Post by niecie on Sept 15, 2013 17:39:12 GMT -5
We start off at the Serbian embassy or consulate (which amounts to foreign soil) in San Francisco, and Jim is carrying a cane. Why, I wonder, is Jim carrying a cane? It must be a cane that Does Something, right? The foyer he's in, by the way, looks like the foyer that belonged to Mr Crane the builder of bad bridges in Whirring Death.
As soon as someone says, 'Nothing can happen!' you just know something's going to happen, don't you?
The shards of glass surrounding the mounting of the missing Kara diamond are remarkably thick.
The minister is remarkably thick as well, unfortunately.
When the fight begins, there's one shot showing the door with two guards in it. Then the angle changes and the guards are no longer in the door. And then as Jim prepares to fire his cane, the two guards are running into the doorway.
And out the window goes Jim!
I had to turn on the closed captioning to understand what Midas says as he and the driver are loading the trunk onto the back of the carriage.
Artie showing off his proficiency with languages. The closed captioning gives the German and the French, but when the young woman speaks that other language, closed captioning just says that she's speaking a foreign language.
Oh, yes, and Whitey sighting! He's the strange servant that Artie tries out the various languages on.
That young lady is so deliberately obtuse. And her every statement would apply truthfully to Lady Margaret being dead. (I do kind of wonder why Mr Midas stole so many other diamonds before getting around to stealing those that belong to his own aunt.)
Nice: Lucretia slams the door in Artie's face.
Artie's theory of the diamonds being made to explode from within I find appealing as a scientific theory. It's wrong of course, as we'll learn, but it's a sweet theory. Why anyone would want to explode diamonds though...
And then Jim asks if Artie believes that theory, and Artie responds, 'No, you think I'm some kind of a nut?'
Artie winds up having a LOT of fun at Mr Baines' expense, especially when he mugs behind the man's back. Reminds me of Donald O'Connor in Singing in the Rain, the 'Moses Supposes' scene. ;-D
Baines: A diamond would no more explode than this would! [Takes up billiard ball and shakes it.]
Artie: Don't shake that!
Jim: [Grabs billiard ball and throws it out window, where it explodes.]
Baines has a lot to learn about hangin' with our boys!
I love how Jim has an answer for every one of Midas' excuses.
So... what became of the table Sultan the cat was resting on? When Jim first enters the room, he goes to pet Sultan, but when Lucretia leads Jim to the safe, the table isn't there anymore.
Argh, the way that woman just flings herself into Jim's arms once he finds the safe is empty! Ew, ew, ew! And then pow! Jim gets whirled about and punched by thin air. RC did a great job all through this episode of getting beaten up by nothing.
And then the end-of-act freeze frame on the man who appeared out of thin air! :-)
Artie makes his own surprise appearance at the start of act two, popping out from behind a display stand.
Baines makes reference to Artie's ingenious devices. So here toward the end of the first season, it's firmly established that Artie is a clever gadgeteer. His devices here are indeed clever, but they all rely on speed -- and unfortunately the diamond thief, as we will see, is far faster than any of Artie's burglar alarms.
It's a good thing for Baines that he probed that one display case with his cane and not his hand!
I do wonder about something. The display case collapsed, taking the stand for the diamond down into the interior of the case. Then Artie lifts it back up and begins tightening something at the top of each support. But that's what I don't understand. The display fell down into its case, so whatever let go (it seems to me) was at the bottom of the stands, not the top. So shouldn't Artie be tightening something at the bottom of the stands instead?
Working together -- separately. One of the best lines in the whole series. :-)
Artie assures Baines that, wherever Jim is, he is perfectly all right. Cut to Jim -- and he's tied up and hanging upside-down!
Why upside-down anyway? According to Midas, it's to insulate Jim from surrounding objects. Well, it does give RC a lovely chance to show his athleticism.
Time is relative.
Jim remarks that at 4000 degrees, you could burn a diamond. We had a discussion before as to whether or not that's true, and I don't remember what we concluded.
Midas thinks Jim knows more than he's telling, so he shows why he wanted Jim insulated from his surroundings -- so he can administer electric shocks! Nasty sadistic creep, that Midas!
