Ironside - Other Episode Reviews

Ironside Other Season Episode Reviews

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Copyright ©2017-2024 by Mike Quigley. No reproduction of any kind without permission.

WARNING: The following contains spoilers and the plots are given away!

BELOW: SEASON THREESEASON FOURSEASON SIX

RETURN TO: MAIN PAGEPILOT EPISODESEASON ONE


SEASON THREE


S03E02: Goodbye to Yesterday
Original Broadcast Date: September 25, 1969
Director: Barry Shear; Producer: Douglas Benton; Writer: Sy Salkowitz; Music: Oliver Nelson. Time: 48:02 x 2 (including "previously on" at beginning of part two)

While I was doing Season One reviews, I got seriously fed up with the convoluted and poorly-written episodes and decided to randomly choose an episode from a later season to do, since I was told the show "gets better as it goes along." Unfortunately, I ended up with this mess, a two-part (originally two-hour) continuation of the soap opera "Barbara Who" from season one, where Ironside and permanent amnesia victim Barbara Jones (Vera Miles) got seriously romantically attracted to each other. Barbara was a nurse's aide who helped care for Ironside in the hospital where he spent time after someone tried to assassinate him (see the review of the earlier episode via the link above).

In the season one show, Ironside and his team figure out where Barbara hails from and bring her back to her home town in Wyoming where there is a huge complication: her real name is Lois and she is married with two daughters. Her husband is Vic Richards (Philip Carey). She remembers nothing about any of them.

This new episode opens on a dirt road where there is a telephone booth in the middle of nowhere. Ben Ames (Dane Clark) pulls up to the booth and calls Barbara (who will be referred to as such in this review). He has kidnapped her young daughter Leslie (Melody Thomas Scott), and says the kid will be released after he receives a $200,000 ransom. Leslie talks to her mother briefly, but Ames cuts the call off before sequestering her in an abandoned mine.

Vic wants to get the police involved, but Ames said the girl will be killed if this happens. Barbara calls Ironside instead.

Ironside and his team fly to Wyoming in what looks like a private plane, not a commercial airliner. Questions immediately arise: Is Ironside paying for this out of his own pocket, or is this subsidized by SFPD? A plane like this would be expensive to charter, and the city would be paying the salaries of Eve and Ed while they are away, whereas Ironside is probably paying Mark's salary out of his own pocket.

During the flight, members of the team are not talking much and pussyfooting around like they are walking on eggshells as The Chief glowers. Eve tries to cheer him up with talk of blueberry muffins and offering to put "something stronger" in his cup of coffee, but none of this works.

When they arrive at the airport in Wyoming, Vic is there to meet them. He tells Ironside, "If Barbara had let me call the sheriff, I wouldn't have let her call you." Vic is troubled by the attention being paid to Ironside, not only by his wife, but that from his younger daughter Tracy who later refers to The Chief as "Uncle Robert." Ironside eventually finds out that Vic and Barbara are separated – Vic hasn't lived in the house for the last month and only came back to support Barbara because of the kidnapping; otherwise, he wants to get a divorce. He says, "I've got to be a husband, not a custodian."

Ironside and his team get busy interviewing people hanging around the Richards' ranch, which is a very nice spread, suggesting they are quite well off.

Freda (Stephanie Shayne), described by Barbara as "sort of a live-in babysitter" for the two daughters, tells Ironside she was "daydreaming" when Leslie was kidnapped, but she later tells her boyfriend Josh she was "lying" about this. I think during the kidnapping she was really "doing it" with Josh, for whom she has serious hot pants. The two of them hang out in the barn and smooch, which is also a likely place where they had sex.

Josh Williams (Murray MacLeod), the boyfriend, seems to be a handyman and/or a doctor for the animals on the ranch: "If things get sick on the ranch, I fix them." By sick, he means "stop working." Josh has a criminal history, the possession of marijuana, for which he was busted a few years ago. Ironside finds out about this, but doesn't connect this to the kidnapping.

Another hanger-on at the Richards place is Molly Strong (Cloris Leachman), who tells Eve she heard about the kidnapping from Freda, who was "screeching her head off." Molly, whose relationship to the Richards' family is never established or where her house is relative to the Richards' property, speculates that the kidnapping is a result of "bad money" which was "tainted." This started with the family’s uncle (refer back to the previous show) who squeezed people in the area for money and was "killed for it." Eve wonders if Molly heard any cars pass by on the highway, which seems odd, because I don’t think there is any highway that close to the property. As Molly says "if anything evil happened here, I know it because of my vibrations … it’s like rheumatism." These brief shards of dialogue are supposed to establish Molly as a kook, even some kind of religious fanatic, according to a review at IMDb.

This is basically all the information that we hear about these characters, what they were doing and where they were when the kidnapping took place!

Ames, the kidnapper, is seriously psychopathic. He has help with the kidnapping from Carl Sutter (Eddie Firestone), who owns the local Wyco gas station which is also "in the middle of nowhere." Ames has a history with Sutter, dating back over ten years, when the two were involved in a brawl in a bar where Ames took the rap after some guy got killed. Ames went to prison for ten years for manslaughter, basically covering for Sutter. Released about a month ago, Ames tells Sutter he is fed up after living like an animal in jail, and wants to spend the rest of his life "in style" with the proceeds from the kidnapping. Sutter is the brother of Molly, who has likely been the one passing along information about the "screws" who are on the case at the Richards' ranch.

Despite Barbara's objections, Ironside contacts the local sheriff, Bud Metcalf, and we are soon introduced to him. Metcalf, played by character actor Slim Pickens, is a hick, as is his nephew Dave (Michael Larrain), who the sheriff addresses as "Baby." The smirking Dave, who got his job entirely through nepotism, keeps saying if his uncle solves this crime, he will likely get a big promotion to be head of the state highway patrol. The fact that the two have heavy accents like they come from the deep US South, is odd. A friend of mine who lives in Colorado, close to Wyoming, told me people in Wyoming typically do not talk like hillbillies.

We have already encountered the sheriff in one of Ironside's flashbacks earlier, which had a major continuity error. In a scene from the first season episode where the sheriff reunited Barbara in his office with her husband Vic whom she had totally forgotten about, the sheriff's name was Harley and he was played by Alan Baxter. This continuity error continues in this show, with Pickens as Metcalf saying, "Good to see you again, Chief Ironside" when the two men meet.

