THE GIRL WHO HIRED SUPERMAN

By Bruce Dettman

If memory serves -- and these days it often doesn't do a very good job of it -- there were three things at the top of my want list when I was twelve years old. These were -- in no particular order -- a toy Pom-Pom gun, bongo drums and a bomb shelter.

While I eventually got the Pom-Pom gun for a birthday gift and the drums -- much to my parents' chagrin -- one Christmas from a favorite uncle, the bomb shelter never materialized.

This didn't sit at all well with me because I was utterly convinced, along with a great majority of the country, that at any moment the Ruskies were going to level my hometown with an atomic blast.

At that age most of what I had learned about atomic bombs and nuclear radiation came from the science-fiction movies I went to see nearly every week at the local theatre. I knew that under the right circumstances atomic fission could create giant monsters, leeches as big as a moose (Attack of the Giant Leeches), locust twice the size of greyhounds (The Beginning of the End) and an octopus larger than Mount Rushmore (It Came From Beneath The Sea). But most important, I knew that in the twinkling of an eye it could be responsible for blowing the entire world to smithereens.

That's where the bomb shelters came in.

Meanwhile, I had seen an article on the subject in Mechanics Illustrated, an otherwise extremely dull magazine that my father subscribed to. While its contents usually dealt with power saws and home repair this particular issue devoted an entire section to bomb shelters and how to construct them, something I was most interested in. Maybe the whole world would be vaporized but not my family. I would certainly see to that.

At this point I went straight to my father and laid out the situation.

I thought about this for a couple of seconds and finally came to the conclusion that much as I might not have liked it my dad made a lot of sense. There was no way Mom would want to go on living with her entire family gone.

That gave me something else to think about and eventually - and somewhat reluctantly -- I went back to my bongo drums.

The only factor left out of this equation was my mother's position in all of this. I don't, however, recall her ever being consulted for her opinion on the subject. She was probably too busy pasting S&H Green Stamps into books or watching I Love Lucy repeats to give it much thought but in hindsight it might have been nice to ask her if she would have opted to survive a nuclear holocaust or not.

I also no longer remember if I gave serious attention to the bomb shelter which figures near the conclusion of the episode "The Girl Who Hired Superman." I suspect, however, that I undoubtedly added it to my mental collection of cinematic reminders about the necessity of getting one for our family.

In the show the shelter itself is only glimpsed at the conclusion of the program when Jimmy, Lois and Clark are taken there as prisoners. It looks like a fairly nice place, clean with all the comforts of home but unfortunately the radio doesn't work, a rather glaring oversight for a bomb shelter. More on than in a moment

All of this has to do with an earlier plot on the part of bad guy Jonas Rockwell (our old friend John Eldridge) to keep Superman -- who has upset his plans on numerous former occasions -- occupied with other matters while he sees to it that some counterfeit engraving plates he has stolen -- and which thanks to Superman had earlier been confiscated and taken for safety to city hall -- can be smuggled out of the country.

To accomplish his plan he has his spoiled ward Mara (Gloria Talbot) offer the Man of Steel ten thousand smackers to give a private performance of his powers to a visiting phony diplomat Orresto (Maurice Marsac) while Casper (George Khoury), another member of the gang, goes off to pilfer the valuable plates. To add insult to injury, Rockwell then convinces Superman to fly the stolen material to the diplomat's home turf of Argonia as a supposed gesture of goodwill but which is actually intended to allow the crooks to bypass the country's custom officials.

Superman's antenna goes up during his demonstration when he realizes a diamond of Mara's is a fake. Smelling a rat he later returns to the apartment as Kent and is plugged by the hotheaded Carper but explains away his uninjured state by the fact that the bullets struck the engraving plate tucked in his pocket. Remarkably the whole assembled group buys this baloney. Eldridge in fact had swallowed such a similar fish tale from Clark in the second season's "Shot In The Dark."

