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| Benny GOLSON on Mission: Impossible Season 6 (1971-1972) |
| Posted By: Thomas Rucki on October 31, 2009 - 3:00 AM |
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After Lalo Schifrin and Robert Drasnin, this is the last composer who fashions two scores. This is the second farewell to Mission: Impossible of a composer! Jazz tenor saxophonist Benny Golson composes for excellent episodes: “Blind” which is his answer to Schifrin’s “Encore” due to the use of saxophone and “Blues” which is related to “Flip Side”: Show-business, Song and Drug. For the anecdote “Blind” is tracked and well-highlit in “Underwater”, especially during a long scene at the bottom of the sea in Act 4. Both season 6 original compositions have some stock music. As a reminder, find the list of previous scores: “Flip Side and “A Ghost Story” (season 5).
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GOLSON'S SYNDICATE SCORES
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Blind is a score with leading instuments as saxophone, piano, synthesizer, violins, snare drum that goes from smooth, cool and laid-back to shrill, torn-inside and melancolic music: see the traumatic scenes of Warren Hays’ eyes accident in the oil refinery, Jim’s pedestrian fall while crossing the street, Jim’s delirium tremens simulacrum in his room (notice the frenzy synthesizer), Jim’s escape and fall from the federal stairs during the infiltration of the computer room, Deetrich’s ambush to kill Lawton and Matula in the warehouse. Act 1 at Duke’s restaurant features the performance of a Spanish guitarist, some easy listening jazz in other restaurant scenes—Barney is introduced to Johnny Brown in Act 1 and Lawton briefs his lieutenants about Jim’s federal ordeal in Act 2—and at Act 2, some funky music on the radio set of the federal night watchman who feeds his cat O.J. We can hear the Mission: Impossible theme many times and orchestrated differently: during Act 1, Jim and his team meet the real Hays in the hospital (dominant saxophone), at the end of Deetrich complaining to Matula and when Jim first meets Casey in the boarding house after being fired from Duke’s (executed by a dry piano), Jim drops his coins on the floor and crawls to get them back (dominant flute and vibraphone), during Act 2, Willy as a cab driver watches Jim supported by the bystanders (dominant brass section) and during Act 4, Barney pretends to eliminate Jim (off-camera) in the warehouse followed by Jim who is free of his opaque lenses in the hospital. Anyway, it contains portions of stock music: Schifrin’s “Encore” (Act 2: Johnny Brown asks Jim when will they rob the federal building?), Hazard’s “The Bride” (Act 2: Johnny Brown helps Jim to go up the stairs and then walk in a yellow corridor and enter the computer room; Act 3: Casey presses a secret button behind the mini bar to alert Willy as a cabbie who drives Jim back to the boarding house) and Schifrin’s “The Contender” (Act 3: inside his room, Deetrich makes a deal with Jim for $25,000; Act 4: the hood picks Jim up to the warehouse). For Blues, the song "Judy's Gone Now" is written by composer Benny Golson and actor Greg Morris in one hour. The song “You Send Me”, written by R&B singer Sam Cooke in 1957 but performed by actress Gwenn Mitchell, becomes the main motif of the episode and is heard many times through a tape player and even in Barney’s record player. In a way, Barney’s “Judy’s Gone Now” is the answer to Judy Saunder’s deepest wish (“Either I get a release, or the next song I sing’s going to be about you, Stu Gorman, the guy who turned the music business into a one-man cesspool”) she expressed during the prologue. A second song is recycled and performed by actor Greg Morris during Act 2: “(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay”, written by soul singer Otis Redding in 1967. Apart from the songs, Golson's score is subdued, sparse, suspenseful (with a dominant harp) and urban jazz-oriented. The theme of Mission: Impossible is played many times during this intrigue and is arranged in a discreet way as a watermark with a muted saxophone: Act 1 (Willy takes pictures of Judy Saunders' apartment followed by Barney heading to the County Probation Department; Barney buys some dope to a street pusher under the nose of Tanner and Belker), Act 2 (after asking Tanner to close his apartment's door softly, Barney gets up from his bed; Casey gives Belker the official pictures of Judy Saunders' apartment; Willy booby-traps Belker's car engine), Act 3 (Actor Art Warner rewinds the reel tape of the phony recording; Jim vainly phones at the empty apartment of Barney), Act 4 (Jim calls Willy at the studio and orders him to check Barney's apartment; Willy visits Barney's empty apartment). There is a rare trace of stock music: Schifrin’s “Takeover” (Act 4: Jim switches on the recording and Lt. Don Eckhart handcuffs Gorman).