Jim points out that Midas' aunt never goes anywhere without her cat.
It's a good thing for Jim that Lucretia came in, since Midas was ready to wipe Jim's memory (and possibly his life) with electric shocks.
Midas says Lucretia is too softhearted, that it was her idea to spare the cat, and now she objects to Midas killing Jim.
And here comes Artie. I guess he figured he'd better check up on Jim. Again he has one of those tongue-twister names for his disguise: Count Felix von Schleswig und Holzbergen. How does he remember such a name?? This disguise has one of those ax-blade noses; it's strange how much shorter his nose looks with that bit of putty on the bridge. He announces that Lady Margaret knows he was coming and he'll just wait for her, much to the bad guy's consternation.
And as soon as everyone's gone, Artie begins searching.
Lucretia says Jim was conscious but only for a moment. I suppose he fooled her, because as soon as she leaves, Jim peeks at Midas, then starts getting himself out of his upside-down predicament. Remember what I said about athleticism?
Meanwhile, Lucretia tells Artie-in-disguise that he looks somehow familiar. (I wonder why!) He responds with, 'How charming, my dear.' And when Artie says a friend may be in some slight difficulty, he obviously is referring to Jim, right?
Midas turns around and realizes Jim is not unconscious. And just as he comes up to Jim, wham! Jim gets his arms free and smashes Midas across the room and over a chair!
Artie, downstairs: 'What was that?'
Lucretia: 'Furniture being moved.'
Upstairs, Midas goes after Jim again. Jim has flipped himself off the high bar and is still trying to free his feet -- but even with his feet tied together, he can handle Midas.
Artie reverts to his normal voice and says he's going to go help the movers. And the fight is on! He's trying to get upstairs, and Midas runs from Jim, bringing him downstairs.
According to IMDb, Ross made a couple of adlibs in this fight that were kept in: 'Have a nice trip' and 'Now that's no way to treat an old man.'
As soon as Midas sees that his two servants are taking care of the fight, he smirks and trots back upstairs again. Meanwhile, Whitey grabs the count's hair and pulls it right off, giving Artie the opportunity to smush the wig into Whitey's face. Jim is fighting the other servant, and curiously enough, Jim spends most of his fight with him straddling the bannister. When he finishes that servant off, he casually slides the rest of the way down the bannister, then leans on it, legs crossed to watch Artie truss the other guy up in a curtain.
And here Ross is swapped out for his stunt double (Bob Herron, no doubt). As Jim and Artie head back upstairs to deal with Midas, suddenly Artie gets punched out of thin air and goes spinning to land facedown on the floor. Jim is stunned to see Midas appear and disappear before his eyes. Jim tries a karate move (I think), but invisible Midas punches him out too.
(By the way, the cuts where Midas appears and disappears are just slightly noticeable, especially the first one.)
I enjoy the bit at the beginning of Act Three when Artie asks Lucretia to pull off the rest of his disguise, the mutton chops and the nose. I especially like how he wiggles his nose and stretches his face after the fake nose is off. And is that a hint of a black eye?
Now we learn the secret of the burning diamonds and of Midas' ability to appear and disappear.
Ok, here's a question: Why does Little Miss Practical speak of her fiancée as Midas? Why doesn't she use his first name Morgan if she's planning to marry him? (Of course then she kisses Jim again. She's practical, but not very loyal, I think.)
Ah, the old 'Come work for me' deal! I wonder did Midas really mean it, or was he only looking to make Jim & Artie his scapegoats?
Well, J&A do wait till Midas takes a drink first. Can't blame 'em!
The curtains move normally when they get out of the carriage, but I guess there not much the special effects guys could do about that.
I'm pretty sure Midas has his units wrong, that instead of an object falling at 32 feet per second, it's 32 feet per second per second. (That is, the longer it falls, the faster it goes.)
As Midas is talking about the bottle falling while they work, you can see the skirt of the woman behind him ripple in the breeze.
The foyer again -- and all the actors have to freeze the instant before the speedy threesome enters. Preferably, they all freeze with both feet on the ground. The guy closest to the camera wiggles a lot.
