Post by niecie on Jan 28, 2015 12:26:16 GMT -5
I have this picture in my head of the producer (or whoever) bursting into the cave where they kept the writers, passing around celebratory cigars, and declaring, 'Boys, you'll never guess! We've got a couple of members of the Rat Pack for our next episode! So put your heads together and come up with some reason, no matter how preposterous, to jam Sammy Davis, Jr and Peter Lawford into the Wild Wild West!'
Jim enters the cave to find other horses there ahead of him. I love the cave, so atmospheric. It must have been mighty dark if Artie couldn't recognize Jim!
Artie acts nervous inside the cave — a little carryover of him being somewhat superstitious in Season One?
Jackson's description of Jeremiah as ignorant and superstitious annoys me, since I'm pretty fond of Sammy Davis. On the other hand, it shows how much Jeremiah had Jackson fooled. (And possibly how much Jackson relied on stereotypes instead of seeing Jeremiah as an individual.)
Mention the coyote howling in the night and, presto! A coyote howls!
Pet peeve time: Jim uses his gun as a pointer! And still has it pointed in Artie's direction when he cocks the gun! Arrrrrrgggghh!
What does Jim fire into the ceiling?? Is that supposed to be an ordinary effect of a bullet hitting that kind of rock, or is that a special cartridge?
Wonder who was the guy in the ghost suit here? Whitey perhaps?
So Jim kneels on the floor of the cave shooting at the 'ghost' while Artie stands DIRECTLY BEHIND HIM also firing! Yikes, guys! (Well, from what comes later in the episode, I'm assuming both agents were firing blanks at this point, but still!) Especially Artie's first shot comes mighty close to Jim's back. (Reminds me of TN Terror Stalked the Town, when Jim crosses right in front of Artie while Artie was shooting at Janus — the time Jim's tushie knocked Artie's hat off his head.)
Jim took a LOT of headshots.
I like the opening shot of Act One, viewing the scene in a mirror. Very nice effect.
Man, but the curtains match the wallpaper!
Are they saying the unsigned note is from Pres Grant?
By the way, what time of day were they in the cave, and what time of day is it when they are talking in the parlor? Was the teaser supposed to have been during the night? And how much time is supposed to have passed before the parlor scene?
Question: Jeremiah loves animals. Why then is there a deer's head mounted on the wall?
The scene in Jeremiah's place is hard to hear; I really need the closed captioning.
It irks me every time Elizabeth calls him 'Jereemiah.' I've never heard anyone else pronounce the name that way. And it's one of my favorite names, so hearing it mispronounced really gets to me!
Jeremiah is so very poetic!
It also annoys me that Jackson instructs Jeremiah to answer the questions truthfully, implying that he would expect the young man to lie instead. (Or maybe I'm being hypersensitive.)
Jim seems harsh, almost to the point of being out-of-character. Of course we find out why later.
Jeremiah knows some moves there!
Man, that guy comes back up with a gun! Good thing Jim stopped him.
I always love Artie's remark that if it's a music instrument, he can play it. *grin*
Sheriff starts to shove Jeremiah into the smoke house, then remembers and doesn't. heh.
You know, for the longest time when I watched this and saw Jim demonstrating the trap in the saddle horn, I never understood why he looked over his shoulder after the explosion. (Good horse, btw, to put up with an explosion going off on its own back!) I finally ran the disc back some and paid attention to the background leading up to the blast — and there's a barrel back there that isn't there anymore after the explosion.
Artie does a lot of standing around and walking around in the background in this section.
Nice song, sounds like something appropriate to the era, and you could hardly have Sammy Davis in a show without letting him sing!
Yeah, Artie's playing. He plays while waving flies away from his ear? Also, that tune is pretty tuneless.
Nice fight! How did Jim sock the ghost in the face without the mask flying off? For once, Jim looks a bit like he's posing and faking as the ghost beats him up. (But we'll know why shortly.)
And the ghost just happens to steal Jim's horse and trigger the trap without harm.
The hat!
Sammy Davis is wonderful to watch and quite believable (to me, at least) in his role as Jeremiah. Peter Lawford as Jackson... well, not so much. I know we're supposed to be seeing a man falling apart, descending into madness, but I don't really see that when I watch and listen to Lawford. Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't.
