Post by niecie on Feb 20, 2015 13:25:45 GMT -5
(With my car acting up again, I decided to put my stay-at-home time to good use by watching lots of WWW. That's being productive, right?)
Well, we start out with a sign in English and French telling us this is the point of embarkation for Devil's Island — and along with the sign is the sound of chains rattling as the prisoners march along. Curiously, when we cut to the next shot of the boxes and barrels the inmates walk past, there are boxes marked HANDLE WITH CARE, LAMPS, CRYSTAL, PAINTINGS, FURNITURE, FRAGILE — and all those words on the boxes are in English only!
Among the prisoners the camera picks out one man in particular. This is Henri Couteau (NOT Andre Couteau, as IMDb has him listed). In a quiz a while back on one of the WWW forums, the quizmaster made the point that the name Henri Couteau is the French version of Henry Sharp, WWW's longtime Story Consultant. (Sharp's name makes a German-language appearance later in season two, in the person of Heinrich Sharff in Feathered Fury.)
The actor playing Henri Couteau might be familiar; Chuck O'Brien played Janus in Dr Loveless' second appearance. In that show Janus took the place of Jim West, but here it's reversed, since Jim is about to take Couteau's place!
Oo, there's Whitey, the guard sitting at the desk!
This may be the way to Devil's Island, but there's precious little spoken French going on.
The guards lead the prisoners over to a rather small rowboat. Makes me wonder how far they are going by rowboat. Is the island that close by, or are they being taken to a ship?
The camera picks out Couteau again. Up comes a hand and grabs his pants leg, and pulls him over into the water! But when the guards pluck him out again, he first stands up with his hands over his face, and when he takes his hands down — why, it's Jim! Not that any of the guards notice a difference. (Or else this episode would be over in a hurry.)
So the prisoners get to provide the rowing power of the rowboat. Nice.
(I'd have a hard enough time stepping down into that boat, being both acrophobic and a klutz, but to have to jump down into it while wearing chains! Oy!)
And now we get a view of what's going on under the pier. It just dawned on me that the black-sleeve-clad arm that came up and tipped Couteau over was Artie's. For some reason I like the fact that Artie keeps letting the water get into his mouth; I kinda like the wet hair plastered across his forehead too.
Nice little bit of banter between Artie and the prisoner he helped to escape to close out the teaser (and we'll see later that helping that guy escape was a good deed!).
Wonder where the establishing shots of Devil's Island were taken?
Here at least the signs are written in French. Ah, and there's a lovely bit of atmosphere: the guillotine, and being used to cut a cabbage! (So why doesn't the guard pick up the other half of the cabbage?)
And here's the episode's Girl! She peeks out the window to inspect the new prisoners, and she must like something she sees, yeah? The seamstress behind her is disapproving.
Man, that guard with the clipboard has an inconsistent accent! The way he says, 'Alors!' I could hardly understand the word. For that matter, with his heavy five o'clock shadow, he looks a bit like a refugee from the Flintstones.
Jim has a lot of fun teasing him.
And after all the work the seamstress did, sewing that lace collar onto the Girl's dress, she just peels it off again to show off her décolletage. (Again the seamstress disapproves.) (By the way, I'm not sure, but I might just have detected the sound of velcro opening when she removes the lace collar.)
The inside guard sure doesn't give Jim much time to obey! From the time he says, 'Take it off!' to the time he grabs Jim's shirt and pops the buttons off is like a nanosecond.
The guard takes the stairs in a stiff-legged manner. This becomes important later.
They stand before the big bare wall... and the wall opens up to reveal a very fine office. And then the chair swivels around for the Big Bad's big entrance. Theo Marcuse! He was so good at playing villains. Such a pity he died so young!
I like Jim's 'Maybe in time' response to 'I thought you'd look older.'
The Big Bad takes off one pair of white gloves, and immediately puts on a new pair.
The guard is introduced as Cochon. How flattering to be nicknamed Pig! Social director — my, but the Big Bad has sooooo many euphemisms for what's really going on in his prison.
And now we find out why Henri Couteau was sent to Devil's Island. He wrote an exposé on the evils of that very penal colony, naming the Big Bad himself, Gustave Mauvais, as an arch villain. Couteau was then placed on trial himself for impugning the honor of his nation — a kangaroo court, of course, with the verdict never in doubt. (Reminds me of the Dreyfus affair.)
