Post by niecie on Feb 1, 2014 13:58:07 GMT -5
A favorite, an absolute favorite! Rumor has it that Robert Conrad wanted to attend some sporting event and asked for a Jim-lite episode so he could get his filming done early in the week and head off to whatever-it-was. And thus we got our one-and-only Artie-centric episode. Do all Artie fangirls love this episode as much as I do?
Those who know me know that I like to call Artie 'Uncle Artie,' so it's probably no surprise that for me, Lily is 'Aunt Lily' as well. In my own headcanon (that shows up in some of my fanfics), the two of them do eventually get married after all and have some adventures together. (But don't worry; I don't kick Jim out -- far from it!)
Now as you probably know, at the time this episode was filmed, Ross Martin was dating Mala Powers. What you may not also know is that Ida Lupino directed the first big movie Mala Powers was in (Outrage), and the two women struck up a lifelong friendship from then on -- Mala was even the executrix of Ida's will.
But let's get on with the show.
The beginning is so atmospheric, so Frankensteinian, with the thunderstorm and the limping minion and the mad lady scientist! (Not to mention, the spooky music.) The lab is great, with its skeleton in the corner and sheet-covered body in the center. A great amount of the equipment here in Dr Faustina's lab will pop up again in Dr Loveless' lab in Surreal McCoy and even in the telegraph center in Bogus Bandits (where Artie will take advantage of the equipment to 'upset the chess board').
Ok, they deliberately do not show the face of the body on the table, and yet while Miklos is connecting the electrodes, we can see the clothing the body is dressed in. And who else in WWW ever dresses like that???
Something I noticed about the electrodes: the ones on his ankles are put on him over his pants legs -- shouldn't they be in direct contact with his skin? And the ones on his wrists, while they may have actually contact with his skin, are very loose. Well, I suppose the one on his head isn't necessarily in direct contact either, since it's over his hair. Well, they didn't expect viewer nitpicking when they wrote and filmed the scene this way, I'm sure!
Actually, that thing with all the wires running upwards -- it's look vaguely like an hour glass -- that thing I think was in the mad scientist's lab in Druid's Blood.
Those straps sure don't hold very well! Why did they even bother with them?
And... surprise! Look who they brought back to life! I wonder what sort of effect this had on first showing, before the viewers knew the rest of the plot and knew who that was (or wasn't!).
Interesting that this guy's voice is just like Jim's voice (and the same later, with the Artie fake).
Twenty questions!
The table-lifting thing is cute, though it does look just a tiny bit faked.
The music in the Chinese restaurant is pretty. And such a lovely reunion!
And Artie's lines about Lily's mother! She obviously isn't sure if he's complimenting her (for good reason...). Oh, Artie and Mrs Fortune play off each other so beautifully, him offering double-entendres that sound polite but could well be insults, and her offering lines that really are insults. (Well, both Ross Martin and Patsy Kelly had vaudeville experience, and it shows in their delightful sparring here!)
Mm, the train scene! Artie has some of his typical cheesy come-on lines, but at least with Lily, they come off ok.
Now when he offers to do a scene from Romeo & Juliet with her, I always think that he drops out of character just for a moment, and that we see Ross anticipating kissing Mala here, not just Artie looking forward to kissing Lily.
And her line after the kiss, the 'Who's acting?' line, is just perfect, and practically a fourth-wall breaker!
Carmen is pushy, isn't she? And so we get a nice little fight scene. The prisoner dude finds just about everything he tries to be ineffective and spends too much time being puzzled; he should instead have ducked!
How did Dr Faustina and Miklos follow their James West without us seeing them, and what is that thing they're standing inside?
I wonder why they would hold a meeting of so many members of the Cabinet in New Orleans instead of in Washington?
Nice touch, the bust of Grant alongside the elevator.
And then comes the blast -- with cartoonish graphics, no less -- to end Act One.
