Episode 11: A Stitch in Crime

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"We're In Stitches with Honey,
"And it's not even funny."

Honey and Sam are driving their van from Los Angeles to San Francisco to deliver twenty-two expensive gowns for a fashion show.

They are 325 miles south of their destination. They must have started their trip less than an hour ago because they have not gotten very far, maybe twenty-five miles!

Their client, Mr. Antoine of Beverly Hills, is so concerned with security that he has hired H. West and Co. to guard the gowns, but Honey and Sam have not taken any special precautions. It is just the two of them transporting the merchandise that is loaded in the back of their early-1960s Ford Econoline van. They are tooling along on the open road without a soul in sight—including, as Sam notes in this scene, no police, in case there is any trouble. So, what could go wrong?

How about a station wagon loaded with hooligans trying to run our intrepid heroes off the road? The punks are honking ceaselessly at our sleuths cum security guards. And Sam is pretty hot under the collar as the station wagon weaves around them, while absurdly pretending that Sam is in their way.

"Come on, move, man!" they shout.

"Did you see that?" says Sam. "He had all the room in the world. I oughta...."

"No, you ought not," says Honey firmly. Their only job is delivering these gowns to San Francisco. No distractions.

The driver and passengers in the other vehicle call Sam "old man" and "pop" and shout various other taunts and accusations, laughing mockingly all the way.

One passenger in the station wagon even pounds on the side of the van.

Amid all of this, the writers (showrunners Gwen Bagni and Paul Dubov) manage to have Honey float the idea of buying one of the gowns and using two thousand dollars of H. West and Co. funds to do it. Sam doesn't like the idea.

"I knew it. When you started loading those dresses onboard, I got those empty bankbook feelings."

"At a thousand and up, they're not dresses, they're gowns," says Honey, undoubtedly not helping her cause.

(Remember BTW that when correcting for inflation since the 1960s, multiply by ten. Note as well that Sam is acting like a full partner, not the mere employee that he was when first introduced in the "Burke's Law" episode, "Who Killed the Jackpot?")

After escalating their harassment to a high pitch, the hooligans finally pull far enough ahead to give Honey an idea.

She suggests getting coffee at a roadside café.

She probably assumes that the punks will stay on the road and leave them alone. Out of sight, out of mind. It is a good strategy, but, as things turn out, it doesn't work.

While Sam locks up the van, Honey orders two coffees...

...from Ma (Marjorie Bennett), the owner of the café (a term that implies a classiness that the place actually lacks). A cigarette hangs from her lip as Ma casually addresses Honey as "doll," and when Sam walks in, she practically catcalls him.

"Now, that's what I call social security," Ma says suggestively and laughs. Sam doesn't get it.

"It's a compliment," explains Honey. Sam still doesn't get it, but he seems to take Honey's word.

Then two of the punks, Frankie (David Pritchard) and Buddy (Nino Candido) come into the café...

...and they start verbally harassing Honey and Sam. Honey would prefer it if Sam would control himself, but....

...Frankie and Buddy gang up on Sam, Buddy holding his arms while Frankie punches him. However, it is always a mistake to turn your back on Honey.

She throws hot coffee on Buddy, who lets go of Sam.

Sam turns the tide on Frankie in a fight that has now become fair. Honey and Sam make short work of these two,

though it is primarily Sam who whips them and tosses them out by the scruffs of their necks.

Honey offers to pay for any damage done to the café, but Ma seems to have enjoyed the excitement.

"Hey, you two got quite an act," she says.

"We travel, too," says Honey.

Now, you have to wonder why these characters picked on the detectives, in the first place. Was it boredom, personality disorders, folie à deux, or purposeful targeting? Honey and Sam have not thought about this up until now, and that is why Honey's otherwise sensible stratagem of putting herself and Sam out of sight from the hooligans did not work.

Honey now realizes that only two punks attacked them, and these two punks are driving away in the station wagon. But weren't there originally three punks? Where did the third punk go?

And does his disappearance have anything to do with the fact that they now cannot find their van?

The van is abandoned by the side of the road when the California Highway Patrol brings Honey and Sam to it. All of the dresses, er, gowns are gone. The officers refuse to believe that anyone would steal a bunch of dresses and leave the guns that Honey and Sam keep in the van. The cops more than imply that the private eyes fabricated the whole story.

Honey tells them they can check with their employer, Mr. Antoine,

but this doesn't make the cops take them seriously.

