PERIL BY SEA

By Bruce Dettman

My mother suffered from one of the worst cases of claustrophobia I have ever seen. This fear of enclosed places, which could rarely be anticipated or safeguarded against, impacted many of our family activities but none so much as our second trip to Disneyland, circa 1960.

The so-called Magic Kingdom had undergone some major retooling since our initial visit back in 1955. There were lots of new exhibits and attractions to see, but the one that most interested me was the much publicized submarine ride. I had been fascinated by underwater craft since first seeing the Disney film 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea as a small child and hearing that the park now had a fleet of submersibles was most exciting news. Needless to say, no sooner had we gone through the gates than I was leading my parents towards Tomorrowland and those undersea vehicles. On reflection, the big question has to be why would my mother - who normally wouldn't enter a phone booth unless the door was left wide open - readily acquiesce to the idea of sitting, elbow-to-elbow with a few dozen other people in the dark and cramped interior of the craft. This was nothing if not an invitation to claustrophobic hell but she went ahead anyway. Perhaps she had tired of being a wallflower as far as such family activities were concerned. Perhaps she was just feeling adventuresome. Perhaps she just plain wasn't thinking.

Cautiously she took a seat next to my father and I and pressed her face against one of the dark port holes. Personally, I couldn't wait for the action to begin, for the fun I had so been anticipating to kick off. Then I heard her voice, flat-toned but with a certain controlled urgency to it.

"I can't do this," she said more to herself than us. "I have to get out of here."

We looked at her noting the familiar panic that was beginning to dominate her features. We both knew immediately what was going on. We had seen the look before, many times.

My mother rose, gripped her purse and hurried towards the iron ladder which led to the main entry exit. She began to climb the stairs when suddenly some unseen hand from above closed the hatch on her.

While somewhat occupied by my mother's escalating dilemma I was also becoming more and more fascinated by the ride which was just getting underway. It was only an illusion that the submarine actually dived beneath the water -- I would later learn that it ran on tracks -- but for me it was terrifically realistic and certainly created the illusion that we were descending into the wondrous depths.

My mother's frantic calls to the crew above, however, were certainly becoming a growing distraction. By this point my father had also risen and was moving in her direction but I stayed where I was. Rumor had it that one of the attractions of this ride was an attacking giant squid and I certainly did not wish to miss it.

By this time part of the uniformed crew had become involved in my mother's attempt to escape the submarine. He was trying to calm her down - as was my father - but she was having none of it. She wanted off the ride and to be back on dry land and nothing else would satisfy her.

More crew members had been added to the mix but they weren't having anymore luck with my mother than the first guy. Everyone in the sub was now watching her so I did what any selfish adolescent would do. I pretended like I didn't know her. I stared straight ahead and watched the fish and the underwater action and didn't pay any further attention to her antics.

Then something happened, something none of those aboard anticipated.

We began to back up, the craft retracing the few hundred feet we had already traveled, past the already glimpsed fish and other marine life.

No doubt about it. We were returning to the dock.

There was a lot of grumbling at this point from those on board who did not exactly appreciate having our ride alter course. And to be frank, I was one of them. Mother or not, I was feeling more mortified by the second. Eventually we nestled up to the pier. The overhead hatch was thrown open and my mother shot missile-like up the ladder and out of sight with my father tailing quickly after her. He would later describe to me the group of Bermuda-shorted, Kodak-snapping tourists waiting for their turn on the next available submarine who were noticeably surprised to see this attractive, well-dressed woman climbing out of the hatch and in a near frenzy, galloping away from the thing as if fleeing from Jack the Ripper. I'm certain that this must have made quite an impression on them and I've always wondered if any of these ticket holders might have experienced second thoughts about getting on the ride themselves. I had no such thoughts, however. I was having the time of my life and alone I rode on it several more times that day.

A submarine of a somewhat more deadly design provides most of the action in Peril By Sea.

This 1955 episode gets under way at the Daily Planet where we find that Clark Kent has been placed in the position of temporary editor due to a mysterious two month absence of Perry White. Eventually Kent reveals that White -- who we are now informed is an amateur scientist -- is staying at his cottage by the sea and conducting some experiments vital to national security. He sends for the three reporters to visit him.

Meanwhile, Ace (Claude Akins) and Barney (Julian Upton), two smugglers who just happen to also own a submarine, are looking for some activity that might supplement their income. Through the craft's periscope Ace notes that Perry's Oceanside retreat -- one seeming to have been created out of a cardboard sketch -- is heavily guarded and wonders why.

White has by this time briefed Kent, Lois and Jimmy on the exact nature of his experiments which involves a means to extract a certain rare form of uranium from common sea water. Jimmy thinks this is great and wants to see his boss get public credit for his ingenious work even though Clark and Lois warn him that publicity is the last thing anyone wants given the secretive nature of the project. Headstrong Jimmy, however, goes right ahead and writes a story championing White's work which Ace and Barney read.

Feeling that there might be a lot of money to be made by stealing the formula the armed pair hide out in Lois' car thereby gaining access to the laboratory where they subsequently force White to hand it over. Wishing to leave no witnesses to their crime, they lock the threesome in a safe then return to their submarine with the intention of destroying the laboratory with a well-placed torpedo. Superman gets wind of their plan, however, and diving into the sea explodes the deadly device (the less than convincing effect is created by simply taking one of the traditional flying shots and setting it against some moving water).

Given the blatantly below par and highly juvenile plots of some of the later color episodes Peril By Sea, written by David Chantler and with Harry Gerstad at the directorial helm, at least has a realistic and serious premise and is not marred by the silliness and contrived situations so common in the final seasons of the series. Claude Akins, who went on to appear in many first rate films and starred in several of his own television shows, brings to Peril a sense of real villainy, something noticeably lacking in most of the episodes of this period.

It's not a great show by any means but with a bigger budget for special effects and sets it could have been a fairly effective little effort.

For the record, I stepped aboard a real submarine about a year later when my Cub Scout troop visited one docked at Northern California's Mare Island. It was nothing like what I imagined from the movies. It was hot, smelly, cramped and tough to navigate through, even for a little kid.

I don't think my mother would have cared for it at all.

PERIL IN PARIS

By Bruce Dettman

To be frank, I admittedly harbored a few misgivings about visiting France for the first time. For years I had heard unpleasant rumors that the French were not only snooty and unfriendly to tourists but harbored a particular grudge against Americans, a prejudice dating back to World War II when certain young GIs were said to have behaved in a somewhat uncouth manner towards the French public, particularly the women (putting aside the fact that they had also been liberated from the Nazi scourge by these same boys, many of whom had died in the brutal attempt). Nonetheless, along with my wife, who majored in French at college-whereas I can barely manage to articulate a sentence in Pig Latin-I put these notions aside, got out our passports and headed for France, our first stop being Paris.