Subsequently, Kent joins the others in the shelter which, because of the faulty radio, provides no means of reaching the outside for help lest he betray his super identity. However, the fact that a violent storm is raging outside suddenly provides him with the answer to their dilemma. Sending the trio into a closet for their protection he draws the electrical force of the torrent harmlessly into his own body which he then utilizes to charge the radio batteries. This allows them to subsequently contact Inspector Henderson who sends help which pleases Jimmy and Lois who pat themselves on the back for once not needing Superman to get them out of a jam. Wink. Wink.

David Chantler wrote this episode and the concept is a good deal cleverer than most of the later Superman scripts. Phil Ford's direction suffers from the same claustrophobic look and feel of so many of the set-born later shows, however, and the flat and uninspired later season's music doesn't help matters.

For the record, the spot in our backyard where I had envisioned our bomb shelter to be became the site of a new brick patio my brother and I helped my father build. It is undoubtedly still there which is more than you can say for the majority of the country's shelters which over the years have fallen victim to time and nature's non-nuclear elements like wind and rain.

Tough as it was to admit, my father, once again, knew what he was talking about.

Bonus Image

Bruce - September 24, 2010

JIMMY THE KID

By Bruce Dettman

In my fourth grade year a new school crossing guard showed up on the scene. The former guard had been a middle-aged woman with flaming red hair who wore too much lipstick and had a slightly brisk and impatient demeanor which made her none too popular with most of the students. The new crossing guard was quite different. He was an older man -- almost elderly from our adolescent point of view -- paunchy and grey, with a small but thick mustache, eyes like slits and a strange hairstyle with strands of hair lapping over one side of his heavily wrinkled forehead. He also had a rather pronounced foreign accent which somewhat settled the issue for one of my friends -- I'm no longer certain which one it was -- who suddenly came to the conclusion that the new crossing guard was actually Adolph Hitler.

This suggestion, although scoffed at by most of the student population, somehow resonated strongly with my particular group of over imaginative buddies. After all, weren't we also convinced that an actual broom-riding witch with a dozen killer cats lived by the local creek and that one of our neighbors had lost an arm not in an industrial accident as was the true case but rather from a Japanese Samurai sword attack on a Pacific island? Too often bored and restless with life's routine of school and predictable home life we were always up for some new development to excite and titillate and a crossing guard who was secretly Hitler was just the thing to lift our spirits. We had read in school, of course, that Hitler had committed suicide in a Berlin bunker but this knowledge in no way deferred our thinking. Certainly there was a possibility that the textbooks had it wrong since his body had been rendered unrecognizable in a fire and that old Adolph had actually escaped to the United States. And this crossing guard sure did look like him. Consequently, until we grew tired of the game and moved onto something else, we spent the next few weeks examining this poor old guy from every possible angle we could, thus cementing the fact that by some incredible means the infamous dictator of Nazi Germany had escaped and fled to America where he eventually got a job working the school crosswalk in Castro Valley, California without anyone noticing but my pals and I.

A different scenario of mistaken identity involved a Metropolis criminal named "Kid" Collins who at the behest of a gangster called Gridley (Damian O'Flynn) takes on the job of impersonating his look-alike Jimmy Olsen in the fourth season of The Adventures of Superman. Gridley wishes to get his hands on some incriminating files which could help land him in the pokey and after kidnapping Jimmy sends out his impersonator to lay his mitts on the dangerous documents.

Unfortunately, unlike the show's earlier episode "The Face and the Voice" where the Superman look-alike named Boulder is schooled in areas of diction and mannerisms to help pull off the ruse, no such energies are spent by the glib and cocksure mobster on the street-wise and very earthy Collins. Sure, there's no denying that he's a dead ringer for the cub reporter (helped by the fact that Jack Larson plays both parts) but in the personality department these characters are about as alike as Shirley Temple and Godzilla, something no one seems to have taken under consideration. The minute Collins shows up at the Daily Planet dressed in Jimmy's bargain basement duds bells certainly should have gone off. But of course this is the same group that never noticed a resemblance between Superman and reporter Kent. The phony Jimmy whistles at a shocked Lois and is insolent with Editor Perry White but no one catches on, not at first anyway.