Honey starts doing her own investigation. She looks at the tire tracks and concludes that the thieves took the gowns back to Los Angeles. After the cops leave them, Sam asks Honey what she found on the ground near the van that she did not call to the attention of the skeptical officers. It is a new guitar string, still in its package.

Back in Los Angeles, Honey visits Mr. Antoine (Laurie Main) at his shop.

He is not impressed that Honey found a guitar string at the scene of the crime. "Is that the best that you can do?"

"You tied my hands, Mr. Antoine, when you denied to the police that anything was stolen. I may lose my license."

"What do you want me to do? Let it get out to the trade that my collection is gone? That all I've got left is this one gown to show tonight?"

"You'd rather throw me to the wolves?"

"It was your responsibility," he complains.

"The shoe pinches," she admits.

"So will my creditors if this gets out. My chance to crack the international market, and you get into a fight with some punks on the highway." (Why do they keep saying "highway" on this show, when most Californians say "freeway"? I guess it's because the rest of the English-speaking world—most of the audience—says "highway." Come to think of it, though, so does the Highway Patrol!)

"Who knew we were carrying the collection?" asks Honey.

"Who knew? The janitor, my competitors, everybody's got spies. Without the San Francisco showing, I'm ruined. Those gowns are worth a million dollars in business to me by the end of the year."

He points out that the San Francisco show is three days away, and it takes him seven days to make one gown. He doesn't have time to recreate his collection.

"Miss West, if I don't get those gowns back, that fashion charity ball tonight might just as well be for me."

Mr. Antoine is so upset that he cannot even thread a needle.

So, Honey threads the needle for him while vowing to get back the gowns. Rather presumptuously, she declares that she has already picked out one of the stolen gowns for her own closet.

Mr. Antoine actually smiles at this, however weakly. He thanks her, perhaps, for her good intentions and calm determination.

In Honey's living room, Honey plays with Bruce on the couch (or does Bruce play with her?). Aunt Meg brings in the hat box that Honey asked for.

"Good," says Honey. "Did you find Bruce's dress collar with the wireless bug in it?"

Aunt Meg sighs. "I don't know where he hid it. I'm still looking."

"Better get your thimble. You're going to be wearing it tonight."

She is excited. "Oh goody! I get to play, too." (It's about time that Aunt Meg got some action.)

Sam comes back from the police station where he got a ribbing but also found a picture of Frankie, one of the punks.

(Sam used his watch-camera—see "A Neat Little Package"—to take a picture of the picture.)

Frankie has a record, which includes violence, and a string of aliases. The other two punks do not have records and remain unknown. He also reports that the car the boys used was found. It had been stolen and was wiped clean of fingerprints.

Sam finds the music shop where Frankie not only bought a guitar string but has made a down payment on a guitar.

The colorful music shop owner, Mr. Kessler (Herbie Faye), does not know Frankie's address but says that Frankie intends to pick up his guitar tonight.

Sam sees Frankie pick up the guitar and then follows him. He phones Aunt Meg at the fashion show and tells her to let Honey know that he is going to "salt the bird's tail."

"I'll remember about the feathers," says Aunt Meg. She goes through a door next to this sign:

Aunt Meg is now in a room where models and photographers are busy before the fashion preview. She fetches someone named Danielle and takes her to the gown known as the blue swan. (Should that be capitalized?)

Aunt Meg apologizes for being away so long. A fashion model named Gloria (Charlene Holt) looks down on Aunt Meg from her literal pedestal and says to no one in particular, "Why Antoine drags in a new seamstress at the last minute, I'll never know."

Photographer Valentine (James B. Sikking) urges them to put the gown on Gloria so he can take her picture.

Just then, the door opens and Honey makes her entrance (now I think we know what was in that hat box Aunt Meg found), escorted by Mr. Antoine, who introduces her as a West German model named Helga,

and asks Gloria if she minds if Helga takes her place in the show. Gloria graciously says, "Anything for the house." But then she says to Helga, "Let me compliment you, Fräulein, in your native tongue:

"Du bist Häslich" (which is German for, "You're ugly").

The only German that Honey knows is "Ja," meaning "yes," and "danke," which means "thank you," and that is what she says, smilingly, in response to Gloria's insult: "Danke." (Another Honey West disguise that does not last very long.)

