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| Richard HAZARD on Mission: Impossible Season 6 (1971-1972) |
| Posted By: Thomas Rucki on November 7, 2009 - 3:00 AM |
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We enter the last phase of season 6 in which only one score is commissioned. Richard Hazard makes a complete shift from his previous "ethnic" work on the series and follows the new hip gangster line; still contains stock music. Here's the third farewell to Mission: Impossible of a composer! As a reminder, find the list of previous scores by Richard Hazard: “Commandante” (season 4) and “Kitara” (season 5).
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HAZARD'S SOLO SYNDICATE SCORE
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The Bride is credited to composer Richard Hazard unlike what it is written in Patrick J. White’s The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier which bills it to Benny Golson. Hazard re-interpretes the main theme and writes an electric piano-oriented score with smooth, melancolic and threatening motifs and adds some moody harp. The theme of Mission: Impossible is heard many times and in many forms to remind us of the presence of the team: Prologue (the front of Corvin’s apartment building, Richie lights a cigarette to Anders, the end of the tape scene), Act 1 (the very start of the apartment scene, Willy sneak into Collins’ Mortuary to stick a printed circuits), Act 2 (Willy contacts Jim about Barney’s planned capture, Richie passes the phone to Casey to talk to Jim, Casey leaves the Central Hotel to take a cab, Casey knocks at Jim’s door, Casey opens her ring to signal Jim and swallows a death pill), Act 3 (Barney watches Collins’ employees coming out of the hearse, Willy answers to Harris ordering a hearse, Willy receives Jim’s wristwatch signal and orders a chauffeur to go to the airport, at Collins’ Mortuary Bob Robert removes his postiches, Barney phones again Collins to distract his attention), Act 4 (Bob Roberts is about to sting Collins with the golden-needle ring, in the back of the hearse Barney removes the money pillow from the sealed coffin). Hazard's score is the second most tracked of that season with a total of 14 episodes (see “Blind”, “The Tram”, “Mindbend”, “Shape-Up”, “Encounter”, “Underwater”, “Invasion”, “The Visitors”, “The Connection”, “Image”, “Committed”, “Bag Woman”, “Double Dead”, “Casino”) after Schifrin’s “Encore” up to 19 episodes. Find one cue of stock music from Schifrin’s “Encore” (Act 4: inside a car, Barney shows the money pillow to Jim and Willy when Casey arrives).
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End music credits for "The Bride".
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142-THE BRIDE (episode #15, airdate: January 1, 1972)
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Prologue
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Up in a building, in his 10th floor apartment, upset gangster Joe Corvin insults and accuses of stealing $150,000 from the last shipment (“You’re a cheat, Anders. You’re a dirty, filthy cheat!”) courier Anders in front of his second Richie and Syndicate executive Frank Mellinger. Anders denies but Corvin has an evidence from friends in Zurich. Anders justifies himself by stating he sold some property. Furious Corvin orders Richie to send away Anders who keeps on telling it’s a mistake. Once alone with Corvin, Mellinger reminds him he must move nearly $8 million of the Syndicate’s money out of the country and asks him how he plans to achieve it without Anders? Corvin promises his boss to do the job. Meanwhile, waiting for the elevator, Richie lights a cigarette to Anders. The doors of the elevator open, Richie says goodbye to Anders and pushes him into the void of the obscure shaft: we can see a falling dummy.
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Tape scene
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Inside a covered swimming pool, the hand of a woman—with long fingernails—squeezes the trigger of a gun to launch the start for four female swimmers. At a remote distance, wearing his dark brown windjammer, Jim walks into the place, stops his course to watch the swimmers and heads to a glass office. He unlocks a locker and, from the upper shelf, takes a mini reel player and a A4 envelop and moves to plant them on a desk.