The FBI has also arrived quickly on the scene, in the person of Agent Torrence (George Murdock) who has sensed a "vibe" between Ironside and Barbara. When the FBI man says he wants to get some work processed by his office, "Baby" Dave grabs the work out of his hands roughly and says, "We've got our own photo lab here."

Barbara tells Ironside she regrets taking him away from his "personal life." Shortly after this, the phone rings and Ames is on the line again. Various electronic equipment has been set up to deal with calls from him now and in the future. Ames gives Barbara exact details about where to drop the money and not to bring any cops along with her.

Back at the mine, Sutter has been looking after Leslie. Ames shows up after making his phone call, referring to "the time of night" even though now there is brilliant daylight. When Ames says the edgy Sutter needs a drink, Sutter says he hasn't had a drink in ten years.

Ironside has gotten hold of some fancy equipment which will track the box the money is to be placed in with a transmitter. When Ironside says a helicopter will be involved in tracking the box, the sheriff asks, "What do you need a heal-ee-copter for?" Ironside says there will be a better chance of going unnoticed, which doesn't makes sense – surely a helicopter near the place where the money is to be dropped off would be suspicious.

Ironside and team with the sheriff and nephew go on top of a mountainside near the money pickup location to monitor traffic below to see if anyone will pick up the cash. They spend almost the entire night there. From this vantage point and using binoculars, they can get information like license plate numbers of cars who pass below which is hard to believe.

When some guy on the road below is driving erratically, the sheriff overrides Ironside and calls for him to be pulled over, but this guy is supposedly out shopping for things that his pregnant wife is craving, though where he would expect to find things like this is hard to fathom because there isn't a 7-11 on this "middle of nowhere" country road. The sheriff realizes he made a huge blunder in trying to arrest this character, but he uses this as an excuse to take charge of the case.

Later, Ames comes to visit Molly. She tells him that her "vibrations" told her that he was coming. Ames says there is someone watching the house. He was almost nabbed the night before when the guy with a pregnant wife was stopped by the cops. He says that people would freak out if they knew he is Molly's "common law husband." He convinces her to have the phones in the Richards house fixed so that only Barbara can hear what he is going to tell her during his next call.

This is where Part One of the show ends, followed by a 3:31 "previously on" at the beginning of Part Two.

Barbara has a note that was left in the kitchen door the next morning; we don't see what it says. This is dumb, because virtually everything the follows shortly after this is related to this note … I think. How can you tell, if its contents are a big secret? This is just mediocre writing for the show. Or has something been cut out? Ironside says he will do what the note says but he won't let Barbara get involved in what it says without protection.

There is a brief pause for some soap opera. Vic apologizes to Ironside: "I tried to hate you for a long time. I can't seem to do a good job of it." Barbara chose to try to stay with him despite her amnesia, but it hasn't made him feel like much of a man knowing she's doing it out of a sense of obligation. Vic says he would be lying if he said he wasn't jealous of Barbara's relationship with Ironside. He wants to break the deadlock, but he can't hold her to a legal contract she doesn't even remember signing, i.e., their marriage paperwork. Ironside says, "This is hardly the time for major decisions." Vic wants to know if Ironside still loves Barbara, and the answer is "yes."

Ames phones Barbara again with specific instructions for delivery of the ransom. She refuses to tell everyone what was said, especially after Ironside shakes his head, meaning "keep quiet." Her conversation with Ames was recorded on a reel-to-reel machine, but when they play the tape back, the sound is garbled and they cannot hear what was said. "Baby" Dave was supposed to be in charge of the recorder, but close examination reveals that the recording heads now have tape on them. Eve is sitting by the machine, and plays dumb, since she was the one who likely did this after getting Dave to leave the room after she spilled coffee on him. I guess…

Meanwhile, Molly goes to see Sutter at the gas station. She tells him that he should go "up there" (i.e., to the mine) to where Leslie is being held, but he says he won't babysit her while Ames picks up the money. He will just let Ames get picked up by the cops, and doesn't even care if Leslie dies. Sutter doesn't want to be involved in any of Ames' dealings, that a lawyer told him that he is covered by a statute of limitations. When Molly asks what will happen to her, Sutter basically tells her "that's your problem."

Back at the ranch, Metcalf has a talk with Ironside, saying, "You don't think much of me, do you?" Ironside says, "I don't think much of your methods." The sheriff says, "A man's got to do the best he can with what he's got and try to survive." Metcalf sounds defeated, but Ironside says, "Get out if you like, but do you really want to do it on the back of a kidnapped child?"

To the sounds of ominous music, Barbara sneaks out her window with the ransom money, but Eve outside makes a distraction, leaving in Barbara's station wagon, and the sheriff pursues her. Eve is going in another direction away from the money drop location … I guess … presumably this was the "plan" which was in the mysterious letter. Meanwhile, somewhere nearby, Barbara meets Molly, who presumably was involved with the letter, and heads in Molly's car to some obscure location where Ames is waiting to meet her and collect the cash.

Ironside knows what is going on, and despite the fact that we have no concept of how close Molly's place is to Barbara's, he and Mark are soon following Barbara at a distance where they can see her tail lights. Barbara heads for some the place which Ames described to her over the phone in less than eleven seconds during their conversation.

This meeting place seems to be on the side of a mountain, and despite the fact that it is pitch black (and almost impossible to see anything on the DVDs), Barbara makes her way up a path, aided a piece of cloth which is on a stick like a flag. When she reaches the place where she has to leave the money (again, this is impossible to see), she starts babbling to Ames, who is hiding nearby behind a rock that she has delivered the money. Aware that Ironside has followed her and is parked down by Molly's car below, she also starts yelling at him to get lost. Screaming more at Ames, "I didn't tell him, I'll make him go away," Barbara slips over the edge of a cliff and holds on with her finger tips. Anticipating this would happen, Ironside has told Mark to go and rescue her. Mark has a lot of trouble manipulating his way along the cliff face, especially since it is TOTALLY DARK, and eventually Barbara falls off the cliff, screaming and plunging a great distance. This whole sequence is idiotic.