To add a wrinkle to the fun, the bogus Jimmy gains access to Clark's apartment (which seems to have undergone a decorative makeover since the black and white days) at the Standish Arms and accidentally come across a Superman costume in Kent's secret closet. This would seem to up the ante on things but the Man of Steel gets wise to the impersonation ruse pretty quickly and rounds up the crooks, actually employing some chops and punches like in the good old days of season one. There isn't much action besides this. At one point early in the episode Superman streaks out to conquer a raging forest fire but we see nothing of it, just hear a report via the phone from Kent calling in a description to the Daily Planet. Later he explains that the suit Collins discovered in his apartment was there because he had borrowed it to help him write a newspaper feature on Superman. The reason for the secret closet is never questioned. At the time, not seeing Superman tame that inferno was probably a grave disappointment to us as kids but we got over it and in seven days there was a new episode to look forward to.

Eventually, my friends and I also got over realizing that the crossing guard wasn't actually Adolph Hitler. His real name was Peter and he was born in Vienna but had been living in the United States since the 1930s. He was a nice man who enjoyed watching the San Francisco Giants and before retiring had designed men's shoes.

We thought it better never to tell him for a short period we believed he had started WWII.

Bruce - June 2012

THE DEADLY ROCK

By Bruce Dettman

I spent a lot of time as a kid at airports, specifically the San Francisco International terminal. My father was on the road a great deal, probably about a quarter of the time, and it seemed like every other week or so my mother and I would drive out in the evening to pick him up. Airports, even international ones, were structurally much smaller in those days but I was nonetheless totally enthralled by what I construed as all the bigger-than- life action going on around me, by the bustle of the travelers and the sights and the sounds of the commercial planes taking off and landing. I considered myself very fortunate -- and no doubt a bit superior -- that I was able to visit the airport so often when most of my friends only made it out there once or twice a year.

There was no real security back then -- at least not the kind of rigid once-overs we have grown accustomed to today -- and you were free to access most of the airport territory. You could actually accompany travelers all the way to their gate and sit by the big windows watching your friends and relatives boarding the planes and taking off. In those pre-jet days I couldn't get enough of seeing the big DC-7s my father usually flew in lifting off the ground and eventually disappearing into the distant clouds on his way to New York and Chicago. It was dynamic, dramatic, and magical. Only watching Superman fly could top it.

The airport continued to draw me even when I was a restless teenager. With nothing to do on Friday nights my high school buddies and I would sometimes drive there and just hang out, enjoying the energy and tantalizing thoughts of far-off places we might someday visit. Of course, we were also not immune during this period to airport-related pranks, most of them of the harmless variety, such as picking up the white courtesy phone and paging John Lennon and Ringo Starr then waiting for the hordes to race over to confront their musical idols. We were finally busted for this activity and banned from the airport.

The Deadly Rock from the fourth season of TAOS has a lot to do with airports and airplanes. After a somewhat cryptic prelude depicting a gloved hand placing something in a valise we head straight for the Metropolis terminal where a man named Gary Allen -- who as it turns out is employed by the United States government as well as being a particularly close friend of Clark Kent -- suffers a violent physical reaction when standing near the bag depicted in that first scene. Overcome by weakness while talking on the phone to Kent, his strength returns a few moments later when the reporter and Jimmy Olson show up to check on his condition. When describing what happened to him earlier he leads the two newsmen to the exact spot where he suffered the attack and again experiences the sudden onset of illness but then so does Kent who manages to disguise the fact as Jimmy helps Allen to a nearby chair.

It turns out that months earlier the plane Gary (portrayed by Robert Lowery, the screen's second Batman) was flying in had a near collision with a piece of the meteor which Superman had so much trouble dealing with in the second season's Panic in the Sky. Upon hearing this Jimmy ponders the possibility that Kryptonite might be involved, a notion that Clark tries to have him keep to himself. Unfortunately, a certain eccentric Professor Van Wick (Steven Geary) had earlier come up with the same conclusion and subsequently brought a piece of the deadly rock to Metropolis with the intent of selling it (for eight million dollars) to a renowned criminal named "Big" Tom Rufus (Bob Foulk) who he feels would be interested in it as a means to knock off Superman.