Act Two begins, and they let Jeremiah out of the smoke house. My suspicion is that the singing part earlier was to support the idea that Jeremiah was in the smoke house the whole time. (But we're about to find out he wasn't.)
(The slabs of meat look a bit phony to me.)
Artie just has to rub it in that Jeremiah 'hates Jim's guts.' Our two Heroes are having fun planting the idea in Jackson's brain that this ghost is a real ghost.
Nice how the judge advises them just how to handle killing the government men, and he'll find the killer innocent afterwards.
Ah, the scene in the livery stable as Jim & Artie bring in their saddles and Jeremiah cocks and aims the gun at them. (I'm no expert; is that a rifle or a shotgun?) He aims the gun, and when Jim walks towards him, he takes an even better aim — and then he pulls that whiny bit about too much dynamite in the saddle horn! Suddenly all the adversarial act between Our Heroes and Jeremiah melts away and we begin to see what the three are really up to! This is a fun scene, one of my favorites in the episode, with Jeremiah proving that he's nearly an Artie at voices. (Wish the production hadn't resorted to the lip-syncing bit; I'd have liked to hear Sammy do his own best at imitating the various voices!)
And, of course, there's Artie's line about *ahem* smoked ham. I think Ross himself must have really loved that one!
Ah, the ace card. So much for there not being anything really supernatural in this episode.
Sammy does a good job, in my opinion, both here and later when he fakes the possession.
It's a touch odd to me that Jim invites Jeremiah to come eat lunch in the restaurant with them. Not odd that Jim issues the invitation, but odd that he would be confident that the local restaurant would allow Jeremiah in as a customer. Sadly, you couldn't be sure any given restaurant would be ok with having a black customer back then — and even more sadly, some places, you still can't be sure.
What's Artie putting into his pocket? Is that the torn mask? (I lost track.)
Jeremiah picks up on the fact that the two horsemen are going after Jim & Artie quickly! And he uses that freak-the-horses talent to unseat the two hoodlums. Good for him!
This is another favorite scene. Silly Artie! Starts into the fight, then turns away and folds his arms, leaving the dudes to Jim. Then when the new dudes rush into the fight with drawn guns, Artie quickly convinces them (at gunpoint) to drop the weapons — and now he's all yours! Just for a split second Jim shoots Artie an incredulous look before wading into the new set of henchies, among whom is Whitey, who tackles Jim last of all. Jim whirls Whitey right through the nearby wall and winds up on the ground by Artie's feet. Then comes the classic exchange:
Jim: What happened to you?
Artie: Fighting on the Sabbath? Never on Sunday!
(Which, nevertheless, always gives me a bit of a double-take moment, since to a Jew — and even to a very strange Christian like me — the Sabbath would be Saturday, not Sunday.)
Jeremiah clears all the horses out of town. We don't actually see this — imagine how expensive that would have been, showing the horses running away! — but it's implied, and to my mind implied well.
Jeremiah freaking out about the ghost.
While Jim reads the warning note and compares its handwriting with the note from Denver, Artie sneaks in the 'smoked ham' line again. And I giggle over Jeremiah's reply to help him up because his knee is killing him!
I like Jeremiah's panic over the ghost's impending possession of him to speak to the living, and Artie's line about how he and Jim have misjudged the man, that Jeremiah's scared out of his wits. Yeah, that's right, rub it in!
And the co-conspirators are left alone again to plot. And Jackson comes to realize that the way his past is catching up with him is putting his fiancée Elizabeth into danger — danger from his own friends. (But does the revolver tastes good??)
Some of Jeremiah's lines in the courthouse about how he doesn't want that spirit inside his body kind of make me think of the 'don't throw me into that briar patch' story.
Artie stands in the back, the better to keep an eye on everyone in the room. Oh, and Jim has his derringer in hand — casually, of course, with his opposite elbow resting over it to hide it from sight.
All eyes on Jeremiah! All ears too (and his voice and accent are different).
I note that Confederate Col Carson never took part in the fighting of the Civil War.
Oh, this time we get a glimpse of the horses running through town!
