Episode 16: A Nice Little Till to Tap

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What's got Honey so worried? Could it be that she's just chilly?

Sam, in the Honey West and Co. surveillance van, is following two men in a car as they go over their route, rehearsing a crime. (At the same time, he is electronically bugging them. For those who might not recall from other episodes, the van carries a "shotgun microphone" that picks up sounds when directed toward a target.)

Peter Sutton (Anthony Eisley) is backseat driving from the passenger seat. He keeps telling the driver, Mears (Marvin Brody), to slow down and to make full stops at the lights.

"I got a mother-in-law who does less backseat driving," complains Mears.

"Does your mother-in-law make you this kind of money?" demands Pete.

Pete counts the seconds as they come to a stop at a predetermined spot.

"All right," Pete says. "Back to the barn."

When the car pulls away, the camera remains to show that the car had been stopped directly over a manhole cover.

Sam follows the car back to "the barn" which is a warehouse.

The car enters the premises.

Sam stops outside at a respectful distance.

"That was five seconds off. Not too bad," says Pete, lighting a cigarette.

Mears asks how Pete is making out with the bank teller.

"Like I always do," says Pete. He describes her as blonde and blue-eyed and "all girl. Eat your heart out. A real Honey."

Well, the name on her teller’s station says "Jennifer Tate," but it turns out that "Jennifer" is really Honey West. She is counting bills, which she hands over to a male customer.

"Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Schlockenweiler?"

Schlockenweiler gives her a slow wink that looks more than anything as if he has a neurological disorder. Honey looks at him reproachfully saying, "Mr. Schlockenweiler!"

After the opening credits, Honey is having trouble adding eight and three when Pete appears. She warns him that "figures" are her worst subject, and he takes the opportunity to make a double entendre, asserting that "figures" are her best subject. After establishing that they have already had a date, he asks her out for tonight. Honey accepts.

Pete leaves the bank, right in front of a waiting Sam Bolt. Honey and Sam get on their radios (hers disguised as a pen). "Sam, are you sure Pete's the one? He's so charming. So nice. I feel so guilty."

"Honey, your girl is showing," snaps Sam.

Subsequently, Sam and Lt. Coombs (Peter Leeds)

are explaining to Mr. Tweedy (Howard McNear), a dim bulb of a bank manager,

that a recent spate of bank robberies shows a pattern, according to which Tweedy's bank is liable to be next, and indications are that it is an inside job because the same firm provides the alarm system in all cases, and no alarms ever go off during these robberies. In each case, Peter Sutton coincidentally romances an innocent teller from whom he probably acquires information about the scheduling of large payrolls. They know that Pete has "made a play for Honey," but he does not have a criminal record. "Could be that he just likes a pretty face," says Coombs.

That evening, Pete is complimenting Honey about her face, saying that it does not belong behind a teller's grill.

"I'll bet you say that to all the tellers," says Honey sweetly.

They are dancing and having a great time at a dinner club, which is exactly what viewers of "Honey West" were evidently not doing between nine and nine-thirty on New Years Eve 1965 when this episode aired.

Reveal: Sam is posing as a waiter.

One with an unnecessary and unlikely looking pencil-thin moustache. He seems to be shooting daggers with his eyes in Pete's direction.

"It's been a lovely week," says Honey.

"It isn't over yet," replies Pete. (But 1965 is, almost.)

"I hope you're right," she says.

Mears turns up and gives the maître d' a written note, which Sam is called upon to deliver to Pete.

Sam delivers the note but then spills water on Pete.

In the commotion, Honey picks the note from Pete’s pocket and passes it back to Sam. (Pete never notices that the note goes permanently missing.)

The note reads:

"Durant already here. Crowley in tonight on flight nine from Seattle."

Cut to the airport where Crowley (Chuck Hicks) is being paged to pick up the courtesy phone. Crowley does pick up but is annoyed when the operator apparently tells him that the party that paged him already hung up.

"Is my refrigerator running? What kind of a...."

Having identified Crowley in this way, Sam follows him from the airport and tries to arrest him and escort him to police headquarters,

but Crowley makes a run for it—straight in front of a car...

killing him.