Okay, we have to pause here for a moment. Jackson Gillis, who penned this teleplay along with numerous other scripts for the show, was a solid craftsman who contributed much to the series. He had a good feel for the characters and was able, in the half hour format, to come up with some entertaining and engaging storylines. If any writer is associated with the Adventures of Superman it is probably Gillis. This, however, is not his finest hour since the very core of the episode is not only troubling but doesn't make a lick of sense, at least not in the universe where Superman is said to exist. Apparently, despite lines in his own script, Gillis experienced temporary amnesia regarding the fact that human beings are completely immune to those same rays from Kryptonite that can destroy Superman.

Later in the comic books, red, white and blue versions of kryptonite --all with their own individual makeup -- would be added to the mix but in the 1950s kryptonite was always green and harmless to earthlings. No exceptions. So with this in mind The Deadly Rock makes absolutely no sense. Not only is Gary weakened by exposure to the stuff but during these periods his body is also impervious to physical attacks. I didn't get it as a kid and I still don't.

Nonetheless, Gillis fashions an entertaining yarn that would have been greatly improved if it had been played darker and in a more serious manner. Van Wick is an all too familiar caricature of the bumbling and eccentric scientist seen so many times on the screen while the supporting villains (Ric Roman and Sid Melton) are comically inept which nullifies their threat. Like so many of the later Superman episodes this could have been considerably bolstered by the approach taken in the first season but thanks to the Kelloggs folks those days were long past. Director Harry Gerstad keeps the show light despite the serious danger to Superman who oddly appears more amused by the events than concerned with his own safety.

For the record, I don't much like airports anymore. Most of them are too big, too congested, more like giant shopping malls. These days you can find just about anything you want at an airport, every kind of store and restaurant and service a traveler could hope for. What you can't find is the uniqueness and magic I remember as I sat as a boy watching planes merging with the clouds and radiant blue skies and wishing I could stay there forever.

Bruce - February 2012

BLACKMAIL

By Bruce Dettman

When my family moved to California in the early 1950s I was the youngest child on our block. I was still about a year away from Kindergarten whereas all the other kids -- with the notable exception of one peculiar boy named Jim whose sole interest in life was hanging for hours from a tree on his property -- were already enrolled in school. Consequently I spent a lot of time alone out in our front yard with only my brother's dog, a highly protective German boxer named Von, for company. In truth, I didn't really mind all that much being off by myself. I was with a pretty vivid imagination and had little trouble in whiling away the hours occupied with my toy soldiers, coloring books, the local insects and pretty much anything else on our property that grabbed my attention. The only interruption to my imaginary games was my mother who, like most of her contemporaries of that era, was a full-time housewife. Luckily she mostly left me alone to my own devices while tending to her cooking and cleaning with the occasional admonition for me to not get grass stains on my pants and to stay away from the bees. Sometimes, however, she needed to run an errand and I was dragged along accordingly.

I hated these errands. There was never a single thing that interested me about them. They were either to the local Lucky Market where I trailed behind my mother as she filled the shopping cart with just about everything in the store except the items I desired (PEZ dispensers, Mountain Bars, a colorful fruit drink called "Sonny Boy", etc.) or to the cleaners, drug store or a local fabric company. I found these treks absolutely mind-numbingly dull as I paced about and squirmed wanting to get home to my games, favorite TV shows and neighborhood pals.

On one occasion, however, our morning series of errands was a bit different, something I recognized from the get-go. Instead of hitting the usual stops we went instead to a jewelry concern in the downtown area. I had no idea what this was about and my mother was having nothing to do with my queries. I was cautioned to be quiet and we'd be home soon.

But there was obviously something unusual going on here, something I immediately sensed. Mom seemed nervous and not quite herself. Time, I figured, to keep my mouth shut and my eyes open. That was always the best policy, I had learned early on, when it came to snooping into the affairs of adults. In this case snooping meant listening to my mother talk to the jeweler, a fat man with a small mustache who looked like Oliver Hardy.