The next scene is in the local hospital, where Barbara is still alive … barely. Both Ironside and Vic are outside her room. Vic tells Ironside, "You don't know how much I wish you weren't in that chair." Ironside says, "You don't know how much I wish it." The doctor (John Zaremba) suddenly comes out of her room, saying there is "not much hope" for Barbara; he tells a nurse with him to "get the priest in here fast."

Ironside heads to the area where Barbara fell off the mountain where there are numerous cops under Metcalf's command as well as FBI men working with Torrance, who seems unusually annoyed about being there. Ironside is sitting in the sheriff's jeep at the top of the hill lording over the search, which includes the cloth on a stick which Ironside says resembles a "wipe cloth" from a garage, a thread on a bush and cigarette butts from where Ames was smoking. The men have covered "every square inch of this whole damn mountain," but Ironside commands them to search again.

Eve finds some mica flakes, which brings to mind the far-fetched scene where she found acorns in the pilot episode. These flakes are not something from that area, and neither is some broom sage that Ed found. Ironside asks the sheriff, "Do you have a different species of broom sage around here? … That's pollen and that stuff down there is long past the pollenization stage." He seriously says this! The sheriff suggests that these things are likely from Milton Pass, which is where the "old silver mine" that Leslie has been hidden in is located. Ironside, all the cops and FBI men are soon at the mine where Leslie comes out with her hands up and is whisked away. Ames is not there.

Meanwhile, "Baby" Dave has been pursuing his uncle all over Hell's half acre – at the mountain and finally at the mine – because he has some news to impart, and wanted to give it to him personally – that he knows where "he" (?) is. Dave was doing surveillance at Molly's place and saw "him" arrive there via the "old road that passes along behind." He wanted to keep this a secret just for his uncle so he could receive all the glory for "his" capture and all the mistakes that were made would be forgotten. Uncle Bud belts him in the face and relieves him of his deputy's position. When Dave says "why?" the sheriff says, "If you don't know why, I can't explain it to you." Metcalf immediately yells for everyone to head to Molly's because "there's somethin' funny goin' on there, she's not alone."

Still no indication as to "who" is with Molly. It is Ames, who has given up on his kidnapping plan, and wants Molly to help him get out of the area. He takes a pitiful amount of money she was saving up ($35), saying, "$200,000 under my nose, and I couldn't get near it." When Molly tells Ames he can't leave Leslie in the mine (not knowing the cops have already been there) because "that's murder," he grabs her and mentions "our kid." (What does this mean, is she pregnant, or what? He has only been out of jail a short time!) After a tense scene, Ames tells her, "All right, Molly … we'll go together … it's all over."

But when Ironside and the cops show up a few minutes later, Molly is found dead. There is still mention of "him" and "he" without any reference to Ames! Ames, meanwhile goes to Sutter's gas station and wants to get away in an ambulance that is being repaired there, but "ain't running." (It takes a lot of effort to see that this vehicle is an ambulance, by the way.) At Molly's, Ironside is brainstorming that the previous night someone had to give Molly a lift home because Barbara had taken her car (seemingly a 1954 Plymouth Savoy) to the ransom drop location. A surveillance report shows that whenever Molly came home from the Richards' place recently, she made stops at the gas station, so everyone heads to this place.

With news from a customer at the gas station that the cops have all the roads sealed off, Ames' plan is now to escape using the ambulance. Ironside realizes that Sutter is in on the kidnapping somehow, so everyone heads to the gas station because Sutter will likely know where Ames is. As the sheriff and Ironside walk to their cars, the sheriff now knows that Molly and Sutter are brother and sister, and Torrance the FBI man already has the results from fingerprints taken at the mine only a few minutes before that they are from former convict Ames. Ironside says Ames is in "the big leagues now – kidnapping and murder one." But how did they connect Ames to Molly's killing?

At the gas station, Ames has some crazy plan in addition to using the ambulance. He connects some wire to what looks like a spark plug and then drops this into the station's fuel tank. When the cops show up and whip out their guns, Ames attempts to connect the other end of the wire to a battery inside the station. Ironside yells after Torrance sees someone inside the station, "Sutter … Ames [What? How does he know Ames is there?], come out with your hands up!" Sutter totally freaks out, and eventually Ames touches the wire to the battery, which results in a massive explosion in the underground tank, which probably used up a huge amount of the special effects budget for the show. Sutter and Ames are both taken away.

The show ends with news from the hospital. Despite Barbara's near-death experience, she has someone managed to recover from her injuries. When Ironside goes to see her, she has totally forgotten who he is, and has reverted to her original personality. One again this is an opportunity for somber looks from Raymond Burr as dopey music plays in the background. The show ends with a flashback to the end of the previous episode, where Ironside and Barbara parted after some smooching in front of her husband.

I refuse to believe that something major was not edited out of this show to produce the version seen on the DVDs, otherwise how could it be so bad! And all the avoidance of characters' names in this episode drove me crazy!

TRIVIA:


SEASON FOUR


S04E01: A Killing Will Occur *
Original air date: September 17, 1970
Director: Don Weis; Writer: Alvin Sapinsley

This show is extremely convoluted. It was written by Alvin Sapinsley, responsible for The Vashon Trilogy, three shows from Hawaii Five-O regarded by many as among the very best from that series.

Ironside gets a call from some anonymous guy who wants him to "do something about it," "it" being a murder the guy is going to commit. At a meeting with Police Commissioner Randall (Gene Lyons) shortly after this concerning crime prevention and other matters where members of the City Council and some reporters are present (and where Ironside's attendance is kind of a mystery to me), Mr. Anonymous calls again, interrupting the proceedings. Ironside takes the call and talks in a very ambiguous way, saying, among other things, "I'd like to ask you why you want to do this ... I was waiting for you to tell me who the... [he gets cut off]." Ironside doesn't say anything specific about what the caller is telling him, but the reporters at the meeting seemingly manage to figure out what is going on and play this up big time, so that 150 people who think they are going to be "victims" have the police run off their feet and there is a list of "suspects" obtained from many of these people. (An article in the paper about this is written by William Bailey and Paul Crumbine. This is the same journalistic team whose articles can be seen in Kojak episodes S02E03, Hush Now, Don't You Die, and S05E15, Chain of Custody.)