Another charming scene between Artie and Lily. They are so cute together! The two dresses we've seen Lily wear so far, the blue one and the yellow one, show up on other ladies over the course of the series: both Priscilla Ames (Whirring Death) and Betsy Jeffers (Headless Woman) wear the blue one as well, and the yellow one shows up on Greta (tag of Wizard Shook the World) and on Silva (tag of Running Death).
More 'rehearsing' -- and we get treated to a shot of the train chugging along as a kind of diplomatic fade-out, eh?
'Who's Henrietta?' -- one of my favorite lines! And Artie's little 'Hum!' when he takes his glass and heads back to his seat after introducing Lily to the pigeon -- that's another favorite. Though I think Artie is a touch too casual about his pigeon-borne message, letting Lily look at it for herself. His game of playing like a message from the president is no big deal backfires on him when the message turns out to really be from the president!
By the way, it occurs to me that the timing is a bit weird here. The scenes in the first act cut back and forth between fake Jim on a single night and however long Artie was with Lily. But how much time is supposed to have passed now, and where is the train heading at the start of Act Two, since Artie gets so happy over being sent to New Orleans? (And of course we in the audience know that his trip to New Orleans is NOT going to be a happy one!)
The news of the blast not being in the paper. There once was a time in the US when the press would keep silent about certain matters if the government asked them to -- witness, for example, how the media kept quiet about FDR's wheelchair. How times have changed!
When Blackbeard the Pirate shows up and draws the curtains, in the next shot of Lily and her mother sitting at the table, Mrs Fortune rests one arm on the back of her chair, and her shirt does something that is a prime reason why I don't quite trust shirts that button down the front. On the other hand, I like her little broach; I think it might be a watch. *grin*
Pay attention to Artie's mask. He puts it on, tips it up to take his leave from Mrs Fortune, then steps through the curtain -- and it sure looks to me like the curtain knocks it right off Artie's head. And he just keeps walking!
Heh heh -- Mother Fortune makes off with Artie's dessert. Little running gag there!
Poor Artie. When Blackbeard uses the past tense about Jim -- no no no no no!
Ross does a great job here of being a man just barely holding himself together.
Now, when Blackbeard throws out the word 'traitor' though -- that's when he goes too far. You don't say that about Jim, not in front of Artie!
And now Ross does a great job of just barely holding back a raging fury!
The dead body is Mickey Golden, right? (I can see his eyelid flicker as Dr Faustina calls him a fine specimen, and several more times afterwards.)
Heart's in the right place. O... k...
So we come to our next scene with Artie after he vows so emotionally to find out what happened and clear Jim's name if it kills him -- and he's dancing with Lily. I suppose he's doing some undercover work during Mardi Gras, but it always hits me as being a bit jarring.
Their costumes are lovely, but I hate that face-covering mask of hers. It has to be hot under such a thing!
I love the line about finding a needle in a haystack while it's going through a threshing machine -- and hate that awful awful phony French accent the 'musketeer' uses! (Well, at least this time the character wasn't supposed to be French -- unlike Florey!)
Artie obviously thinks this is just Mardi Gras foolishness, until the guy tells his buds to toss Artie over the rail. What follows is one of Artie's best-ever fight sequences (even if I can spot that it's mostly stunt doubles and not Ross)!
I really love the birds-eye view of the fight as Artie turns the tables and punches out the other musketeers, tossing one of them over the rail instead. I suspect the overhead angle is to hide that this is not Ross, but it sure makes for a great effect!
And then he grabs a sword. What with this scene, the Jack Maitland scene later in Season Two, and the long lovely fight sequence in The Great Race, I strongly suspect Ross enjoyed stage fencing. Not, as we can see, that it's always Ross even here. Any physical stunts, such as the roll over the piano and the jump over the railing of the stairs, are obviously done by the double -- sometimes way too obviously done by the double. Still, it's wonderful fun!
Artie's grinning face as he questions the cab driver in the suit of armor!
I often wonder why Artie drags Lily along with him once he has his lead. Wouldn't he be afraid he was taking her into danger? Wouldn't a man of his time have sent her back to her hotel or to the train instead? But no, he takes her with him. Well, we shortly find out why, of course!