Honey wears the blue swan now. Aunt Meg complains that she can't pick up valuable intelligence because there is nothing but small talk.

"Keep listening," says Honey. She pets Bruce, who is featured in this episode, and she gives him a kiss.

"You look gorgeous," says Mr. Antoine, "but what good can all this do?"

"You never know," says Honey. "Someone may drop a stitch."

Right after the photographer, Valentine, takes a picture of Honey, Gloria tells him, "She's a phony."

"Well, in this business, she's not alone," he says.

Gloria explains that "Helga" doesn't know enough German to realize it when she is being insulted.

The woman announcing the fashion show says that "Fräulein Helga flew in from Germany...western Germany...to be with us this evening." She also seems to call the gown "nouráge" or "mirage" rather than the blue swan. This discrepancy seems best allowed to lie.

Just enjoy the show.

Then, from the wings, Honey sees

one of the punks, Buddy, giving Antoine a box.

After taking her final walk on stage,

she rushes back to tell Mr. Antoine who it was that gave him the box.

She opens it to find a ripped and burned gown, along with a note saying that unless Mr. Antoine pays a ransom of $75,000, all the gowns will be in the same condition.

Mr. Antoine is overwhelmed by the amount of the ransom. He says he doesn't have that kind of money. (Remember to multiply by ten—actually closer to 9.5—to find out how much we are talking about in today's dollars.)

Sam follows Frankie to a coffee house. He calls Honey who tells him to wait until she arrives.

Front: Sam and Honey disguised; Back: Three Punks

Sam and Honey go in, disguised as beatniks, and watch the three punks. Sam plays the part of the beat poet to the Nth degree. Honey rarely looks terrible, but in the black wig she is wearing, it is a good thing she is wearing big dark glasses, too.

Valentine comes in and, according to Honey's conceit,

plays the pied piper leading...

...the three "rats" through a door labeled "the way out room."

Sam and Honey follow them through the door only to find themselves in an alley, and a car speeding away.

"Like way, way out," says Sam.

Sam wants to call the police, but Honey reminds him that the police don't believe them.

"Well, how are we going to get them all together again?" asks Sam.

"Why don't we frame us a valentine?" she says.

Honey and Antoine tell Valentine they have the ransom ready and need his help to catch the thieves.

They then leave Valentine in a room with a phone and Bruce. Valentine gingerly pets Bruce in order to get to the phone.

"Nice Bruce," Valentine says.

Valentine calls Gloria to tell her that the ransom is ready.

Sam listens to the call through the microphone in Bruce's special collar.

Gloria tells Valentine she loves him, but as soon as she gets off the phone,

she kisses Frankie. Frankie then calls Antoine and gives him the location where he is to make the drop.

After Mr. Antoine gets the call, Honey shows Valentine the money in a box. Val wants to take it, but Honey tells him he has done his job. She pulls her gun on him. Bizarrely, she turns her head to tell Antoine to call the police,

giving Valentine the opportunity to grab for the gun, and forcing Honey to resort to judo.

She then tosses the gun to Antoine, who fumbles with it—

before holding it awkwardly as if, were he to extend it a little too much, it might be out of the frame. (Probably true.) Honey tells him, "Oh, you won't have any trouble. Bruce hates violence."

Honey approaches a park bench in the dark. She leaves the case full of money on the bench and walks away.

A station wagon drives up (apparently, the same one that supposedly had been stolen, abandoned, and found by the police already), and Buddy gets out and takes the box. After the station wagon drives away, Sam drives up in the Econoline, and Honey gets in. While Sam drives,

Honey goes into the back of the van where she tracks the thieves through a transponder in the box.

Honey tells Sam that she salted the box with nine hundred dollars in real money from their company's funds.

"You didn't tell me that part!" says Sam.

They follow the thieves to a dry cleaning plant.

Frankie and Buddy are let in by their blond accomplice. They are whooping with anticipation over the box and go into a back office to open it. While the brain trust struggles with the box,

Honey and Sam sneak in.

Honey observes the obvious: This plant is "the perfect place to hide a designer's collection."

Blondie is sent out to get a screwdriver. Sam grabs him, but Blondie breaks away and calls Frankie.

While Blondie and Sam fight, Buddy and Frankie come out of the office.

Honey tries to hold Frankie and Buddy at gunpoint,

but Frankie walks right up to her and grabs at the gun, which Honey manages to drop,

but she kicks Buddy into a laundry basket and rather unconvincingly reaches down between her legs and sweeps Frankie off his feet.