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JUDY'S GONE NOW LYRICS
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Judy is gone now
All silent and still
Reached for the stars
But who’d she ever harm?
Who’d she ever kill?
Aimed so high
Like a soaring bird
It just don’t seem right
Sang those sweet notes, but said the wrong word
Yeah, Judy is gone now
Pushed into the night
Cold hand, cold heart sent her away
On her last flight…
Good-bye, Judy
It just don’t seem right
That he is still here
And you’re gone forever…
Pushed into the night
Good-bye, Judy
It just don’t seem right
That he is still here
And you’re gone forever…
Pushed… into the night. |
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SYNDICATE MUSIC VIDEOS
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• Judy Saunders sings “You Send Me”.
• Barney Collier-as-John Crane sings "Judy's Gone Now".
• Barney Collier-as-John Crane sings "(Sitting on) The Dock of the Bay". |
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End music credits for "Blind" and "Blues".
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128-BLIND (Season opener) (episode #1, airdate: September 18, 1971)
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Prologue
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At night (a day for night), a car stops nearby the entrance of the closed Cordillera’s oil refinery and Federal agent Warren Hays draws his gun to explore the place. Meanwhile, a saboteur sets the wires of a time bomb to a pipe. Hays walks up the stairs when the saboteur hears his footsteps and runs in a hurry. Arriving at the section 78, Hays discovers a small roll of black scotchtape on the floor and notices the device stuck to the aluminium pipe. An explosion occurs, Hays undergoes the blast that projects him on the floor. He stands up, covers his dirty and bloody face with his hands and says with pain: “I can’t see. I’m blind!”
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Tape scene
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Jim drives a blue car and parks it near a building named “Gate of Spain”. He walks towards a Baroque fence and takes the observatory glass elevator (the camera dollies in to the elevator through the wired fence). Once in the upper floors, he unlocks the intercom box, grabs a small envelop and switches on the recording of the speaker.
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Summary
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After the failed destruction attempt on a plant breeding the injuries of federal agent Hays, Jim Phelps replaces "the" ex-F.B.I. agent, fired - alcoholic - blind and broke, to infiltrate and work in the high ranks of John Lawton's Outfit in order to protect the cover of agent Henry Matula posing as a financial executive.
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Cast and details
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• Undercover F.B.I. agent/mob business advisor Henry Matula played by Tom Bosley
• Head mobster John Lawton played by Harold J. Stone
• Mob executive Carl Deetrich played by Jason Evers (returning from the season 4 "The Double Circle" but first seen in the season 3 “The Mind of Stefan Miklos")
• Deetrich's henchman Johnny Brown played by Peter Brown
• Deetrich's hood played by Dom Tattoli (returning from the season 5 “Flight”)
• F.B.I. agent Warren Hays played by Glen Wilder
• Duke’s bartender played by Henry Slate
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| Guest IMFer |
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Featuring Dr. Warren (Robert Patten) who applies opaque lenses to Jim.
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| Jim Phelps |
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Jim poses as former G-man Warren Hays and undergoes surgery to create total blindness; Jim carries two pairs of sunglasses. Jim's blindess is tested by Lawton with a lighter; Jim slips twice at his own risks. Jim stirs up the anger of Johnny Brown.