But how did Dr Faustina get into the exact same costume as Lily so quickly?
The mask made of clay -- what, she never thought of putting straws in his nostrils to let him breathe? And for that matter, if she had used whatever was in the syringe to 'keep him quiet,' how could she have been sure she wouldn't have killed him then, suffocated him?
(Sometimes when I watch this, I try holding my breath in sympathy with Artie. I've never yet managed to hold mine as long as he supposedly holds his!)
(I have, on the other hand, often wanted to scream at her, 'Hey, lady! Forget reading the letter and go see about the guy under the clay!')
She has him under the clay for at least a minute and a half. Oh, and didn't he hear her plans to blow up the president just then? Dr Faustina has a bit of a big mouth!
The mask is obviously indeed Artie/Ross -- but every time I look at it, I see it as the features sticking out instead of going in, especially the nose!
And back to the train. I like the shot through the galley door toward the main door of the varnish car. Once the ladies are inside, that shot continues as Lily crosses the parlor, then down the corridor to look into the galley. We also have a shot along the corridor as she continues to look into various rooms. Yeah, any time we get to see more of the train than usual, it makes me very happy!
But back to the ladies on the rear platform, and Lily's lockpicking skills. Fun dialog!
I love Lily telling her mother to come in out of the eighteenth century. *snerk* And Mrs Fortune's remark about Artie chasing after a 'pretty ankle.' And Lily reminding her mother that she said Lincoln would never be president. Nice period dialog.
And then they come back out of the corridor to find Mr Peters waiting for them, and Mrs Fortune makes such a shocked sound! That weird curtsey thing she does after handing back his credentials -- and are they flirting??
And back to the spooky castle. This is the first we see that Dr Faustina has any other henchies besides Miklos. Said henchie is not being very observant, is he? Just love the way the fist comes out of nowhere and takes out the henchie!
And as others have pointed out, if the director of the episode really didn't want us to know who just escaped from the cell, why did he order a camera shot that focused on that character's/actor's second-most recognizable feature, hmm?
Ah, the look on Artie's face when he sees who has just come in the door! Pity, though, that the camera doesn't linger for just a tiny bit longer for his look of wonder to develop more fully before cutting to the reverse angle for the big reveal!
Artie's face after the commercial break, when he says, 'Jim!' -- yeah, that's worth the price of admission! He jumps up and rushes to his partner, and he sure looks like he's gonna hug the stuffins outta Jim. But he stops short instead. (Pity. We should have had a hug here to rival the one in Diva.)
The dialog is fun as Our Heroes banter a bit.
And off they go through the spooky house to the accompaniment of lots of thunder and lightning. We get a rather nice rear-view of both of them, Jim in his usual attire sans jacket, Artie in his pirate costume with the leather jerkin, tall boots, and tights. (Was the director perhaps indulging in some fan service for the ladies? If so, we're appreciative, aren't we?)
I'm a bit amazed that Dr Faustina and Miklos don't notice how far open the door is -- and again we have a big hint as to who is strapped down on the table based on the clothing he's wearing.
(Love the stained glass windows...)
Ross, like Robert before him, does a good job of being blank.
Unfortunate accident! That unfortunate accident was her own doing!
I happen to love this fight sequence. They apparently had two stunt doubles for Ross this time! I particularly like when Artie slugs his doppelganger in the gut, then gasps because it was like punching a brick wall! Meanwhile, Jim is holding his own against the bigger Miklos. I am surprised, though, that Dr Faustina joined in the fight briefly.
(It really irks me, her hollering to fake Artie, 'Kill him! Kill him!' -- sometimes meaning real Artie, sometimes meaning Jim!)
Funny how she goes from, 'Kill him!' to 'What are you doing? You're destroying everything!' Look, lady, you egg on a fight in your lab, you're going to have a mess! (And if anyone is destroying everything, check out Miklos knocked over that wire hourglass-looking thing!)
Two big guys going after Jim, and it's the woman with the glass flask who knocks him out! She and Miklos flee after sending fake Artie (or as I like to call him, Bomb Boy) out to go kill the president.
