Episode 14: Invitation to Limbo

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Honey goes undercover as a cigarette girl, again.

[Things you might want to know:

How can I watch "Honey West"? So far as I know, some local stations that play old TV shows include "Honey West" in their line-up. You can also either watch it on YouTube or get hold of the series on DVD. I do YouTube and DVD. My screen shots mostly come off of the latter.

The reason why I have not been adding new posts as frequently as I would like is that I was occupied with publishing a novella entitled "Murder in the Grand Bazaar: An Intellectual Thriller." Despite not coming up with new posts, I have, in fact, worked on this blog to make it more user friendly for hand-held devices that were skewing the text along the sides of pictures. (Cell phone users are welcome to let me know whether I have succeeded. I expect that different cell phone models might provide different viewing experiences.)]

Tonight, Honey and Sam investigate industrial espionage and explore altered states of consciousness to boot.

Opening:

A picture of a satellite hangs on the wall in a corridor.

The setting is supposed to be a cutting edge electronics firm, but there is something about it that rather suggests the hallway of a middling hotel. Perhaps this impression has something to do with the hideous wall paper.

A gadget near the ceiling appears to be a camera, suggesting a state-of-the-art (circa 1965) security system.

A man walks down the hallway, and a security guard (Will J. White) sees him on a monitor.

The guard identifies him as an employee named Charles Kenyon (Stacy Harris). It is late at night, but he is allowed to pass.

(Notice the guard's cap on top of the console. He never wears it.)

Charlie Kenyon enters his office...

opens a cabinet...

...and begins photographing documents...

...with what I believe is a Minox, a famous "subminiature" camera (preferred by spies everywhere since 1936).

All of this is being picked up by another wall-mounted camera...

...monitored by Sam Bolt, intrepid partner of H. West and Co.

Suddenly, Honey West pops out of the closet. (She did the same thing in the last episode, too.)

She also holds a Minox, and uses it to snap some pictures of Charlie,...

...who, behaving rather like an automaton, attacks and tries to strangle her.

(Honey is put in a chokehold--and not for the last time in this episode.)

Sam goes into action and to the rescue.

Now, when he sees Sam run into the building,...

...a mysterious stranger (Wayne Rogers, later of "M*A*S*H" fame), realizes that his scheme has gone wrong.

Meanwhile, Honey doesn't need Sam's help. She is doing a fine job of kicking Charlie around his office.

Sam and the security guard burst in just in time to save Charlie from Honey.

As Honey and Sam question him, Charlie appears dazed.

We are shown how he sees his interrogators--all fuzzy and indistinct. When things come into focus for him, he pleads ignorance of his attempted theft of company secrets. He doesn't even remember trying to choke Honey. (Later, he says he does recall the last part.)

After the opening credits, Honey and Sam are meeting in the boardroom with Harold Sutter (Dan Frazer), the manager of Fairmount Electronics. He and the private eyes are sitting at opposite ends of a long table.

Sutter lights a cigarette and then slides the odd-looking cigarette lighter down the table's length to Honey.

Harold Sutter, played by southpaw Dan Frazer, holds cigarette in left hand
but passes cigarette lighter with his right. Handedness will come up again later.

Honey grabs the lighter and handles it, but she isn't smoking.

She and Sam reveal to Sutter that the board of directors hired H. West and Co. without telling Sutter or anyone else.

Sutter's secretary, Miss Christie, comes in and gives Charlie's file to Sutter.

Sutter brings the folder to Honey, and she reads it while Sutter tells them that Charlie's record had been stellar up until this industrial espionage business .

(Note that oddly shaped cigarette lighter by Honey's elbow.)

Sutter tells them that, while he won't press charges, Charlie must be fired. He escorts the private eyes out, promising a check in the mail.

Honey reveals to Sam that she pocketed the cigarette lighter because it contains a microphone.

She gives the bug to Miss Christie and accuses her of recording their conversation. Miss Christie admits it but has an explanation: They always record conversations. (That makes it okay, I guess. Not.)

Sam opens her desk drawer to reveal a running tape recorder.

Meanwhile, the mystery man monkeys around under the hood of Honey's Cobra sports car.

When Honey and Sam exit the building, Honey says she is going to find out whether other companies are leaking information. They go their separate ways, Sam leaving in the Ford Econoline while Honey takes the Cobra for a spin.

They pass our mystery man, who is in a public phonebooth.

He tells someone that because of what he just put in Honey's car,

"They'll be picking up the pieces in ten minutes."

A motorcycle cop (Cal Bolder) pulls Honey over for speeding.

Most people are supposed to stay in the car when they are stopped (unless told otherwise by the police), but Honey gets out, and, while she is trying to sweet talk her way out of a ticket,...