Happily I can report that apart from one minor yet overt breach of social etiquette on my part-which nonetheless inflamed a female shopkeeper to near physical violence against me-everyone in France was pretty darn nice to us. They helped us when we became temporarily lost, recommended restaurants (loved the calf cheeks) and were generally very friendly. In short, we had a wonderful time and I would return to France in a minute, if nothing else for a morning pastry I discovered on a thoroughfare called Rue Claire which resembled nothing so much a chocolate marinated hamburger. Coincidentally, the French theme followed us home when we returned to San Francisco to find new tenants had moved into the apartment upstairs, two lovely young French women, Pascale, who is tall, pretty and dark-haired and lives for beach volleyball, and Aline who is short, pretty and blond and lives for the life of a dancer. They both, by the way, seem amused-not to mention tolerant-of my painfully feeble attempts to toss out a French phrase here and there. The only thing I have really ever mastered-and which admittedly came in most handy on our trip to France-is how to order two glasses of red wine.

Language barriers do not seem to have hindered Clark and Jimmy, however, when they visit France in the fifth season episode of TAOS titled Peril in Paris. Everyone they encounter seems impressively proficient in the English tongue including the prefect of police, Inspector Lanier, who bears a striking physical resemblance to Inspector Henderson (Robert Shayne) and who has a message he needs Kent and Olsen to relay to the Man of Steel.

It seems that a once famous French actress, now living behind the Iron Curtain, wishes to meet with Superman at a particular theatre to discuss a matter of vital importance. Kent agrees to arrange this and later swinging into action as Superman flies to the theatre. He has hardly arrived when he has to deal with a bomb that has been placed in a nearby suitcase. The actress, Anna Constantine (Lilyan Chauvin), who (incorrectly as it turns out) attributes the existence of the explosive to a leftover device from the war, subsequently explains that she wishes to get some family jewels she owns back to France, the selling of which would greatly aid some of her fellow French citizens. She also realizes that this would not be possible due to the probability of the gems being discovered by a hostile border patrol and pleads with Superman to fly

them to France. He agrees with the scheme but when he later arrives with them in Paris and meets with Anna and her associate Gregor (Peter Mamakos) he is confronted by the police, Inspector Lamont (Albert Carrier) and Officer Gerard (Charles LaTorre), who inform him that he has been tricked, that his confederates are in reality smugglers and crooks and the two are subsequently arrested. He is further cautioned to stay out of the business or his reputation will be severely tarnished. It later turns out that not only are the two police not what they appear to be, but that Gregor is also in league with their attempts to get the jewelry for themselves with the actress being an innocent victim of their skullduggery.

Jimmy becomes a component of Superman's scheme to catch the crooks as he impersonates an American gangster who feigns an interest in the priceless gems. When his ruse is detected, however, the usually chivalrous and brave young Mr. Olsen uncharacteristically tries to bolt from the hideaway with apparently little thought given to Anna's safety. Superman, however, is only seconds away with a classic bit of wall-crashing, and things are tidied up very quickly.

This episode, written by David Chantler and sluggishly directed by George Blair, suffers from the same creative anemia and claustrophobic staging that characterized so many of the later shows in the series. Even removing Superman from his home turf and planting him in the more exotic and colorful Parisian setting (well, a studio set version anyway) does little if anything to inject a bit of new adrenalin into the proceedings. George Reeves looks particularly bored in this one. Evidence his expression when bullets are bouncing off his chest. He almost appears to be suffering from narcolepsy.

None of this, however, could possibly dissuade me from returning to Paris for a second view of the Eiffel Tower, a boat ride down the Seine or, perhaps most important, another one of those hamburger-shaped pastries.

The wine ain't half bad either.

December 2010

THE SEVEN SOUVENIRS

By Bruce Dettman

Not long ago, as I was talking to a young man working in a shoe store who was trying to talk me into buying an over-priced pair of black loafers, I mentioned, for reasons that I can no longer recall, the fact that as a boy I loved to go into the shoe section of the local department store because there was an X-Ray machine near the counter where you could place your foot and actually see the skeletal outline of it, toes and all.

"You have to be kidding. Wasn't that dangerous?"

"Probably," I said deciding against the shoes. "We never thought about it at the time."

Nonetheless, whether giving that X-Ray gizmo much thought or not, radioactivity and radiation, those great bugaboos of the 1950s, were certainly on a lot of people's minds when I was growing up.

My personal introduction to their potential danger, however, had nothing to do with the raw legacy of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Nor was it related to viewings of mushroom cloud footage (usually depicting an exploding area at sea surrounding by a circle of mothball ships that were suddenly enveloped in an atomic tsunami) aired repeatedly on television documentaries. It wasn't even connected to the much promoted issues of bomb shelters or school-endorsed disaster drills where pre-World War II desks (some still with hollowed out inkwells) and drape covered-windows were supposed to protect the children of America from the full impact of a nuclear blast-though even at the tender ages of six and seven many of us remained skeptical of the protective integrity of these monthly rituals. No it was something else that spawned the fear of the atom in me and made me frighteningly cognizant of the nuclear age.

It was a giant octopus.

Not just any giant octopus either, but a gargantuan, chip-on-its slimy shoulder giant octopus. Its size multiplied ten times by atomic radiation, it rose out of the great yawning Pacific Ocean, crept stealth-like into the San Francisco Bay, extended its immense suckered tentacles up through the waters and bear-hugged the Golden Gate Bridge, the same Golden Gate Bridge that my family and I drove across at least once a month.

The film in question was It Came From Beneath The Sea in which said cephalopod was manipulated by Hollywood's stop-motion wizard Ray Harryhausen to wreak all sorts of damage until eventually, thanks to the good old United States Navy, being blown up into about five thousand calamari steaks.

Needless to say, on subsequent trips across the Golden Gate I was admittedly on alert. No matter what my very practical engineer father told me about not worrying about such a creature actually existing in nature ("Bruce, it's physically impossible") I remained skeptical and with heart pounding continued to keep a most vigilant eye on that bridge and the water below for any signs of an errant tentacle looming in our direction, even questioning his stubbornness on the matter.

"But you don't get it, Dad. It's been radiated!"