Lowering her voice she seemed to be saying something about losing the setting of her wedding ring, that it had fallen out without her knowing it and that despite all her frantic efforts she had been unable locate it. She was desperate, she explained, to find a replacement before my father noted its disappearance. She couldn't afford another actual stone, but wondered if it would be possible to find an identical fake version that would pass for the original.

"I'm sure we can do something about this," he assured her.

Now wasn't it interesting, that this same woman who was forever warning me to tell the truth and that honesty was always the best policy was now trying to pull something pretty deceitful behind my dad's back? I continued to listen totally riveted as the man studied the ring setting that she had slipped from her finger. Was there anything better than catching adults, particularly one's own parent, being hypocritical and bending the rules? Such information, I knew, could come in mighty handy down the road. Kids have an instinct about such matters, a sense of self-preservation in the world where the war between children and their elders is concerned and where the latter usually hold all the cards.

However, in this particular instance, I didn't have to wait long for my informational dividend to pay off. It happened pretty much immediately as we drove off.

"I guess you might be wondering about the jewelry shop?" she asked.

I decided to play it coy.

"Wonder about what?" I asked pretending not to get her obvious drift.

"About my discussion with the salesman concerning my wedding ring."

"Oh yeah, that."

"The thing is the setting in the ring fell out and I've torn the house apart looking for it but it's simply not to be found."

When my mother grew upset she would gently clutch her throat with her left hand and move her head slightly counter clockwise.

"So I don't want to upset your father about this. He'd be very unhappy if he knew I had lost my wedding ring. We don't want Daddy to be unhappy, do we? You understand that, right?"

I really didn't. My father was not normally prone to anger and I couldn't imagine why the loss of my mother's ring would be that big a deal to him -- the loss of his power tools, his golf clubs, his martini shaker, yes, but not a dumb old ring -- but I lied and said that sure, I understood.

"So what your mom is going to do is have the nice man make a kind of replacement for it. It won't really be a diamond but it will look just like one and Daddy will never know the difference."

"You mean you're going to fool Pop?"

She thought about this for a second. Her hand went back to her neck.

"No, it's not that I'm trying to fool him it's just that I don't want to make him unhappy. He bought me that ring a long time ago when we were married and it's very important to both of us. He'd be sad if he knew I'd lost it."

We were at a juncture, a point of no return. But we weren't quite done yet. Something else was coming up. I could feel it.

"So what I'm asking is that you say nothing to your father about this. In other words it will be our little secret."

I gave this some serious consideration. She watched me carefully.

"We wouldn't want to hurt your father, would we?"

More consideration.

For months now I had been badgering my parents about buying me a particular cowboy outfit I had seen in a department store window. It had a black hat, a cool vest like Hugh O'Brian on the Wyatt Earp show wore, a string tie and striped pants. There was nothing in the whole universe that I wanted more and I had hardly been quiet about the fact, hinting at every opportunity that came along but so far to no avail.

"Christmas will be here soon enough," was the response I continued to hear from both my parents. The situation seemed hopeless but this recent development offered a new possibility. I had watched something like this on a television show where for the first time I was exposed to the concept of blackmail. An idea was formulating in my devious little mind.

"So you really don't want Dad to hear about the ring, huh Mom?"

"No I certainly don't."

"So I shouldn't say anything about it, right?"

"Your Mom would sure appreciate it."

Now this was the tricky part.

"I sure like that cowboy suit, Mom. You know the one I've been talking about?"

She stared at me for what seemed the longest time and then began to say something but stopped herself. Then we got in the car and she started up the engine. We drove through our town, sleepy on this weekday morning, and eventually ended up at the department store that featured the much sought after suit. We bought it and came home and I tried it on with my holster and gun and studied myself in the mirror. Could anyone, I wondered, look cooler?

The fact that in essence I had just blackmailed my own mother never occurred to me, at least not significantly to make me back off the deal. I had simply used a convenient lever to get what I wanted since the normal channels of begging, promising to do more chores, etc. had proven totally ineffective.