The interference of the horses prevents the conspirators from killing those inside the court house — they're too freaked out.
(Elizabeth freaks out well, by the way.)
My word, it looks like the whole wall is about to come down!
Artie has a time getting the door open! And what a mess outside!
Odd — I thought it was night, but it doesn't exactly look like night outside.
Jim & Artie share a glance just before the guy asks why the horses only hit this place. Nice!
Oh, Intermission is over; time for Act Two of the possession!
Wait a minute — I lost track of Jim's derringer! *rewind, rewind, rewind...* Ok, when Jeremiah started his act, Jim sat on the desk or table up front, and had the derringer in hand but hidden. In the midst of the horses racing around outside, Jim goes to Jeremiah and supports him, holding him up with both hands, just before the lamp behind them falls — so by that time he'd put the derringer away. And moments later when Jim grabs Jackson and shoves him back into his seat, he definitely doesn't have a gun in hand anymore.
Y'know, they chose well when they picked Jackson as the weak link. The others are so stony. Also, Jackson has Elizabeth to work on him.
Jim has to practically carry Jeremiah from the court house!
Oh, Artie has two hats in hand! He must have grabbed Jim's as well as his own. Nice touch!
Sammy Davis has a distinctive walk. Reminds me vaguely of the Duke, of all people!
So they go into the house and walk into an ambush. Yikes!
Act Four picks up with Jim, Artie, and Elizabeth locked in the cellar. Our Heroes spare the poor weeping woman a couple of glances and some words of comfort, but they're too busy coming up with an idea to get them all out alive to do more than that.
And then Artie goes from asking Jim to let him in on what he's talking about, to muttering 'mixing bowl' over and over, to leading Jim to the 'mixing bowl' — which looks nothing like a mixing bowl! Man, but Artie picked up on Jim's idea! The ESP is strong with these two!
Shouldn't there have been some soot falling out of that 'mixing bowl'?
(It annoys me that the closed captioning on this episode uses the spelling 'Arty.')
Powdered pepper by the barrelfull!
And just as one of Jackson's scummy buds tells him to go kill Jeremiah, who pops up in the window but Jeremiah himself, listening in on their nefarious plans!
Ok, so that's a stove pipe they're using for their *ahem* mixing bowl. Its purpose is to draft the smoke away from the stove, and it's therefore open at both ends. So how come when they pour the pepper in, it doesn't stream out all over the floor from the other end?
'Powdered potpourri surprise — spécialité de la maison of the Hotel Desperation' (another favorite line!)
Now we find out how Jeremiah knew what happened.
Jackson drinking himself some courage...
Oh, his scummy buds are planning to do away with him too!
Not too bright, going into the room where they locked up the folks they're going to kill, and they enter the room and turn their backs!
Yay, pepper cannon!
*snicker* Artie waits while the guy sneezes, then says 'Gesundheit!' just as he socks the guy in the gut!
(You can tell it's Ross' stunt double for most of the fight.)
Ok, three bad guys down, only Jackson to go!
C'mon, Artie, surely you know why Jim told you to fire three shots!
And outside, Jackson counts the shots, and knows it's his turn now. (But first he tastes the gun again. Weird.)
Oh, the flute is a nice touch!
And there's the ghost. Jeremiah's voice at last succeeds in driving Jackson completely around the bend.
Ooo, Jeremiah shoots as well as Jim — he shoots the gun right out of Jackson's hand!
Jim's about to paste Jackson good, but the guy wrestles back Jim's fist and starts screaming, 'I confess! I confess!'
Ok, so we're told the ghost Jackson shot was merely a puppet — but when Jackson was shooting it, it did not look like a puppet but like a man. (Again, I suspect Whitey was inside the costume.)
As others have pointed out, that frilly pink outfit just doesn't seem right on a woman who's watching her fiancé being hauled off to prison.
Jeremiah's final outfit, on the other hand, is pretty nice. And look at his horse! That's the same horse with the distinctive backwards question mark down its face that Artie will ride a LOT once we get to seasons three and four! (And the reason I wrote the one-shot TNOT Exchange, I might add.)
Can you imagine if Jeremiah had accepted Jim's offer of a job in the Secret Service? (Is that a plot bunny?)
