Jazz tenor saxophonist Duane Tatro first played with Stan Kenton, studied composition at the University of Southern California and also at Paris with Arthur Honegger and Jean Fournier and later shifted to the position of composer, arranger and orchestrator and worked closely with Lennie Niehaus, Bill Holman and Jimmy Giuffre. He only left one album: Jazz for Moderns (1956). He had an exclusive collaboration with television producer Quinn Martin during two decades and stamped the season 2 of The Invaders. Apart from Lalo Schifrin, this is the fourth and final composer with a jazz background after trumpeter Don Ellis (see the season 1 “A Cube of Sugar”), tenor saxophonist Benny Golson (see the season 5 “Flip Side” and “A Ghost Story” and the season 6 “Blind” and “Blues”) and bassist George Romanis (see the season 6 "The Visitors"). Note that this is the last score for the series.

TATRO'S SOLO SYNDICATE SCORE

For Ultimatum, Tatro reinterpretes the series themes (see Act 1: in the middle of a crossroad in Beverly Hills, one sewer maintenance worker comes out of his yellow truck; in a secret government control room, officials are working on West Coast cities maps to pinpoint the possible target; operator Lisa patches through Dr. Cooper to Jack; At the local gas station, Willy comes out of the bar, walks outside, stops and watches the end of the road; Willy sees the car of Dr. Cooper and damages by remote control the pipe of the radiator; in a desert road, a green civilian car and two police cars run and stop to create a roadblock; see Act 2: Two police cars are running fast to the Cheshire building; see Act 3: The cop drives Barney to the landing pad) and injects a discreet bassline a la Harry Geller’s “The Innocent” and his subdued and sparse music remind the incidental cues from Benny Golson’s “Flip Side”. Tatro also write a melancolic and gloomy martial theme for the Cooper’s and some action-packed music with a dominant bongo for hit man Morgan whose arrangements remind the work of Oliver Nelson at Universal television. A collection of tunes (easy listening, psyche-rock, jazz) heard on the radio of Cooper’s car and at the Café of the Hob Nob Gas Station is the leitmotiv that connects the IMFers with the foe from Act 1 to Act 3. Oddly enough, it contains one cue of stock music for the outcome of Act 4: it’s Richard Hazard’s rendition of the plot theme for “Commandante” when Adele Cooper laughs hysterically at her husband and shows him the arrival of the police. Note that from that episode a new music editor named Kenneth Hall replaces Dan Carlin who used to start on the series way back season 2.

End music credits for "Ultimatum".

 159-ULTIMATUM (episode #10, airdate: November 18, 1972)

 Prologue

 Prologue

 Tape scene

The camera zooms out and pans from left to right and shows the tide is coming in and the end of the road where a car runs and pulls over near the entrance of Fort Point National Historic Site beneath Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. At a remote distance, we see Jim comes out of the vehicle, wearing his season 5 dark brown blouson jacket, heads to the reinforced door (whose sign reads: “Open 10 to 5”) that he unlocks, pushes and closes behind. He penetrates (the camera pans from right to left) and crosses the main courtyard (the tilted low angle camera pans from left to right), walks to a 19th century military wagon (whose canvas reads: “Artillery Ammunition”), unlocks the tailgate, discovers the reel player placed on an envelop in the back. He drags the device to the tailgate, switches it on and gets the envelop.

 Summary

Nuclear Physicist Jerome Cooper blackmails the US government by hidding a 50 megatons hydrogen bomb in the sewer of an unidentified West Coast big city (i.e., Los Angeles’ City Hall) and sends a letter with the following demands: substituting some Officials of the State (eight congressmen, three senators and three White House statesmen: the director of the F.B.I., the Secretary of H.E.W., the Attorney General) against members of his organization and reversing the leaning of a certain American foreign policy. On his way to reach the Western White House by car for a private meeting with the President, Dr. Cooper is held prisoner by runaway criminals Jim and Mimi in the closed Café of a countryside gas station to make him disarm the bomb before the noon deadline.

 Cast and details

• Dr. Jerome Cooper played by Murray Hamilton
• Cooper’s fanatical wife Adele played by Madlyn Rhue
• Patrolman Frank Dagget played by Vince Howard (returning from the season 6 “Blues” but first seen in the season 3 “The Freeze”)
• The delivery boy played by Flip Mark
*Cooper’s accomplices:
• Pool player/hit man Joel Morgan played by Donnelly Rhodes (returning from the season 4 “Mastermind” but first seen in the season 3 “The Freeze”)
• Loan officer Frederick Rogers played by Vic Vallaro

Featuring the following agents: KBEX radio announcer Carl (Fred Holliday), operator Lisa (Judy Brown) and Jack (Dale Tarter aka producer Barry Crane’s assistant) posing as John Elliott, the President’s special administrative assistant, and also many extras (among them Harold Jones carrying spectacles) working in a secret control room along with Barney.

Jim poses as two-bit robber Michael Ryan, wanted by the local police for the stealing of $2,700 at the Eckworth Steel Corporation Alexandria Plant.

Barney poses as helicopter pilot accomplice Richie who takes Jim, Mimi and Jerome Cooper to Los Angeles’ City Hall. During the apartment scene, he explains to the team that he customizes the car of Dr. Cooper like this: a bug is hidden in the radio that transmits fake news bulletins and a boobytrapped pipe of the radiator that is triggered to explode by remote control.

Mimi poses as robber Madeline Royce, State penitentiary escapee and Jim’s girlfriend.

Willy poses as mechanic Tom who owns the “Hob Nob Gas Station”. Willy is gunned down in the back by Jim and pretends to die.