...her car blows up.

"I forgot my thousand-mile check up."

In his office, Police Lieutenant Sherman and the two private shamuses hand the detonator back and forth to each other. It is home-made and untraceable.

Sherman suggest that Honey leave town for her own safety, but she refuses. She likes her profession too much to be intimidated.

Back at the offices of H. West and Co., Charlie is trying to remember what happened before he was caught spying.

They ask whether he has ever been hypnotized. Funny you should ask, he says. He was sent an invitation to a nightclub called The Sandbox where he was put under by a female hypnotist.

So, Honey goes undercover as a cigarette girl, once again, (See "A Neat Little Package."), but this time at The Sandbox.

The hypnosis act is underway, and Darlene (Louise Troy), the hypnotist,

has a group of middle-aged businessmen believing that they are sweating-hot.

Then frigid-cold.

Honey spots one of those special invitations.

The text says: "The Sandbox, Special Invitation. You are
cordially invited to attend.... Everything is on the house."

Honey chats up the attractive woman sitting alone at the table. The woman's husband, Mr. Tyler, is the short, fat, bald man on the stage. (Can we say "trophy wife"?)

Honey let's Sam know to watch out for Mr. T.

Afterward, Mr. Tyler is about to leave the club when he is approached by our mystery man, who asks him for a light, then snaps his fingers. Mr. Tyler goes into a stock-still trance. The man suggests that Tyler go to a certain address. Then the man blows out the match and says, thank you. Tyler comes out of his trance, more or less, although he seems a bit confused.

Of course, Sam observes all of this.

And the detectives follow either the mystery man or Darlene or both of them to the address in question.

Now we learn that the mystery man is named "Jerry." Anticlimactic, right?

While Sam monitors from the van,

Honey climbs to the roof.

She looks down through the skylight and sees Darlene and Jerry.

She attaches a listening device to the skylight with chewing gum, and has Sam turn on the tape.

Presently, Mr. Tyler arrives, and Darlene and Jerry tell him to photograph some blueprints at his company.

Honey's earpiece falls out and makes a noise against the glass.

Jerry hears it and goes up to the roof.

He confronts her: "You looking for me?"

First left-handed gunman in this episode

Sam hears all of this over the real-time communications he has with his partner. (The crew of the Starship Enterprise did not have such high-quality, real-time communications when "Star Trek" was launched the following year.) Sam goes into action and to the rescue, once again.

Meanwhile, Honey, keeps moving toward Jerry until she is close enough to spit on the knot in his necktie.

Honey and Jerry's fight gets fully underway when she knocks the gun out of his hand and into the air. (It's that speck of light moving upward in between them.)

Honey goes down like a Brazilian Jiujiteira, working her way around him and grabbing the back of his belt. She then hauls him down backwards.

She stands up, but then he trips her so that she falls on her back.

When he tries to leap on top of her, though, Honey catches one of his legs between hers and, turning toward him, levers him down face-first, next to her, instead of on top. Then both of them get up again.

At this point in the fight, they begin dancing and swaying violently without either party developing any advantage.

Nevertheless, Jerry gets Honey up against the wall and applies a frontal choke hold--the kind of hold that a real jiujiteira (or karateka, or virtually any martial artist) would break before it got under way. But on television, at least, the most elementary choke hold is never easily defended against. (There is too much drama at stake, you see.)

Honey is rescued, however, when Jerry gets a tap on the shoulder...

...and turns to see Sam, about to deliver a knuckle sandwich.

In a split second, that the eye can barely see, there is a star on the screen. (You are seeing it now thanks to the pause button.)

(Holy POW! icon, Batman!)

(This looks way more fun than it's supposed to be.)

Honey is grateful to Sam, once again.

(OK, Honey. That's enough gratitude.)

Still suffering the ill effects of Sam's punch, Jerry is back in his studio with Darlene.

Under interrogation by Honey and Sam, the two crooks reluctantly admit that they are working for someone else,

but they have never laid eyes on their employer, instead communicating through a dead drop at a local steam bath.

So, naturally, Honey has to go undercover--though just barely.

She looks through the window of the steam room and sees...

...a woman slinking around the locker room, picking up a hidden key and opening a locker.

She takes the roll of film and leaves behind a payment.

Honey watches the woman leave.

With little time to spare, Honey puts on her coat and leaves her towel on the floor. (Wait. What was she wearing under the towel?)

Meanwhile, Darlene and Jerry are being booked,...

The rarely seen George Atkinson's first appearance in
this episode, and Louise Troy's last appearance in it.

Parting shots: George Atkinson (left) and Wayne Rogers
(center) last appear in this scene. Peter Leeds is on the right.

...and Lt. Sherman and Sam get a call from Honey.