Ironside and his team use a process of elimination to try and figure out who the caller is. They tape the guy's voice and compare it to others. Ironside says "If he has a record, there might be a voice print of it somewhere." This produces no results. Considering the voice has a "machine"-like or "computerized" quality to it, Ironside orders his team to check "all the radio and TV stations" and all the schools where you learn how to be a broadcaster or a professional speaker.

Ironside and his team drive around town, and the caller seems to follow them everywhere. Based on something Mark says in a flippant way, they determine the caller is using a portable
phone in a briefcase, a precursor to cel phones, because he does not have to go through the mobile operator if he is using this kind of phone. It turns out the guy is a salesman named "Eddy Street" (a bogus name) who works for the company which sells these devices. Unfortunately, when they show up at his apartment, he has split a couple of days before.

A packet of sugar from the Mid-City Grill at Street's apartment leads them to a restaurant run by Vern Emmerich (Dane Clark), but nothing comes of this. Eve is checking the lists from the TV and radio stations and notices there is one person who is not accounted for: Charles Borrow (Barry Brown). Ironside flashes on this name, same as that of another Charles Borrow, a cop who was kicked off the force 15 years before after he shot and killed an unarmed man during a confrontation. Ironside was the only cop who voted in favor of not firing Borrow. When he goes to visit Borrow's widow (Virginia Gregg), he finds out that her husband died 5 years before after a battle with the bottle and trying to prove his innocence, and their son, Charles Junior, now 22 years old, is estranged from her.

It is well known that there was a witness to Borrow's shooting who could have cleared him, but despite pleas to the public, this man never came forward. Digging in the watch files for the night of this incident, March 24, 1955, reveals there was another crime near the shooting's location where someone driving a stolen car killed a pedestrian and then smashed up the car, so Ironside figures this is likely Emmerich, who has something to hide.

They return to the restaurant and confront Emmerich, who lost an arm in Korea in 1951. Emmerich knows exactly where he was on the night of the shooting 15 years before, and claims to have an iron-clad alibi from his wife, all of which is very fishy. Ironside offers Emmerich police protection, but Emmerich turns him down.

Considering the anonymous caller says he will carry out his threat to kill very soon, Ed tails Emmerich who decides to make a run for the airport on a bus. In the seat behind Emmerich is Borrow Junior (Barry Brown), who keeps whispering threats. Cops pull over this bus after an interminable chase on the freeway, and Emmerich finally freaks out and escapes through the emergency door, which he is conveniently sitting beside. On the highway, he is busted by Ironside, who pulls up beside the bus. Later at the police station, Emmerich confesses to being the one who killed the pedestrian (and presumably witnessed the shooting to boot).

Back at Ironside's cop shop apartment, Borrow Junior regrets the trouble that he created trying to catch the witness who could have exonerated his father. Ironside tells the kid to give his mother a call.

The score by Oliver Nelson is pretty good, but it really starts to overuse Quincy Jones' main theme.


S04E02: No Game for Amateurs *
Original air date: September 24, 1970
Director: John Florea; Writer: Sy Salkowitz

Ironside is not particularly crabby in this show, though he was still pretty annoyed because Richy Bolton (Carl Reindel), a crucial witness who had just finished testifying at the grand jury against local mob figure Arnie Lane (Tony Brande), was knocked off on the steps of the courthouse.

The guy doing the assassinating was Martin Sheen, playing "Johnny," a professional killer working for Lane. Johnny had insinuated himself into a group of local draft dodgers as a cover, and got Nancy O'Dwyer (Pamela McMyler), a massively pregnant woman who was very sympathetic to the peace movement because her husband had been killed in Vietnam on his third day there, to accompany him to a building across the street from the courthouse where he knocked off Bolton from one of the upper floors using a long-range rifle.

Nancy was seen alone in the lobby waiting for Johnny and later leaving the building with him by several people, including a cop who recognized her from a picture in the newspaper at a recent demonstration. Nancy is hauled down to the police station and grilled by Ironside who manages to overcome what you would expect to be antipathy to the "pigs" by appealing to her anti-violent nature because she was betrayed by killer Johnny. IDing Johnny is not easy, because he and the other draft resisters in the show are cautioned about talking too much about their past history (or even using their real names) to avoid being required to testify about each other if they are busted.

As in a Streets of San Francisco episode, it seems like there is only one draft resistance organization in San Francisco, run by a guy named Phil (Michael Greer), who looks more like a beatnik than a hippie. Mark, the black guy from Ironside's team, meets with Phil at the Cat's Cradle coffee house, pretending he wants to leave the country rather than go to Vietnam, tipped off with info on how to contact Phil from Nancy.

Johnny manages to get himself also lined up for a "trip to the border" (or at least to a place in Oregon on the way to the border) along with a couple of other draft dodgers driven there by Phil, but as they are heading out of town, Johnny figures out that something is fishy about meeting some other guy on the way. This "other guy" is Mark, and a police stakeout is set up at the meeting point. On the way, Johnny recognizes Mark after he has a flashback to the killing of Bolton where Mark was present in the background, and has a pretty rude line to Mark: "Don't let anybody tell you [that] you [i.e., black people] 'all look alike'."

After he avoids getting grabbed at the stakeout and essentially takes Mark hostage, the San Francisco cops manage to grab Johnny further down the highway to Oregon in a rather anti-climactic finale to the show.

At the end, Phil and Nancy meet with Ironside who says that he will have to make a report to the authorities about the "underground railroad" but Phil just says that they will "have to change the station."

The video quality of this episode on the DVDs was pretty bad. The opening shot looked out of focus and there were several night time scenes where you couldn't see what was going on at all. The show also perpetuated a stupid Canadian stereotype, that suggests all people who live here say "aboot" instead of "about." It ain't true!


S04E03: The Happy Dreams of Hollow Men *
Original air date: October 1, 1970
Director: Don Weis; Writers: Sy Salkowitz & Carol Salkowitz

Ironside goes to visit his old friend, structural engineer Harry Peters (Joseph Campanella), who lives in well-stocked house in the mountains. Mark drops Ironside off at Harry's (as usual, there are no steps into Harry's place) and then goes to visit someone in the nearby community of Camp McGee. Harry seems to be a pretty gregarious type and the two men reminisce, catching up on what they have been doing for the last 10 years -- for example, Harry spent some time designing a bridge in South America.