So yeah, I'm glad Our Heroes helped Couteau escape!
So Jim steps forward to ask to see the report Mauvais has been reading from, and now we learn one of the Big Bad's big quirks: he's a raging germophobe!
But just as Cochon is about to pound Jim for reaching out his filthy hand to Mauvais, there's a knock on the door. It is Mme Mauvais, come to ostensibly ask her husband's opinion as to which dress she should wear for the reception (Reception? Who are they receiving? Surely it's not in honor of the new group of prisoners!)
Mauvais isn't fooled for a moment. Seriously, no one is fooled for a moment! The woman obviously came up with an excuse to come take a closer look at Jim's fine features, hard muscles, and engaging tousled hair (just ask Mauvais the bald!).
Actually, this begs a question: what kind of marriage does she have with Mauvais the germophobe anyway? She speaks later of him torturing her. Does she mean by that that he hits her, or that he never touches her at all?
I like the way the seamstress passes through the door, one dress ahead of her, the other behind. (But then I'm fond of that character actress!)
And now we are introduced to Cochon's foot of doom. Funny how many times in this show there's a character with an iron leg (or two).
Aw — Jim didn't want to give up the nice shirt! (But it makes for another opportunity for Jim to have his shirt off.)
Jim's not very subtle, hauling that rock here and there to ask about the prisoner named Reed.
The water cart. (It gets smashed later.) That one scummy guy pushes his way into line first, drinks his cup of water (and that ain't a lot of water to replenish some guy who's been toiling so hard under a hot sun!), then yanks the guy in front of Jim out of line to steal his water as well. Skunk! But Jim gives him what he deserves. *grin* (And the guard in the background saw the whole thing, but did nothing.)
Is it my imagination, or is it only the same two or three cups being used over and over again?
Jim finally finds a lead on Reed from the guy he restored to his place in line. Unfortunately, Cochon sees! Ugh, but that Cochon is nasty, and so is the guy holding his leash! Cochon has tossed Jim's new friend in the path of a giant crusher, and Mauvais won't do anything to spare the man's life — until Jim clobbers Cochon with an elbow to the gut, then scrambles up the hill to grab Mauvais by the collar with his filthy hands! The shot of the roller coming closer and closer to the unconscious prisoner, then panning up, is quite a chilling effect!
And then Mauvais breaks and orders Cochon to stop the roller — which he does with a single swift kick.
And then Jim gets to live out the saying 'No good deed goes unpunished.' *sigh* The way Mauvais claws at his white gloves to yank them off after Jim touched him, and then later unfurls a white hankie to lean on the bars of the Pit — nice touches both.
Jim however is now where he wanted to be, for here in the Pit, as his unfortunate friend told him, is Vincent Reed, the man he's come to rescue. Jim greets him by name, then falls unconscious from the flogging Cochon just gave him. Ah, the life of a Secret Service agent!
Act Two begins with Reed doctoring Jim's wounds as best he can with the one home remedy the Pit has in abundance: mud. Jim is full of quips, as usual. He pretends at first to be the prisoner he took the place of, but after he and Reed sing that silly little code song, Reed realizes this is James West, and the Department hasn't forgotten him! His date with Matilda the guillotine is in approximately eighteen hours!
(I never actually noticed either whip marks or mud on Jim's back.)
Oh, and now we meet Le Fou, the other merry inhabitant of the Pit. Apt name; it's French for 'the fool.' Steve Franken does his best crazy monkey imitation.
By the way, here are the lyrics of the code song:
Old Master Jip, he liked his nip
Of rum and cowslip brandy.
He'd polish off his cup and then he'd sup
On beets and licorice ca-andy.
(Except drunken Artie later on messes up the final line.)
I had a little trouble understanding Jim's line about 'You'll be doing the same shortly.' Every time I hear the line, I think Jim's saying Reed will be doing the crazy monkey thing soon, so it took me a while to realize he's referencing Reed's line about escaping his environment.
And now the segue about miracles, where Jim starts off singing the code song, and we cut to Artie finishing the song. *grin*
So, is Artie doing an accent when he's singing? Sounds a bit Southern maybe, but he doesn't seem to carry the accent further.