Perhaps the show I had seen was indeed the "Blackmail" episode from the Adventures of Superman's fourth season. It's quite possible although I suspect it was some other program of the era, Dragnet or The Lineup, where extortion and blackmail rackets were often showcased and which had made such a larcenous impression on me.

The storyline of "Blackmail" by David Chantler and Oliver Drake is the old chestnut of crooks (the always watchable Herb Vigran and Sidney Tomack) framing an honest cop (Inspector Henderson) so that he appears to be in cahoots with the criminals and their crime, in this case an armored car holdup totaling half a million dollars. In theme and structure it's not unlike the Chantler's episode "The Talking Clue," only that in this instance it is Henderson, not his son, whose reputation is at stake.

It's a pretty talky show, directed in workman-like fashion by Harry Gerstad with little action to spark it up save for a great opening scene depicting Superman breaking through the wall of a shack where the criminal underling Bates (George Chandler) is purposely hiding out. There's not a great deal of energy from the regular cast members although Shayne is believable and earnest and shares some good scenes with Reeves just as he did in "The Talking Clue." He's probably the best thing this episode has to offer.

For the record, years later the truth came out about the lost wedding stone. My father didn't seem particularly upset about the fact and I believe later bought my mother an authentic replacement. Whether she ever told him that he had a blackmailer for a younger son never came up. I was pretty glad about that.

Bruce - February 2012

MONEY TO BURN

By Bruce Dettman

Despite its obvious potential dangers, fire has always fascinated mankind. This fascination goes beyond its practical properties of supplying warmth for comfort or fuel for cooking purposes. Beyond these mundane matters there exists an almost primeval attraction to its power, color and undulating movements. Children are mesmerized by it, unfortunately sometimes with disastrous and tragic results. I certainly was not immune to its magical allure. As a very small child I went into my father's unlocked car one day and wishing to emulate what I had seen him do with a cigarette, stuck the heated lighter against my lips. My grandmother came to the rescue with a scream and a handful of lard with which she marinated my newly roasted mouth. This experience, however, did not curtail my interest in incendiary matters. When I was a bit older I loved to sit on the front lawn and watch our neighbors come out on Saturday mornings and burn their raked-up leaves in the gutter. When this practice was subsequently outlawed by the county it fell upon me to burn the family trash every weekend, a chore I much preferred over lawn mowing, car washing and garage cleaning.

We had a designated spot in our backyard just behind a redwood fence which my father majestically referred to as "the utility area". In reality it was just a long narrow stretch of dirt where we threw everything we wanted out of sight. It was also where we kept our winter firewood and where I had buried my turtle Bosco and my hamster Reginald, the latter having fallen victim to my dog Rocky. In the center was a concrete incinerator which stood about four feet tall and was covered at the top with a wire grill. Each Saturday morning I would gather up the paper discards from around the house and cart them behind the fence latching the gate behind me so as to not alert my father to all the racket I would be making.

This racket had to do with my taking a black crayon and drawing windows and doors all over the cardboard and paper to be incinerated (shoe boxes were particularly desirable). Once the pile was lit I would step back and pretend to be all the people trying to escape the flames. I would holler and yell at what I perceived in my inflated imagination to be walls and ceiling collapsing. I considered this great fun and always put a great deal of thought into my little stories of fiery destruction, a fact which did not go unnoticed by the neighbors, Mr. Burr and Mr. Rahn, who in the adjoining properties would, at least initially, wonder about the screams and exclamations coming from our place. In time, however, they would just wave and ask what was burning on the particular day, a mansion or a skyscraper. Eventually, fire codes and laws changed and you could no longer burn trash outdoors. So much then for my budding career as a pyromaniac. It was minimal, short-lived and harmless, although on occasion probably a bit dangerous.

It certainly never approached the excesses of Slim (Mauritz Hugo) and his pun-cracking partner (Dale Van Sickel) in Money To Burn from the sixth season of TAOS. These two con men devise a scheme to create fires in locales advantageous to thefts which they subsequently commit with the aid of a specially designed plastic fire suit. Covering all angles -- including posing as a couple of community-minded citizens who operate a "Fireman's Friend" truck supplying coffee and doughnuts to firefighters -- they even line this suit with lead to prevent Superman from exposing their identities although one would assume that if the Man of Steel was close enough to see them he could scoop them up, unknown identities or not.