She and Frankie fight over the gun and Honey wins.

But then Gloria appears and holds Honey at gunpoint; yet she does not interfere with Sam's drubbing of Blondie.

Honey: Grand larceny is one thing but murder is another.

Gloria: Don't tell me I've got something to lose.

Honey plays a ruse on Gloria by throwing clothing from a rack in her face. Then Honey grabs Gloria's gun hand and the gun fires into the ceiling.

Honey gets the gun, and she says, "All right Sam, gather the clan." Honey tells Buddy to get out of the basket and join everyone.

Sam hands Honey her purse, which, once again, leads Honey to take her eyes off of someone she is holding at gunpoint, but Gloria doesn't try anything. It is almost as if Valentine already told her that there is no percentage in that.

Finally, Honey goes into the back office where she finishes the round up by sending Blondie out to join the others. (Gee, all Sam has to do is corral them.) She finds the gowns in the office, on racks that are covered with white sheets.

Honey peeks under a sheet at a glittery gown.

Wistfully, she asks herself, "Finders keepers?"

In the epilogue, Aunt Meg is on the couch, knitting, while Bruce occupies the opposite end of the couch. Sam comes in, dressed in a tux. He is impatient because Honey is taking hours to get dressed, and their evening out is expensive: $40 for a pair of opera tickets. (Remember to multiply by ten.) They are late. The opera already started!

"Down, Sam," says Aunt Meg. "Honey wants to look special tonight."

"She'd better be forty bucks special," says Sam. "When she comes in here I'm gonna give a piece of my...."

He looks up and sees Honey entering the room.

"Good evening, Sam," says Honey in a voice that combines sultriness with innocence. She is absolutely lovely in a silvery gown.

"Good evening" he replies.

"I'm sorry I'm late," she says.

"You're late?"

"It cost a fortune," she admits.

"It's only money," he says.

"Well, we better leave. We don't want to be late for the opera."

Sam and Honey go out through the secret panel. Before they go, though, she looks over her shoulder and winks at Meg... who winks back.

The couple leave, and the panel closes behind them.

Notes:

Well, that was more promising than it was fulfilling. The stolen and ransomed gowns made for an intriguing plot at first: It was an inside job all along. That is always satisfying. But the hand-to-hand fighting was ridiculous and disappointing, and the gunplay was amazingly unsafe and implausible. Honey throws a gun to Mr. Antoine who has obviously never held one in his life. (That's just two things wrong.) She seems to be pointing her gun idly at Sam before they break into the dry cleaning plant. (Presumably, she shouldn't want to point a gun at Sam in anyway, but idly is a pretty bad way.) When she should use a gun—when Frankie tries to grab her gun—she does not point it at him and shoot, which is what she should have done. (These are dangerous criminals, violent and not above murder.) Her method of disarming Gloria is absurdly unsafe, because if you are going to take a gun from someone—especially someone pointing it at you—you want to go directly for the gun—the way Frankie did—not throw something in their face and hope they don't shoot you or someone else before you get a chance to grab their gun hand.

The title of this episode is also the title of a 1973 "Columbo" episode in which Anne Francis portrays the murder victim.

Worst disguises (so far) in the series:

Sam and Honey, believe it or not, man.

In 1965, beatniks were already becoming passé, beginning to be replaced by hippies as the emblematic counter-cultural figures. But why should some TV writers—or their audience—know or care about that?

Yay, Bruce! This is his best episode, so far. Not so much for the humans.

Bruce does a lot in this episode. Well, mostly he lies around, but he is important to the plot. Both Honey and Valentine (James B. Sikking) play with him. ("Nice Bruce," says Valentine.) Honey tells Bruce he's a good boy and gives him a kiss. Lucky Bruce!

Character:

Sorry, but Honey makes one bad decision after another. She does not take her assignment seriously enough to provide sufficient security. She lets some punks trick her and Sam into taking their eyes off of their van and its cargo. (One of them should have gotten the coffee while the other watched the van.) She is life-threateningly careless with guns at least four times. Thanks to the writers, she survives all of these mistakes, and gets a satisfactory result.

Further, Honey pretends to be a German model. When she only knows about two words in German. The villain turns out to speak German and exposes Honey as a ringer in less than sixty seconds.