That was the key, of course, the magical word that for all time changed the rules. It was radiation, the new bugaboo on the scientific block that now made all things possible. My father with his slide rule, protractors, drafting board and old-fashioned way of looking at the world just didn't seem to grasp the significance.
And while I survived many trips over that famous bridge I continued to worry about the atom and radiation as weekly trips to the local movie theatre revealed more mutations at work on Mother Nature. There were giant ants (Them), giant grasshoppers (The Beginning of the End), giant spiders (Tarantula), giant scorpions (Black Scorpion) and many other monstrous results of radiation. This was very scary stuff.

Radiation/radium, though hardly as dramatically displayed, is a key component of the excellent season three episode The Seven Souvenirs. This is one of the better written (by Jackson Gillis) and conceived of the color shows with a very clever solution to a series of seemingly inexplicable crimes that have been committed against a group of Metropolis citizens. All of these individuals seem to have only one thing in common, they all purchased gifts from the Superman Souvenir Store run by the eccentric Mr. Willie (Phil Tead, also seen on the series as Professor Pepperwinkle), a somewhat less than honest retailer who manufactures phony items, purportly once directly linked with the Man of Steel's exploits. The whole town seems to be interested in these, even Jimmy, Lois-who, by the way, seems in a particularly unpleasant mood in this episode-and Inspector Henderson, who one would imagine, would have had numerous opportunities over the years to have picked up a whole variety of items related to Superman without having to pay a red cent for them.

A few twists and turns come the viewer's way in the episode but the gist is that a certain Mr. Jasper (Arthur Space), a very clever fellow it turns out, has sent his minions on a hunt to retrieve the seemingly innocuous souvenir knifes for a very good reason. The knives are actually constructed of a certain alloy which when exposed to X-rays will turn them into pure priceless radium. It is Jasper's intention to manipulate the Man of Steel into turning his super peepers on the weapons but Superman suspects the ruse and Jasper and his underlings are taken into custody.

The clever surprise ending elevates this episode above so many of the other weaker color episodes. Arthur Space, a highly dignified and capable character actor, is measured and believable in his villainous part and the story unfolds in a dramatically sound and interesting manner. Also, one of the funnier moments in the show's entire run, a visual piece of slapstick worthy of Max Sennnet, comes when one of Jasper's henchman, portrayed by Rick Vallin, tries time and again to separate Clark Kent, feigning unconsciousness, from one of the knives but he's up against a very super grip and is forced to take the reporter along with the weapon. It's a very amusing bit.

And just for the record, when I do happen to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge I still occasionally glance out at the waves just to make sure things are as they should be. You just can never tell.

October 2010

THE TALKING CLUE

By Bruce Dettman

Sometimes in the mid-1950s my father brought home a surprise, something that fascinated and thrilled our whole family. It came in an elaborate and impressive looking carrying case that resembled my older brother's portable record player. It had a dark hard finish and metal clasps. I couldn't imagine what it was but I recall being pretty excited. We all followed him into the living room where, with much fanfare-my father could be very theatrical at times-he finally opened it.

It really did look like my brother's record player (on which, much to my mother's horror, he constantly played songs by Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis) except that in place of the spindle there was a slot with part of a bright red record peeking out. My father carefully removed this and passed it around. It was about the same size as a .45 record but was made of a thinner, much more pliable plastic material and there was no hole in the middle.

"It's a Dictaphone," he explained. "Belongs to the company but I can bring it home when I need it."
We urged him to record a voice and he did, eventually all of ours. The quality wasn't great-our voices all came out a bit distorted and tinny-but there was no doubt that it was us we were hearing.

Not a big deal today, of course, but back then very few people had ever heard their own voices recorded. That was for important and famous people, people in the movies, on radio and politicians giving speeches. No one I knew had a tape recorder or even access to one. I'm fairly certain I went to school the next day and bragged to my friends about it. I also recall that I particularly enjoyed recording my dog barking and growling, not that he ever seemed terribly impressed by this being played back to him.

My father eventually left both that company and the Dictaphone behind but the fun we had had with it stuck in my mind.

Someday, I told myself, I would get my own tape recorder.

I did just that, about six years later as a Christmas present. Recorders had gotten better and smaller by that time. They were no longer just the large reel-to-reel jobs that were tough to transport around. The one I got was totally portable and had the capacity to record two hours of sound. Or in other words, I could actually tape movies.

Video recorders were still a long way off then. But for rabid film buffs like my best friend Mike and I-who each week devoured and marked up the most recent issue of TV Guide in order to make sure we didn't miss any of our favorite horror, science-fiction and mystery films-the notion of taping movies like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, movies we practically knew by heart and listening to them the way an earlier generation

had listened to old radio dramas like The Shadow and Lights Out, was too good to be true.

And for the next couple of years that's exactly what we did. Each Friday and Saturday night, provided there was nothing of interest on TV, I would lug my portable tape recorder over to Mike's house and we would sit in the darkness drinking root beer and listening to those movies I had managed to tape. It doesn't sound like much-particularly in these days of the DVD and Blu-Ray-but it was real state of the art stuff for us and we had a terrific time.

Someone else who had a terrific time with his tape recorder was Ray Henderson (Richard Shackleton), only child of our very own Inspector William Henderson of the Metropolis Police Department and intimate of Daily Planet employees Perry White, Clark Kent, Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen.

In the episode The Talking Clue from season three, Ray seems to be in his late teens and gives the impression of being a pleasant and friendly young man although a tad dull. Nowadays he would be one of those individuals willing to stand in line for 48 hours for the newest cell phone. In a later bit of conversation between Kent and the Inspector we also learn that Henderson has brought up Ray on his own. What happened to Mrs. Henderson is never mentioned.

In any case, Ray's rather unusual hobby is the collecting of sounds, big and small, dramatic and commonplace. He has everything on tape from a door opening to bullets bouncing off Superman's chest. He's pretty serious about this hobby too and it seems that Inspector Henderson is very proud of his offspring.

Trouble begins to brew, however, when a couple of crooks, Claude James (Julian Upton) and "Muscles" McGurk (Billy Nelson), who both Henderson and Kent have been attempting to nail for some robberies, get wind of Ray's unique pastime and through some conniving and skullduggery manage to implicate him in their lawless enterprises which includes breaking into a secret weapons laboratory.

Despite Clark's assurances that Ray can't possibly be a party to such unlawful activities Henderson is crushed. He believes in his son but also knows that as a police officer he can't look the other way at the mounting evidence of Ray's guilt so he contemplates quitting the force ("There's a lot of things a cop can do but arresting his own son isn't one of them").