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| Barney Collier |
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Barney poses as henchman Steve Anderson, sent by gangster Tommy Landers from Detroit and hired by Matula. He carries tinted spectacles.
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| Lisa Casey |
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The new and improved female IMFer steps into the show: Lisa Casey (Lynda Day George, regular actress on the 1970-1971 Feds series The Silent Force) who poses as Chris, Jim's sexy landlady that flirts with killer Johnny Brown.
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| Willy Armitage |
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Willy poses as a bar customer who is offered a drink by Jim and as a Red & White cab driver (see "The Killer") with a moustache who almost runs blind Jim down; Willy keeps on watching and recording Jim's room conversations with gangsters behind a two-way mirror.
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| Act 1 |
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“Why is it, Henry, every time I say ‘black’, you say ‘white’? I say ‘yes’, you say ‘no’. I say there’s a stool pigeon, you make a joke. I’m starting to fill up with you.”
—Carl Deetrich talking to Henry Matula.
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The mob executives listen carefully to big boss Lawton | At Duke's restaurant, Lawton and his top men argue
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| Act 2 |
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“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! They’re crawling all over me! I can’t stand them! They’re… aaaaaah! Oh, God!”
—Jim as alcoholic Federal agent Warren Hays.
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Jim as agent Hays undergoes a delirius tremens crisis | Reflection of Willy watching Casey and Brown
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| Act 3 |
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“Brown? What do you want with him? He’s a cheap hood, Chris.”
—Jim as corrupted Federal agent Warren Hays.
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Jim as agent Hays removes his broken sunglasses for an eye test | Deetrich and Brown threaten Jim to talk
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| Act 4 |
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“I, I wasn’t sure, so I called him up. I disguised my voice and gave him a departmental code word. He thought I was an agent. He gave the countersign, and agreed to a meeting. He’s, uh, he’s your man.”
—Jim as informant Federal agent Warren Hays.
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After being scared by Brown's gunshots, Jim falls out of the stair | Brown is shot dead and pinned down
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Comments
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that season, the series will turn into a study of the underworld's grades and the corruption: in short, the IMF does F.B.I. jobs instead of C.I.A.-like operations. This is the first episode with a Federal agent trapped in the prologue. Deep beyond this Syndicate offering, there’s a criticism on corporation and wild-cat capitalism, especially the ritual, the hierarchy, the dialectics and the methodology of the mob executives: see John Lawton (“The board of directors voted against replacing the present executive officer with our candidate”) and Henry Matula (“The board of directors might have balked at replacing a man who has turned the company around from loss to profit”). The season 5 concept of human failure is at his best here, just watch Jim’s undercover derelict part which combines planned weaknesses and unexpected accidents. To elaborate, it introduces the final stage of Neo Noir’s socio-realism initiated from season 5 through gruesome, harsh and naturalistic human experience: see the emphasis on Jim’s suffering in the DT scene, his clumsiness in the escape from the federal building and the horrible fall in the warehouse. Neo Noir is the modern equivalent of the 40’s and 50’s Film Noir and “Blind” can be seen as a companion piece to Point Blank and foreshadows The Outfit (both adapted from a novel by Donald E. Westlake), in short, films that depict the organized crime as a respectable corporation and integrated into the institutions. To conclude, during the mob reunion that is composed of a head and eight executive gangsters, only two have identities (Deetrich and Matula) which shows how cold and depersonalized is the contemporary underworld. The episode features no apartment scene but a briefing in a hospital—the hospital building footage is recycled from the season 5 “My Friend, My Enemy”. Speaking of location, the warehouse of Act 4 looks like the refinery from the prologue and the “Gate of Spain” is Los Angeles’ Huntley House (a former apartment building in North of Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica and the Beaches that was turned into a luxury hotel) where director John Boorman used to film the killing of Mal Reese scene from Point Blank. As in the previous season 5, cinematographer Ronald W. Browne composes a wide angle lens-oriented work and uses the gimmick of the scale of shots in the same frame during Act 2’s DT scene: Jim’s face in the foreground and Casey and Brown’s silhouettes in the background. In both the season 2 "Recovery" and "Blind", Jim Phelps poses as a character named Warren Hays: in "Recovery", it's Warren Hayes. Now the question that comes naturally to my mind is how can Jim survive after a long fall and lands on a concrete ground intact? Note the order of appearance of the leading actors in the opening titles’ vignettes: Peter Gaves, Greg Morris, Lynda Day George and Peter Lupus.