Here are a few differences between Honey West and Lee Child's hard-boiled character, Jack Reacher, in Child's popular series of novels. Reacher might have tried the stratagem of getting off the road rather than going toe-to-toe with the punks on the highway, but as soon as the punks showed up at the café, he would have started thinking about why his strategy had not worked, even while he was thinking about tactics in fighting two men at once. Honey gets to the same thought belatedly, but Reacher would have held on to the two punks and made them tell him where the third punk was, because he notices loose ends and hates to leave them unresolved.

Another difference: When Frankie tries to take Honey's gun, she lets him close in on her and grab it. Reacher would have either hit the guy very hard (if he was in a generous mood) or shot him. When someone presents a real threat to your life and ignores a "Stay back" command, you don't have to let them walk all over you if you have the means to stop them.

One of the highway patrolmen says "Twenty-two dresses, a hundred thousand dollars." That means that, on average, each dress is worth more than $4,500. Honey says "a thousand and up" and expects to pay $2,000 for a gown. She must be settling for one of the cheaper gowns; otherwise, perhaps, she expects a discount(?).

The gown Honey wears at the charity ball looks whitish on black-and-white TV and has a matching jacket trimmed with dark material (fur?); however, the gown is referred to by Antoine as the "blue swan," and might be light blue rather than white. That could be. It was a truism in early television that one should wear a light blue shirt rather than a white one because white tended to glow too much under the TV lights.

At one point, Mr. Antoine says to Gloria, "You're a good sport, Claudia." Gloria, Claudia. Close enough.

Cast:

The cast includes Laurie Main as the dress, er, gown designer, Mr. Antoine. Main, who died in 2012 at age 89, was born in Australia and is known for "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" (1993) and "Time After Time" (1979). He appeared on TV series such as "Murder She Wrote." He did voice work in a number of animated films such as "The Great Mouse Detective" (1986). He also voiced a number of children's video games for Disney.

The Australian-born Marjorie Bennett (1896-1982) was a dependable character actress who was in such films as "Mary Poppins" (1964), "My Fair Lady" (1964), and "One Hundred and One Dalmatians" (1961). Her two hundred-plus credits go back to "The Girl, Glory" (1917) and include later appearances on TV in "The Twilight Zone," "Mission: Impossible," "Mod Squad," "Happy Days," "Kojak," and "Barney Miller."

Charlene Holt (1928-1996) was a former Miss Maryland who made three movies directed by Howard Hawkes but never became a big star. Her movies included "Days of Wine and Roses" (1962), "El Dorado" (1966), and "Melvin and Howard" (1980), as well as TV series episodes for "Perry Mason," "Burke's Law," and "CHiPs," She married a multi-millionaire not very long after appearing on "Honey West" but continued to act occasionally until 1980.

James B. Sikking was born in Los Angeles in 1934. He became well-known to TV viewers in 1981 when he got the role of Lieutenant Hunter on the series "Hill Street Blues," but he also played the father on "Doogie Hauser, M.D.," and a cop on "Brooklyn South." His movies include "Ordinary People" (1980), "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" (1984), and "The Pelican Brief" (1993). He gave a memorable performance in the TV movie "Doing Time on Maple Drive" (1992), stealing scenes from co-star Jim Carrey.

Two of the punks have names: Frankie and Buddy. Frankie is played by David Pritchard and Buddy is played by Nino Candido. Pritchard seems to have been in movies and TV only in the '60s and '70s. He is listed on IMDb as if still living, but without credits after 1979. If the other name sounds familiar, then perhaps you read my post about Episode seven, "The Princess and the Paupers," in which Candido played the third member of the rock band, the one with the smallest part.

The third punk is missing from the credits. Blondie, as I call him, would probably get a credit were the same or a similar script filmed today. He steals the van—even if off screen—and, so, moves the plot. He also has a big fight with Sam at the climax. Considering the stunt he pulls in the opening scene (if that is, indeed, him), I would wager that he is primarily a stuntman rather than an actor who ordinarily has lines.

Overall rating 3/5

Martial arts rating 1/5

Special stunt rating 5/5

Introduction

Opening Theme Music & Images

Episode One: The Swingin' Mrs. Jones

Episode Two: The Owl and the Eye

Episode Three: The Abominable Snowman

Episode Four: A Matter of Wife and Death

Episode Five: Live a Little.... Kill a Little

Episode Six: Whatever Lola Wants....

Episode Seven: The Princess and the Paupers