She has followed the mystery woman to a greenhouse, and gives Sam the address.

(The car she's driving, does not look like the Cobra, which couldn't have been repaired so soon!)

Sam tells her to wait for him and Lt. Sherman to arrive.

"You think she'll stay put?" asks Sherman.

"Are you kidding?" says Sam. "If I know Honey, she's leaving her car right now."

At the greenhouse, Honey goes in and watches while the mystery woman removes her coat and wig. It is none other than Miss Christie, Sutter's secretary.

Honey begins to follow her into the nursery.

But Sutter turns up with a gun.

Second left-handed gunman in this episode

Honey smiles, ingratiatingly, as if having guns pointed at her is a commonplace annoyance. (Happens every Friday.)

Sutter and Christie, who are an item, escort Honey into the nursery.

Sutter, like every mad villain, explains his whole scheme, including the way he hides microfilm in the flowerpots and then delivers the plants to a company's competitors.

("I love this little roll of film. One day it will grow into a big movie.")

Sutter says that he is going to dump Honey's dead body in the ocean. He hands off the gun to Miss Christie before he leaves to get the car. (Why can't Miss Christie get the car?)

Honey gets out her radio-in-the-compact, and powders her nose while talking to Miss Christie about the situation.

Sam hears this as he and Sherman are driving toward the greenhouse.

Sam tells Sherman to turn on the siren, knowing that this will give Honey a distraction to work with. It distracts Miss Christie, alright.

Naturally, tables are turned as Honey takes the gun from Miss Christie...

...and says, "I'm going to lock you up with the geraniums."

(I'd like to see that, but we don't get to.)

Outside, Honey goes looking for Sutter,

but he sees her first and drives straight at her.

A proverbial near-miss. (Or a near-hit?)

Honey fires three shots at Sutter after he passes her. I realize that Honey is cheesed off at this guy, but the shots fired after his car could have hit anybody, including, as it turns out, Sam or Lt. Sherman.

Sutter's getaway is blocked by the police car. As Sutter gets out of his car, Sam comes for him,

and gives him a few lessons in fisticuffs.

Sam blocks Sutter's punch and smoothly turns it into an arm hold.

"Don't say I never gave you anything, Lieutenant."

Sam asks Honey whether she is alright. She says she feels "a little chilly. I wonder what time that steam bath closes."

"Why?" asks Sam, mystified.

"I forgot something," she says as she takes off.

Epilog

Charlie has taken Honey and Sam back to the nightclub. He got another special invitation. (No lesson learned.)

The hypnotist has been replaced by a new act: A man (Danny Rees) who juggles flaming torches.

Honey and Charlie agree that they prefer the hypnotist act.

Honey realizes that Sam is in a trance. She can't snap him out of it.

The End

Overall score: 4/5

Martial arts score: 5/5 (For a couple of neat turn-arounds as mentioned above.)

Notes:

Martial arts:

By now it is clear that Honey uses grappling/throwing techniques--judo/jujitsu (or jiujitsu)--as much as or more than striking techniques--karate--even though Anne Francis had been taking Okinawan karate lessons. (In 1965, "TV Guide" published color photos of Francis taking karate lessons. She uses a throw on one photo, but the rest of the pictures show karate moves.)

Gun safety (or lack thereof):

In this scene, Sam keeps carelessly waving the pistol at Darlene. A real Marine would know better. A gun is a weapon, not a presentation pointer.

The writers:

This is the second of three William Link and Richard Levinson scripts, and, indeed, the second in a row, although these episodes were not necessarily filmed in the same order in which they were aired. As usual, there is a clever mystery in a Link-Levinson script. We might think we know who the jewel thief is in "The Gray Lady," but we only know the half of it. Here, we know much less than half. We see Charlie committing espionage, but Honey is soon convinced that he has somehow been made to commit this crime against his will. (Only Honey can beat a man up one minute and mother him the next.) She is convinced that something else is going on, but what?

This is where a critic usually says that, of course, hypnosis really does not work this way; no one can be hypnotized into committing a crime if they are not prone to commit that crime in the first place. I am going to deviate slightly from this party line (promoted by most--though not all--hypnotists). The plot of this episode certainly makes mind control seem a lot easier than it really is, but it is possible to use hypnosis to persuade someone to do something they would not ordinarily do.

The key is to realize that another word for hypnosis is "suggestion," and that the person who has been lulled into a hypnotic state is "suggestible." In other words, their judgement has been impaired. Distortions and even outright lies might be suggested to them, and they are more likely to believe such falsehoods than they would be if their faculties were not compromised.