Off he rides — and I get distracted by the fact that the skirt of Artie's jacket is folded back to expose his revolver in its holster. And then there's Jim's stance right at the very end there as well, as preserved in the final freeze frame.
Jim enters the cave to find other horses there ahead of him. I love the cave, so atmospheric. It must have been mighty dark if Artie couldn't recognize Jim!
Artie acts nervous inside the cave — a little carryover of him being somewhat superstitious in Season One?
Jackson's description of Jeremiah as ignorant and superstitious annoys me, since I'm pretty fond of Sammy Davis. On the other hand, it shows how much Jeremiah had Jackson fooled. (And possibly how much Jackson relied on stereotypes instead of seeing Jeremiah as an individual.)
Mention the coyote howling in the night and, presto! A coyote howls!
Pet peeve time: Jim uses his gun as a pointer! And still has it pointed in Artie's direction when he cocks the gun! Arrrrrrgggghh!
What does Jim fire into the ceiling?? Is that supposed to be an ordinary effect of a bullet hitting that kind of rock, or is that a special cartridge?
Wonder who was the guy in the ghost suit here? Whitey perhaps?
So Jim kneels on the floor of the cave shooting at the 'ghost' while Artie stands DIRECTLY BEHIND HIM also firing! Yikes, guys! (Well, from what comes later in the episode, I'm assuming both agents were firing blanks at this point, but still!) Especially Artie's first shot comes mighty close to Jim's back. (Reminds me of TN Terror Stalked the Town, when Jim crosses right in front of Artie while Artie was shooting at Janus — the time Jim's tushie knocked Artie's hat off his head.)
Jim took a LOT of headshots.
I like the opening shot of Act One, viewing the scene in a mirror. Very nice effect.
Man, but the curtains match the wallpaper!
Are they saying the unsigned note is from Pres Grant?
By the way, what time of day were they in the cave, and what time of day is it when they are talking in the parlor? Was the teaser supposed to have been during the night? And how much time is supposed to have passed before the parlor scene?
Question: Jeremiah loves animals. Why then is there a deer's head mounted on the wall?
The scene in Jeremiah's place is hard to hear; I really need the closed captioning.
It irks me every time Elizabeth calls him 'Jereemiah.' I've never heard anyone else pronounce the name that way. And it's one of my favorite names, so hearing it mispronounced really gets to me!
Jeremiah is so very poetic!
It also annoys me that Jackson instructs Jeremiah to answer the questions truthfully, implying that he would expect the young man to lie instead. (Or maybe I'm being hypersensitive.)
Jim seems harsh, almost to the point of being out-of-character. Of course we find out why later.
Jeremiah knows some moves there!
Man, that guy comes back up with a gun! Good thing Jim stopped him.
I always love Artie's remark that if it's a music instrument, he can play it. *grin*
Sheriff starts to shove Jeremiah into the smoke house, then remembers and doesn't. heh.
You know, for the longest time when I watched this and saw Jim demonstrating the trap in the saddle horn, I never understood why he looked over his shoulder after the explosion. (Good horse, btw, to put up with an explosion going off on its own back!) I finally ran the disc back some and paid attention to the background leading up to the blast — and there's a barrel back there that isn't there anymore after the explosion.
Artie does a lot of standing around and walking around in the background in this section.
Nice song, sounds like something appropriate to the era, and you could hardly have Sammy Davis in a show without letting him sing!
Yeah, Artie's playing. He plays while waving flies away from his ear? Also, that tune is pretty tuneless.
Nice fight! How did Jim sock the ghost in the face without the mask flying off? For once, Jim looks a bit like he's posing and faking as the ghost beats him up. (But we'll know why shortly.)
And the ghost just happens to steal Jim's horse and trigger the trap without harm.
The hat!
Sammy Davis is wonderful to watch and quite believable (to me, at least) in his role as Jeremiah. Peter Lawford as Jackson... well, not so much. I know we're supposed to be seeing a man falling apart, descending into madness, but I don't really see that when I watch and listen to Lawford. Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't.
Act Two begins, and they let Jeremiah out of the smoke house. My suspicion is that the singing part earlier was to support the idea that Jeremiah was in the smoke house the whole time. (But we're about to find out he wasn't.)