The clicking sound Midas identifies as people talking sounds a great deal like some of the sound effects they used on the original Star Trek tv series.
Midas and his 'primitive' knife to Jim's throat. *grrr*
Midas mentions how he used to break the cases with a flick of his fingers; he now lifts the cases and leaves them to float -- this for the special effects department, no doubt. It would be mighty hard to make the glass break in slow motion and look right, but it's very easy to have the case float on (probably) fishing line.
Baines wiggles as Midas is speaking to him.
I do like Jim's line to Baines: 'Sorry about that, Baines.' But really, why on earth would Baines jump to the conclusion that the most trusted agents in the Secret Service, one of them the very man who had set up the security in which the two were caught, would have really been the thieves?? If Jim and Artie had wanted to rob the display, wouldn't Artie have defeated the security measures so that the pair would not be caught by them?
I like the guard's roll of the eyes when Jim asks for a light for his cigar. Nowadays, of course, prisoners would not be allowed to keep their personal effects, but I guess things were different back then. Or else things were different in the tv version.
You know, that guard does some pretty nice acting for a man who has no lines. (Hey, and he looks vaguely like the Gas Inspector from Avaricious Actuary!)
Heh, they hitched a ride on a brewery wagon.
The seesaw stunt to boost Jim up to the second story window is very cute. I wonder how much Ross is in that scene and how much is his stunt double. (I'm fairly sure the jump from the brewer's wagon was done by the stunt man.)
When Artie is up on the fence, you can see his shadow on... well, what is that behind him? Is it supposed to be the sky?
And then there's that funny bit of Artie trying to clean up after them and scooping some of the dirt back into the planter before giving it up.
And then Artie gets distracted with the beef stroganoff, from which many of us fanficcers have derived that it's his favorite dish. (Well, he serves beef stroganoff in a later episode -- to Triste, I believe. Story editor paying attention?) And once Jim leaves the kitchen after telling Artie to make a noisy disturbance to keep the servants busy, I like how Artie goes about choosing his weapons, rejecting a rolling pin in favor of an iron skillet.
That's one drop? That's mighty big for a drop!
And the fight in the kitchen! So very inventive! Pity about the beef stroganoff though, but it gave itself for a good cause. I like the use of the skillet as a shield, and then how Artie thinks three-dimensionally and knocks the pots from the upper shelf down on top of his opponent.
Lucretia, despite Midas' urging, just can't shoot Jim. Midas' nastiness to her apparently causes her to switch sides -- or maybe she's afraid of what he will do to her if Jim loses, so she casts in her lot with Jim. The special effect of her tossing the gun toward Jim and it stopping and hanging in midair is a nice way of announcing that the elixir has taken effect.
Midas should have remembered how easily Jim handled him in an even-footing fight before. With neither of them drugged earlier, Jim could beat Midas even when Jim's feet were still tied together. Now both of them are drugged and Jim's mopping up the floor with Midas.
Jim starts feeling the withdrawal from the elixir, but still gets in one last punch that sends Midas spinning into the lab equipment where the alcohol spills on him.
And now comes the later effect of the gun dropping straight to the floor to announce that the elixir has worn off. This, as someone whose name escapes me once pointed out, is bad physics; the gun should have continued its trajectory toward where Jim was standing when Lucretia first threw it to him.
But then, that bad special effect pales in comparison with the effect of Midas burning up. Well, the burning effects never looked right all throughout the series. There's also the point that, if he burned up, why isn't there any, er, residue on the floor? Not to be gross, but there's nothing there!
Finally the tag, if twenty seconds can be regarded as a tag. It's just priceless:
Jim, indicating the tied-up and unconscious servants: How did you do it?
Artie: Aw, I cheated. I... I used force.
And so in the end, Jim & Artie catch the bad guys and Midas winds up dead, and the episode wraps up on its usual funny note -- but how did J&A explain what happened to Baines, their boss, and the president? 'Well, the bad guy was moving faster than the eye can see.'
'Can you confirm that?'