In the scenes where Clark is attempting to reassure Henderson and bolster his sagging spirits the lawman concedes that it has not been easy raising the boy by himself. One senses real compassion and friendship between the two men. It's a very adult and sincere moment in the series which otherwise was gradually becoming more cartoon-like.

Due to a pretty improbable series of events, even for a television show, Ray is kidnapped by McGurk. With only a few seconds to locate them, the brainy kid manages to find and leave behind as audio clues two snippets of recording tape from his massive collection which the Daily Planet team later decipher as indicating the boy's whereabouts are in Echo Canyon.

Meanwhile in a hideout Ray leads his dimwitted captor to believe that Superman is flying overhead by playing another of his sound queues. The criminal bolts but doesn't get far as the flesh and blood Man of Steel nabs him on the highway with the help of a giant boulder.

Case closed and Ray is absolved of any wrong doing.

We learn little about the private lives of the characters on TAOS so it's interesting in The Talking Clue to find out a few things about Inspector Henderson, not only that he has a son but that he once dabbled in electronics, a fact revealed by Clark Kent.

It's an enjoyable enough episode, directed by Harry Gerstad with a script by David Chantler. There isn't much energy to it, particularly in the matter-of-fact playing of Richard Shackleton as Ray, but it has some satisfying moments and the scenes between Kent and Henderson are rewarding for fans of the show anxious for a bit of character history and development.

I sometimes wonder if perhaps, once Ray leaves the nest and the good Inspector has more free time to pursue a social life of his own, he might just start thinking of dating again.

There's always Sgt. O'Hara just down the hallway.

August 2010

THE BIG SQUEEZE

By Bruce Dettman

There exist certain jaded social critics and glib cultural historians who contend with a kind of smug satisfaction that a world like that depicted on the long-running TV show Leave It To Beaver never truly existed. They will insist that this heavily sanitized version of the 1950s is equal to any fantasy world that J.R. Tolkien, Lewis Carroll or Frank Baum ever cooked up. It is pure fabrication, they will assert, a video whitewashing of that decade without the slightest connection to the way things really were.

But I have to take exception to this, some of it anyway. Leave it to Beaver was a half hour TV series never intended to mirror the greater world reality, certainly not in a serious or penetrating manner. Yet its creators, Bob Moser and Joe Connelly, drew extensively from their own experiences as small boys as well as borrowing from their own children's antics as inspiration for the storylines revolving around the lives of Ward and June Cleaver and their sons Wally and Theodore (aka "The Beaver") living in the small town of Mayfield in an undisclosed American state.

Critics be damned. I had a lot in common with Beaver.

First of all, we were about the same age during the same era. I too had a big brother like Wally who was better looking, a more gifted athlete, smoother with the girls and not as inclined towards placing himself in the sort of harebrained schemes that both the Beaver and I sometimes did. Like Wally, my brother had a lot of friends who hung around our house after school (our place was widely known to have best selection of junk food in the neighborhood) and who often gave me a bad time, particularly when I tagged after them.
My mother, raised in the Midwest during an era when women would not even think about leaving the house unless they were presentable, did indeed dress up for the market, P.T.A. meetings and coffee klatch with the neighbors. She constantly was in heels, and yes, very often wore pearls (though certainly not real ones) around her neck.

Beaver had an older friend to take his problems to, an octogenarian fireman named Gus, and I ate lunch (in my pre-Kindergarten days) every day, weather permitting, with our mailman John whose wife always packed his lunch with an extra cookie or slice of cake for me. Beaver had Metskers Field for baseball and football. I had Baywood Park. Beaver had Miller's Pond (where he once capsized in a homemade canoe) and I had the San Lorenzo Creek only a block away from our house where on any given day I could easily have drowned. Beaver had friends Larry, Whitey, Gilbert and Richard. I had Doug, Pete, Joe and John. Beaver's house was somewhat like ours only we lacked a second story. Beaver had crushes on two of his teachers, Miss Canfield and Miss Landers. I would have died for Miss Kelly and Miss Elkington.

In addition, as portrayed by Hugh Beaumont, Ward Clever, Beaver's father, was not unlike my own. Ward was more inclined to talk things out with his boys whereas my father, an engineer, preferred the sharp, analytical approach to raising his sons. Still, the similarities were many. They dressed alike (suits when they were off to work, golf shirts around the house on the weekend). Both were smart guys, handy with tools, had enjoyed sports

in their own boyhoods and played golf later on, were readers and didn't mind spending an entire Saturday afternoon building things for their kids.

Watching Beaumont in the second year episode of TAOS titled The Big Squeeze is at times a bit disconcerting since he has a wife and son in the show that don't resemble at all the Cleaver clan. The actor was not a new face on television or in films. He had appeared a lot in the forties in small roles, some in big movies like Objective Burma with Errol Flynn, Blood on the Sun with James Cagney and The Blue Dahlia with Alan Ladd. He was in the cult classic, Val Lewton's The 10th Victim (in which by coincidence his character last name was Ward) and was the star of a series of "B" mystery films featuring the celebrated fictional detective Michael Shayne. He did a lot of freelance TV work too. In a rather peculiar piece of casting he once even portrayed western bandit Jesse James in an episode of Tales of Wells Fargo. Ward Cleaver robbing a bank?

In The Big Squeeze he is Dan Grayson, a highly respected citizen of Metropolis whose many contributions to civic betterment has earned him the Daily Planet's "Man of the Year Award." Dan, who works at a furrier company, has a wife Peggy (Aline Towne, who a season earlier portrayed Superman's Kryptonian mother Lara) and a son named Tim (Bradley Mora). They are both very proud of Dan. Everything in fact is quite rosy for the Grayson family. But not for long. Turns out that old Dan has a bit of a past. A childhood run in with the law resulted in a prison sentence, a fact he has managed to hide from everyone in his new and honest life. Everyone, that is, except an ex-cellmate and walnut addict named Luke Maynard (the invariably nasty John Kellogg last seen as another lawbreaker in the first season's Night of Terror).

Maynard has tracked down Dan and decided to blackmail him into robbing the furrier company where Dan now works. It's a tough situation but Dan is a man of principle and will have nothing to do with aiding in the crime. Nonetheless, the news slips out about Dan's past. He loses his job but more important, he senses he has lost Tim's respect. He seems pretty much at the end of his rope but Clark, who believes in him, continues to stand by him. Eventually Luke and his flunky kidnap Dan and take him to their lead-lined cave where Maynard is convinced not even Superman can find them. However, as Dan later points out, lead might curtail Superman's X-Ray vision but not his super hearing and the sound of Luke's walnut crunching alerts the Man of Steel to the trio's whereabouts.