Y'know, I think someone on the production staff of WWW just LOVED putting a cane into Artie's hand, and he just loved twirling it! You get to see him doing so for several seconds here while he finishes the song and Cochon limps down the stairs to yank him to his feet.
Many fans have told me how much they love the look Artie fires at Cochon over his shoulder as the wall to the commandant's office begins to open.
What a salute, eh?
'For the good of the service' — one of my favorite bits!
A bit of topsy-turvydom here, since all Gaspard's bad qualities are the qualities Mauvais esteems.
Ross really plays up the lopsided mouth here.
Theo Marcuse does a wonderful job with his smarmy commandant role, doesn't he!
'The Chamber of Togetherness!' Charming, just charming.
I always wonder why the two guys already in the chamber haven't already taken out one or the other.
The way Artie saunters into the chamber!
So there's a bolt on both sides of the door? In fact, it even looks like there are two locks on the inside?
Artie's uniform has a jacket but no shirt?
Artie's lines are a great counterpoint to the action, since he's talking about NOT resorting to physical violence, even as he dodges a thrown knife, then dodges a charge, rams his swagger stick into the gut of the other guy, smashes a chair into both guys, and tops it off by throwing down his cigar, which turns out to be a knock-out bomb. Artie, conveniently equipped with a gas mask, then goes into an act of being in the midst of a HUGE fight, making all sorts of sound effects for the benefit of Mauvais and Cochon outside. (It's no wonder that Cochon thinks Gaspard is losing the fight, since the only voice he hears is Gaspard's crying out.)
Artie finally decides the air is breathable and puts away the gas mask, all the while continuing to break things and make noises. I like that he lifts the swagger stick, takes aim at a lamp on the wall, then decides against smashing it. He takes a seat, smacks the chair he's in against the wall, pounds the wall with his fist for good measure, then decides he puts on enough of an act. So now he straightens his clothes and smoothes his hair before knocking on the door: the 'shave and a haircut' pattern, of course, which the background music obligingly completes.
And the look on the faces of Mauvais and Cochon as Gaspard emerges unscathed, YAWNS, then drops casually into a seat as if he'd merely gone to a garden party! *applause for Artie!*
And now drunken Artie sings the song. He's been at the officers' club, drinking with Cochon. Artie's drunken rant about the Pit is hilarious, and the way he distracts Cochon while he drops something into the Pit for Jim is just great.
The thing he drops turns out to be a hard-boiled egg, which Jim peels only to discover the key to the Pit's lock within it. Which leads to a puzzling question: how on Earth did Artie manage to secrete a metal key inside a hard-boiled egg?? (What, he fed the key to the hen??)
Jim sets out climbing up the walls of the Pit. I like that there's the litter of egg shell bits on the floor as he climbs. He takes two tries to get up to the top and uses the key.
The good news is that Jim gets out. The bad news is that, as he is about to get Reed out as well, guards surround Jim and march him away.
The good news is that they take him to see Camille Mauvais, who wants Jim's help to escape herself. And the bad news, naturally, is that Mauvais walks in on the conversation and Jim is captured again.
So does Mauvais know about the secret passage that leads to his wife's boudoir?
The actress who plays Camille Mauvais also played Season One's Sgt Musk in Red-Eyed Madmen, as well as Mary Lennox in Season Three's Circus of Death.
How did she know Jim had already escaped the Pit? She didn't talk to any of the guards who brought Jim to her.
And here is the point where Camille says her husband tortures her.
Fire ants. It had to be fire ants.
Poor Hercule!
Memorable way to die. Mauvais and his charming turns of phrase!
Either Artie is whistling along with the background music, or the music is playing along with his whistling, but it's one of my favorite moments (and one that I remember seeing back when I was a kid). I also love the little gesture he makes, wordlessly informing the gate guards that he's off to see a woman (and notice that he works a bit of a wolf whistle into his tune at that point). (The little tip of the hat and the glint in his eye are cute touches too. The thumbs-up as well.)
Y'know, come to think of it, I'm beginning to suspect that whenever they have Artie whistling to the background music (such as here and in TNOT Cadre), they probably just had Ross mime whistling and looped the whistling sound in later.