Sam finds out from Coombs the extent of Crowley's criminal record, and that his specialty was blowing things up.

Meanwhile, Honey is at Pete's place, grilling him between kisses.

He claims to be a broker in heavy machinery. Honey freely lets him know that, right now, the bank is holding 300,000 dollars for a company called Western Pipe. Pete is really pleased to hear this.

Mears and Durant show up at Pete's door and announce they have a problem.

Partners in crime.

Asking whether the female teller is in Pete's apartment, they advise Pete to get rid of her. While they hide in an adjacent room so they can see her but she cannot see them, they watch as Pete escorts Honey to the door, apologetically explaining that he has a business crisis.

"Really?" says Honey. "What's her name." Pete promises that he will make it up to her. He suggests they meet tomorrow, but Honey says, "We'll see." Nice good night kiss, though.

Pete is informed that Crowley is dead. But he is eager to get at the $300,000, so, rather than postpone the heist, he will take Crowley's place as the explosives expert. (Hey, how hard can it be, right?) But Durant recognizes Honey as a private detective, and he laughs in Pete's face for being such a dupe.

Durant and Pete are sitting in a car across the street from Honey's office. The sign outside her offices reads:

Durant sensibly suggests that they write this one off and rob another bank in another town. Pete is convinced that the $300,000 is real. Durant says that they have no way to know that. Pete says that he checked out Honey’s information. The bank really does handle the payroll for the company Honey named. Her information is good. (Yeah, but it is still obviously bait in a trap, so, maybe Pete's brain should be suing his blood stream for nonsupport.) Durant asks what should be done about Honey after the robbery. "Kill her,” says Pete. “What else?"

Sam takes a meeting in his office with Mr. Tweedy and Lt. Coombs.

Sam is peeved because they have not been in touch with him. Lt. Coombs says he has been preoccupied with other cases, some involving murder. Sam is worried because he has not heard from Honey, and neither has the Lieutenant.

At last, the buffoonish Mr. Tweedy contributes something to the case:

The alarm company, Acme Security, just told him that the man who installed the alarm system is named Durant, which rings a bell for Sam who knows that one of the bank robbers is named Durant. (He still has the note that Pete never noticed was missing from his pocket.)

He makes a connection: Honey came across an alarm systems expert named Arthur Durant a year ago. "He knows who Honey is!"

Later, Honey calls Sam,

but she has a gun to her head.

Pete grabs the phone from her and tells Sam that he had better cooperate or Honey "will be all over town in little pieces."

It seems to be a regular occurrence that a gunman
will switch his handgun from one hand to the other.

Sam goes to his van but is attacked in the garage, knocked unconscious, and stuffed in the back of his own vehicle.

Meanwhile, the robbers use a hammer and chisel to put a hole in the wall of a building next door to the bank.

Arthur Durant and Pete Sutton climb through the hole and are inside the vault. Durant disables the alarm.

Honey is being minded by one man.

(This thug might be stuntman Bill Hickman whose only stunt
in this episode is falling down dead after he's shot in a later scene,
although he might be the same one who gets beaten by Honey before that.)

Sam comes to and turns the tables on his kidnapper.

Pete pours a liquid with the care one would expect of someone handling Nitroglycerin.

Mears, outside in the getaway car, observes a beat cop making his rounds.

"Maybe I should grow a beard. Do I win the Ted Cruz look-a-like contest or what?"

The cop checks the door of the bank to make sure it is locked, but otherwise does not stop.

Pete ties a fuse to his explosive cocktail.

Pete and Durant climb back out through the hole and prepare to detonate.

A very smoky explosion, and the door of the safe swings wide open.

Sam shows up at the bank, but the police are already there.

"They're long gone," Coombs tells Sam. What about Honey? "She's with them." Coombs does not seem the least bit worried. The warehouse is covered, and there is an APB out for the gang members, but Sam is still worried. Then he remembers the manhole cover.

The police open it.

They find a man hiding in the sewer. Farley (William "Billy" Benedict).