All's well that ends well and Dan appears on the TV alongside Clark who presents him with his award as well as adding a few poignant words about men having paid their debt to society being welcomed back and accepted within its ranks.

The Big Squeeze is not a particular highpoint in the series -- its lacks the energy and pizzazz of the really outstanding shows -- but it's a solid human interest entry with good work by both the regulars, the always despicably nasty Kellogg and particularly Hugh Beaumont who gives a nicely measured and likable turn as Dan.

Little did Beaumont realize, however, that just around the corner he was really going to have his hands full as the head of another TV family. And this time around, there would be no Superman to help him out.
Special thanks to Mr. X for the photos!

June 2010

JOEY

By Bruce Dettman

At some point in the fourth grade a considerable number of the girls in my class suddenly became obsessed with horses. If they weren't doing their studies they were at their desks drawing horses, reading about horses, watching movies and TV shows built around horses, talking about horses and even, when the mood was upon them at recess, pretending to be horses. This was extremely perplexing to us boys whose baseball and dodge ball contests out on the field were at times interrupted by a herd of girls neighing, nickering and galloping across our baselines or cutting through left field.

"Would you stupid moronic girls go graze somewhere else!?"

That was the voice of my friend Marls Green exhorting the pig-tailed stampede to go to another part of the playground and stop intruding on our game.

Fifty years later I can still hear him.

The girls, of course, took no heed of this and even on occasion tried to kick us with their imaginary hooves when we tried to forcibly remove them from the field.

I was always ambivalent about horses. While I loved watching my cowboy heroes mount their trusted steeds in movies and on television my actual experience with horses had not always been that rewarding. Riding a horse just didn't feel as cool as it looked up there on the screen. They were dusty and lumbering and didn't smell all that great either. Then there was an occasion that truly cemented my ambivalence towards these creatures.

One particular birthday celebration a bunch of us kids were taken to a local stable to ride. We were predictably excited about this but my enthusiasm didn't last. The owner of the place explained that there was a cut-off age as far as riding the horse was concerned. You had to be twelve which was ok with everyone except the one participant who was still only eleven, me. I was pretty disappointed but something worse was right around the corner.

"You can't ride the horses, son," the owner explained as the others were being helped atop their mounts. "But we have a provision for this sort of thing."

The provision he was so carefully describing was pointed out to me. It was a cow, a trained cow with a saddle. It even had a name, Eric.

Why I agreed to this staggeringly painful embarrassment is still, after close to half a century, a major mystery to me but I did.

There we were, all in a line, moving across the horse path, my friends smiling, imagining themselves as Matt Dillon, the Lone Ranger or Paladin, while I, gripping the saddle, had to stretch my imagination to the limits pretending that Eric was actually Trigger or Silver. It wasn't easy and the jokes and ribbing I was getting from all my buddies certainly didn't help things. I was mortified.

Nor did the experience endear me to horses, any thoughts of horses for quite awhile. Even today decades later when I have contact with a horse-not to mention a cow-I still cringe. Probably always will.
Alice in the 1955 season opener Joey (played by actress Janine Perreau who earlier in her career had appeared as the creepy little girl taken over by extra terrestrials in the classic sci-fi film Invaders From Mars, an image I couldn't free myself of) has no such misgivings about horses. Her life, in fact, revolves around one particular animal, the aforementioned Joey. Unfortunately times are not too good for her grandfather Pete (played by Tom London who probably holds the record for the most appearances of all time in films) who owns the ranch and stables and must sell the animal to keep things afloat. Fortunately, Pete is an old schoolmate of Daily Planet

Perry White and the newsman decides to buy Joey as an investment for the paper although the staff attributes a more sentimental reason behind the acquisition. Alice, however, is still despondent and inconsolable about having to be separated from her horse and this depression is not just one-sided.

Joey is subsequently entered in a race, the Jupiter Stakes, representing the Planet. Word of his racing prowess has leaked out, however, and hustler Luke Palmer (Mauritz Hugo) aided by lackey Sulley (Billy Nelson) try to put Joey out of action so that their pick Rover Girl will come in first. As it turns out, Joey is just as depressed as Alice and won't leave his stable to race. Lois realizes what's going on and Alice is sent for thereby restoring the horse's willingness to compete.

Not wishing to hedge their bet, Luke and Sulley rig the contest and Rover Girl is at first announced as the winner but the plot is uncovered, the horse disqualified, the criminals caught-thanks to Superman-and Joey announced as the real winner.

All's well that ends well as Perry turns Joey back over to Alice.

Joey was not my cup of tea when I was watching it as a kid and I still can't recommend it. At its best it's a sweet little show, tame and harmless. At its worse it's insufferably sappy with one of David Chantler's soggiest scripts and a somewhat tired and disinterested performance by George Reeves.

I like to think my dislike of the episode has nothing to do with the equestrian theme and that I wouldn't like it under any circumstances, but you never know. At least there was no cow in the Jupiter Stakes.

December 2009

OLSEN'S MILLIONS

By Bruce Dettman

My parents had one set of friends who were quite well off, the Wallaces. Bill and Helen (they were the only adults I was allowed to call by their first names) lived by themselves in a large house in Woodside, a very affluent section of Northern California.

Five or six times a year, usually on Sundays, we would travel across the Bay to their home for an afternoon of conversation, drinks and dinner. Usually I hated these sorts of Sunday excursions-particularly as I was forced to dress up Jimmy Olsen style in a sports coat and bow tie-but I liked Helen and Bill. They weren't overly warm people, certainly not the sort of adults who would make a scene out of gushing all over you because you were a kid, but they were friendly and seemed genuine. Helen had known my late grandmother, who had been my favorite person in the universe, and I liked this about her. Bill had been in some sort of horrible car accident (he walked with a cane and looked a bit like Edward R. Murrow to me) and was dry as sawdust but a nice enough man. They had three grown children: Deborah, a real beauty who could have been Kim Novak's double, Mimi who was very much into ballet (she later became a well-known dancer and choreographer) and Larry, an animated sort, who popped in on occasion and would sometimes watch bad science-fiction movies with me.

The other occupant of the house was an Irish setter also named Debbie. She was my constant companion when we visited and not just because I loved dogs. She was also extremely vigilant in protecting me from a particularly nasty rooster on the property that seemed to lie in wait for me each time I visited. This rooster had once popped a Bozo the Clown balloon I had brought along with me and from that time on I was terrified of the thing. Whenever it appeared, however, Debbie, like clockwork, would be there to chase it away.

