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118-TAKEOVER
(produced by Laurence Heath)
Prologue:
At night, in a Los Angeles’ far left hippie flat: student leader Billy Walsh makes a political speech at a militants’ meeting (extreme close-up on a hanged eye’s drawing then pan shot to Walsh’s eyes) and explains his agenda: Protest Week next Saturday with action and confrontation. The militants leave except a young woman who asks to stay but Billy turns down the offer and phones Deputy Mayor Charles Peck at his office to threaten and get a down payment ($5,000) the morning after. Peck tells his henchman police Lt. Ross to make the money delivery. Mayor Steve Tallman is reluctant to follow Peck’s crooked scheme and pours himself a glass of whisky but agrees and leaves in a hurry owing to a derogatory remark from Peck: “You drink too much”. Peck orders Ross to put a tail on Tallman.
Tape scene:
Jim unlocks the door of a closed fortune-teller shop named Madam Roberta. He opens a sideboard, grabs the A4 kraft envelop and listens to the reel player on a table.
Summary:
Corrupted Deputy Mayor Charles Peck wants to turn weak Mayor Tallman into the new governor of the State by creating a major incident: a death threat on the governor’s man (Barney) achieved by student agitator Billy Walsh. The IMF confuses Tallman’s mind with his “lost” daughter and replaces him by a lookalike to put an end to Peck’s illegal activities by testifying in court.
Cast and details:
• Puppet and coward mayor Steve Tallman played by Lloyd Bochner (returning from the season 3 “The Glass Cage”)
• Chief Danby played by Russell Thorson
• Walsh’s Militant Alec played by Gordon DeVol
• Corrupted Deputy Mayor Charles Peck played by Ken Swofford (returning from the season 4 “The Martyr”: he plays again in a students' activists plot)
*Peck’s team:
• The 11th Precinct-based corrupted police Lt. Ross played by Todd Martin
• Extreme left professional agitator Billy Walsh played by Richard Kelton
The Political Fanatics
During the apartment scene, we learn from Jim that Peck is connected to the organized crime. Long hair Billy Walsh is dressed as Paris in “My Friend, My Enemy” (black-leathered jacket and a white turtleneck sweater) and trains six students (who drive a hippie Wolkswagen van) to organize armed riots against the University.
Click this link to watch a photomontage of Billy Walsh threatening Dana:
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w172/stefanmiklos/MissionImpossible/kelton-walsh.jpg
Dana Lambert
Dana poses as college student Katherine Jarvis aka Wilson, the illegitimate daughter of Tallman and a most-wanted FBI far left fanatic a la "Weatherman"; she’s dressed as a typical hipster (bell-bottom blue jeans, large hat, exotic shirts, peace symbol necklace) and has a loud mouth attitude. Dana picks the lock on the door of the College’s administrative office and on the filling cabinet to extract stacks of student records. On her way to burn them, a night watchman stops and arrests her. She’s locked up in a cell of the 11th Precinct. Lt. Ross releases her because Walsh puts up her bail and picks her on his Wolkwaken van to his home. Walsh shows Dana a hunting rifle with sights taken from his closet which also contains detonators, sticks of dynamites and plastique. Walsh kisses her and offers her the position of leader to team up with him: “Kate, listen to me. Things are gonna happen during Protest Week. But these kids don’t know anything about revolutionary tacticts”. Walsh asserts that he plans to kill a cop for the kicks (“I’m gonna shoot me a pig”) during the Protest and will let accuse the militants. In Jim’s hotel room, Dana explains to the team Walsh’s kamikaze plan (blowing up the Dean’s office). Back at the meeting flat, militant Alec doesn’t agree with Walsh’s scheme to ravage the Dean’s office. Dana, dressed with a folkloric Russian shirt, offers to takeover the Mayor’s office instead and Alec followed by the militants stand for her alternative. Walsh reluctantly concurs. Dana is tailed by a cop until Paris’ flat. She faces Tallman and does her part of the crying and complaining daughter who blackmails her father to avoid scandals and finance her cause. Tallman gives her an envelop filled with $10,000 cash that she takes and extracts three quarters and leaves the rest to Paris. At the meeting flat, Lt. Ross shows Walsh his “pig” target in the newspaper: Barney! A Wolkswagen van stop near the municipal building where four students and Walsh, armed with his rifle, step in. Walsh sets up the explosives to the main entrance’s door. The students occupy the office of Tallman when, out of the bue, Dana makes her entrance and Walsh accuses her of being a traitor (“You’re a spy for the pigs! That’s what’s the matter”) and threatens her with his rifle (“I ought to shoot you right now!”). Alec intervenes and saves Dana’s neck. Walsh adds an explosive charge to the door of the Mayor’s secretary office to get rid of the students. Dana speaks with a megaphone to the public of the streets and asks for negociation to change the Dean (on a white flag, hanged in the Mayor’s office window, you can read: “Education not slavery”). After the incident, the four students come out of the municipal building, escorted by two cops with helmets, followed alone by Dana: freeze frame (end of the episode).