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Summary
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Big shot Joe Corvin needs a replacement to carry some dirty money ($8 million) to Switzerland by plane. Willing to settle down, Corvin selects a wife named Kathleen Deegan from an Irish convent to marry. The IMF switches the bride by Casey who is caught in the act of drug addiction. Airport employee Jim is her pusher and threatened by Corvin, is obliged to smuggle the Syndicate money. Casey pretends to die violently of an overdose, the cushion of her coffin is used to hide the fund. At the Collins Mortuary, the IMF substitutes her by a dummy and Barney later remove the money. The sealed coffin falls during the shipment, showing a broken dummy of Casey. Corvin is found guilty of double-crossing and stealing by the head of the Syndicate Frank Millinger who witnesses Casey on her way to travel to Miami, alive, in the apartment of Corvin who is bumped off by Mellinger in the elevator shaft (off-camera) like the late Anders.
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Cast and details
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• Syndicate money smuggler Joe Corvin played by James Gregory
• Corvin’s right-hand man Richie (with long hair, sideburns and a fat moustache) played by Charles Dierkop
• Corvin’s thug played by Harry Raybould
• US Embassy official/courier Anders played by Douglas Henderson (returning from the season 5 “Blast”)
• Syndicate executive Frank Mellinger played by Brad Dexter
• Morgue director Collins (with a moustache) played by Woodrow Parfrey (returning from the season 1 “The Diamond”)
• Female party guest Mae played by Rachel English
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| Guest IMFers |
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Featuring master of disguise Bob Roberts (Gwil Richards) disguised as an ambulance driver with a grey wig and a moustache and mortuary employee Harris—who looks like director John Moxey—and stings Collins (off-camera) in the neck with the golden needle-ring. During the apartment scene, Gwil Richards carries a wig. A driver who delivers a hearse at Collins Mortuary.
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| Jim Phelps |
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Jim poses as airport employee Bevins, goods smuggler and drug dealer with a briefcase containing $100,000 of morphine; Jim presses the knob of his transmitter-wristwatch at the airport to warn Willy in order to send a Mortuary car near the plane’s shipment and influence Corvin.
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| Barney Collier |
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Barney poses as US Embassy official/smuggler Jack Kingby, the former boss of Anders, who wants to negociate with Mellinger to replace Corvin and wants 8% of the packet; he is kidnapped, tied in to a chair and beaten up by Corvin’s henchmen to talk; over the phone, Barney is Morgue customer Mr. Baker; to create a diversion, Barney makes a hole in the radiator of the Mortuary car with a telescopic spike to provoke a water leak damage.
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| Lisa Casey |
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Casey poses as the elegant Irish Kathleen Deegan from a convent, dressed in Paris’ couturiers, a dedicated drug addict who pays her fix of morphine with Corvin’s diamonds necklace. She avoids cremation and embalming at the last minute.
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| Willy Armitage |
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Willy poses as a Red & White cab, as the operator of Anderson Car Rental over the phone and ambulance driver and does some manual jobs: stick a printed circuit at the Collins Mortuary’s phone, calls and warns Jim about Barney’s abduction through a mini walkie-talkie, stings Harris in the neck with the golden needle-ring.
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| Act 1 |
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“I could never give it [the diamond necklace] to an American woman. You use American women. You use them to…”
—Joe Corvin to Casey as Kathleen Deegan.
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Richie and Corvin wait for Casey at the airport | Casey as Catherine Deegan removes the hat that Corvin hates
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| Act 2 |
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“I said, your little convent girl just got herself a fix.”
—Richie to Joe Corvin over the phone.
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Jim is on his way to give Casey a fix of morphine | Richie interrupts abruptly Jim's drug deed
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| Act 3 |
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“Who do you think? I didn’t kill her. She up and died, and saved me the trouble.”
—Joe Corvin to Jim as Bevins at the airport.
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Corvin and Jim as Bevins watch the shipment of a plane | Collins orders Harris to embalm Casey for the trip
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| Act 4 |
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“I thought I knew you, Joe, but that young broad got to you, didn’t she?”
—Frank Mellinger to Joe Corvin at his flat.