Dr. Cooper is briefing his wife Adele in his study | Dr. Cooper is driving down to the Western White House

Jim threatens Dr. Cooper to keep quiet at the Café | Adele Cooper is on her way to gun partner Rogers down

Dr. Cooper is watched by hit man Morgan | Morgan aims at Dr. Cooper to avoid leaks

The IMFers bring Dr. Cooper to Los Angeles | Dr. Cooper leads Jim to the bomb in the sewer of the City Hall

 Comments

Murray Hamilton was a typical television actor who also ventured into cinema: three films with actor James Stewart (Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of a Murder, Billy Wilder’s The Spirit of St. Louis and Mervyn LeRoy’s The F.B.I. Story), Robert Rossen’s The Hustler, John Frankenheimer’s Seconds, Mike Nichols’ The Graduate, Richard Fleischer’s The Boston Strangler, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, Stuart Rosenberg’s The Drowning Pool. Both Madlyn Rhue (see “The Night of the Bubbling Death”) and Donnelly Rhodes (see “The Night of the Legion of Death” and ”The Night of the Cossacks”) appeared in The Wild Wild West. Both Donnelly Rhodes and Vince Howard play in the season 3 “The Freeze”. To emphasize the suspense, the film editor adds a superimpression of a negative reversed shot of the bomb’s timer—thanks to colour-separation overlay—and furthermore, as in “Movie”, we can notice superimposed informations on the frame (the viewfinder). On the odd side, how can Cooper drives from Los Angeles to Western White House by car before the explosion? The house of the Coopers’ is recycled from “Blast”: only the exterior. As usual, minor characters receive no credits: two federal agents who are dressed as sewer maintenace workers, the unseen Congressmen accomplices.

As in two season 6 (“Invasion” and “Run for the Money”), the shooter (Morgan) assembles the parts of his rifle with a sight from a briefcase. The season 5 concept of human failure is present on three occasions (the escape of Adele Cooper from her house, the murder of Frederick Rogers and the intrusion of hit man Morgan near the Café) and it is caused by the IMF’s scheme itself. As in the last episode of season 6 (“Trapped”) and a season 7 (“Underground”), Barney has the position of leader and runs the operations. The tape scene allows the audience to read the contents of Dr. Coopers’ letter. The tape scene is shot in the location of John Boorman’s outcome for Point Blank. The location Fort Point from the tape scene will be used one week later for the outcome of a season 1 episode of The Streets of San Francisco entitled “In the Midst of Strangers”. Find the third episode with a pool table after “Break!” and “Hit”. One of the rare episode whose cinematography is by Robert B. Hauser and not the regular Ronald W. Browne and notice the composition during the killing of Rogers by Adele Cooper during Act 2: nice coated low angle p.o.w from 09:39 to 09:53. This is the last Mimi entry out of seven (“Break!”, “The Deal”, “TOD-5”, “Cocaine”, “Movie”, “Hit”) and the only episode in which there’s no mention of Casey.

 Review

This

is amongst the best of the season due to the high stake of the plot and a veiled reference to the 1950 British film Seven Days to Noon (directed by John and Roy Boulting) and above all, writer Harold Livingston fashions a plot around a tense “countdown” framework: see all the inserts of time (the cube clock of the secret control room, Willy’s wristwatch, The Café’s wall clock, Cooper’s longcase clock, the speaking clock service, Barney’s wristwatch, the bomb’s timer, the CSO of the bomb’s timer, Jim’s short countdown to noon near the bomb). This is the companion piece to the “journey” episode “TOD-5”: same mad scientist plot about blackmailing the government, same countryside setting, same roadblock ruse, Willy as a mechanic and even a sniper. This is director Barry Crane’s only best episode, his fireworks and his answer to Lewis Allen’s “TOD-5”. Notice the nice and wide cinematic chopper’s high angle shots of Cooper’s car crossing a lonely countryside road during Act 1 that is reminiscent of Barry Crane’s “Commandante” finalé: these shots underline that he is under constant surveillance. Some elements of the story are derived from “Two Thousand” (also written by Harold Livingston): the character of the plutonium thief nuclear physicist who begs the IMFers (replace Joseph Collins by Dr. Jerome Cooper), the omnipresent fake news bulletin on the radio, the console at the secret control room and the hysterical laughs of defeat.

One part of the plot includes finding the statesmen allies of Dr. Cooper and Carl broadcasts bogus news about new Congressmen meeting the President: see Act 1 and Act 2. To understand the political bias of the terrorist group run by the Cooper’s, just keep in mind who used to be the director of the F.B.I. in 1972? Peter Graves and Barbara Anderson form a perfect feuding criminal duo and both the performances and the dialogues highlight their talents: after “Break!”, “Cocaine” and “Movie” this is their last couple part. During Act 3, you can witness the most ironic scene when secret agent Jim Phelps has got the nerve to pretend to call into question the government’s sincerity in front of Dr. Cooper: “How do you know they’re not lying just to get you to turn off the bomb?” Guest actress Madlyn Rhue has an interesting character which is a terrorist surrogate: Adele Cooper is ordered by her husband to let the bomb explode by all means necessary so she turns into a diehard executioner (she hits a delivery boy with the shovel of her fire place and disguises to escape from her home in a van to call two members; she orders Morgan to kill her husband to avoid a leak and she guns Rogers down so that he doesn’t disarm the bomb and in the end, she also stays in the dark sewer to get rid of intruders)—this marks the first of a cycle of four female foe characters from season 7.