Zappity-zap, the lab goes zap!
Back to Lily and her mother as they spot Bomb Boy on his mission. Lily gets furious when 'Artie' claims not to know her, and then Mrs Fortune turns into a Mama Bear to defend her daughter. She clobbers him with a bottle; he sends her tumbling into a very vaudevillian pratfall.
So the last we saw of Jim and Artie, they were knocked out in an exploding lab. Now they have a carriage -- Dr Faustina's? -- and are discussing what to do about Bomb Boy when they catch up to him. They have no means to deal with him at this point. And yet when they do catch him, well, where did that net-launching bazooka come from??
(I'm a bit upset at Mr Peters over his 'gay dog with the ladies' bit!)
At any rate, Artie launches the net over Bomb Boy, Jim wraps him up with the whip, Artie grabs the reins from Jim, and around the corner they go, dragging Bomb Boy behind them, and BOOM! (And as several have mentioned before, that had to have been an awful mess back there...)
Oh, and what kind of blast radius did that bomb have? Small enough apparently that Jim and Artie escaped with their lives, of course.
And so to the tag and Lily's opening night. Her costume is gorgeous -- and here are Our Heroes is their fine evening clothes.
Hey, Jim calls her another Sarah Bernhardt; anyone know if Sarah Bernhardt was a famous actress already in the 1870's?
Lily's note from her mother. I love Lily's reactions, both her concern that Mr Peters is too young for her mother, and then her laughter and call for a celebration. And Artie's repeated line of 'Speaking of love, Lil...' He's trying to propose, and she's too excited about her mother being gone to notice.
What a cute way this scene was written, with our silver-tongued orator getting so tongue-tied that Jim has to speak for him. And Lily's smile as she calls him a darling and admits to loving him dearly -- and then tells him No! Crushing! How his face falls!
Well, I can understand her reasoning. (I don't agree with it, mind.)
Oh, we have another instance where I wish the director had slowed things down a bit -- I really want the kiss to last about twice as long as it does before Jim pops that cork. Artie's grrrr face toward Jim is so cute, but of course he can never stay angry with his best friend.
And we end with an incipient champagne toast, and Lily looking at Artie.(But why is there a bell ringing at the end of the music?)
Those who know me know that I like to call Artie 'Uncle Artie,' so it's probably no surprise that for me, Lily is 'Aunt Lily' as well. In my own headcanon (that shows up in some of my fanfics), the two of them do eventually get married after all and have some adventures together. (But don't worry; I don't kick Jim out -- far from it!)
Now as you probably know, at the time this episode was filmed, Ross Martin was dating Mala Powers. What you may not also know is that Ida Lupino directed the first big movie Mala Powers was in (Outrage), and the two women struck up a lifelong friendship from then on -- Mala was even the executrix of Ida's will.
But let's get on with the show.
The beginning is so atmospheric, so Frankensteinian, with the thunderstorm and the limping minion and the mad lady scientist! (Not to mention, the spooky music.) The lab is great, with its skeleton in the corner and sheet-covered body in the center. A great amount of the equipment here in Dr Faustina's lab will pop up again in Dr Loveless' lab in Surreal McCoy and even in the telegraph center in Bogus Bandits (where Artie will take advantage of the equipment to 'upset the chess board').
Ok, they deliberately do not show the face of the body on the table, and yet while Miklos is connecting the electrodes, we can see the clothing the body is dressed in. And who else in WWW ever dresses like that???
Something I noticed about the electrodes: the ones on his ankles are put on him over his pants legs -- shouldn't they be in direct contact with his skin? And the ones on his wrists, while they may have actually contact with his skin, are very loose. Well, I suppose the one on his head isn't necessarily in direct contact either, since it's over his hair. Well, they didn't expect viewer nitpicking when they wrote and filmed the scene this way, I'm sure!
Actually, that thing with all the wires running upwards -- it's look vaguely like an hour glass -- that thing I think was in the mad scientist's lab in Druid's Blood.
Those straps sure don't hold very well! Why did they even bother with them?