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Mellinger examines the head of Casey's dummy at the airport | Mellinger and Troy hold Corvin to punish him
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Comments
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Actor James Gregory was a notorious television character always typecasted as the loudmouth cop in 1950's Film Noir and had a collaboration with director John Frankenheimer on his television anthologies (Danger, Playhouse 90, Buick Electra Playhouse) and early feature films (The Young Stranger and The Manchurian Candidate), was the first President Grant in The Wild Wild West pilot ("The Night of the Inferno") and appeared as a Syndicate man in the season 2 episode of Hawaii Five-O entitled: “All the King’s Horses”. Actor’s Studio-trained Charles Dierkop guest stars in Desilu’s last three series (Star Trek, Mission: Impossible and Mannix) and appears in two George Roy Hill’s films: Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid and The Sting. Actor Sydney Woodrow Parfrey is a well-known television figure which appears many times on Mannix, plays in the notorious Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode “The Project Strigas Affair” (with William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy) and guest stars in many Don Siegel films: Madigan, Dirty Harry and Charley Varrick. Character-actor Douglas Henderson is known for his semi regular part of Colonel Richmond in The Wild Wild West, guest starred in the cult Cold War film The Manchurian Candidate and also appeared on Mannix many times. The actor (with no credits) who plays gangster Tony Troy at the party looks like Bruce Geller. After “Nerves”, this is the second master of disguise that is hired. In this episode, Lynda Day George is as pretty as Lynda Evans from The Big Valley. Casey’s main titles’ vignette comes from this apartment scene but with a different angle. During the apartment scene, Casey shows the team the work done on her dummy that she considers unsatisfactory, nevertheless, Jim remains supportive and says: “It’s perfect”. From Act 3, Jim is depicted with fancy large blue spectacles that he first carried during the tape scene of “The Tram”. For the anecdote, the killing via the elevator shaft is recycled from the season 3 “The Contender”. As in “The Tram” and “Blues”, the prologue ends with a mobster pushing his victim into the void. As in “Blind” and “The Encounter”, we can see the same set of gangster apartment with the bar incorporated to the living-room but is now Corvin’s apartment. As in many season 6 entries, notice the white portable dial telephone in the warehouse and the ambulance. The suspenseful cremation attempt on Casey is actually a reference to a season 3 episode of The Wild Wild West entitled: “The Night of the Death Maker”. This episode is a golden needle-ring festival and done twice in the same place (the preparation room) by Willy and Bob Roberts. As in “Blind”, Willy poses as a Red & White cab driver. As in “Blind” and “The Tram”, we see another aspect of the crooked capitalistic system of the Syndicate: the laundering of the dirty money sent into a foreign country. After “The Connection”, find again a prologue that starts in the apartment building of a mobster. This is the second tape scene, after “The Connection”, that starts with a sports competition. As in the end of “The Connection”, Casey pretends to be the partner of a gangster to con another.
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Review
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is more or less a Syndicate update of the Soviet season 3 “The Diplomat” (see the society circle setting, a female IMFer who undergoes an overdose, Barney who is hidden inside the back of a car to steal an item). The theme (i.e., wedding) of the story is rather banal and anecdotal (also see the padded conventional businessmen orientation and long scenes with explanatory dialogues during the first two acts) but the plot is still very cunning, morbid, perverted and cynical to the extreme—the IMF sadically toys with the puritanism of old conservative and misogynous gangsters—and the episode is well-filmed thanks to John Moxey’s style which gives room to Lynda Day George to develop her acting. Actually, it is a vehicle episode as the season 5 “Flip Side” (also directed by John Moxey and also written by Jackson Gillis) that serves to introduce the new leading lady; the devious relationship (almost a father/daughter one) and generation gap between the gruff Corvin and Casey as a morphine junky reminds the intercourses of uptight Cameron and pills addict Dana Lambert. Two scenes with Casey and Richie from Act 2 are unexpected: Richie tails Casey up to the flat of Jim and watch them preparing a fix and Casey throws out a glass of whisky at the face of Richie who wants to seduce and bribe her.
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