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Review
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The first underworld financial empire entry directed by Reza Badiyi and among my favourite ones and because of Peter Graves’ raw and realistic alcoholic performance that is shocking especially the delirium tremens scene in his sordid room that is interrupted by Lynda Day George and Peter Brown—actually, Jim’s pathology is reminiscent of a 1945 Film Noir entitled The Lost Weekend directed by Billy Wilder; also see Graves' heroin addict performance in the season 4 "Orpheus" in which he plays another burnt out agent. This is the arch-type gangster plot, written by Arthur Weiss (see the season 5 “The Killer”), that will influence the remaining seasons. Apart from the gangster tale, it is a veiled intimistic study on one IMFer but treated with a harsh medical approach that will also become the trade mark of story consultant Laurence Heath for the last two seasons.
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137-BLUES (episode #10, airdate: November 20, 1971)
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Prologue
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At night, up in her apartment, dressed with a flashy violet hip outfit, singer Judy Saunders rehearses and records the song “Darling, You Send Me” with the reel-to-reel machine of her living-room. She stops her performance and cuts the recording. She rewinds the tape and listens to it. Down in the Parkview Tower Apartments building, a car stops and Stu Gorman tells his man Belker to wait for him during five minutes. Judy Saunders starts again to sing when someone knocks at the door. She asks to wait, stops the recording, turns off the reel-to-reel machine and walks to the door. She looks in the mirror to arrange her hair quickly, asks the identity of the person (Gorman) and opens up. She asks producer Gorman the release paper for breaking her contract, moves to the bar and drinks a whiskey. Gorman tears off the document and refuses to let her out. She threatens him to write a song to denounce his crooked activities: “Either I get a release, or the next song I sing’s going to be about you, Stu Gorman, the guy who turned the music business into a one-man cesspool”. Gorman warns her but she fires him and threatens to call the police. She picks up the telephone, he unplugs the line from the floor socket. She drops the phone on the sofa, moves backwards, orders him to get out, lets drop a table. Gorman follows her up to the terrace. She starts to compose the number of the police with a portable dial phone but Gorman grabs it and throws it out. He holds her tightly, argues, carries her and pushes her in the void.
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Tape scene
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In an amusement park, two hip female teenagers cry and slide on a toboggan thanks to carpets. The owner keeps an eye of his customers when Jim parks his brown car near a fence. Carrying fancy blue rectangular sunglasses, Jim walks to talk to the owner and says: “Looks like businesss is picking up over last week”. The owner answers: “Yeah, so far, so good. What does the weatherman say?”. Jim says: “Low clouds with a possibility of a storm by nightfall”. The owner tells Jim to look for the drawer underneath the shelf. He enters the booth, unlocks “the” drawer, takes the A4 envelop, puts down a mini reel player on the table and activates it.
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Summary
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After defenestrating (“pushed into the night”) female singer Judie Saunders, record producer and owner of Marathon Music Corp. (MMC) Stu Gorman auditions a male R&B singer named John Crane and which happens to be undercover Barney who blackmails Gorman with a “hot” tape against a signed “superstar” contract. The IMF turns business advisor Joe Belker against his boss by creating a false conspiracy in order to obtain a full confession of Gorman’s murderer deed.
