Well, I am taking Jimmy M. up on his suggestion that I start the next episode review. I do so with some trepidation, as I feel like the new kid at school having to get up in front of the class and give a book report
I must also issue a disclaimer that I wrote most of this with a pounding migraine! And I am still saving up for Marc and Linda's book, so I don't have the benefit yet of using it as a reference.
Other than that, here goes:
Episode: Let's Kill Karlovassi
• The Basics
Air date: According to an online episode guide, this was episode No. 57 and was the first episode of Season 3, airing on September 11, 1967.
Written by: Michael Zagor
Directed by: Christian Nyby
Guest stars: Ruth Roman (Maria), Walter Slezak (Dennis), Peter Wyngarde (George).
• The Story:
Kelly and Scotty are summoned to a small Greek island or village thereon, identified in the show's opening sequence as Hydra, although I read that the episode was filmed primarily on Mykonos? Anyway, they don't know what their assignment is yet -- Kelly suggests maybe he is there to play tennis with some diplomats, but Scotty is skeptical. Two men greet our boys as they step off the boat and laugh at Kelly's tennis reference. They say something in Greek and then take them to meet a woman named Maria who is waiting in a horse-drawn carriage (more on the carriage below). Scotty is thumbing through his dictionary to see what the two Greek men called them and he finds it - assassins! "Yes," says Maria, "you're going to kill a man for me."
Kelly and Scott are not particularly sanguine about being outright assassins, although Maria - also an agent for the U.S. - identifies their target as Dennis Karlovassi, "the head of espionage for the other side" on the islands. Kelly says that this kind of assignment has never been their "bag." The boys deride themselves as "Murder Incorporated" and Scotty worries about what his mom would think if she knew what they were doing.
Maria explains that Washington wants Dennis killed so that her submissive wannabe-boyfriend George - a double agent who is currently Dennis' assistant - can take over his position and report on the enemy's activities to Maria.
The boys scout out Dennis' boat that night but both end up getting knocked unconscious by a very short man who is guarding the vessel. They wake up in Dennis' home and Scotty tells Kelly that Dennis performed artificial respiration on him (Scotty) for 20 minutes and that he saved Kelly from "open head surgery" <g>. Okay, in real life Scotty would be in ICU on a ventilator for a very long time, but still ...
Dennis appears to be a really nice guy - a loving family man with a wife and daughter - and the boys decide they don't want to kill him. They concoct a plan to "out" Dennis as a spy, assuming that if his cover is blown he will be forced to leave the island and they won't have to kill him. But their plan is foiled as they quickly learn that everyone on the island already knows what Dennis does, but no one cares since he is such a beloved figure.
Maria senses the boys reluctance to kill Dennis and is very angry. "They wouldn't show you the same courtesy," she correctly points out. She hires a mercenary from Athens to do the job, forcing Kelly and Scott into the untenable position of protecting Dennis and his family. They also learn that Maria has a particular axe to grind with the bad guys - her husband and daughter were killed by guards at the Berlin Wall when her daughter innocently chased a cat as they were leaving East Berlin.
Kelly and Scott race to Dennis' house to warn him about the hired gun. Shortly after they arrive someone throws a Molotov cocktail through a window. Kelly grabs it and throws it back out just as it explodes. A few other hitmen descend on the home with machine guns (?), but our boys kill them all. Dennis realizes that Kelly and Scott are agents who were sent by Maria to kill him. When he asks why they didn't, Scotty says, "Well, you just can't shoot an honest man."
The boys tell Dennis that Maria will call off the assassination if he tells them the whereabouts of several men who went missing after visiting him. Karlovassi explains that he shuttled the men to the nearby island of Delos, but swears he doesn't know why they are there. He agrees to take Kelly and Scotty to Delos to investigate; Maria and George tag along.
Once on board Dennis' boat, the good guys find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun trained on them by Dennis' smiling wife Elaini. The family has packed their bags and are fleeing the island. Dennis explains that he killed the men he was supposedly taking to the training ground on Delos because he wanted to feel important and be more than a little cog in a big wheel. He has stowed one of the dead bodies on the ship and says the rest are buried on Delos. He plans to kill Maria and turn Scotty and Kelly over to his superiors.