Usually, after we had said our hellos and I had provided Helen and Bill with a summation of my recent adventures in and out of school, I was expected to vamoose. To this end I would wander around the house which I had no problem with as I considered it the most wonderful place imaginable. It was a California ranch-house in style and to me it was the largest home I had ever been in. Usually I would end up in a sort of den or family room at the back of the building. It was a dark sort room with a wall of glass totally obscured by Venetian blinds but that was ok by me. I liked dark rooms. I liked shadows and muted light too. I was an odd kid, I guess.

Back in those days almost no one had two TVs but Helen and Bill did. It sat on top of a high bookcase and usually I would sit and watch old black and white movies from the 1930s and 40s. Sometimes a woman with a thick German accent, who often worked there, would come in and bring me a cola in a tall glass with ice and a cherry in it. If I was lucky and very polite I'd actually get two of these before dinner was called.

From where I stood the Wallaces were the richest people in the world and their house the grandest. The latter fact was cemented in my mind the first time I strolled through the house on my own and came upon the unthinkable, the unimaginable-two kitchens! Yes, two nearly identical rooms each with its own refrigerator and sink, table and stove. Why anyone would need such a thing, I would wonder in awe. It was unfathomable. Later when asking my parents about these they would try to explain that what I had seen was known as a cook's pantry but this made no difference to me. I remained most impressed.
I thought of those kitchens, that house and the perceived wealth I attributed to my parents' friends when I watched Olson's Millions, from the third year of TAOS recently.

Jimmy Olsen (Jack Larson) is on assignment for the Daily Planet

writing a feature article on a millionaire named Miss Peabody (played by the always watchable and delightful character actress Elizabeth Patterson). Miss Peabody is a bit on the eccentric side in addition to being somewhat forgetful. Her sumptuous apartment is filled with all the cats who are to be the recipients of a five million dollar inheritance. In the midst of the interview, however, one of the cats named Topsy accidentally becomes locked in the lady's safe and unless freed immediately (Miss Peabody can't come up with the correct combination) will run out of oxygen.

Fortunately for the endangered feline it must be a very light working day for Superman because when the elderly lady leaves the room Jimmy contacts Clark Kent, the Man of Steel immediately flies to the apartment, frees the cat and departs. Returning to the scene, Miss Peabody only knows that little Topsy is no longer in danger, that the safe is now open and that Jimmy, despite his protests to the contrary, must be its savior.

In a somewhat radical departure from Jimmy's normal ethical considerations, he eventually accepts a million dollar gift from Miss Peabody and begins to live the life of a wealthy young man about town. He dresses the part, takes great delight in quitting his cub reporter job (even threatening editor Perry White with perhaps buying the paper-remember that in the early 1950s a million smackers went a lot further than it does today), gets a lavish apartment and begins to buy everything in sight from the local department stores (note: look for Tyler McDuff from The Boy Who Hated Superman as the fatigued bell hop). He even takes to calling "Mr. Kent" Clark!

A butler named Herbert (Leonard Carey) shows up at his door to help out with things including getting rid of a phony pitchman (Richard Reeves) trying to foist a gold machine on the naïve ex-reporter. Unbeknownst to Jimmy, however, the pitchman and Herbert are really in league with gang leader Big George (George Stone) in a scheme to separate Olsen from his new found riches. Hatching a plan to have him believe that Superman needs some of his money for undisclosed reasons, Jimmy gathers together all his cash and with Lois goes to the intended meeting only to find the three crooks awaiting him. Placed in a lead-lined basement their only means of escape is to alert Superman by burning the money in a ventilator shaft and sending Morse code signals for help.

Watching his fortune going up in flames Jimmy gets off a few zingers:

"Nothing like having money to burn," he says mournfully to Lois.

"Money can't buy happiness," she counsels but he is having none of it.

"But think how comfortably I could have suffered."

The plan works, Lois and Jimmy are saved and the bad guys thwarted but it's not easy for Jimmy who is soon back living on his meager reporter salary. He even has to borrow 15 cents from Kent for bus fare.
Olsen's Millions, directed by George Blair and written by David Chantler, is a good vehicle for Larson who reportedly enjoyed the later shows that gave him more to do than just be saved by Superman. He seems to be having fun with the part. The villains are the usual later season types, not really all that menacing but it's an enjoyable enough show.

As for my parents' friends the Wallaces, I went to visit them some twenty years later. They were quite old-both in fact would die very soon after I saw them-and the house seemed much smaller. I saw Debbie the dog's grave by a horse corral and wandered in a melancholy state around the grounds and the house. The furniture was no longer new and some of the wallpaper was peeling but it was still a nice place and at least the rooster was gone.

And there were still those two kitchens.

That still impressed me.

November 2009

AROUND THE WORLD WITH SUPERMAN

By Bruce Dettman

(Dedicated to Jim Nolt of The Adventures Continue…)

Nearly twenty years ago a special friend of mine named Rick died. I only saw Rick once in the flesh-we did not live close to each other-but we kept in contact via the telephone every week for about seven years. Rick loved old black and white movies, particularly horror and science-fiction ones, radio drama, books, magazines, film memorabilia and comic books. Then one morning when he was in his late twenties Rick woke up to find that he was completely and irreversibly blind. As a child he had been treated for a vision problem with the then still controversial property of radium. Three decades later this treatment, which unbeknownst to everyone had slowly been eroding his eye muscles, finally caused them to totally collapse. There was nothing that could be done for him.

With every bit of strength and conviction-which he had in bucketfuls-Rick tried to adjust. He got himself a wonderful Seeing Eye Dog named Buddy, tried to master Braille, and participated in numerous events designed specifically for the blind, but his great passions had been books and movies and he missed these things terribly. He did not complain but there was an overwhelming sadness about him which permeated every sentence and thought he uttered. If on a rare occasion I could get him to laugh I felt I had accomplished something important that day.

Then he got cancer. He hung on for about a year going to treatments and getting weaker and weaker. He died in his mid thirties. I missed our weekly talks. I missed Rick.

In those days I had one of those early telephone answering machines which operated with a tape. Once you reached the end of your messages you would rewind the thing and start over at the beginning. One night I came home late and noticed that I had several messages. I switched the machine on, sat on my bed and began to listen. What I had not realized was that somehow I had not backed up the tape to the beginning point for a long time. A few old messages had not been erased.