'Oh, well, ah...' Because Midas is dead and can't speak for himself, and I'm not sure if there's any more elixir, and really who's going to believe all this science fiction stuff? But apparently they did convince their bosses, because they were right back on the job the next week. :-)
As soon as someone says, 'Nothing can happen!' you just know something's going to happen, don't you?
The shards of glass surrounding the mounting of the missing Kara diamond are remarkably thick.
The minister is remarkably thick as well, unfortunately.
When the fight begins, there's one shot showing the door with two guards in it. Then the angle changes and the guards are no longer in the door. And then as Jim prepares to fire his cane, the two guards are running into the doorway.
And out the window goes Jim!
I had to turn on the closed captioning to understand what Midas says as he and the driver are loading the trunk onto the back of the carriage.
Artie showing off his proficiency with languages. The closed captioning gives the German and the French, but when the young woman speaks that other language, closed captioning just says that she's speaking a foreign language.
Oh, yes, and Whitey sighting! He's the strange servant that Artie tries out the various languages on.
That young lady is so deliberately obtuse. And her every statement would apply truthfully to Lady Margaret being dead. (I do kind of wonder why Mr Midas stole so many other diamonds before getting around to stealing those that belong to his own aunt.)
Nice: Lucretia slams the door in Artie's face.
Artie's theory of the diamonds being made to explode from within I find appealing as a scientific theory. It's wrong of course, as we'll learn, but it's a sweet theory. Why anyone would want to explode diamonds though...
And then Jim asks if Artie believes that theory, and Artie responds, 'No, you think I'm some kind of a nut?'
Artie winds up having a LOT of fun at Mr Baines' expense, especially when he mugs behind the man's back. Reminds me of Donald O'Connor in Singing in the Rain, the 'Moses Supposes' scene. ;-D
Baines: A diamond would no more explode than this would! [Takes up billiard ball and shakes it.]
Artie: Don't shake that!
Jim: [Grabs billiard ball and throws it out window, where it explodes.]
Baines has a lot to learn about hangin' with our boys!
I love how Jim has an answer for every one of Midas' excuses.
So... what became of the table Sultan the cat was resting on? When Jim first enters the room, he goes to pet Sultan, but when Lucretia leads Jim to the safe, the table isn't there anymore.
Argh, the way that woman just flings herself into Jim's arms once he finds the safe is empty! Ew, ew, ew! And then pow! Jim gets whirled about and punched by thin air. RC did a great job all through this episode of getting beaten up by nothing.
And then the end-of-act freeze frame on the man who appeared out of thin air! :-)
Artie makes his own surprise appearance at the start of act two, popping out from behind a display stand.
Baines makes reference to Artie's ingenious devices. So here toward the end of the first season, it's firmly established that Artie is a clever gadgeteer. His devices here are indeed clever, but they all rely on speed -- and unfortunately the diamond thief, as we will see, is far faster than any of Artie's burglar alarms.
It's a good thing for Baines that he probed that one display case with his cane and not his hand!
I do wonder about something. The display case collapsed, taking the stand for the diamond down into the interior of the case. Then Artie lifts it back up and begins tightening something at the top of each support. But that's what I don't understand. The display fell down into its case, so whatever let go (it seems to me) was at the bottom of the stands, not the top. So shouldn't Artie be tightening something at the bottom of the stands instead?
Working together -- separately. One of the best lines in the whole series. :-)
Artie assures Baines that, wherever Jim is, he is perfectly all right. Cut to Jim -- and he's tied up and hanging upside-down!
Why upside-down anyway? According to Midas, it's to insulate Jim from surrounding objects. Well, it does give RC a lovely chance to show his athleticism.
Time is relative.
Jim remarks that at 4000 degrees, you could burn a diamond. We had a discussion before as to whether or not that's true, and I don't remember what we concluded.
Midas thinks Jim knows more than he's telling, so he shows why he wanted Jim insulated from his surroundings -- so he can administer electric shocks! Nasty sadistic creep, that Midas!
Jim points out that Midas' aunt never goes anywhere without her cat.
