team to you." Danno refers to Five-O as "department of laundry inspection," referring to Victor's propensity for laundering money, when he drops in on the two of them. Victor describes Hawaii as "Cleveland with coconuts," and says of McGarrett: "What do you want to bet he makes 'Pig of the Month'?" Later he refers to McGarrett as "Scoutmaster, Troop Five-O", who's "from Sunny Goodge Street." When the cops are tailing Victor, how can their camera see Victor throwing the club on the golf course? The angle is totally incorrect. Or for that matter, how can Victor see the cops, who are on the other side of a hill? McGarrett gets his hair trimmed at The Hair House -- doesn't look like much of a haircut to me! I'm surprised that when Lani (the sexy E. Lynn Kimoto) brings McGarrett a "present" he isn't suspicious. Of course, it contains a bomb! The scene where McGarrett rolls over the desk after the bomb goes off looks like an out-take from "A Gun for McGarrett." When Chin Ho, who's injured in the explosion, complains of hospital food, Danno says, "Tell him we'll try to have some eggroll sent in." After Victor sets a fire in the hospital, why do both cops guarding McGarrett's room leave their post when the alarm bells go off? This is stupid. In one scene in his car, McGarrett's voice doesn't match his lips when he is talking on the radio. Jo Anne Worley does a great job playing Victor's wife Anna. Jean Tarrant appears as Mrs. Stevens, Tom Fujiwara is Doctor Carruthers.
Pat Hingle returns for his final appearance as Dr. Grant Ormsbee, giving a bland performance -- there are hardly any fireworks between McGarrett and him as in previous episodes. Laura Campbell plays Dr. Margaret Hammond, another scientist, whose surfer brother David is captured by some gangsters led by Emil Radick (Mel Ferrer) to persuade her to spy on Ormsbee's top-secret work. David's attractive girlfriend Cathy Doar is played by Pauly Gardner. After she is murdered in a hit-and-run, the police report (#82/3759) says the attending physician was Dr. Howard Reston and she lived at 82801 Edna Road in Palama Beach. Tommy Fujiwara plays Sergeant Mirataki, who deals with Cathy's case. Near the end, although Ormsbee is going to test the equipment in three hours, Margaret still has time to be taken to see her kidnapped brother. The finale is kind of dumb, with Ormsbee heroically rushing to the crime scene with Margaret. The stock score uses some of Broughton's Double Exposure music.
The setting of this show -- a rodeo based near Waimanalo -- is interesting, but the episode itself is mediocre. Susie Wainane (Victoria Racimo) returns to the Islands from the mainland after a phone conversation with her brother Billy is abruptly cut off. McGarrett helps her after it appears Billy has disappeared under mysterious circumstances. McGarrett seems to be in a big hurry in one scene where he asks a group of cops assembled in his office, "Any questions, gentlemen?" without waiting for a response. In another scene, he hangs up the phone before Danno replies "Got it, Steve." There is poor editing near the beginning. In one shot, Danno is looking at Steve and in the following shot his head is down, reading a folder. In the same scene, a cut between two views of McGarrett is inconsistent in terms of his reaction. When Chin Ho takes a bus ride to grill the driver about Billy's girlfriend, he is standing in front of the "line" despite a sign right above his head which warns people about doing this. Susie disappears for most of the fourth act, then suddenly reappears at the end. After the body of Billy's girl friend is discovered, the doctor tells McGarrett: "There's a strong possibility she was raped." Carole Kai plays Susie's friend Alaki.
Jessica Harper plays the 17-year-old "teenybopper" Sunny Mandell, who is framed for murder by Todd Daniels (Paul Shenar) to get back at her father, L.A. cop Babe Mandell (Biff McGuire, playing another uptight dad like he did in Murder -- Eyes Only). Lynne Hollinger plays Daniels' blonde girlfriend Liana Meyers. Kwan Hi Lim is a peeping tom named Maiki who spies on people going into the motel where the frameup is committed with binoculars, telling McGarrett later this is his "hobby." He says he thought the people were going to have a "swap meet." There is mention of cocaine. When Sunny escapes from Daniels, she tries to crash at the War Memorial Natatorium, then joins a weird commune called "The Reborn" led by a Jesus-like guru called Osiris (Steve Carlson) who spouts hilariously outdated philosophical mumbo-jumbo. The hippie cult leader gives Sunny the name Willow and asks her: "You're not weeping, are you, Willow?" (gag)
Lee Purcell, who was in #187, Turkey Shoot at Makapuu, returns as Molly Taggart, who is now co-owner of a hang-gliding/windsurfing store. Chuck-Chuck Akamine, one of the punks in Turkey Shoot, also returns using the name Chanell Akamine as the horny creep Joko who wants to take Molly to the "Volcanic Rock" concert. Joko's partner Abilleno is John Duke Russo who played the goon Willy Vance in #207, Dealer's Choice -- Blackmail only seven episodes earlier. (The number on Abilleno's mug shot -- 69517 -- uses the same digits as that of Sammy Crane in the previous show -- 95671. Other suspects viewed in mug shots include Clamner, number 95483 and Pasquez, number 52659, with a date -- 2/16/72. Clamner, seen only briefly, is Rudy Diaz who played Andrew Koa in #136, Banzai Pipeline.) McGarrett wears cool sunglasses. There is a stock shot of cop cars driving onto the freeway and Double Exposure music is reused. The civil defense trucks do their triangulation number until the transmitter gets run over by the bad guys' car. Danno refers to Molly as "the proud bird with the golden tail" when he first meets her in this show ... she seems very annoyed by his presence. In the opening sequence, Abilleno shoots at an army truck driver, giving him a chest wound -- this is rather tricky, the truck is driving away from Abilleno. The Ford Bronco driven by Molly's boyfriend Todd Seymour (Charles Frank) is the same vehicle used by Dr. Ormsbee in #211, To Kill a Mind three episodes earlier, right down to the license number -- 3B 4743! McGarrett snaps his fingers a few times.