In March of this year I was taking in the “Mexican Riviera” via cruise ship. Included in the itinerary was a 24 hour stop at Acapulco. Several I Spy episodes were nominally set and partially shot there, in two blocks. From Season One: “It’s All Done With Mirrors”, “One Thousand Fine” and “A Day Called 4 Jaguar”. From Season Three: “Turnabout for Traitors”, “The Name of the Game”, “Pinwheel” and “Shana”.
Before the trip I had high-minded aspirations, like reviewing all the above-named episodes and possibly making a set of reference images from screen captures in the usual manner of our patron saint of “Then and Now” Tatia Loring. It was not to be. As anyone who knows me will tell you, usually my good intentions must be their own reward.
So when I did find myself in Acapulco on Monday 24 March 2008, my I Spy related activities were limited to visiting the Las Brisas Resort whose pink cabanas, each with its own private pool, and pink jeeps inhabit the mind of anyone who has watched those episodes. However, sometimes, whether you deserve it or not, serendipity lends a hand. The cruise ship docked, essentially, across the street from Fort San Diego. Fort San Diego, built in the 17th century now houses the Acapulco History Museum. Seeing it from the Lido deck, right across the street, we decided to walk over and visit it before hiring a taxi to Las Brisas. Unfortunately it is closed on Mondays. What I had forgotten is that it is a prominent location in “Turnabout for Traitors”. That’s where Scotty arranges to meet the fugitive Kelly (with Goza as the go-between), and where Kelly gets a knife in the back for his trouble. While we got no photos from inside the fort, photos taken from the ship before we disembarked do match, more or less, some of the viewpoints in the episode.
Before I get to the photos, there will be a brief geography lesson. Acapulco is located on a deep, semi-circular bay. The city is built on a narrow strip of low ground about half a mile wide, between the shoreline and the mountains, that encircles the bay. In the map below I’ve indicated the position of the cruise ship with the orange rectangle at the western end of the bay, just south of Fort “Fuerte” San Diego. Las Brisas is at the east end of the bay (and at a higher elevation) indicated by the red rectangle.
THEN: Scotty searches Fort San Diego for the guy who threw the knife at Kelly. NOW: View of Fort San Diego from the deck of the docked cruise ship. The roof of the fort has received a fresh coat of white paint sometime between then and now.
Some of the establishing shots of Acapulco at the opening of episodes appear to have been taken from the fort. Here is one from “Turnabout for Traitors” with a telltale cannon barrel. The “now” shot from the ship is probably oriented a little more to the north so there are no comparable features. The number of high rise buildings all around the bay has increased enormously since the sixties.
THEN: Scotty sitting on the wall of Fort San Diego waiting for Kelly. NOW: View from the deck (looking southwest) of the same section of the city. A nice example of serendipity. For reference the building behind Scotty’s head is the same as the one just above the mast of the boat.
Kelly and Scotty discuss Kelly’s predicament with the same view behind them as above, only tighter. Now the reference building is next to Kelly’s forehead.
THEN: Scotty returns from his failed attempt to find the knife thrower and realizes Kelly has split (sort of in the manner of Batman). NOW: Looking approximately in the same direction from the ship. I think the building just above and to the left of the smokestack in the “then” image is the same as the building a bit left of center in the “now’ image. There was no sign of that tall building at the top of the hill in any of the I Spy footage.
We change the episode to “The Name of the Game” and the setting to the cliff diving location. THEN: Kelly and Scotty have just watched the cliff divers do their thing and Scotty has suggested it is now Kelly’s turn—hence their amusement. NOW: We were there at night with several hundred of our closest friends. Kelly and Scotty are sitting higher and to the right of the rail at which we were standing. I noticed that area. It appeared to be attached to a restaurant.
None of the photos used here were taken with the idea that they would have any I Spy relevance. The next (and last) installment of the Acapulco Then & Now will take us to the Las Brisas resort where I Spy was definitely in mind. Until then, I’m going to finish here by sharing something I learned while studying the Acapulco episodes. In “A Day Called 4 Jaguar” there are a couple of fun scenes (in an otherwise dreary episode) in which a woman from the Las Brisas cabana below Kelly’s calls up to him and asks if she and her synchronized swimming team can use his pool to practice in. The pool man is cleaning hers. She appears twice. Early in the episode she makes the appeal, and at the end of the episode she and the rest of the synchronized swimmers climb up over the railing and begin cavorting with Kelly and Scotty in their pool. The encounter with the woman serves no plot function except, somehow, I think it alerts Kelly to the fact that the metal pool ladder has been electrified.
The woman has a fair amount of screen time, yet is uncredited. It illustrates the inconsistency in the screen credit process. Characters like “man” or “sales girl #2” or “Zulu guard” get screen credit with a small fraction of the screen time, dialogue and charm of this woman. “Jaguar” is from the 1966 Acapulco visit. I had never watched it so close in time to “Turnabout for Traitors” from the 1968 block. When I did, it was obvious that the synchronized swimmer went over to the dark side to become the evil Elena. Two years later Mexican actress Regina Torne returned in a much larger role, with screen credit.
Regina Torne wasn’t the only one who went uncredited in “A Day Called 4 Jaguar” and returned for a larger part in “Turnabout for Traitors”. Moving to the opposite end of the pulchritude scale, we find Jose Chavez. He removed the distributor cap from Kelly and Scotty’s pink jeep in “Jaguar” and played the sartorially challenged Goza two years later in “Traitor”
So maybe you’d think that Regina and Jose would have bonded over their parallel fates. It was not to be. Their relationship was clearly a contentious one.
See you at Las Brisas.
Jimmy