He says that Pete and the rest never showed—as they had planned to do—to give him the money. Under duress, he confesses that he knows an alternate location where the robbers might go.

Farley knocks on the door to the Majeski Ice Company. "What happened?" he asks when Mears opens the door.

"A little change of plans," says Mears. "Come on in."

Farley says there is a car nearby that makes him suspicious.

Mears steps outside only to be immediately arrested. "Not a sound," threatens Sam.

Notice Lt. Coombs barely visible between Mears and Sam.
Notice, too, Mears giving Farley the stink eye. ("You dirty rat.")

Sam and Coombs go into the ice house, and see the fix that Honey is in.

Honey with her minder and Pete's gang in the background with a suitcase full of money on a table.

Lt Coombs announces to the robbers that it's over.

Pete and company take cover. Even with her hands tied together, Honey takes out the man (Bill Hickman?) guarding her: An elbow to his solar plexus followed by a two-fisted clubbing of the back of his neck. She then takes cover as the shooting starts.

The ice house has huge blocks of ice for everyone to hide behind. The bullets chip away at the edges of the cubes but also drill black holes into their mass.

Sam shoots one of the thugs. (You see Sam shoot;, then you see the stuntman (Bill Hickman?) fall.)

Sam runs out of ammo and throws away his gun.

Note the black bullet hole on the right.

Pete runs for it, but Sam tackles him. Honey has a pained look on her face as she watches the men wrestle.

Durant runs out of bullets and surrenders to Coombs.

But Pete and Repeat (Sam) continue to duke it out; although, Pete adds an ice hook or pair of ice tongs to the fight.

Sam disarms him before knocking him into a wall with three open bags of ice cubes on top of it. Naturally, the whole contents of the bags spill onto Pete, covering him with ice cubes.

Honey rushes up to Sam, who undoes her wrist restraints. He notices that she is trembling and assures her there is nothing to be afraid of anymore.

"I'm not afraid," she says. "I'm freezing."

“How do you like that,” says Sam, admiring his handiwork, “Sutton on the rocks.”

“You gotta admit, Sam, when I cool it, I really cool it.”

As if that were not funny enough, there is still a "humorous" epilogue in store.

Honey's teeth are still chattering as she tells Coombs she thinks she will never be warm again. Coombs offers her a hot beverage (probably coffee).

Sam enters with Mr. Tweedy in tow claiming that the banker might have something to warm her up. Tweedy turns over a generous check.

Sam asks if the chill is gone.

"Chill?"

Tweedy accepts an adult beverage from Coombs and says, "Cheers, Miss West."

"Hip, hip, hooray, Mr. Tweedy." And, with that, Honey gives her coffee cup back to Coombs and exits stage left without further ado.

Notes:

Toasting with drinks during the epilogue makes some sense considering Tweedy's announcement that the bank has recovered all of the $300,000 that the robbers stole, but this ending could have been tacked on when the writers realized that the episode would air on New Years Eve. Viewers might well have poured a drink along with Mr. Tweedy.

Adam Worth

The idea of going into a bank vault at night by cutting a hole in the wall from an adjacent building has a long history. The first such bank robbery is believed to have been committed by a pair of American thieves, Adam Worth and Charley Bullard, in 1869. They rented a shop next-door to the Boylston Street Bank in Boston, Massachusetts. Over a weekend, they broke through the wall and filled several trunks with loot.

By the time the bank opened on Monday morning, the robbers were long gone. While they managed to take a large amount of the stolen wealth with them, they made the mistake of mailing the trunks to themselves. The Pinkerton Detective Agency, hired by the bank, discovered the identities of the robbers by tracing the trunks through the mail. The two robbers fled the country and spent most of the rest of their lives in Europe, primarily Great Britain and France. Bullard died a free man, and Worth presented himself to the Pinkertons three decades later to make a deal relating to a separate crime. He too died a free man.

There is some evidence that Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, based Holmes' arch nemesis, Professor Moriarty, at least in part, on Worth,

Another such robbery also occurred in Boston in 1875. As on "Honey West," these robbers used nitroglycerin to blow the safe and were the first bank robbers to use it. They were led by Joseph J. Lee, who was later captured.