Doug Robert
Doug poses as John Andrews, drives a black car and run a light and is arrested by a police car. Unable to show his registration and driving licence, the policeman notices that he carries a holster so the other policeman opens, searches his trunk and discovers an arsenal of rifles and grenades. He is arrested for weapons’ possession, sent to the 11th Precinct and justifies himself in front of Lt. Ross and tells him that he works for Sandford Michaels who finances the campaign of Mayor Tallman. Lt. Ross orders a cop to unlock his handcuffs. Much later, inside an ambulance, Doug shows the real Tallman, gaged and tied up to a stretcher, his televised confession and, also, mentions his artificially-injured arm. Last, but not the least, Tallman asks Doug a confirmation about his daughter: “She wasn’t real, either… that bother you?” Tallman remains mute but relieved.
Jim Phelps
Jim poses as Sanford Michaels (carrying spectacles with a large black frame), an extreme right wealthy man and a weapon buyer. He talks to Peck in his office and gives him a $50,000 check to finance the campaign of Tallman and offers the services of his friends who are guns consumers. Peck has returned Jim’s property (meaning his weapons) in his car and phones to launch a financial inquiry on him. Jim returns to Peck’s office and offers to give a $1 million donation because of his fundamental disagreement towards the policy of the governor’s man (Barney) that he read in the newspaper and asks to meet Tallman in order to test his qualities. Lt. Ross bumps into Jim and reports Tallman’s secret appointment to Peck who orders to tail Jones (Paris). Jim finally is introduced to Tallman by Peck who leaves. After a cup of coffee and a good conversation, Jim gets out. Later, in the Utility Closet, Jim and Doug store Tallman in the filling cabinet. Back at his hotel room, Jim makes a negative description of Tallman (“I found him soft, indecisive… he’s a weakling”) to Peck and pushes him to run for governor. Peck drives Jim to the Municipal building and goes see Lt. Ross who communicate with Walsh with his talkie-walkie. Jim, seeing unbalanced Tallman, forces Peck to act up fast. Peck orders Lt. Ross to call Wash to hit Tallman. When Walsh comes out and accuse him, Peck and Ross take the leave but Chief Danby nab them at the last minute.
Barney Collier
Barney poses as a repesentative of governor Frank Harper and anti-riot police Captain Davis (carrying tinted spectacles as in “The Hostage”) to appear to Mayor Tallman and his aide Chief Danby. While showing them a brochure of anti-riot uniforms, he takes pictures of the wall of the Mayor’s office with his wristwatch. Peck and Ross enter the office and watch Barney’s stack of most-wanted provocateurs files, including Dana’s. Ross denies to know her and makes her release. Barney breaks in the municipal building, snoops around the Utility Closet, next to Tallman’s office. He measures the wall and cuts a part of it with an electric saw to create a doorway. Later, Barney arrives by police car, driven by Chief Danby, to the municipal building and borrows the back alley to break in by the window, neutralizes the explosive charges, disarms Walsh from the rear, triggers a detonation, fights and masters him to prevent the explosion of the Mayor’s office by tearing the wires of the boobytrapped door. Barney crosses the main entrance and delivers outside Walsh to the authorities. He steps into the police emergency van and gives Tallman an ultimatum to salvage his social position (freedom).