And... surprise! Look who they brought back to life! I wonder what sort of effect this had on first showing, before the viewers knew the rest of the plot and knew who that was (or wasn't!).
Interesting that this guy's voice is just like Jim's voice (and the same later, with the Artie fake).
Twenty questions!
The table-lifting thing is cute, though it does look just a tiny bit faked.
The music in the Chinese restaurant is pretty. And such a lovely reunion!
And Artie's lines about Lily's mother! She obviously isn't sure if he's complimenting her (for good reason...). Oh, Artie and Mrs Fortune play off each other so beautifully, him offering double-entendres that sound polite but could well be insults, and her offering lines that really are insults. (Well, both Ross Martin and Patsy Kelly had vaudeville experience, and it shows in their delightful sparring here!)
Mm, the train scene! Artie has some of his typical cheesy come-on lines, but at least with Lily, they come off ok.
Now when he offers to do a scene from Romeo & Juliet with her, I always think that he drops out of character just for a moment, and that we see Ross anticipating kissing Mala here, not just Artie looking forward to kissing Lily.
And her line after the kiss, the 'Who's acting?' line, is just perfect, and practically a fourth-wall breaker!
Carmen is pushy, isn't she? And so we get a nice little fight scene. The prisoner dude finds just about everything he tries to be ineffective and spends too much time being puzzled; he should instead have ducked!
How did Dr Faustina and Miklos follow their James West without us seeing them, and what is that thing they're standing inside?
I wonder why they would hold a meeting of so many members of the Cabinet in New Orleans instead of in Washington?
Nice touch, the bust of Grant alongside the elevator.
And then comes the blast -- with cartoonish graphics, no less -- to end Act One.
Another charming scene between Artie and Lily. They are so cute together! The two dresses we've seen Lily wear so far, the blue one and the yellow one, show up on other ladies over the course of the series: both Priscilla Ames (Whirring Death) and Betsy Jeffers (Headless Woman) wear the blue one as well, and the yellow one shows up on Greta (tag of Wizard Shook the World) and on Silva (tag of Running Death).
More 'rehearsing' -- and we get treated to a shot of the train chugging along as a kind of diplomatic fade-out, eh?
'Who's Henrietta?' -- one of my favorite lines! And Artie's little 'Hum!' when he takes his glass and heads back to his seat after introducing Lily to the pigeon -- that's another favorite. Though I think Artie is a touch too casual about his pigeon-borne message, letting Lily look at it for herself. His game of playing like a message from the president is no big deal backfires on him when the message turns out to really be from the president!
By the way, it occurs to me that the timing is a bit weird here. The scenes in the first act cut back and forth between fake Jim on a single night and however long Artie was with Lily. But how much time is supposed to have passed now, and where is the train heading at the start of Act Two, since Artie gets so happy over being sent to New Orleans? (And of course we in the audience know that his trip to New Orleans is NOT going to be a happy one!)
The news of the blast not being in the paper. There once was a time in the US when the press would keep silent about certain matters if the government asked them to -- witness, for example, how the media kept quiet about FDR's wheelchair. How times have changed!
When Blackbeard the Pirate shows up and draws the curtains, in the next shot of Lily and her mother sitting at the table, Mrs Fortune rests one arm on the back of her chair, and her shirt does something that is a prime reason why I don't quite trust shirts that button down the front. On the other hand, I like her little broach; I think it might be a watch. *grin*
Pay attention to Artie's mask. He puts it on, tips it up to take his leave from Mrs Fortune, then steps through the curtain -- and it sure looks to me like the curtain knocks it right off Artie's head. And he just keeps walking!
Heh heh -- Mother Fortune makes off with Artie's dessert. Little running gag there!
Poor Artie. When Blackbeard uses the past tense about Jim -- no no no no no!
Ross does a great job here of being a man just barely holding himself together.
Now, when Blackbeard throws out the word 'traitor' though -- that's when he goes too far. You don't say that about Jim, not in front of Artie!
And now Ross does a great job of just barely holding back a raging fury!