Over all rating: 3/5 (Points for snogs betwixt Honey and the handsome guest villain.)

Martial arts rating: 3/5. Perhaps I am lowering my standards due to the lack of either elegant or believable martial arts lately. Especially believable, here, is Honey's take down of her minder. I suspect that stuntman Bill Hickman might have done double duty by being the guy who gets beaten up by Honey and shot by Sam. I could be wrong, though.

Cast

Peter Sutton is played by Anthony Eisley (1925-2003), who was born Fred Eisley in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a family that moved a lot during his childhood. Eisley caught the acting bug early on and studied drama at the University of Miami. He performed in summer stock beginning in the 1940s, using the name Fred Eisley until around 1960. He graduated to Broadway about 1954 when he replaced Paul Newman in the hit play "Picnic." By this time, he was also getting parts in movies and TV including the series "Racket Squad" in 1952 and a supporting role in a movie with Paul Newman, "The Young Philadelphians," in 1959.

He did plenty of TV throughout his career, including "The Wild Wild West," "The Streets of San Francisco," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show," and "Knots Landing." In the early 1970s, he was a regular on the short-lived series, "The Doll Squad," which was a kind of successor to "Honey West" and precursor to the far more successful "Charlie's Angels" (which was produced by the same Aaron Spelling who gave us "Honey West").

Eisley's last two movies, both released in 1991, were the lackluster "Evil Spirits" (in which Eisley got to co-star with Virginia Mayo, Karen Black, and Arte Johnson) and the U.S./Mexico coproduction, "Deadly Deception." (The original Spanish title translates as "Naked Lolita.") Eisley retired from acting in the 1990s and died the day after his seventy-eighth birthday.

Peter Leeds plays Lieutenant Coombs. Leeds (1917-1996) worked right up until about eight years before his death, doing a lot of voice work in animated TV series, but also keeping his hand in as a character actor. His TV appearances, just in the late 1970s, included "Sanford and Son," "Charlie's Angels," "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Police Woman," "Chico and the Man," "The Jeffersons," and the TV miniseries "Studs Lonigan." He played police lieutenants in three episodes of "Honey West," but with different character names. (See "Invitation to Limbo.")

Mr. Tweedy is played by Howard McNear (1905-1969), best known for his portrayal of Floyd the barber on "The Andy Griffith Show." He also played humorous characters in movies as well as on TV and was the character Doc Adams on the radio version of "Gunsmoke" (1952-1961).

Lou Krugman (1914-1992), plays bank robber Arthur Durant. To him, it must have seemed like old home week, appearing in the same episode as his fellow cast member from the old "Gunsmoke" radio program, Howard McNear. Krugman also appeared in four episodes of "I Love Lucy" in the mid-1950s. He continued to be an extremely busy actor, appearing on TV shows like "The Lone Ranger," "Bonanza," "Burke's Law," "Perry Mason," "Hogan's Heroes," "The Wild Wild West," "Streets of San Francisco," and "The Rockford Files," as well as in movies, including "Irma La Douce" (1963) and "Our Man Flint" (1966).

Billy Benedict (1917-1999) and Bill Hickman (1921-1986) both play generic crooks. Benedict, who had been one of the Bowery Boys in the 1930s, gets a credit as Farley, but Hickman plays a thug for the second time on "Honey West" without a credit. (See "A Million Bucks in Anybody's Language.") He was later put in charge of the stunt driving on both "Bullitt" (1968) and "The French Connection" (1972).

Chuck Hicks (1927-2021), another stuntman, plays Crowley who gets hit by a car in this episode. He is known for his stunt work on such movies as "Cool Hand Luke" (1967).

The lascivious bank customer, Mr. Schlockenweiler, is uncredited, and the name Schlockenweiler appears to be made up. "Schlock" means cheap or cheesy; "-en" is a plural marker; and "Weiler" means a hamlet or small village. "Mr. Schlockenweiler" could be interchangeable with another made-up name like "Mr. Cheapsville."

More "Honey West":

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

Episode Eight: In the Bag

Episode Nine: The Flame and the Pussycat