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Cast and details
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• Cynical record producer-mobster Stu Gorman (carrying spectacles) played by William Windom (returning from the season 2 “The Widow” but first seen in the seaon 1 “The Train”)
• Gorman’s financial man Joe Belker played by Ed Flanders
• Gorman’s strong-arm Tanner played by Alex Rocco
• Singer Judy Saunders played by Gwenn Mitchell
• Street hip pusher played by Robert Bralver
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| Guest IMFers |
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Featuring actor Art Warner (John Crawford returning from the season 3 “Live Bait”), carrying spectacles, and whose speciality is to imitate voices and for a phony recording in a well-equipped Studio: Jim and Willy operate the mixing consoles with sound effects (front door, footsteps, table falling) while Casey and Art perform characters Judy Saunders and Stu Gorman. Police Lt. Don Eckhart (Vince Howard returning from the season 3 “The Freeze”) cooperates with Jim: we see his picture during the apartment scene.
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| Jim Phelps |
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Jim poses as Police Sergeant Jenner and uses a briefcase tape recorder to sample Gorman's voice along with black police Lt. Don Eckhart.
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| Barney Collier |
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Barney poses as ex-convict, drug addict, arrogant soul music singer John Crane (wearing outrageous hip outfits as glossy olive drab shirt with a tapered collar and a funky brown bonnet during the first song) who makes Gorman remind his night homicide through a series of intercut shots while performing the song "Judy's Gone Now" accompanied with a band doing The JB's or Curtis Mayfield's style; Barney also sings later Otis Redding's "Sitting on The Dock of the Bay"; as alcoolic Jim in “Blind”, Barney must recapture the reactions of an addicted man living in a sordid hotel and stirs up the anger of the henchman (Tanner): see the detail of the closed doors (Gorman's office and Barney's sordid hotel room).
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| Lisa Casey |
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Casey poses as a clerk from the “Police Photographic Library” and she is bribed twice by Joe Belker posing as Harlow, president of "Judy Saunders Memorial Enterprises".
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| Willy Armitage |
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Willy poses as hitman John Smith aka Steven Walters.
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| Act 1 |
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- Barney-as-Crane: “Oh, come on, baby. I’m talking about Judy Saunders. Now, you killed the chick. I got you cold.”
- Stu Gorman: “How do you figure that?”
- Barney-as-Crane: “Huh. Well, we’ll skip the details for now. But I got you, man.”
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Jim as Sgt. Jenner and Lt. Eckart visit Gorman | Reflection of Gorman watching Barney sing "Judy's Gone Now"
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| Act 2 |
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“Maybe he’s got something he always wanted… a little power! Man like Crane, he likes to see people jump!”
—Anxious Stu Gorman to Joe Belker.
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The IMFers record the phony tape in the studio | Barney performs Otis Redding's "Sitting on The Dock of the Bay"
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| Act 3 |
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- Barney-as-Crane: “Man, do you know what you’re doing to me?”
- Henchman Tanner: “Sure, I do. That’s why I’m doing it.”
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Belker and Gorman visit Jim as Sgt. Jenner at the precinct | Belker blackmails Barney as junky John Crane
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| Act 4 |
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- Stu Gorman: “You idiot, you’ve got nothing.”
- Joe Belker: “It’s all here, Gorman. I’ve got you nailed.”
- Stu Gorman: “You’re missing it this time, Belker. The tape is a phony. The impersonations are good, but the words are all wrong.”