It's a good thing for Jim that Lucretia came in, since Midas was ready to wipe Jim's memory (and possibly his life) with electric shocks.
Midas says Lucretia is too softhearted, that it was her idea to spare the cat, and now she objects to Midas killing Jim.
And here comes Artie. I guess he figured he'd better check up on Jim. Again he has one of those tongue-twister names for his disguise: Count Felix von Schleswig und Holzbergen. How does he remember such a name?? This disguise has one of those ax-blade noses; it's strange how much shorter his nose looks with that bit of putty on the bridge. He announces that Lady Margaret knows he was coming and he'll just wait for her, much to the bad guy's consternation.
And as soon as everyone's gone, Artie begins searching.
Lucretia says Jim was conscious but only for a moment. I suppose he fooled her, because as soon as she leaves, Jim peeks at Midas, then starts getting himself out of his upside-down predicament. Remember what I said about athleticism?
Meanwhile, Lucretia tells Artie-in-disguise that he looks somehow familiar. (I wonder why!) He responds with, 'How charming, my dear.' And when Artie says a friend may be in some slight difficulty, he obviously is referring to Jim, right?
Midas turns around and realizes Jim is not unconscious. And just as he comes up to Jim, wham! Jim gets his arms free and smashes Midas across the room and over a chair!
Artie, downstairs: 'What was that?'
Lucretia: 'Furniture being moved.'
Upstairs, Midas goes after Jim again. Jim has flipped himself off the high bar and is still trying to free his feet -- but even with his feet tied together, he can handle Midas.
Artie reverts to his normal voice and says he's going to go help the movers. And the fight is on! He's trying to get upstairs, and Midas runs from Jim, bringing him downstairs.
According to IMDb, Ross made a couple of adlibs in this fight that were kept in: 'Have a nice trip' and 'Now that's no way to treat an old man.'
As soon as Midas sees that his two servants are taking care of the fight, he smirks and trots back upstairs again. Meanwhile, Whitey grabs the count's hair and pulls it right off, giving Artie the opportunity to smush the wig into Whitey's face. Jim is fighting the other servant, and curiously enough, Jim spends most of his fight with him straddling the bannister. When he finishes that servant off, he casually slides the rest of the way down the bannister, then leans on it, legs crossed to watch Artie truss the other guy up in a curtain.
And here Ross is swapped out for his stunt double (Bob Herron, no doubt). As Jim and Artie head back upstairs to deal with Midas, suddenly Artie gets punched out of thin air and goes spinning to land facedown on the floor. Jim is stunned to see Midas appear and disappear before his eyes. Jim tries a karate move (I think), but invisible Midas punches him out too.
(By the way, the cuts where Midas appears and disappears are just slightly noticeable, especially the first one.)
I enjoy the bit at the beginning of Act Three when Artie asks Lucretia to pull off the rest of his disguise, the mutton chops and the nose. I especially like how he wiggles his nose and stretches his face after the fake nose is off. And is that a hint of a black eye?
Now we learn the secret of the burning diamonds and of Midas' ability to appear and disappear.
Ok, here's a question: Why does Little Miss Practical speak of her fiancée as Midas? Why doesn't she use his first name Morgan if she's planning to marry him? (Of course then she kisses Jim again. She's practical, but not very loyal, I think.)
Ah, the old 'Come work for me' deal! I wonder did Midas really mean it, or was he only looking to make Jim & Artie his scapegoats?
Well, J&A do wait till Midas takes a drink first. Can't blame 'em!
The curtains move normally when they get out of the carriage, but I guess there not much the special effects guys could do about that.
I'm pretty sure Midas has his units wrong, that instead of an object falling at 32 feet per second, it's 32 feet per second per second. (That is, the longer it falls, the faster it goes.)
As Midas is talking about the bottle falling while they work, you can see the skirt of the woman behind him ripple in the breeze.
The foyer again -- and all the actors have to freeze the instant before the speedy threesome enters. Preferably, they all freeze with both feet on the ground. The guy closest to the camera wiggles a lot.
The clicking sound Midas identifies as people talking sounds a great deal like some of the sound effects they used on the original Star Trek tv series.