Well, he wasn't lying that he was going to see a woman! I'm sure Mrs Grimes was not the sort of woman the gate guards thought he meant.
Nose flick.
Artie's watch plays the Master Jip tune, and so does Mrs Grimes'. The entire sign-countersign scene is lovely. And Artie does a great distraction when the kid comes in.
(I like the little glance she gives as she manages to pull the map from the vase!)
Artie gets to Jim just in time to rescues him from the ants, but why on earth does Artie address Jim as 'Mr West'??
So Artie knocked Cochon out? And the exchange of 'Can you walk?' 'Not very well. Let's try running' is a big favorite!
J&A try the bold approach, with Artie giving Jim little critiques on his acting. What a pity the bold approach doesn't work today!
Oh yay, every guard in the place comes running! But notice the little guard just to Mauvais' left. Look familiar? Yep, it's our ol' buddy Le Fou. I like the nod of acknowledgement Artie gives when Le Fou outs him.
Here we go: the promised fight between Jim and Cochon. Mauvais, of course, has his little shaded chair ready to perch on to watch the festivities!
There went the water cart!
There went Matilda!
There went the porch of the Administration building!
There went Artie's and Reed's guards! *grin*
Turns out that swagger stick Artie's been carrying with him all over the place is a mini cannon! More havoc ensues!
One of those 'the bad guys can't shoot straight' moments? Because Artie and Reed are right out there in the open, no cover whatsoever, but all the guards didn't hit them.
Oh, here comes Camille to the rescue, in her pretty pink negligee with the matching silk bows in her hair! They put the not-so-secret passage to her boudoir to good use.
(By the way, the door Our Heroes and Reed are heading for when Camille calls out to them looks to me like the door to the secret passage toward the end of TNOT Assassin.)
So she's had a window to the outside all this time! All she needed was a way off the island entirely.
I love — absolutely love — the exchange here, when Camille insists she's coming too, and when Jim objects 'Like that?' she throws a feather boa around her shoulders and voilà! she's ready!
(They don't show Artie running very often in the series, and for good reason, I think: Ross runs like a girl.)
Oh dear — look who's waiting near the boat!
And now a scummy little exchange about Mrs Grimes. I presume we are being told that dear Mrs Grimes is no longer among the living.
Y'know, when the good guys reach the beach and Jim looks back, I wonder that he didn't notice the bad guys standing in the background?
Off they go!
Mauvais gets ready to shoot at Our Heroes, first producing a mighty small gun from the white pouch at his side, then producing a handkerchief as well to wipe off the gun.
*wince* When they cut back to the boat and Camille is on her feet trying to shift to a different seat, I always expect her to fall right out of the boat.
The smiling Mauvais finishes polishing his little gun and steps forward to fire it — and walks right into a pool of quicksand. Remarkably quick quicksand too!
Ok, I understand Mauvais panicking, particularly because he's so fearful of dirt of any kind. I understand him yelling at Cochon, and apparently Cochon understands his boss to be yelling for him to take out the escapees. But what I don't understand is this: why on earth does Mauvais start shooting that little gun of his, and especially why does he shoot his own man in the back??
The folks in the boat whirl at the sound of gunfire; I assume they see Mauvais perish in the quicksand? (Since Camille obviously believes later that her nasty first husband is dead.) And there goes Cochon with three holes in his back, marching on into the water after the boat!
Sharks typically come in that close to the shore?
Everyone turns away from the icky moment.
Ah, and there's the ship to pick them all up!
And so to the Tag. Wonder why Artie was looking out the window? Jim doesn't guess who Artie is talking about until he mentions the feather boa. Then Artie goes off to let her in, glancing through the glazing to be sure he opens the door for her at just the right second.
And behold! She's wearing the same feather boa she escaped in!
She's so happy as she bestows kisses upon both Our Heroes. But her little quibble puzzles me. When she invites the two to be the first to congratulate her, Artie asks if she's getting married. And she says, 'No. Engaged.' Uh... doesn't that amount to the same thing? Doesn't 'engaged' mean the same thing as 'getting married'? Huh?
And they get to meet the lucky fellow promptly. Somewhat familiar dude, ain't he? Camille seems to have a very precise taste in men, or at least in how they look!
But as Jim points out, this one at least doesn't mind shaking hands!