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Tanner leads Barney to a furniture depository | Gorman is on his way to gun down blackmailer Belker
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Comments
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Actor Alex Rocco is a 1970’s Neo Noir figure (see Un Homme est mort, The Friends of Eddie Coyle) and known for his gangster part as Moe Green in Francis Ford Coppola's 1972 The Godfather and used to be trained by Leonard Nimoy. Actor Ed Flanders appears seven times in Jack Lord’s cop series Hawaii Five-O and is known for his part of Dr. Westphall in the series St. Elsewhere—there’s a connection between his Belker part blackmailing Barney in his apartment and his first part as drug guru Professor David Stone in the season 1 “Up Tight” from Hawaii Five-O in which he plays with the addiction of young hip people. As in “The Miracle”, the black people street folklore is emphasized. As in “Encore”, Jim poses as a police officer. As in “The Tram”, a foe pushes his victim into the void during the prologue. Notice the swift and fluid transition between the prologue and the tape scene linked by female’s screams. The office building located in 3470 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles that we see is over-used during the first season of Mannix in order to depict the Intertect building but is already seen in previous Mission: Impossible episodes as “The Council”, “The Diplomat” and “Mastermind”. As in “Blind”, “The Tram” and “Mindbend”, cinematographer Ronald W. Browne uses again the gimmick of the scale of shots in the same frame thanks to a wide angle lens to suggest a death threat: during the first song in Act 1, Belker’s face is in the foreground and Gorman in the background. Find again the 70’s technology in the IMF’s recording studio with a battery of fancy tape players, consoles, white headphones and white portable dial telephones—for the anecdote, the IMF’s recording studio is Berlinger’s torture room in ”Underwater”. As in many season 6 (“Blind”, “The Tram”, “Encounter”), we can see the set of gangster apartment with the bar incorporated to the living-room that is now Judy Saunders’ re-decorated pad. The flat of Barney is Casey’s one from “Shape-Up”. During the tape scene, Jim carries fat 1970's blue sunglasses. During the apartment scene, Barney explains how the explosive works: a shaped charge whose 90% of the energy will be expended forward, away from the driver. After “Blind” and “Shape-Up”, find the third guest character by the name of Saunders. As in “The Miracle”, “Underwater” and “Invasion”, the outcome ends with the arrival of the police.
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Review
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Thanks again to Reza Badiyi’s film-making—especially the songs scenes (see “Judy’s Gone Now”: fast zooming, reflection shots on the glass booth of both sides, Gorman’s close-up intercut with the murder), the intricate IMF’s recording studio scenes and Belker’s blackmailing Gorman outcome (extreme close-up on Gorman’s face intercut with the scene of the murder, tilted shot on Gorman pointing a handgun at Belker)—, a very good remake of "Butterfly" owing to the bogus document (here, a recorded tape) to blackmail the foe but done in the underworld of show business combined with the basic themes of “Flip Side” (the IMF avenges a woman, one IMFer poses as a singer and suffers from a drug problem). Find here a pamphlet on show business and the music industry depicted as an outpost for vice and corruption—the trio of sleazy show business swindlers work very well thanks to the energetic performances of William Windom, Ed Flanders and Alex Rocco who almost acts like Al Lettieri when he makes Barney suffer with the dope (“Sure, I do. That’s why I’m doing it”). This is writer Howard Berk’s second script, after “Encounter”, in an addiction related trilogy. As in “Mindbend”, the season 5 concept of human failure is used through Barney’s unexpected fate. Greg Morris’ withdrawal interpretation is reminiscent of Graves' heroin addict performance in the season 4 "Orpheus". This is the last part of a diptych started with “Blind” in which one IMFer pretends to suffer from the addiction symptoms or should I say it is Greg Morris’ answer to Peter Graves’ season opener pathology.
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Today in Film Score History:
November 21 |
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| Don Ellis begins recording his replacement score for The Seven-Ups (1973) |
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| Malcolm Williamson born (1931) |
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| Ralph Burns died (2001) |
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| The Best Years of Our Lives premieres in New York (1946) |
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| Film Score Monthly Online |
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Listen While You Eat: Movies about Cooking and Eating, and Music for Them. |
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Listen While You Eat: A Turkey Side Dish |
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Star Wars, Aerosmith style |
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Ear of the Month Contest |
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Soundtrack Obscurities 19: The French Edition |
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Uncharting a Course |
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Wong's Turn: Do They Know It's Christmas on Main Street? |
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Score Restore: The French Connection |
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