Sitting in the darkness I suddenly heard Rick's voice.

"Hey Bruce, it's Rick. Just wanted to know how you were doing and if anything was up with you. Give me a call."

For a second, I thought I had suddenly been dropped smack dab into the middle of a Twilight Zone episode but then realized what was going on. I was about to erase Rick's message but then thought better of it. I kept it for a couple of years. I'm not sure why.

I had never really known a blind person until Rick. I suppose, like a lot of people I had previously felt self-conscious and uncomfortable talking to sightless people but my experience with my friend had changed all that.

Not unexpectedly, I think of Rick when I watch the second season's entry Around the World with Superman. This is probably the show's most popular human interest show and regularly makes the top ten lists of fan favorites, some even ranking it as numero uno.

It is unquestionably the entry that best reflects the Man of Steel's great heart, compassion and sensitivity in addition to showcasing similar qualities in the Daily Planet staff.

In brief, Around the World tells the story of a young girl named Ann Carson (Julie Ann Nugent) blinded in a car accident which her mother (Kay Morley) believes to have been caused by her husband (James Brown, later star of Rin Tin Tin) who was at the wheel at the time. When Ann becomes aware of an essay contest sponsored by the paper in which the winner will be given a trip around the world, she writes on behalf of her mother not realizing that the contestant selected, a child, will be taken around the globe by none other than Superman.

Naturally, this all causes a big problem. Clark and Lois visit the little girl (note: I will forgo trying to figure out how Ann was able to secretly

write and mail the entry anymore than why her mother would leave her blind daughter alone each day in an apartment with the door unlocked) and once the situation is explained to her she admits that all she wanted to do was help her mother who has had to work so hard to take care of her. Moreover, she demands to know why the reporters are trying to fool her with this business of Superman being involved since she does not believe that the Man of Steel exists. Further complicating things is the fact that Mrs. Carson is just about at the end of her tether and rather than being touched by her daughter's efforts, angrily demands that the reporters leave.

Kent pays a visit to Ann's doctor (Raymond Greeenleaf) and inquires about the exact nature of Ann's blindness. The sawbones explains that all evidence suggests that there has been damage to the optic nerve and that a foreign object may be involved but that they have been unable to locate it. No X-ray is powerful enough. Kent, however, suggests that he might know of one that is.

In what is undoubtedly the most tender and emotionally marinated scenes in the entire run of the series Clark again visits Ann's apartment in an effort to prove to the doubting girl that there really is such a thing as Superman. When his attempt at persuading her falls short with a demonstration of super strength (she holds on to a steel poker as he bends it) he tried to convince her by leaving the room, having her whisper something which only someone with super hearing could possibly discern. Ann's message, however, is that she wants her father back in her life and Superman's heartfelt reaction and tender and honest response is one of the most moving moments in the show's entire run.

It should also be mentioned that humanity comes first in this episode as far as the Daily Planet staff is concerned. The reporters put the sensational aspect of the story aside as they strive to help Ann and her mother in any way they can. The bond between Lois and Ann's mother is particularly moving.

But there is good news just around the corner as guided by Superman's remarkable vision a surgical team is able to locate a glass fragment in Ann's eye and restore her sight. Not only can Ann see again, not only will Superman fly her around the world, but the Daily Planet team has managed to locate Ann's father.
Superman's flight with Ann is one of the most memorable moments in the history of the series with the twosome providing a sort of audio travelogue of the sites they see as they circumnavigate the planet (tough little Ann, wearing just a short-sleeve sweater, doesn't even protest the cold when flying over the Arctic). People who recall little of the series will still tell you that they remember this scene from their childhood and that for some reason it has stuck with them ever since.

For me, despite my liking for the whole show, what resonates most is the scene in the operating theatre where Superman with his X-Ray vision locates the hidden piece of glass, the removal of which restores Ann's sight.

I watch that scene and wish that there would have been a real Superman who could have helped my friend Rick.

September 2009

THE MAN WHO COULD READ MINDS

By Bruce Dettman

One year during the late 1950s my parents and I paid a visit to my mother's cousin Maxine who lived in Bishop, California (my brother, seven years my senior, was allowed to stay home to feed my dog, gorge himself on Bireley's orange soda and burgers from the local fast food stand, and play marathon games of poker with his pals-God, I was jealous!). My mother and this particular cousin had not seen each other in years, not since they had been girls in Galena, Illinois-where, for the record, Ulysses S. Grant had once worked as a clerk in a hardware store-and they were looking forward to the reunion. Problem was, they were not girls any longer and apparently had little in common. My mother liked stylish clothes, bourbon and I Love Lucy. Maxine liked her children and ironing. It was not a good mix. As I recall we stayed three of an intended five day trip, made some lame and transparent excuse and headed home. For some reason, however, my father wasn't up for a long drive that particular day. He wanted to play some golf and I wanted to swim and my mother, prone to heat strokes, wanted to get out of the sun so we stopped for the night at the Hacienda Hotel in Bakersfield. This was one of a small chain of large, Spanish styled hotels in California. They were rather lavish for their day and we were all suitably impressed. My father got in his eighteen holes, my mother was able to relax and not have to cook and not only did I spent a long day at the pool but at one point actor James Whitmore, the first celebrity I had ever seen (I knew him best from fighting the giant ants in the sci-fi classic Them), came out of his room long enough to do a couple of laps and then vanish. I wanted an autograph, of course, but who carries a pen and piece of paper in a pool? By the time I had jumped out and begun my search for one he was gone. I was pretty upset.

That night, as was the custom of the time when kids went out with their parents, I was forced into putting on my bow tie, sports jacket and slacks (which I knew made me look like the world's biggest dork) and accompanied them to the hotel restaurant. While my father sampled several martins (I was allowed to eat his onions) and my mother her single grasshopper, I sucked a Roy Rogers through a red straw (I hated when these drinks were called Shirley Temples) and undoubtedly wished I had my homemade Superman suit on beneath my dress clothes. Unfortunately, over the years my mother had learned to check my suit case for this so I was out of luck. It was just me and that damn bow tie.