And with Theo Marcuse in a wig effusively greeting Our Heroes, we bow out of one of my (many) favorite episodes.
Well, we start out with a sign in English and French telling us this is the point of embarkation for Devil's Island — and along with the sign is the sound of chains rattling as the prisoners march along. Curiously, when we cut to the next shot of the boxes and barrels the inmates walk past, there are boxes marked HANDLE WITH CARE, LAMPS, CRYSTAL, PAINTINGS, FURNITURE, FRAGILE — and all those words on the boxes are in English only!
Among the prisoners the camera picks out one man in particular. This is Henri Couteau (NOT Andre Couteau, as IMDb has him listed). In a quiz a while back on one of the WWW forums, the quizmaster made the point that the name Henri Couteau is the French version of Henry Sharp, WWW's longtime Story Consultant. (Sharp's name makes a German-language appearance later in season two, in the person of Heinrich Sharff in Feathered Fury.)
The actor playing Henri Couteau might be familiar; Chuck O'Brien played Janus in Dr Loveless' second appearance. In that show Janus took the place of Jim West, but here it's reversed, since Jim is about to take Couteau's place!
Oo, there's Whitey, the guard sitting at the desk!
This may be the way to Devil's Island, but there's precious little spoken French going on.
The guards lead the prisoners over to a rather small rowboat. Makes me wonder how far they are going by rowboat. Is the island that close by, or are they being taken to a ship?
The camera picks out Couteau again. Up comes a hand and grabs his pants leg, and pulls him over into the water! But when the guards pluck him out again, he first stands up with his hands over his face, and when he takes his hands down — why, it's Jim! Not that any of the guards notice a difference. (Or else this episode would be over in a hurry.)
So the prisoners get to provide the rowing power of the rowboat. Nice.
(I'd have a hard enough time stepping down into that boat, being both acrophobic and a klutz, but to have to jump down into it while wearing chains! Oy!)
And now we get a view of what's going on under the pier. It just dawned on me that the black-sleeve-clad arm that came up and tipped Couteau over was Artie's. For some reason I like the fact that Artie keeps letting the water get into his mouth; I kinda like the wet hair plastered across his forehead too.
Nice little bit of banter between Artie and the prisoner he helped to escape to close out the teaser (and we'll see later that helping that guy escape was a good deed!).
Wonder where the establishing shots of Devil's Island were taken?
Here at least the signs are written in French. Ah, and there's a lovely bit of atmosphere: the guillotine, and being used to cut a cabbage! (So why doesn't the guard pick up the other half of the cabbage?)
And here's the episode's Girl! She peeks out the window to inspect the new prisoners, and she must like something she sees, yeah? The seamstress behind her is disapproving.
Man, that guard with the clipboard has an inconsistent accent! The way he says, 'Alors!' I could hardly understand the word. For that matter, with his heavy five o'clock shadow, he looks a bit like a refugee from the Flintstones.
Jim has a lot of fun teasing him.
And after all the work the seamstress did, sewing that lace collar onto the Girl's dress, she just peels it off again to show off her décolletage. (Again the seamstress disapproves.) (By the way, I'm not sure, but I might just have detected the sound of velcro opening when she removes the lace collar.)
The inside guard sure doesn't give Jim much time to obey! From the time he says, 'Take it off!' to the time he grabs Jim's shirt and pops the buttons off is like a nanosecond.
The guard takes the stairs in a stiff-legged manner. This becomes important later.
They stand before the big bare wall... and the wall opens up to reveal a very fine office. And then the chair swivels around for the Big Bad's big entrance. Theo Marcuse! He was so good at playing villains. Such a pity he died so young!
I like Jim's 'Maybe in time' response to 'I thought you'd look older.'
The Big Bad takes off one pair of white gloves, and immediately puts on a new pair.
The guard is introduced as Cochon. How flattering to be nicknamed Pig! Social director — my, but the Big Bad has sooooo many euphemisms for what's really going on in his prison.
And now we find out why Henri Couteau was sent to Devil's Island. He wrote an exposé on the evils of that very penal colony, naming the Big Bad himself, Gustave Mauvais, as an arch villain. Couteau was then placed on trial himself for impugning the honor of his nation — a kangaroo court, of course, with the verdict never in doubt. (Reminds me of the Dreyfus affair.)