(The slabs of meat look a bit phony to me.)
Artie just has to rub it in that Jeremiah 'hates Jim's guts.' Our two Heroes are having fun planting the idea in Jackson's brain that this ghost is a real ghost.
Nice how the judge advises them just how to handle killing the government men, and he'll find the killer innocent afterwards.
Ah, the scene in the livery stable as Jim & Artie bring in their saddles and Jeremiah cocks and aims the gun at them. (I'm no expert; is that a rifle or a shotgun?) He aims the gun, and when Jim walks towards him, he takes an even better aim — and then he pulls that whiny bit about too much dynamite in the saddle horn! Suddenly all the adversarial act between Our Heroes and Jeremiah melts away and we begin to see what the three are really up to! This is a fun scene, one of my favorites in the episode, with Jeremiah proving that he's nearly an Artie at voices. (Wish the production hadn't resorted to the lip-syncing bit; I'd have liked to hear Sammy do his own best at imitating the various voices!)
And, of course, there's Artie's line about *ahem* smoked ham. I think Ross himself must have really loved that one!
Ah, the ace card. So much for there not being anything really supernatural in this episode.
Sammy does a good job, in my opinion, both here and later when he fakes the possession.
It's a touch odd to me that Jim invites Jeremiah to come eat lunch in the restaurant with them. Not odd that Jim issues the invitation, but odd that he would be confident that the local restaurant would allow Jeremiah in as a customer. Sadly, you couldn't be sure any given restaurant would be ok with having a black customer back then — and even more sadly, some places, you still can't be sure.
What's Artie putting into his pocket? Is that the torn mask? (I lost track.)
Jeremiah picks up on the fact that the two horsemen are going after Jim & Artie quickly! And he uses that freak-the-horses talent to unseat the two hoodlums. Good for him!
This is another favorite scene. Silly Artie! Starts into the fight, then turns away and folds his arms, leaving the dudes to Jim. Then when the new dudes rush into the fight with drawn guns, Artie quickly convinces them (at gunpoint) to drop the weapons — and now he's all yours! Just for a split second Jim shoots Artie an incredulous look before wading into the new set of henchies, among whom is Whitey, who tackles Jim last of all. Jim whirls Whitey right through the nearby wall and winds up on the ground by Artie's feet. Then comes the classic exchange:
Jim: What happened to you?
Artie: Fighting on the Sabbath? Never on Sunday!
(Which, nevertheless, always gives me a bit of a double-take moment, since to a Jew — and even to a very strange Christian like me — the Sabbath would be Saturday, not Sunday.)
Jeremiah clears all the horses out of town. We don't actually see this — imagine how expensive that would have been, showing the horses running away! — but it's implied, and to my mind implied well.
Jeremiah freaking out about the ghost.
While Jim reads the warning note and compares its handwriting with the note from Denver, Artie sneaks in the 'smoked ham' line again. And I giggle over Jeremiah's reply to help him up because his knee is killing him!
I like Jeremiah's panic over the ghost's impending possession of him to speak to the living, and Artie's line about how he and Jim have misjudged the man, that Jeremiah's scared out of his wits. Yeah, that's right, rub it in!
And the co-conspirators are left alone again to plot. And Jackson comes to realize that the way his past is catching up with him is putting his fiancée Elizabeth into danger — danger from his own friends. (But does the revolver tastes good??)
Some of Jeremiah's lines in the courthouse about how he doesn't want that spirit inside his body kind of make me think of the 'don't throw me into that briar patch' story.
Artie stands in the back, the better to keep an eye on everyone in the room. Oh, and Jim has his derringer in hand — casually, of course, with his opposite elbow resting over it to hide it from sight.
All eyes on Jeremiah! All ears too (and his voice and accent are different).
I note that Confederate Col Carson never took part in the fighting of the Civil War.
Oh, this time we get a glimpse of the horses running through town!
The interference of the horses prevents the conspirators from killing those inside the court house — they're too freaked out.
(Elizabeth freaks out well, by the way.)
My word, it looks like the whole wall is about to come down!
Artie has a time getting the door open! And what a mess outside!