This is how it could work: Suppose you want me to murder someone. Ordinarily, I would do no such thing, but now suppose you hypnotize me every day for a month, and each time you persuade me that a certain man intends to kill my wife; and, finally you persuade me that the police are powerless to stop him and, in any case, they refuse to believe that this man means to kill my wife. Now you say that it is up to me to stop him. It takes more than one session, and it must be done strategically, but it can be done. The key is finding the justification it would take for the subject to commit the crime in question. Convincing someone to commit murder or armed robbery, of course, would be harder than convincing them to commit a lesser crime.

Cast:

The cast of this episode includes Wayne Rogers who played the character Dr. "Trapper John" McIntyre on the TV series "M*A*S*H" from 1972 to 1975.

Here he plays Jerry, a photographer-turned-industrial-espionage-handler. This was hardly the only time he played a villain. He even played violent sexual predators more than once, but he is still best remembered for playing nice guys. Wayne Rogers (1933-2015) was born in Alabama but lived in at least half a dozen states during his varied career, in which he became a successful businessman as well as an actor. A Princeton graduate and U.S. Navy veteran, he studied both dance and acting beginning in the late 1950s. He started an investment firm (Peter Falk was one of his clients) and served as chairman, CEO, or board member of a number of financial, commercial, educational, and charitable institutions. He was married twice and had three children. Great Rogers quote (paraphrased): I never tried to change Hollywood, but I tried to keep Hollywood from changing me.

Darlene....Louise Troy (1933-1994)

Troy was born in New York City and also died there. She made guest appearances on many TV shows including "The Defenders," "Slattery's People," "East Side/West Side" (These are semi-forgotten classics of the early 1960s), "Hogan's Heroes," "Mr. Belvedere," "The F.B.I.," "Hawaii Five-O," "Lou Grant," "Kate and Allie," "Remington Steele," and "Newhart," to name a few. She also had supporting roles in several movies including "The Swimmer" (1968) and "Ghostbusters II" (1989).

Lt. Sherman....Peter Leeds (1917-1996)

Real name: Milton Lieberman. Leeds was born in New Jersey but became a Californian. He was frequently on TV from the 1950s onward (including "I Love Lucy" and "Batman"). He was in three episodes of "Honey West," always playing a police lieutenant, but never with the same character name. His final film appearance was in "Dragnet" (1987). The 6'1" actor was also a veteran straight man to Bob Hope, Milton Berle, and other comedians.

Charlie Kenyon....Stacy Harris (1918-1973)

Stacy Harris played law enforcement officers and criminals, and was known to radio audiences for his portrayal of Special Agent Jim Taylor on "This is Your FBI" from 1945 to 1953. He appeared in movies and on TV with Jack Webb, the creator and star of the two "Dragnet" series. He appeared multiple times on the series "Perry Mason," playing both victims and suspects. (Sometimes he did it; sometimes not.) He served in the Merchant Marine and was, for a short time, a newspaper cartoonist.

Harold Sutter....Dan Frazer (1921-2011)

Dan Frazer is best remembered as a series regular on "Kojak." His supporting roles on the silver screen included parts in "Lilies of the Field" (1963), "Take the Money and Run" (1969), and "Bananas" (1971). He was a frequent guest star on TV throughout his career, from "Studio One" in 1950 to "Law & Order" and some of its spinoffs in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Miss Christie....Judy Lang (1940-)

Primarily a 1960s actor, Lang appeared on the TV series "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," "Get Smart," "Bewitched," and others. She also appeared in the movies "Strangers When We Meet" (1960), "The Trip" (1967), and two in 1970, "The Psycho Lover" and "Count Yorga, Vampire." "The Psycho Lover" involved "brainwashing" someone into committing a crime they would not otherwise commit.

Mr. Tyler....S. John Launer (1919-2006)

A prolific actor who appeared in TV series including "Father Knows Best," "Slattery's People," "The Untouchables," "Bonanza," "The Twilight Zone," "Perry Mason," "Gunsmoke," "Batman," and "Marcus Welby, M.D." He was also in the movies "I was a Teenage Werewolf" (1957), "Jailhouse Rock" (1957), "Marnie" (1964), and "Mommie Dearest" (1981).

Motorcycle Cop...Cal Bolder (1931-2005)

Real name: Earl C. Craver. He was a college football player, a U.S. Marine, and a real-life L.A.P.D. officer. He was busy during the 1960s, including TV appearances on "Gunsmoke," "Bonanza," and "Star Trek." He made a schlock horror movie, "Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter" (1966) and also published a novel, "Last Reunion," in 2001. He was married to the same woman for fifty-one years and fathered four children.

Juggler...Danny Rees(e) (1934-2012)

Rees acted and produced, too, but his claim to fame was that he played a juggler on at least five TV series and in five movies. (He is credited here as Danny Reese.)

Mrs. Tyler....Lonnie Fotre