The dead body is Mickey Golden, right? (I can see his eyelid flicker as Dr Faustina calls him a fine specimen, and several more times afterwards.)
Heart's in the right place. O... k...
So we come to our next scene with Artie after he vows so emotionally to find out what happened and clear Jim's name if it kills him -- and he's dancing with Lily. I suppose he's doing some undercover work during Mardi Gras, but it always hits me as being a bit jarring.
Their costumes are lovely, but I hate that face-covering mask of hers. It has to be hot under such a thing!
I love the line about finding a needle in a haystack while it's going through a threshing machine -- and hate that awful awful phony French accent the 'musketeer' uses! (Well, at least this time the character wasn't supposed to be French -- unlike Florey!)
Artie obviously thinks this is just Mardi Gras foolishness, until the guy tells his buds to toss Artie over the rail. What follows is one of Artie's best-ever fight sequences (even if I can spot that it's mostly stunt doubles and not Ross)!
I really love the birds-eye view of the fight as Artie turns the tables and punches out the other musketeers, tossing one of them over the rail instead. I suspect the overhead angle is to hide that this is not Ross, but it sure makes for a great effect!
And then he grabs a sword. What with this scene, the Jack Maitland scene later in Season Two, and the long lovely fight sequence in The Great Race, I strongly suspect Ross enjoyed stage fencing. Not, as we can see, that it's always Ross even here. Any physical stunts, such as the roll over the piano and the jump over the railing of the stairs, are obviously done by the double -- sometimes way too obviously done by the double. Still, it's wonderful fun!
Artie's grinning face as he questions the cab driver in the suit of armor!
I often wonder why Artie drags Lily along with him once he has his lead. Wouldn't he be afraid he was taking her into danger? Wouldn't a man of his time have sent her back to her hotel or to the train instead? But no, he takes her with him. Well, we shortly find out why, of course!
But how did Dr Faustina get into the exact same costume as Lily so quickly?
The mask made of clay -- what, she never thought of putting straws in his nostrils to let him breathe? And for that matter, if she had used whatever was in the syringe to 'keep him quiet,' how could she have been sure she wouldn't have killed him then, suffocated him?
(Sometimes when I watch this, I try holding my breath in sympathy with Artie. I've never yet managed to hold mine as long as he supposedly holds his!)
(I have, on the other hand, often wanted to scream at her, 'Hey, lady! Forget reading the letter and go see about the guy under the clay!')
She has him under the clay for at least a minute and a half. Oh, and didn't he hear her plans to blow up the president just then? Dr Faustina has a bit of a big mouth!
The mask is obviously indeed Artie/Ross -- but every time I look at it, I see it as the features sticking out instead of going in, especially the nose!
And back to the train. I like the shot through the galley door toward the main door of the varnish car. Once the ladies are inside, that shot continues as Lily crosses the parlor, then down the corridor to look into the galley. We also have a shot along the corridor as she continues to look into various rooms. Yeah, any time we get to see more of the train than usual, it makes me very happy!
But back to the ladies on the rear platform, and Lily's lockpicking skills. Fun dialog!
I love Lily telling her mother to come in out of the eighteenth century. *snerk* And Mrs Fortune's remark about Artie chasing after a 'pretty ankle.' And Lily reminding her mother that she said Lincoln would never be president. Nice period dialog.
And then they come back out of the corridor to find Mr Peters waiting for them, and Mrs Fortune makes such a shocked sound! That weird curtsey thing she does after handing back his credentials -- and are they flirting??
And back to the spooky castle. This is the first we see that Dr Faustina has any other henchies besides Miklos. Said henchie is not being very observant, is he? Just love the way the fist comes out of nowhere and takes out the henchie!
And as others have pointed out, if the director of the episode really didn't want us to know who just escaped from the cell, why did he order a camera shot that focused on that character's/actor's second-most recognizable feature, hmm?
Ah, the look on Artie's face when he sees who has just come in the door! Pity, though, that the camera doesn't linger for just a tiny bit longer for his look of wonder to develop more fully before cutting to the reverse angle for the big reveal!