When they wake up the next morning, he and Ironside find out they are snowed in. It doesn't take long for Ironside to figure out that Harry has a problem -- that he is a heroin addict who starts going up the wall since he is out of dope and his pusher is unable to reach him because of the snowdrifts.

Ironside's penchant for being cranky serves him well in this show, which is largely a screaming match between the two men with Harry hallucinating and going through withdrawal symptoms, and Ironside sternly trying to assure him that everything will be OK. At one point, Harry thinks that Ironside has brought some powerful medication to dampen the pain from his disability with him (which Harry wants), but Ironside insists it is only aspirin, and throws the drugs into the fireplace.

Ironside is pretty resourceful in a couple of situations. Harry knocks him out of his wheelchair at one point and he manages to get back into it without any help. When Harry says he is going to try and walk from his place down the mountain to a nearby lodge, threatening to kill Ironside, Ironside grabs Harry as he is leaving and knocks him out.

A snowplow finally clears the road and Mark shows up and takes the two men down to the lodge. When they arrive there, Harry sees his "connection," Mickey Blain (Lloyd Battista). Ironside tells Mark to grab Mickey and gets the lodge to call the local sheriff.

Campanella gives an exceptional performance and Raymond Burr is also very good. Oliver Nelson's score contains several slow variations on the main theme. Considering almost all the action happens in Harry's place, the episode is almost like a stage play.


S04E04: The People Against Judge McIntire
Original air date: October 8, 1970
Director: Abner Biberman; Writers: Liam O'Brien (teleplay); Liam O'Brien & Mark Rodgers (story)

Judge Leland McIntire (James Daly) is giving a series of lectures at the law school which Mark attends and announces that upcoming evening classes will focus on a trial held 8 years before, where a man named Parkman was convicted of the murder of his business partner Carl Fellows (which happened on August 4, 1962) and sentenced to death. McIntire was the presiding judge at this trial (number 678549) and Ironside testified for the prosecution.

McIntire calls on Ironside and his team to look into someone firing a gun through a window in his office at the court building recently. He is convinced that someone connected with his classes was responsible for this and is trying to kill him. Ed is assigned to attend the classes along with Mark, acting as a bodyguard if necessary.

When registering for the class, Ed meets Laurence Drescher (Alan Hale, the skipper from Gilligan's island), who says he testified in the Parkman case, as well as a woman, Joanna Leigh (Tyne Daly, daughter of James), who is also attending the lectures. Drescher is an accountant, later introduced in the class as having been called in by Fellows to investigate why Parkman had misappropriated $100,000 from the company's funds.

McIntire has people from the class re-enact the court proceedings by reading from the transcript -- Mark is Rex Coleman, the defense lawyer, Joanna the prosecutor, and Lee Anderson (George Murdoch) the defendant. There is a goof here, because Anderson is originally seated in the front row at the table used by the prosecution but then is seen in a row further back when he receives his copy of the transcript (though he already received a copy of the transcript earlier when he was sitting at the front) and Drescher moves from one side of the courtroom to the other. When asked to respond as Parkman as to whether he is innocent or guilty, Anderson says in an extremely loud and angry voice, "Not guilty!"

At this point, the evening's class is over ... but it's only been ongoing for a few minutes! Is there supposed to be something here that we are missing?

The judge retires to a room behind the classroom, where he is attacked by a masked person who attempts to kill him with cyanide. Ed rushes to intervene, fights off the bad guy, and he and the judge are taken to the hospital, and they both recover.

Eve checks up on Anderson who is a plumber, not a likely person to be interested in the trial, Ironside suggests. She finds out that he was the lone juror at the trial 8 years ago who voted not guilty for Parkman. He has long held a grudge against McIntire, who he says browbeat people at the case's conclusion, including the jury, who pressured Anderson to change his vote to guilty, resulting in Parkman's eventual execution.

On a subsequent evening, the re-enactment of the court proceedings continues with another law student, Jones (Stuart Thomas), taking the part of William Stiles, an alcoholic employee of the motel where Fellows was murdered, shot to death. Both Mark and Joanna get carried away with their reading of the transcript, almost like they are improvising, and McIntire loses his temper. Once again, the class is over almost as soon as it began. But after everyone has cleared out, Joanna comes to the courtroom and gives the judge a huge piece of her mind, because she is the daughter of Parkman. She tells McIntire that his attitude toward the defense at the end of the trial majorly prejudiced the jury.

Ironside figures there is another person who wants to knock off the judge. So far, they have been assuming a motive of "revenge" for the recent attacks on McIntire, whereas it was more likely one of "self-preservation." Parkman's original defense involved a "Mr. X" who was the one who killed Fellows. This mystery character was never identified. Ironside wants the judge to announce that he is calling for a re-investigation into the case by the district attorney, which may force the mystery person out of hiding. Ironside asks McIntire, "What is more important -- your life or your reputation?" The judge is totally resistant to reopening the case.

During another class following this, McIntire gets Jones to act the part of Parkman. Anderson seems upset by this and he starts acting in an agitated manner. When reading his own remarks from the original trial, McIntire gets all choked up and then announces that he will get the D.A. to reopen the case. This especially pleases Parkman's daughter, who returns after the room clears out and now tells McIntire that she has "respect" for him. (As the people in the room leave, it looks like Anderson wants to speak to the judge; I suspect that something was cut out here.)

Ironside is in touch with Ed in the lecture room via a transmitter which looks like a cassette tape recorder. Expecting something to happen, there are supposedly other cops nearby. Ed and the judge leave, and a receptionist tells McIntire his wife Evelyn (Mala Powers), who has been attending the re-enactment sessions and is supposedly waiting for him in the garage downstairs, wants to talk to him on the phone. But it is Drescher on the phone. He has taken Evelyn hostage.