Midas and his 'primitive' knife to Jim's throat. *grrr*
Midas mentions how he used to break the cases with a flick of his fingers; he now lifts the cases and leaves them to float -- this for the special effects department, no doubt. It would be mighty hard to make the glass break in slow motion and look right, but it's very easy to have the case float on (probably) fishing line.
Baines wiggles as Midas is speaking to him.
I do like Jim's line to Baines: 'Sorry about that, Baines.' But really, why on earth would Baines jump to the conclusion that the most trusted agents in the Secret Service, one of them the very man who had set up the security in which the two were caught, would have really been the thieves?? If Jim and Artie had wanted to rob the display, wouldn't Artie have defeated the security measures so that the pair would not be caught by them?
I like the guard's roll of the eyes when Jim asks for a light for his cigar. Nowadays, of course, prisoners would not be allowed to keep their personal effects, but I guess things were different back then. Or else things were different in the tv version.
You know, that guard does some pretty nice acting for a man who has no lines. (Hey, and he looks vaguely like the Gas Inspector from Avaricious Actuary!)
Heh, they hitched a ride on a brewery wagon.
The seesaw stunt to boost Jim up to the second story window is very cute. I wonder how much Ross is in that scene and how much is his stunt double. (I'm fairly sure the jump from the brewer's wagon was done by the stunt man.)
When Artie is up on the fence, you can see his shadow on... well, what is that behind him? Is it supposed to be the sky?
And then there's that funny bit of Artie trying to clean up after them and scooping some of the dirt back into the planter before giving it up.
And then Artie gets distracted with the beef stroganoff, from which many of us fanficcers have derived that it's his favorite dish. (Well, he serves beef stroganoff in a later episode -- to Triste, I believe. Story editor paying attention?) And once Jim leaves the kitchen after telling Artie to make a noisy disturbance to keep the servants busy, I like how Artie goes about choosing his weapons, rejecting a rolling pin in favor of an iron skillet.
That's one drop? That's mighty big for a drop!
And the fight in the kitchen! So very inventive! Pity about the beef stroganoff though, but it gave itself for a good cause. I like the use of the skillet as a shield, and then how Artie thinks three-dimensionally and knocks the pots from the upper shelf down on top of his opponent.
Lucretia, despite Midas' urging, just can't shoot Jim. Midas' nastiness to her apparently causes her to switch sides -- or maybe she's afraid of what he will do to her if Jim loses, so she casts in her lot with Jim. The special effect of her tossing the gun toward Jim and it stopping and hanging in midair is a nice way of announcing that the elixir has taken effect.
Midas should have remembered how easily Jim handled him in an even-footing fight before. With neither of them drugged earlier, Jim could beat Midas even when Jim's feet were still tied together. Now both of them are drugged and Jim's mopping up the floor with Midas.
Jim starts feeling the withdrawal from the elixir, but still gets in one last punch that sends Midas spinning into the lab equipment where the alcohol spills on him.
And now comes the later effect of the gun dropping straight to the floor to announce that the elixir has worn off. This, as someone whose name escapes me once pointed out, is bad physics; the gun should have continued its trajectory toward where Jim was standing when Lucretia first threw it to him.
But then, that bad special effect pales in comparison with the effect of Midas burning up. Well, the burning effects never looked right all throughout the series. There's also the point that, if he burned up, why isn't there any, er, residue on the floor? Not to be gross, but there's nothing there!
Finally the tag, if twenty seconds can be regarded as a tag. It's just priceless:
Jim, indicating the tied-up and unconscious servants: How did you do it?
Artie: Aw, I cheated. I... I used force.
And so in the end, Jim & Artie catch the bad guys and Midas winds up dead, and the episode wraps up on its usual funny note -- but how did J&A explain what happened to Baines, their boss, and the president? 'Well, the bad guy was moving faster than the eye can see.'
'Can you confirm that?'
'Oh, well, ah...' Because Midas is dead and can't speak for himself, and I'm not sure if there's any more elixir, and really who's going to believe all this science fiction stuff? But apparently they did convince their bosses, because they were right back on the job the next week. :-)