"I Spy" Mainly on the Plains (TV Episode 1967) ⭐ 8.4 | Action, Adventure, Drama (original) (raw)
Episode aired Feb 22, 1967
1h
Boris Karloff portrays a well-meaning scientist who behaves suspiciously like Miguel de Cervantes's literary creation, Don Quixote.Boris Karloff portrays a well-meaning scientist who behaves suspiciously like Miguel de Cervantes's literary creation, Don Quixote.Boris Karloff portrays a well-meaning scientist who behaves suspiciously like Miguel de Cervantes's literary creation, Don Quixote.
"Mainly on the Plains," from Feb 22 1967, remains one of I SPY's best remembered episodes, due to the stunningly energetic performance of a 79 year old Boris Karloff, whose busy 1966-67 TV season had already yielded THE WILD WILD WEST ("The Night of the Golden Cobra"), THE GIRL FROM U.N.C.L.E. ("The Mother Muffin Affair"), and the animated Chuck Jones classic "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." On location in Spain, Robert Culp's Kelly Robinson and Bill Cosby's Alexander Scott accompany nuclear thermodynamics expert Don Ernesto Silvando (Karloff) on a journey from Seville to Madrid. The professor is more than absent minded, as his fascination with Don Quixote (61 different volumes!) extends to him reliving events in Quixote's life en route, managing to earn Kelly much physical pains from windmills, peasants, police, and shepherds. Meanwhile, the Germanic villain Horst (Carl Schell), in failing to convince the master dialectician Don Ernesto of his phony Austrian heritage, keeps tabs on the three until his henchmen are ready to make their move. The unknown cast of extras include one uncredited actor only months away from his starring debut in Spanish terror, Paul Naschy, who appears at the 24 minute mark, among a half dozen peasants wearing berets (the short one in a dark jacket), accosted by Don Ernesto, and good naturedly tossing him and his comrades in the air. It was after filming that Naschy observed the seemingly abandoned Karloff, in tears waiting hours for the ride back to his hotel, inspiring the title of his posthumous documentary "The Man Who Saw Frankenstein Cry." Of course, inspired by Lon Chaney's Lawrence Talbot opposite Bela Lugosi in "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man," Naschy himself jump started the horror genre in his native Spain with "La Marca del Hombre Lobo," released in the US as the misleadingly titled "Frankenstein's Bloody Terror," another connection to the Karloff legend. At this stage of his lengthy career, only two years before his death, Boris is surprisingly active throughout, constantly on his feet with his ever present cane, with only his final feature film, "Incredible Invasion," demanding as much of him in a physical sense. Bill Cosby always cherished the memory of working alongside Karloff, as did so many other performers during his lifetime, and he waited only a short time before doing another role in Andalucia, Spain, shooting the horror feature "Blindman's Bluff," a US co-production eventually released as "Cauldron of Blood," playing a sightless sculptor whose creations are actually murder victims of his domineering, faithless wife (Viveca Lindfors).
- kevinolzak
- Nov 4, 2014
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