Artie's face after the commercial break, when he says, 'Jim!' -- yeah, that's worth the price of admission! He jumps up and rushes to his partner, and he sure looks like he's gonna hug the stuffins outta Jim. But he stops short instead. (Pity. We should have had a hug here to rival the one in Diva.)
The dialog is fun as Our Heroes banter a bit.
And off they go through the spooky house to the accompaniment of lots of thunder and lightning. We get a rather nice rear-view of both of them, Jim in his usual attire sans jacket, Artie in his pirate costume with the leather jerkin, tall boots, and tights. (Was the director perhaps indulging in some fan service for the ladies? If so, we're appreciative, aren't we?)
I'm a bit amazed that Dr Faustina and Miklos don't notice how far open the door is -- and again we have a big hint as to who is strapped down on the table based on the clothing he's wearing.
(Love the stained glass windows...)
Ross, like Robert before him, does a good job of being blank.
Unfortunate accident! That unfortunate accident was her own doing!
I happen to love this fight sequence. They apparently had two stunt doubles for Ross this time! I particularly like when Artie slugs his doppelganger in the gut, then gasps because it was like punching a brick wall! Meanwhile, Jim is holding his own against the bigger Miklos. I am surprised, though, that Dr Faustina joined in the fight briefly.
(It really irks me, her hollering to fake Artie, 'Kill him! Kill him!' -- sometimes meaning real Artie, sometimes meaning Jim!)
Funny how she goes from, 'Kill him!' to 'What are you doing? You're destroying everything!' Look, lady, you egg on a fight in your lab, you're going to have a mess! (And if anyone is destroying everything, check out Miklos knocked over that wire hourglass-looking thing!)
Two big guys going after Jim, and it's the woman with the glass flask who knocks him out! She and Miklos flee after sending fake Artie (or as I like to call him, Bomb Boy) out to go kill the president.
Zappity-zap, the lab goes zap!
Back to Lily and her mother as they spot Bomb Boy on his mission. Lily gets furious when 'Artie' claims not to know her, and then Mrs Fortune turns into a Mama Bear to defend her daughter. She clobbers him with a bottle; he sends her tumbling into a very vaudevillian pratfall.
So the last we saw of Jim and Artie, they were knocked out in an exploding lab. Now they have a carriage -- Dr Faustina's? -- and are discussing what to do about Bomb Boy when they catch up to him. They have no means to deal with him at this point. And yet when they do catch him, well, where did that net-launching bazooka come from??
(I'm a bit upset at Mr Peters over his 'gay dog with the ladies' bit!)
At any rate, Artie launches the net over Bomb Boy, Jim wraps him up with the whip, Artie grabs the reins from Jim, and around the corner they go, dragging Bomb Boy behind them, and BOOM! (And as several have mentioned before, that had to have been an awful mess back there...)
Oh, and what kind of blast radius did that bomb have? Small enough apparently that Jim and Artie escaped with their lives, of course.
And so to the tag and Lily's opening night. Her costume is gorgeous -- and here are Our Heroes is their fine evening clothes.
Hey, Jim calls her another Sarah Bernhardt; anyone know if Sarah Bernhardt was a famous actress already in the 1870's?
Lily's note from her mother. I love Lily's reactions, both her concern that Mr Peters is too young for her mother, and then her laughter and call for a celebration. And Artie's repeated line of 'Speaking of love, Lil...' He's trying to propose, and she's too excited about her mother being gone to notice.
What a cute way this scene was written, with our silver-tongued orator getting so tongue-tied that Jim has to speak for him. And Lily's smile as she calls him a darling and admits to loving him dearly -- and then tells him No! Crushing! How his face falls!
Well, I can understand her reasoning. (I don't agree with it, mind.)
Oh, we have another instance where I wish the director had slowed things down a bit -- I really want the kiss to last about twice as long as it does before Jim pops that cork. Artie's grrrr face toward Jim is so cute, but of course he can never stay angry with his best friend.
And we end with an incipient champagne toast, and Lily looking at Artie.(But why is there a bell ringing at the end of the music?)