McIntire gets away from Ed, and goes to the parking garage where Drescher and his wife are in his Mercedes. With a gun at Evelyn's head, Drescher blabs away, basically incriminating himself that he was the one who shot Fellows. Drescher and Parkman were in cahoots, with Parkman buying the gun and bullets and Drescher actually doing the killing. Parkman paid Drescher $40,000 for his "services."

Ironside is in his van, and they cut off McIntire's car as it attempts to flee the underground garage. Drescher is presumably busted.

As the show closes, McIntire tells Ironside that he wants to resign from the bench because of his failings over the Parkman case. Earlier in the show, Ironside told the judge that he felt bad about his participation in the case, because he did not order a paraffin test to determine that Parkman really did fire the gun. Ironside brings this matter up again, saying "Judges are human, and imperfect, as are policemen now and then. Occasionally, even law is imperfect." Ironside gives the judge a big speech, and McIntire changes his mind. We see him enter a courtroom to continue with his career.

This episode is kind of average. Ironside is not particularly cranky. Barbara Anderson's acting is pretty bad, perhaps prefacing her departure from the show later that season. The way Ironside's team stands around as their boss talks to the judge at the end of the show is kind of corny. The show does have some tender moments between the judge and his wife, especially after he survives being poisoned. Evelyn is seen attending her husband's sessions in the classroom. Later, she is concerned about him, and he about her, especially since she might become a victim of the person who wants him dead.

The whole business about how they "out" the actual killer doesn't make sense, however. The sequence of events seems designed to confirm Ironside's idea about how Parkman was not the killer, but why didn't Drescher just keep his mouth shut? It is suggested in the show that the original verdict was appealed and went through the usual upper levels of court and no errors were found. Since Drescher was the only person in the motel room where Fellows was killed and presumably knew about what happened there who is still alive, how could it be now proved that he was the killer? When Drescher is cornered in the parking garage with a gun aimed at him by Ironside (just like Drescher has a gun pointed at the judge and his wife), why doesn't Drescher just shoot them both, since he will already be put on trial for murder because of his own stupid confession a few moments before?

There are also questions about Drescher and Parkman's relationship which are not answered, like how the two of them presumably "teamed up" to knock off Fellows.

TRIVIA:


S04E07 & S04E08: Check, Mate and Murder *
Original air dates: October 29 and November 5, 1970
Director: David Lowell Rich; Writer: Sandy Stern

In this two-part episode, Ironside goes to a criminologists' convention in Montreal. It's a good question whether Raymond Burr, who was Canadian, had any input as to the locale. However, to me it looks like this show never ventured from the Universal back lot. Most of the glimpses of Montreal are stock shots and other scenes involving crowds were probably recreated in California with extras waving Quebec flags, French writing on signs on buildings and so forth.

Ironside and his retinue are met at the airport by Frank Rousseau (Canadian actor Emile Genest), deputy director of the Montreal Police Department, an old acquaintance. On the way from the airport to the Ritz Carlton Hotel where they are staying, accompanied by some pretty awful process shots in the background, Frank gives them the Reader's Digest version of what is happening in Quebec with terrorists who want the province to separate from the rest of Canada. This echoes events that were happening in Quebec at the time, and, in fact, the month the show aired, October 1970, was when the shit really hit the fan with terrorist activities upgrading to kidnapping and murder of a prominent politician, which resulted in serious government action to deal with the crisis including the suspension of civil rights.

Ironside spends a lot of time brooding in this show, because his old girlfriend Jeanine Duvalier from 20 plus years ago (Karin Dor) lives in Montreal, recently having become a widow. Jeanine seems to be well off, living in a fancy house with a swimming pool in the back yard.

Ironside first meets Jeanine at the police station where her son Robert (Alain Patrick) has been rounded up with a lot of other terrorist types for interrogation. Robert is a member of a cell headed by Pierre Bouver (Alan Bergmann), a university lecturer in political science. The other members of this group we meet are Henri (Michael Sugich) and Claudette (the cute and sexy Maria Grimm).

Ironside meets with another old acquaintance at this convention, the cigar-smoking mystery writer Ernestine Mugford (Hermione Gingold), a horribly irritating busybody type who, gathering information for an upcoming book, insinuates herself into various meetings with Ironside and the cops where she should not be present. Mugford is at the convention with Belgian criminologist Claude Gauthier (Ivor Francis), whose screen time is very limited, since he gets blown up along with a mailbox.

If the show had just stuck to the soap opera with Jeanine and the bombings (the name of the separatist/terrorist group, Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) is not mentioned at all), it would have been OK, but part two of this two-parter is preoccupied with another crime connected with the reappearance of a pawn from a chess set worth a fortune which was stolen a few years ago. The script for this second part is pretty bad at times. I suspect that there was some heavy editing going on; at one point, prior to Ironside showing men from the conference a bunch of mug shots, there is what seems like a very obvious edit.

This pawn was recently sent to the original owner of the chess set, Carl Shiller (John vanDreelen), who turned it over to a fellow named Bollinger (Ed Prentiss) at the Franco-Canadian Insurance company, who turned it over to Gauthier to investigate, who then turned it over to Mugford before he got blown up! A crook with Coke-bottle lenses who has a history of involvement with explosives named Arnold Beckman (William Lanteau) seems to have the rest of the chess pieces, and is trying to get Shiller to pony up $100,000 to get the set back.

Shiller just happens to live in Montreal, and is interviewed by Mark and Eve from Ironside's team. The way that Ironside tracks down further suspects connected with the stolen chess piece is ridiculous. In a phone interview later, Ironside asks Shiller if the package the pawn came in had anything else in it. Shiller says no, but then Bollinger, to whom Shiller gave the package, says that it did contain some packaging. (I think Shiller's response means "there was nothing other than the packaging"; this is not elaborated on.)

Ironside then sends Eve to Montreal stationery stores to find if any of them had contact with Gauthier, who he figures was investigating where the paper used for this packaging came from. We're talking about Montreal here, not some rinky-dink town which might have only one or two stationery stores, you realize. Eve goes to investigate, and eventually reports back that one store received a visit from Gauthier, and the paper in question was connected to a list of customers who presumably purchased it from the store.