When they arrive on Delos, Dennis orders George (who he still thinks is his assistant) to kill Maria and bury her in a grave that Scotty and Kelly were forced to dig. But George turns on Karlovassi and knocks the gun out of his hand. Dennis flees to the boat which is waiting in the harbor, while his wife and daughter fire on the island, hitting George; he is not seriously wounded and Maria finally shows some affection toward him as she tends to his wound.
Realizing they are temporarily stranded, the boys start a game of tic-tac-toe in the dirt, but Scotty draws a diagonal line on the board and declares "gin." <g>
The tag scene is the one Jimmy described below, with our boys spotting the guy who knocked them silly on the boat and cornering him at an ice cream stand. As they chastise him, the little man kicks Kelly in the shin, doubling him over as he affects a quick escape. K and S console themselves with ice cream.
• My thumbs up: A memorable group of guest stars, spectacular location scenery of a portion of the Greek Isles, another great music score with an authentic Greek feel, and some typically fun and memorable banter between the boys. Loved the exasperated look on Kelly's face when the taciturn Elaini suddenly pulls a gun on them!
• My thumbs down: I can't buy into the concept of the boys sparing Dennis' life just because he is a nice guy and a family man. He is the enemy and Washington wants him dead! While he did save both their lives, wasn't he the reason they were unconscious in the first place? There are too many examples throughout the series of the guys subjugating their personal feelings for the good of the mission that I can't believe they would be so sentimental this time around. Obviously Maria was right when she said the other side would never be that soft. Dennis really played them and they fell for it, but in reality (whatever that is on a TV show!), I think they would have been far too astute and professional to let that happen.
In my mind, there are a few possible explanations for their equivocation about killing Dennis: 1). They are uncomfortable about being outright assassins and killing in cold blood the man who saved their lives; 2). They are concerned that this is more a personal vendetta for Maria than a legitimate mission; 3). They don't think Dennis is as important a figure for the opposition as Maria thinks he is.
But regardless of the reason, it doesn't ring true for me that they would let their guard down and allow their emotions to rule.
• About Hydra:
Here is some information I found online which might explain Maria's horse-drawn carriage. Hydra is one of the Greek Saronic Gulf Islands, located 65 kilometers south of the mainland port of Piraeus and just 20 kilometers off the Peloponnesian coast. One of the island's most appealing features is its traffic-free tranquility - even bicycles are banned here and the only motorized vehicle you'll come across is the occasional rubbish truck. The horseshoe-shaped harbor is one of the most picturesque in the whole of Greece and provides the gateway to the island's beautiful port town with its imposing stone mansions adorning the rocky hillsides behind the waterfront. Hollywood put Hydra on the map in the 1960s when the island was used as the location for a number of films, including "A Boy and a Dolphin" starring silver screen siren Sophia Loren. Artists, writers and Bohemian types began arriving here in droves followed by vast numbers of wealthy Athenian weekends and island-hopping foreigners who transformed the island into one of the most exclusive (and expensive) holiday spots in Greece.
• Guest Star Trivia:
Was there a curse on the guest stars of Let's Kill Karlovassi? One might think so after reading the following:
- In July of 1956, Ruth Roman (Maria) and her four-year-old son were passengers on board the SS Andrea Doria ocean liner which struck another boat and sank. However, both were rescued and survived. (Wikipedia)
- Walter Slezak (Dennis) committed suicide in New York in 1983. (IMDb)
- Peter Wyngarde (George): After a short-lived but glittering TV career as 'Jason King', Wyngarde's career never reestablished itself after his arrest in 1975, with a truck driver, in the toilets at a Gloucester bus station. At his trial, he was found guilty of "gross indecency" and fined £75. The previous year, he lost over £3,000 in a confidence trick carried out by his former secretary, Jeremy Dallas-Cope, and a male model, Anthony O'Donoghue. During the 1980s, he filed for bankruptcy twice: on the occasion of the first hearing, it was stated in court that Wyngarde's 200-year-old farmhouse in the Cotswolds countryside had been repossessed, that he had no assets and was living on unemployment benefits (or "the dole" as it is termed in the UK). And a petition to "bring back Peter to our screens," which a Bradford housewife, Dorothy Szekely, collected 600 signatures for and then sent to the BBC as well as to the ITV networks, was unsuccessful. (IMDb)
Next Up: Episode No. 58 - "The Beautiful Children"