Odd — I thought it was night, but it doesn't exactly look like night outside.
Jim & Artie share a glance just before the guy asks why the horses only hit this place. Nice!
Oh, Intermission is over; time for Act Two of the possession!
Wait a minute — I lost track of Jim's derringer! *rewind, rewind, rewind...* Ok, when Jeremiah started his act, Jim sat on the desk or table up front, and had the derringer in hand but hidden. In the midst of the horses racing around outside, Jim goes to Jeremiah and supports him, holding him up with both hands, just before the lamp behind them falls — so by that time he'd put the derringer away. And moments later when Jim grabs Jackson and shoves him back into his seat, he definitely doesn't have a gun in hand anymore.
Y'know, they chose well when they picked Jackson as the weak link. The others are so stony. Also, Jackson has Elizabeth to work on him.
Jim has to practically carry Jeremiah from the court house!
Oh, Artie has two hats in hand! He must have grabbed Jim's as well as his own. Nice touch!
Sammy Davis has a distinctive walk. Reminds me vaguely of the Duke, of all people!
So they go into the house and walk into an ambush. Yikes!
Act Four picks up with Jim, Artie, and Elizabeth locked in the cellar. Our Heroes spare the poor weeping woman a couple of glances and some words of comfort, but they're too busy coming up with an idea to get them all out alive to do more than that.
And then Artie goes from asking Jim to let him in on what he's talking about, to muttering 'mixing bowl' over and over, to leading Jim to the 'mixing bowl' — which looks nothing like a mixing bowl! Man, but Artie picked up on Jim's idea! The ESP is strong with these two!
Shouldn't there have been some soot falling out of that 'mixing bowl'?
(It annoys me that the closed captioning on this episode uses the spelling 'Arty.')
Powdered pepper by the barrelfull!
And just as one of Jackson's scummy buds tells him to go kill Jeremiah, who pops up in the window but Jeremiah himself, listening in on their nefarious plans!
Ok, so that's a stove pipe they're using for their *ahem* mixing bowl. Its purpose is to draft the smoke away from the stove, and it's therefore open at both ends. So how come when they pour the pepper in, it doesn't stream out all over the floor from the other end?
'Powdered potpourri surprise — spécialité de la maison of the Hotel Desperation' (another favorite line!)
Now we find out how Jeremiah knew what happened.
Jackson drinking himself some courage...
Oh, his scummy buds are planning to do away with him too!
Not too bright, going into the room where they locked up the folks they're going to kill, and they enter the room and turn their backs!
Yay, pepper cannon!
*snicker* Artie waits while the guy sneezes, then says 'Gesundheit!' just as he socks the guy in the gut!
(You can tell it's Ross' stunt double for most of the fight.)
Ok, three bad guys down, only Jackson to go!
C'mon, Artie, surely you know why Jim told you to fire three shots!
And outside, Jackson counts the shots, and knows it's his turn now. (But first he tastes the gun again. Weird.)
Oh, the flute is a nice touch!
And there's the ghost. Jeremiah's voice at last succeeds in driving Jackson completely around the bend.
Ooo, Jeremiah shoots as well as Jim — he shoots the gun right out of Jackson's hand!
Jim's about to paste Jackson good, but the guy wrestles back Jim's fist and starts screaming, 'I confess! I confess!'
Ok, so we're told the ghost Jackson shot was merely a puppet — but when Jackson was shooting it, it did not look like a puppet but like a man. (Again, I suspect Whitey was inside the costume.)
As others have pointed out, that frilly pink outfit just doesn't seem right on a woman who's watching her fiancé being hauled off to prison.
Jeremiah's final outfit, on the other hand, is pretty nice. And look at his horse! That's the same horse with the distinctive backwards question mark down its face that Artie will ride a LOT once we get to seasons three and four! (And the reason I wrote the one-shot TNOT Exchange, I might add.)
Can you imagine if Jeremiah had accepted Jim's offer of a job in the Secret Service? (Is that a plot bunny?)
Off he rides — and I get distracted by the fact that the skirt of Artie's jacket is folded back to expose his revolver in its holster. And then there's Jim's stance right at the very end there as well, as preserved in the final freeze frame.