Another character with a connection (I guess) to the stolen chess set is Bert Manetta (Mark de Vries), an 18-year-old who, during his one brief scene in the show, is trying to phone Shiller and is blown up by Beckman. Despite the fact that Manetta's body was pretty badly mangled, he is later identified and turns out to have been the gardener for Leon Karp (Herbert Anderson, who played the father of Dennis the Menace in the CBS sitcom), a local businessman who is also a chess enthusiast. I totally don't understand Manetta's connection to the sequence of events in the show.

Ed takes some of his "holiday" at the docks because when Ironside asks Frank "If I was an out-of-town con here to make a hit, where would you look for me?", Frank says that is the most likely location. Ed hangs out at the docks, which produces no results, but then he investigates a local delicatessen (of which there are quite a few in Montreal, I imagine) where Beckman is known to hang out because of his obsession with deli food.

Ed finally spies Beckman walking down the street and soon after this, the cops bust him. When confronted with the stolen chess pieces in his possession (though we never actually see them when he is arrested) and accused of murder, Beckman starts screaming that he wants to be extradited back to the States.

Ed, wearing the Coke-bottle lenses, pretends to be the now-incarcerated Beckman, and gets a call from a mystery person who is going to pay him for the stolen chess set. This turns out to be Karp, who is arrested just as Robert, who has planted a bomb under a reviewing stand for the annual Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day parade in Montreal (June 24th) disarms the bomb which he had planted earlier with the timer turned off, but Henri, his compatriot from the terror cell, had reactivated. (Whew.)

At the end of the show, after more soul-searching, Ironside bids his former girl friend farewell at the airport, asking her if she would like to share his life in San Francisco. However, nothing comes of this.

In this episode, Ironside is relatively restrained, though at one point, he does kind of blow up at his pal Frank, saying that he is not working hard enough to solve the case. Ironside even suggests that they call off the parade, to which Frank replies that if he did that, he would have a riot on his hands. (In real life, there actually was a riot at the parade in 1968, two years before.)

There is an interesting exchange in the second part of the show, after Mark drops off Ironside at Jeanine's place. Henri confronts Mark who is driving away and tries to appeal to Mark because he is black. (At the beginning of the show when everyone is still at the airport, Mark is almost blown up by a bomb in a mailbox which has been planted there by Henri and Robert, but Henri distracts Mark and even trips him so he won't be in the line of the explosion.)

Mark: What're you up to?

Henri: Big t'ings, Big, big t'ings, man.

Mark: Yeah, you don't blow up a doghouse.

Henri: What you want to put me down for? We're after the same things, you and me -- freedom, baby!

Mark: Hey, man, don't come on to me about "freedom." What I'm interested in is rights, man, and that means I'm not interested in taking away anybody's ultimate right by killing him, you dig?

Henri: You don't understand the situation!

Mark: I understand if the people wanted a separate Quebec, they would have voted for it a long time ago.

Henri: The people are brainwashed!

Mark: Yeah, yeah, you're right and everybody else is wrong. And you'll help them, even if it kills them. Paranoia, that's your bag, not mine. (Mark then leaves.)

At the end of the show, Mark is the one who disarms Henri in a nail-biting sequence where Henri has a pistol pointed at people who have shown up at Bouvier's place!


SEASON SIX


S06E2: The Savage Sentry
Original air date: September 21, 1972
Director: Don Weis; Producer: Lou Morheim; Writer: William Douglas Lansford; Music: Marty Paich

Jewellery stores are being robbed and security dogs which are supposed to prevent this are being turned into what Ironside describes as "harmless puppies." Dunlap (Anthony Zerbe) has a business training dogs like these to guard stores, including Sparks, his "best dog" who was supposed to prevent the most recent robbery.

Ironside and his team show up at the store where this robbery took place. Dana Elcar is George from an insurance company who wants to just pay the ransom for the stolen items, but Ironside says requests like this will be never-ending if they give in, and Elcar reluctantly lets him take over the case.

The ransom is dropped off at a pre-arranged location in the amusement area of Golden Gate Park, and when it looks like the robber isn't going to pick it up, Ed goes to investigate. He is jumped by a Doberman Pinscher who then ignores him, picks up the bag containing the payoff and leaves.

I find it hard to believe that this dog could carry this large bag away in his mouth, but the next day, Dunlap tells Ironside and his team that during the Second World War, "war dogs" were trained to do tasks like this which were not considered "normal." The backgrounds of Dunlap and his employees are checked for anything suspicious, and nothing is found.

Ironside pays a visit to Dunlap's business. According to Frank Barnes (Gary Wood -- "Charlie Barnes" in the credits) dogs there are trained for "attack, sentry duty, narcotic detection, explosives detection, and tracking." Ironside wants a dog of his own, and he takes a liking to one named Crazy Otto, who is incorrigible, but Ironside says he has "beauty, strength and spirit."

From a voice print made from the thief's recent ransom call, Fran says he is likely "male Caucasian, mid-30s, military training, mid-western background, probably Kansas, Illinois, Missouri." At the training school, Ironside is introduced to Mary Ellen Wells (Mariclare Costello). His "back story" that she has been told is that he is a rich eccentric who got hurt in an accident who wants a dog for protection, and he insists on training the dog himself.

Ironside's training of Otto, which involves the use of code expressions, proceeds over the next couple of weeks. He discovers that when he adjusts the brakes on his wheelchair which makes a clicking noise, another one of the dogs, a Rottweiler named Corey, stops whatever he is doing. Acting on a hunch, Ironside wants to know the name of who trained the dogs involved in the jewellery stores, which were Banner and Sparks. Dunlap says they were both bred and sold to him by a man named Rico.

Fran investigates and finds that Rico did not breed the dogs, they were acquired by Rico from a kennel owner named Walter M. Taggart, who went bankrupt. Taggart was an ex-Marine with combat experience, an expert in handling and training war dogs. As well, Taggart came from Kansas City, in other words, likely the guy they are looking for.

Ironside goes back to the training school and, much to Dunlap's horror, asks that Banner, the other dog from the jewellery robberies that "failed," also a Rottweiler, be ordered to attack him. As Banner runs towards him, Ironside makes a clicking noise with this metal castanet-like device, and the dog immediately stops what he is doing. The attack on Ironside is repeated, with similar results. Dunlap is very disturbed by all this, because he doesn't know anyone named Taggart. Ironside tells Dunlap if they don't find Taggart soon, his security business will be in jeopardy.