So yeah, I'm glad Our Heroes helped Couteau escape!
So Jim steps forward to ask to see the report Mauvais has been reading from, and now we learn one of the Big Bad's big quirks: he's a raging germophobe!
But just as Cochon is about to pound Jim for reaching out his filthy hand to Mauvais, there's a knock on the door. It is Mme Mauvais, come to ostensibly ask her husband's opinion as to which dress she should wear for the reception (Reception? Who are they receiving? Surely it's not in honor of the new group of prisoners!)
Mauvais isn't fooled for a moment. Seriously, no one is fooled for a moment! The woman obviously came up with an excuse to come take a closer look at Jim's fine features, hard muscles, and engaging tousled hair (just ask Mauvais the bald!).
Actually, this begs a question: what kind of marriage does she have with Mauvais the germophobe anyway? She speaks later of him torturing her. Does she mean by that that he hits her, or that he never touches her at all?
I like the way the seamstress passes through the door, one dress ahead of her, the other behind. (But then I'm fond of that character actress!)
And now we are introduced to Cochon's foot of doom. Funny how many times in this show there's a character with an iron leg (or two).
Aw — Jim didn't want to give up the nice shirt! (But it makes for another opportunity for Jim to have his shirt off.)
Jim's not very subtle, hauling that rock here and there to ask about the prisoner named Reed.
The water cart. (It gets smashed later.) That one scummy guy pushes his way into line first, drinks his cup of water (and that ain't a lot of water to replenish some guy who's been toiling so hard under a hot sun!), then yanks the guy in front of Jim out of line to steal his water as well. Skunk! But Jim gives him what he deserves. *grin* (And the guard in the background saw the whole thing, but did nothing.)
Is it my imagination, or is it only the same two or three cups being used over and over again?
Jim finally finds a lead on Reed from the guy he restored to his place in line. Unfortunately, Cochon sees! Ugh, but that Cochon is nasty, and so is the guy holding his leash! Cochon has tossed Jim's new friend in the path of a giant crusher, and Mauvais won't do anything to spare the man's life — until Jim clobbers Cochon with an elbow to the gut, then scrambles up the hill to grab Mauvais by the collar with his filthy hands! The shot of the roller coming closer and closer to the unconscious prisoner, then panning up, is quite a chilling effect!
And then Mauvais breaks and orders Cochon to stop the roller — which he does with a single swift kick.
And then Jim gets to live out the saying 'No good deed goes unpunished.' *sigh* The way Mauvais claws at his white gloves to yank them off after Jim touched him, and then later unfurls a white hankie to lean on the bars of the Pit — nice touches both.
Jim however is now where he wanted to be, for here in the Pit, as his unfortunate friend told him, is Vincent Reed, the man he's come to rescue. Jim greets him by name, then falls unconscious from the flogging Cochon just gave him. Ah, the life of a Secret Service agent!
Act Two begins with Reed doctoring Jim's wounds as best he can with the one home remedy the Pit has in abundance: mud. Jim is full of quips, as usual. He pretends at first to be the prisoner he took the place of, but after he and Reed sing that silly little code song, Reed realizes this is James West, and the Department hasn't forgotten him! His date with Matilda the guillotine is in approximately eighteen hours!
(I never actually noticed either whip marks or mud on Jim's back.)
Oh, and now we meet Le Fou, the other merry inhabitant of the Pit. Apt name; it's French for 'the fool.' Steve Franken does his best crazy monkey imitation.
By the way, here are the lyrics of the code song:
Old Master Jip, he liked his nip
Of rum and cowslip brandy.
He'd polish off his cup and then he'd sup
On beets and licorice ca-andy.
(Except drunken Artie later on messes up the final line.)
I had a little trouble understanding Jim's line about 'You'll be doing the same shortly.' Every time I hear the line, I think Jim's saying Reed will be doing the crazy monkey thing soon, so it took me a while to realize he's referencing Reed's line about escaping his environment.
And now the segue about miracles, where Jim starts off singing the code song, and we cut to Artie finishing the song. *grin*
So, is Artie doing an accent when he's singing? Sounds a bit Southern maybe, but he doesn't seem to carry the accent further.