Their scheme goes fairly smoothly until they make the mistake of starting a fire at the Daily Planet warehouse (at 1800 Waterfront Way, for the record) where a payroll has been placed in a safe which they plunder.

Perhaps stealing from a business that Superman is known to be associated with is not the smartest move but Metropolis crooks are rarely candidates for MENSA membership. In any case, Editor Perry White falls under suspicion but not for long with Superman clearing his name and exposing the crooked duo without breaking a sweat.

Jimmy is along to annoy Perry by expressing his enjoyment in watching fires. This is one of those middle-of-the road episodes written by David Chantler with Harry Gerstad at the directorial helm. Hugo and Van Sickel are a bit more interesting than most of the crooks in the later episodes but there's not a great deal of energy generated and the script is fairly dull and unimaginative. The best thing going for it is a lot of on-camera time for John Hamilton's cranky and always enjoyable Perry White.

When offered a cup of java his retort is "Can't put [the fire] out with coffee, idiot."

Ya just gotta love Perry.

Bruce - November 2011

Editors note: Bruce is correct when referring to Perry being cranky. In this episode, Jimmy does his absolute best to get under the Chief's skin. Also, as first-take bloopers go; if you turn up the volume just prior to Perry White entering the apartment door where the crooks are counting their stash, you'll here John Hamilton clear his throat before delivering his line.

FLIGHT TO THE NORTH

by Bruce Dettman

One day in the fourth grade my elementary school's music teacher, Mr. Dowdy -- a low-key and friendly man who wore his hair in a flat top and always sported a large bow tie -- took groups of us into the auditorium, which doubled during lunch hours as a cafeteria, and introduced us all to the various musical instruments which made up the school orchestra. These were laid out on the long dining tables and after he had described each he asked if any of us would be interested in selecting a particular one and trying out for the school band. Although there were a few kids who balked at this, most took Mr. Dowdy up on his offer. It just seemed the normal thing to do, part of the rite of passage of the school process even though many of us really had no particular interest in learning to play an instrument. I selected the saxophone for no other season than I liked the look of the thing, all the intricate valves and such. My affection for it did not last.

Mr. Dowdy was too nice a man to openly suggest that I was the worst saxophone player that he had ever tutored, but I'm sure I came pretty close. Some of this had to do with my hatred of practicing but a lack of natural talent was certainly part of the mix as well. Each day I would go into my room at the back of the house and attempt to master such rudimentary ditties as "Long, Long Ago" and "Little Brown Jug," but what came out of that poor sax sounded more like a pig squealing in its death throes. Although my mother, who had once played piano, didn't seem offended by this torturous cacophony, my father, who usually returned home from work about halfway through my practice session, had a very different reaction.

One particular afternoon he called me into the living room to have a talk. My dog, who had taken off earlier when sighting my saxophone, sat between his legs. My father, hearing me approach, lowered the evening paper from his gaze and set down the martini he had been sipping.

The following fairly approximates this fifty year-old conversation.

"Bruce, do you agree that we all have certain talents and abilities?"

"Yes, Dad."

"Well, that's good. For example, you like to write and draw and are good at both. Right?"

"Yes, Dad," I admitted without any attempt at modesty.

"How about music and your saxophone? Do you think you're good at that?"

"Not really. I hate practicing. Rather be out shooting hoops."

"Exactly. And you know, son, you really shouldn't waste your time doing something you don't like and aren't good at. Make sense?"

"I suppose so."

"And you know how much your old dad likes to come home after work and relax with the paper and a have a drink?"

"Yes, dad."

"Well it's not really so easy for me lately with you practicing. You can see that, right?"

"Yup."

"Well then here's the deal. Since you don't like the saxophone and I'd rather have my old peace and quiet back why don't we tackle the problem like this. You give up the saxophone -- which I know you hate - and I'll raise your allowance a quarter. What do you think?'