Paris
Paris poses as Canadian Richard Jones and, inside a public phone booth, calls Tallman at his office to give him an appointment (217 Elm Street, Apartment 8, in one hour) and deal with his old girlfriend Elizabeth Wilson. He is dressed with a full blue jeans outfit and meets Tallman who is tailed by a cop. Paris tells the story of Elizabeth Wilson and his daughter that he raises and asks $10,000 to remain silent about these events. He meets again Tallman for Dana’s appointment. Lt. Ross bursts in and leads Paris to Peck’s office where he is interrogated when Tallman enters. Peck tells Tallman if Dana shows, Walsh will let her die with the students in the office and concludes by saying: “Steve… got any more kids I ought to know about?” Lt. Ross puts Paris in a cell. In the tradition of “The Wild Wild West” and character James West, Paris takes off one of his black boot, removes the black Scotchtape from the heel, catches a bullet with a telescopic skeleton key to pick the lock on the door and joins in Doug in the back exit for a ride. Paris and Doug go picking the lock on the Utility Closet of the Municipal building. Paris prepares his latex mask. Tallman is all alone when the wall moves and Doug points a gun at him and warns him: “Mayor Tallman, say hello to Mayor Tallman”. Tallman faces his double (Paris) pointing a gun at him too. Doug stings the Mayor in the neck with the “golden needle ring”. Paris wears the missing clothings that Doug rips off: tie, wallet, wristwatch. Paris-as-Tallman arrives by car near the municipal building and rebels against Peck and listens to his daughter. Paris presses a hidden button to activate a fake bullet wound in his arm and confesses his guilt and Peck’s illegal and arranged deeds to the camera of WKS television. He enters the ambulance and does the peel-off in front of amazed Tallman, lying on a stretcher trolley.
Willy is absent.
As in “Flip Side”, Dana is the daughter of a woman who used to have a relationship with a foe. As in “The Innocent”, the IMF hides a foe in a filling cabinet. A lot of characters pick the lock on: first Dana opens the College’s office, Paris comes out a tool from the heel of his boot to escape from his cell, Doug along with Paris open the Utility closet of the municipal building. As in "The Rebel", there's an informer in the students activists: Billy Walsh, their leader. Oddly enough, there are six students during the reunion and only four to invade the Mayor’s office: a male student and the female—who invites Walsh during te prologue— don’t participate? This is the second episode that shows a lefty foe, after “The Hostage”. The municipal building is located in the Paramount offices. The detail of absorbing alcoholic drinks has a political meaning: Tallman is addicted, Jim refuses it as well as Peck who both drink tea.
Weatherman or The Weather Underground is an early 1970's American radical left terrorist organization and their European counterparts are the Italian’s “Brigate Rosse”, the German’s “RAF” (Rote Armee Fraktion aka Baader-Meinhof Gang), the Greek’s “17N” and the French’s “Action Directe”.
Review:
As with the case of “Flip Side”, I find it better now. Still superior to “The Martyr” because of the writing but very talky, verbal (filled with heavy-handed rhetoric, dialectics and ideological speeches) and preachy political swindle episode not so far away from the season 1 “The Confession” plot but the hip lefty 1970’s folklore is terribly outmoded which closes the students’ agitators diptych started with the season 4 “The Martyr”; for "Mod Squad" and also “Ironside” fans only! The final latex mask’s peel-off is the best moment of this 50 minutes drama. This is the second script by Arthur Weiss, after “The Killer”, in a trilogy of irrational foes: Walsh is a political fanatic driven by his impulses to kill and ordered, as Lorca in “The Killer”, by a third party. Find a top-notch semi-abstract echo-laden jazz score by Lalo Schifrin and it is his second and final one, after “The Killer”.
Stock music:
“The Killer” (Act 3: the students van stops at the municipal building)
***IMF Out***
Thomas
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Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:38 am
filigrane <filigrane@...>
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