Y'know, I think someone on the production staff of WWW just LOVED putting a cane into Artie's hand, and he just loved twirling it! You get to see him doing so for several seconds here while he finishes the song and Cochon limps down the stairs to yank him to his feet.
Many fans have told me how much they love the look Artie fires at Cochon over his shoulder as the wall to the commandant's office begins to open.
What a salute, eh?
'For the good of the service' — one of my favorite bits!
A bit of topsy-turvydom here, since all Gaspard's bad qualities are the qualities Mauvais esteems.
Ross really plays up the lopsided mouth here.
Theo Marcuse does a wonderful job with his smarmy commandant role, doesn't he!
'The Chamber of Togetherness!' Charming, just charming.
I always wonder why the two guys already in the chamber haven't already taken out one or the other.
The way Artie saunters into the chamber!
So there's a bolt on both sides of the door? In fact, it even looks like there are two locks on the inside?
Artie's uniform has a jacket but no shirt?
Artie's lines are a great counterpoint to the action, since he's talking about NOT resorting to physical violence, even as he dodges a thrown knife, then dodges a charge, rams his swagger stick into the gut of the other guy, smashes a chair into both guys, and tops it off by throwing down his cigar, which turns out to be a knock-out bomb. Artie, conveniently equipped with a gas mask, then goes into an act of being in the midst of a HUGE fight, making all sorts of sound effects for the benefit of Mauvais and Cochon outside. (It's no wonder that Cochon thinks Gaspard is losing the fight, since the only voice he hears is Gaspard's crying out.)
Artie finally decides the air is breathable and puts away the gas mask, all the while continuing to break things and make noises. I like that he lifts the swagger stick, takes aim at a lamp on the wall, then decides against smashing it. He takes a seat, smacks the chair he's in against the wall, pounds the wall with his fist for good measure, then decides he puts on enough of an act. So now he straightens his clothes and smoothes his hair before knocking on the door: the 'shave and a haircut' pattern, of course, which the background music obligingly completes.
And the look on the faces of Mauvais and Cochon as Gaspard emerges unscathed, YAWNS, then drops casually into a seat as if he'd merely gone to a garden party! *applause for Artie!*
And now drunken Artie sings the song. He's been at the officers' club, drinking with Cochon. Artie's drunken rant about the Pit is hilarious, and the way he distracts Cochon while he drops something into the Pit for Jim is just great.
The thing he drops turns out to be a hard-boiled egg, which Jim peels only to discover the key to the Pit's lock within it. Which leads to a puzzling question: how on Earth did Artie manage to secrete a metal key inside a hard-boiled egg?? (What, he fed the key to the hen??)
Jim sets out climbing up the walls of the Pit. I like that there's the litter of egg shell bits on the floor as he climbs. He takes two tries to get up to the top and uses the key.
The good news is that Jim gets out. The bad news is that, as he is about to get Reed out as well, guards surround Jim and march him away.
The good news is that they take him to see Camille Mauvais, who wants Jim's help to escape herself. And the bad news, naturally, is that Mauvais walks in on the conversation and Jim is captured again.
So does Mauvais know about the secret passage that leads to his wife's boudoir?
The actress who plays Camille Mauvais also played Season One's Sgt Musk in Red-Eyed Madmen, as well as Mary Lennox in Season Three's Circus of Death.
How did she know Jim had already escaped the Pit? She didn't talk to any of the guards who brought Jim to her.
And here is the point where Camille says her husband tortures her.
Fire ants. It had to be fire ants.
Poor Hercule!
Memorable way to die. Mauvais and his charming turns of phrase!
Either Artie is whistling along with the background music, or the music is playing along with his whistling, but it's one of my favorite moments (and one that I remember seeing back when I was a kid). I also love the little gesture he makes, wordlessly informing the gate guards that he's off to see a woman (and notice that he works a bit of a wolf whistle into his tune at that point). (The little tip of the hat and the glint in his eye are cute touches too. The thumbs-up as well.)
Y'know, come to think of it, I'm beginning to suspect that whenever they have Artie whistling to the background music (such as here and in TNOT Cadre), they probably just had Ross mime whistling and looped the whistling sound in later.
Well, he wasn't lying that he was going to see a woman! I'm sure Mrs Grimes was not the sort of woman the gate guards thought he meant.
Nose flick.