There was a small floor show scheduled that evening, two acts for the patrons to enjoy while they were wolfing down their dinners, an ice skating bit and a mentalist. For the first, a large board was removed in the front of the room which exposed a rectangular sheet of ice. A pretty woman in a short skirt and man emerged from behind some drapes wearing ice skates and for fifteen minutes or so did some routines, spinning and twisting about, none of which particularly interested me save for the fact that the woman was rather pretty and wore a skimpy red bathing suit. Then it was over and time for the mentalist which I thought could be sort of cool since I had never seen one in person, only on Ed Sullivan. First, however, there was a problem. Somehow the staff forgot to put the plank back over the ice. Timing being everything in life, a woman, who had obviously had a few too many champagne cocktails, suddenly emerged from a back table, strode over to the ice, and apparently thinking it to be a small dance floor stepped, with her generous high heels, upon it. I recall seeing her upended almost if in slow motion, an image of a billowing, parachute-like skirt blocking out most of the small five man orchestra, and then the sight of her crashing, rear end first, onto the cold surface. The only thing hurt in all of this was her pride but audible gasps filled the room, gasps and, I have to admit, my laughter.

There was just too much of a Three Stooges look in this episode for me to control myself. Oh, my parents did their best to put a halt to my non- stop guffaws and when coming up from air I even noted a few pretty intimidating dirty looks from the adults at other tables, but the fact is that I simply couldn't stop myself. The scene of this dingy woman trying to dance on a floor of ice was just too much for me.

Eventually the victim in question was helped back to her seat, the crowd settled down and the mind reader/mentalist, whatever, approached the front of the room. I don't recall much about him except that he was in a tuxedo and wore a turban like Sabu in the movies. I also recall that his assistant was a tall willowy redhead in who wore mesh stockings. But that's all I recall because I still couldn't stop laughing. Now I didn't fear my father but I sure respected him-as I did most adults-and under normal circumstances I would have somehow put a lid on my giggles even if it had

There was just too much of a Three Stooges look in this episode for me to control myself. Oh, my parents did their best to put a halt to my non- stop guffaws and when coming up from air I even noted a few pretty intimidating dirty looks from the adults at other tables, but the fact is that I simply couldn't stop myself. The scene of this dingy woman trying to dance on a floor of ice was just too much for me.

Eventually the victim in question was helped back to her seat, the crowd settled down and the mind reader/mentalist, whatever, approached the front of the room. I don't recall much about him except that he was in a tuxedo and wore a turban like Sabu in the movies. I also recall that his assistant was a tall willowy redhead in who wore mesh stockings. But that's all I recall because I still couldn't stop laughing. Now I didn't fear my father but I sure respected him-as I did most adults-and under normal circumstances I would have somehow put a lid on my giggles even if it had meant shoving napkins down my throat, but this time not fear, obedience or threats had the slightest effect on me. No matter how hard I tried the image of the big woman landing on her keaster would not go away-and neither would my loud, near hysterical laughter.
Then I heard the mentalist. He was looking our way with a gaze that would have intimidated Dracula and was speaking directly to my father.

"Sir," would you mind doing something about this boy here. I am trying to do my act."

The next thing I knew my father had grabbed my arm and taken me out in the lobby.

"That does it, Buster," he said. "Here's the room key. If you're lucky we'll bring you back some dinner."
So I missed the mentalist and had to settle for a tepid hot dog for dinner and an episode of The Perry Como Show. I didn't mind all that much and eventually my father dropped the disappointed/aggravated routine and had a good laugh over the whole business. Even my mother finally broke down and giggled.
Point is I never did catch up with a real mentalist or mind reading act and had to make do with impressions of these characters on TV shows, one such example being the second year Superman episode The Man Who Could Read Minds.

For a change this episode, directed by Terry Carr and written by Roy Hamilton, begins on location with the police headed by Inspector Henderson (an exasperated Robert Shayne), on stakeout in one of the city's residential neighborhoods. A thief known as The Phantom Burglar (Richard Karlan) has been operating in the area for sometime and so far Metropolis' finest have been unable to catch him, a fact that The Daily Planet has mentioned too many times for the Inspector's tastes.

Later, Lois and Jimmy (Noel Neil and Jack Larson) spot the Phantom leaving the site of yet another burglary. The impetuous cub reporter tangles with him with the usual results when he tangles with someone in the series. He gets his clock cleaned. A car chase follows and it could have been curtains for the entire Daily Planet staff, Editor White (John Hamilton) included, but Clark sees what's going on and Superman is not far behind. There is, by the way, an absolutely terrific shot of Reeves standing before some boulders just before he takes to the sky. The Man of Steel never looked better. It is odd, however, that following his successful efforts to save his friends ("You seem to make a career out of helping us," a grateful White comments) he is unable to spot the Phantom's car from the air.

A discarded item leads the intrepid reporters to a local club, the Tip Top Café, where a mentalist named the Swami Amada (Lawrence Dobkin) appears nightly. The routine, which includes his assistant, the lovely Lora (Veola Vonn), revolves around the blindfolded mind reader pretending to see items certain members of the audience have selected for Lora to holdup. Hip to the routine, Kent explains that using a hidden microphone, certain phrases are used to tip off the mentalist who then pretends to identify the objects. What he doesn't note is that Lora secretly gets the impression of the house keys that a particular couple offers up for identification. Real keys are then made from these wax impressions which gives their partner in crime, the so-called Phantom (actually a criminal named Monk) access to the soon to be robbed homes.
When Lois and Jimmy make the connection between the break-in and the victimized couple they had earlier viewed at the nightclub they decide to return to the club and offer themselves up as potential victims. Note that while other paying customers of the club drink and smoke, Lois and Jimmy just have ice water which I'm sure doesn't please the management but perhaps there's a heavy cover charge. In any event, Jimmy, with the help of a phony mustache and sideburns, pretends to be a rich south of the border visitor, Don Alvarez Ortega, with Lois along a his guest (for once Noel Neill gets out of her Lois Lane duds and sports a more chic strapless outfit) and a hotel key dangled as bait. After the show the reporters race to the hotel where they plan to surprise and arrest the crooks but the tables are turned and the hunters soon become the hunted. No worries though. Clark, who has heard from a copy boy of their disguises, puts two and two together and shows up (as always) in the nick of time.

This is an enjoyable episode, solid and well directed, with good performances by all and a satisfying if somewhat transparent plot. Jack Larson gets to do some comedic bits which he has said to have enjoyed and even has a few moments on the dance floor. Noel looks great and there's a pleasing supporting cast led by the versatile Lawrence Dobkin who had a long and successful career as a radio then film and TV actor and later as a respected director.

If it lacks the sort of hard edge and suspense-laden drama that characterized the crime shows of the first season, it at least avoids the juvenile trappings and buffoonery of the villains which would later, and regrettably, become a staple of the series.

May 2009

Thanks for Watching.

Lou (March 6, 2011)   

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