It was a tempting offer all right. A quarter was nothing to laugh at in those days when it equaled a trip to the local theatre or two comic books and a coke at the Woolworth fountain. Still, he must have sensed some hesitation on my part because he then put the finishing touches on the deal.

"Ok, and if we just keep this between ourselves (ie. no blabbing to Mom) I'll also get you that Rifleman Winchester you've been drooling over. We were going to get you it for Christmas, but I think Santa would understand."

I don't recall if we shook hands over our secret agreement but I know he didn't have to go any further.

In an instant the saxophone was history and a nifty plastic replica of the famous rifle on television was in my hands the next day, a purchase, however, which I kept a secret from my mother. The choice between a saxophone and that rifle had been an easy one.

The Rifleman was a weekly ABC western series starring former big league baseball player Chuck Connors as Lucus McCain who, in addition to his duties as rancher and father of his young son Mark. was the fastest and most accurate man with a rifle - one that he had customized so he could discharge it in a rapid-fire manner-- in all of the frontier.

The Rifleman was one of my favorite westerns along with Have Gun Will Travel, Laramie and Gunsmoke so it was no surprise that I wanted a weapon like the amazing one Connors used on the show.

I'm not sure when The Rifleman premiered if I recognized the actor from his early role as Sylvester J. Superman, a happy-go-lucky bumpkin from the backwoods of Skunk Hollow on the Adventures of Superman.

His part in the third season episode, Flight to the North, was miles apart from the heroic McCain although they did have a few things in common, physical strength and great integrity.

Flight to the North is so silly and absurd that you just have to sit back and watch it with no serious thought to critiquing what's going on in front of you.

It seems that a young woman named Margie (Marjorie Owens) has decided to send one of her homemade lemon pies to her fiancé Steve (Richard Garland, then actress Beverly Garland's hubby), stationed with the Air Force in Alaska. Meanwhile, a career criminal called "Leftover" Louie (Ben Weldon) having recently been released from prison where he has been fantasizing about one of Marcia's pies --- he knew her family and her baking abilities from many years before -- makes a sizable bet with an underworld pal that he can lay his mitts on one of these desserts. Meanwhile, Sylvester, along with his mule Lillybelle, shows up in Metropolis and takes a room in the same hotel Louie now resides at. He reads a notice that Margie has placed in the Daily Planet classifieds advertising for Superman to help her get one of her pies to Steve -- as an inducement she offers a hefty chunk to charity -- and not familiar with the real Superman -- and being a very helpful and gallant sort of character -- offers the woman his services though when he shows up at her place she can't for the life of her figure out why the Man of Steel is sporting overalls instead of his regular costume. The fact that he easily lifts and relocates a piano, however, seals the deal for her and with pie in one hand and Lillybelle in another, sets out to get the dessert to Alaska. Meanwhile, Louie gets wind of the plan - as does Clark Kent who is on assignment for a personal interest story on Margie's pie - and heads up north himself, both eventually ending up at Steve's icy door.

One of the best things about this episode is Richard Garland's performance as Steve who surprisingly is rather puzzled - if not outright baffled - by the succession of people who he suddenly finds himself confronted with: a hillbilly with a mule, a gangster and finally Superman. The poor guy -- who after all has been stuck off by himself for a long time -- even begins, perhaps understandably, to question his own sanity.

Despite the preposterous ingredients of David Chantler's script, Flight To The North, directed by George Blair, emerges as a rather enjoyable slice of harmless escapism. Connors, Weldon and Garland all give winning performances and everyone involved seems to be having a pretty good time with the thing, even Lillybelle the mule.

As for my Rifleman gun, it lasted out six months until the firing mechanism fell apart. Years later, hearing the likes of John Coltrane, Stan Getz and Zoot Sims playing the sax, I sometimes wondered if I had made the right decision with my father but then, recalling the sounds that I had manufactured so many years ago, it quickly ceased being an issue.

Bruce - September 2011

Lou (August 20, 2011)   

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