Artie's watch plays the Master Jip tune, and so does Mrs Grimes'. The entire sign-countersign scene is lovely. And Artie does a great distraction when the kid comes in.
(I like the little glance she gives as she manages to pull the map from the vase!)
Artie gets to Jim just in time to rescues him from the ants, but why on earth does Artie address Jim as 'Mr West'??
So Artie knocked Cochon out? And the exchange of 'Can you walk?' 'Not very well. Let's try running' is a big favorite!
J&A try the bold approach, with Artie giving Jim little critiques on his acting. What a pity the bold approach doesn't work today!
Oh yay, every guard in the place comes running! But notice the little guard just to Mauvais' left. Look familiar? Yep, it's our ol' buddy Le Fou. I like the nod of acknowledgement Artie gives when Le Fou outs him.
Here we go: the promised fight between Jim and Cochon. Mauvais, of course, has his little shaded chair ready to perch on to watch the festivities!
There went the water cart!
There went Matilda!
There went the porch of the Administration building!
There went Artie's and Reed's guards! *grin*
Turns out that swagger stick Artie's been carrying with him all over the place is a mini cannon! More havoc ensues!
One of those 'the bad guys can't shoot straight' moments? Because Artie and Reed are right out there in the open, no cover whatsoever, but all the guards didn't hit them.
Oh, here comes Camille to the rescue, in her pretty pink negligee with the matching silk bows in her hair! They put the not-so-secret passage to her boudoir to good use.
(By the way, the door Our Heroes and Reed are heading for when Camille calls out to them looks to me like the door to the secret passage toward the end of TNOT Assassin.)
So she's had a window to the outside all this time! All she needed was a way off the island entirely.
I love — absolutely love — the exchange here, when Camille insists she's coming too, and when Jim objects 'Like that?' she throws a feather boa around her shoulders and voilà! she's ready!
(They don't show Artie running very often in the series, and for good reason, I think: Ross runs like a girl.)
Oh dear — look who's waiting near the boat!
And now a scummy little exchange about Mrs Grimes. I presume we are being told that dear Mrs Grimes is no longer among the living.
Y'know, when the good guys reach the beach and Jim looks back, I wonder that he didn't notice the bad guys standing in the background?
Off they go!
Mauvais gets ready to shoot at Our Heroes, first producing a mighty small gun from the white pouch at his side, then producing a handkerchief as well to wipe off the gun.
*wince* When they cut back to the boat and Camille is on her feet trying to shift to a different seat, I always expect her to fall right out of the boat.
The smiling Mauvais finishes polishing his little gun and steps forward to fire it — and walks right into a pool of quicksand. Remarkably quick quicksand too!
Ok, I understand Mauvais panicking, particularly because he's so fearful of dirt of any kind. I understand him yelling at Cochon, and apparently Cochon understands his boss to be yelling for him to take out the escapees. But what I don't understand is this: why on earth does Mauvais start shooting that little gun of his, and especially why does he shoot his own man in the back??
The folks in the boat whirl at the sound of gunfire; I assume they see Mauvais perish in the quicksand? (Since Camille obviously believes later that her nasty first husband is dead.) And there goes Cochon with three holes in his back, marching on into the water after the boat!
Sharks typically come in that close to the shore?
Everyone turns away from the icky moment.
Ah, and there's the ship to pick them all up!
And so to the Tag. Wonder why Artie was looking out the window? Jim doesn't guess who Artie is talking about until he mentions the feather boa. Then Artie goes off to let her in, glancing through the glazing to be sure he opens the door for her at just the right second.
And behold! She's wearing the same feather boa she escaped in!
She's so happy as she bestows kisses upon both Our Heroes. But her little quibble puzzles me. When she invites the two to be the first to congratulate her, Artie asks if she's getting married. And she says, 'No. Engaged.' Uh... doesn't that amount to the same thing? Doesn't 'engaged' mean the same thing as 'getting married'? Huh?
And they get to meet the lucky fellow promptly. Somewhat familiar dude, ain't he? Camille seems to have a very precise taste in men, or at least in how they look!
But as Jim points out, this one at least doesn't mind shaking hands!
And with Theo Marcuse in a wig effusively greeting Our Heroes, we bow out of one of my (many) favorite episodes.