Now the focus is to find Taggart (Bo Swenson). It turns out that the woman Wells who Ironside met earlier is Taggart's girl friend who has been feeding him information about which dogs in the "academy" are his and whether they are being used for security in specific stores. She urges him to stop the elaborate plan that he has been working on for a long time where he is going to accumulate a ton of money from ransoms. When Wells want to leave Taggart, saying he isn't in it for the money but the thrills, he tells her to pack her bags, because he is through with his scheme and will pick her up "tomorrow night." However, Taggart, unknown to her, pulls off one more caper at a jewellery wholesaler, where a security guard is mauled by a Doberman to the point where he in critical condition in the hospital.

Ironside gets a report from the Marines that Taggart, though having a good rapport with dogs he was training, more recently ended up as having a few screws loose, and was classified as "mentally disturbed." Taggart's Marine mugshot having been distributed to the cops results in him having been seen hanging around Dunlap's compound and talking to Wells, which seems like something that Taggart would probably not have been doing. (Was this the next day after Taggart promised Wells he was going straight?) Ironside and Ed confront her, the implication being that Taggart will be tried for murder if the guard dies.

Accompanied by four cops, Ed shows up outside Taggart's apartment, but he escapes through a window, and gets his Doberman to attack one of the policemen. (It's odd that the other cops are unaware of this.) Knowing from Welles that Taggart "likes the game he is playing," Ironside makes arrangements with a museum to display the "legendary" Harrison Diamond which is worth $3 million (around $22.4 million in 2024). News of this is hyped in the local papers, which results in huge lineups at the museum.

Pretending to work for an air conditioning company, Taggart goes to some local government office like City Planning to try and get copies of blueprints so he can figure a way to get into the museum building easily. His efforts are blocked by one of the clerks, Jessica Rains (Martha Laine), but Taggart switches from a high-pressure mode to sweet-talking her, saying her job must be pretty awful having to deal with people yelling requests at her every day. After he invites her out for dinner, she lets him look at the plans.

Taggart gets into the museum using an explosive, because the entrance to the building he is using dates back many years and is all bricked up. Ironside and Otto are waiting for him on the way to where the jewel is stored. Ironside confronts Taggart and uses the click technique to put Taggart's Doberman, named Jinx, out of commission. As Taggart tries to flee, Otto puts him out of commission, and he is busted. Ironside says he needs "a sedative, about four fingers of sour mash."

Back at Ironside's headquarters, Fran has prepared coq au vin for dinner. Dunlap shows up, saying that while he is a guy who usually doesn't apologize, he wants to tell Ironside "I was wrong, you were right." After Dunlap leaves, Ironside says he owes Otto – who is back at the training school -- "my life."

This episode is pretty good, almost verging on "cute." Anthony Zerbe gives a performance which is relatively restrained. However, there is one huge problem with the episode which is the score by Marty Paich, which is unbelievably BAD ... it is very "cute," more appropriate to a wholesome family drama or situation comedy with an obnoxious use of the harpsichord (here is a sample from the beginning of the show) and occasional references to the Ironside theme.

One thing that interested me about this episode was "if a dog is guarding a store overnight or for a day or so on the weekend, does it go to the bathroom?" (Also, are the people in the store given instructions on how to deal with the dog if no one from the training academy comes to see/feed it during the week? Sometimes when walking around my neighborhood, I have seen signs on new houses which say a "guard dog" is inside the house, to discourage thieves/squatters.

Knowing little about dogs, I asked a couple of people for help with this, including one friend who is a professional "dog sitter." Apparently dogs can "hold it" for quite a long time, both number 1 and number 2 ... even for a day or more. In one instance, a dog's owner had to go to the hospital, leaving the dog alone in his apartment, and the dog didn't go to the bathroom for 3 days! Now you know...

TRIVIA:


S06E22: The Best Laid Plans
Original air date: March 15, 1973
Producer: Albert Aley; Director: Daniel Haller; Writer: David P. Harmon; Music: Marty Paich

Ironside is at the California Commercial Bank talking about investments with its manager Walter Eustis (Whit Bissell). Outside Eustis' office a robbery starts taking place by a trio of what would seem to be three oddly mismatched crooks: Travers (Don Stroud), Bolton (Frank Marth) and Quinto (Rafael Campos).

They force most of the employees into the vault and grab money which is easily available, a total of about $15-$20,000. Ironside and the manager eventually emerge from Eustis's office and can't figure out why the robbers are just sitting there, waiting for something to happen. Eventually, Eustis tells Ironside an armored car is expected soon. It will have about $35,000 to cover his bank's payrolls, but there will be around $750,000 in total, including the money for several other banks.

Bolton assumes the role of the bank guard at the main entrance, which is closed (though late in the show someone suggests "the bank is supposed to be open"). Ironside tells Bolton he recognizes his type, a multiple loser "5 times on the street and with three felony raps." Quinto says his share of the proceeds will encourage his wife, who left him, to resume their marriage. He tries to be a charmer with Kathleen Lloyd (using the name Kathleen Gackle), playing a bank teller who pushes the envelope saying what she thinks of him.

Ironside takes everything very patiently, and phones his office under the guise of being a businessman, dropping some code words about what is going on during the conversation. One clue is the name of "Stanhope," which Lt. Carl Reese (Johnny Seven), who drops into Ironside's office at headquarters, recognizes as the name of someone he sent up for bank robbery a couple of years before. However, a couple of cops on the verge of giving Ironside's van outside the bank a parking ticket blow his cover.

The trio of crooks become more and more edgy while waiting for the armored car, which supposedly broke down and will be up to an hour late. Fran from Ironside's office shows up with some paperwork for Eustis to sign, and she carries a gun in her purse which she holds at Travers' head after he forces the other two robbers, who are the verge of quitting, to relinquish their weapons.

The armored car finally arrives and Mark and Ed come into the bank as guards, but the robbery and hostage situation has already been resolved. (Where do these two guys change into the guards' uniforms?).

Stroud is in major psycho mode, much more consistent than the first season episode he was in -- An Inside Job, S01E06 -- and both the script and direction are much better than that show as well, though there are no big surprises.