Treasure Of The Incas
Reviewed by Bruce Dettman

There is a scene in this first year episode, written by Howard Green and directed by Thomas Carr, where Jimmy and Lois, having traveled to Peru, are in the company of a certain Don Anselmo (the ubiquitous Steven Carr) driving across what appears to be a scorching desert in a convertible. Neither reporter seems to be enjoying him or herself very much and the terrain looks about as hospitable as Death Valley in August. Seeing this I was immediately reminded of my own family's unpleasant experience with a topless 59 black Chevy Impala as we moved across California's Mohave Desert in the summer of 1960. My late father was one of those history buffs who would gleefully go fifty miles out of his way to visit a historical marker no matter how insignificant the event. Just let him see that forty miles away Kit Carson had once tracked beavers or John C. Fremont had built an outhouse and we were off, our true destination totally forgotten. "Oh, stop your bellyaching!" he would demand of us. "Do you people realize the pioneers came across this country in wagon trains and they didn't complain?" That summer with the temperature in the low hundreds and the top down (as I recall he didn't appreciate my reminding him that "covered" wagons were called that because they had canvas overheads to provide protection from the elements) he was pursuing the sight of some minor event of yesteryear when I noted that my mother seemed to have fallen asleep, remarkable since just a second before she'd been complaining of the heat with great passion. "Don't wake her," my father instructed. Let her sleep." So I didn't. Problem was she wasn't asleep at all. She had passed out from a heat stroke, a fact we didn't realize until we reached our motel. A doctor was called and she was ok, but my father paid dearly for that desert side trip, I believe in the form of a rather handsome bracelet. We sold the Impala not long after this.

Oh yeah, but back to Lois and Jimmy. While they think they're on a scenic drive of the Peruvian countryside (scenic if you like rock quarries) they're actually being led astray by the duplicitous Anselmo who thinks these two American reporters are too noisy for their own good. Back in the States while attending an auction, Lois had been approached by a Professor Lara (Hal Gerard) and given a thousand bucks to bid on a certain tapestry (for the record, the unseen auctioneer name is Samuel Tabor). With her reporter's antenna up and smelling a good story she goes ahead and purchases the item, but in the meantime Lara is murdered by a scar-faced guy named Pedro Mendoza (Leonard Penn).

This creepy character follows Lois to her barren office (not a single thing on the walls), brains her with his gun and steals the tapestry. From street level with his X-ray peepers Clark sees Lois supine on the floor. He dashes down a convenient alley with a beat cop watching his every move.

However, when Superman appears and takes to the sky the uniformed officer only thinks it mildly interesting and that all-important two and two (which no one in Metropolis seems to posses) are never spliced together. Lois recovers (people in early TV have extremely hard noggins and are always getting pummeled by steel gun barrels with only marginal damage being done) and is able to talk Perry White into sending her to Peru (on Pan Am Airways) with Jim along as a bodyguard which I have to admit I find a strange move on White's part since, let's face it, Jimmy isn't exactly a force to be reckoned with. We see their plane aloft and in the background hear the familiar sound of Superman in flight trailing behind. Hey, just because you can fly it doesn't necessarily follow that you're good at reading a map. So, after a few pieces of the puzzle are put together and we learn that the tapestry provides the secret to a buried treasure, we're back to Lois and Jimmy and Don Anselmo on their mid-day drive. Once out in the country their Jekyll and Hyde guide orders them to get out of the car at gunpoint. Jimmy, always valiant but hardly Jack Dempsey with his dukes, tries to defend his beloved Miss Lane but as usual is the recipient of a well-aimed right hand. Lois, of course, doesn't waste a minute in physically going after the mug but also lands flat on her keaster. Not to be deterred, the twosome follow the car to a cave where they are immediately captured and placed in chains until Superman arrives and you know the rest.

Lois seems particularly contemptuous of Clark in this episode, the barbs are fast and furious, so it's no surprise that when they find him in Peru ("Jim when I'm in a hurry to get someplace I really fly"). Lois is extremely annoyed and does everything to keep him out of the investigation although I have to say that I sometimes think she protests too much, that underneath it all she just might like old Clark a bit more than she's willing to let on. She also seems to get a real kick out of Jimmy. Keep your eye on her as she listens to his feeble attempts to converse in Spanish ("Jimmy, you're wonderful"). She also gives Perry a big kiss. Yep, Lois is all over the map in this one and looks great to boot. Bad scenery or not, I wouldn't mind being stuck in Peru with her, minus her bodyguard, of course.

December 2005

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