Mission: Impossible (1970) – The Choice, and The Martyr

This week we close out the fourth season of Mission: Impossible. The penultimate episode of the season is definitely the stronger of the two, and lets Leonard Nimoy do a little character work as he plays both IMF agent Paris, and the episode’s nemesis, Emile Vautrain (which you should probably read as Rasputin). In a…

Mission: Impossible (1970) – The Crane, and Death Squad

The IMF swings back into action again this week, with yet another mission to save an Eastern Bloc country from itself, and restore it to its prior democratic state but working to turn the current leaders against one another, and reinstate a pro-democracy guerilla leader who is sentenced to be executed. Written by Ken Pettus,…

Mission: Impossible (1968) – The Diplomat, and The Play

Cinnamon (Barbara Bain) is missing from the first assignment this week as Phelps (Peter Graves) takes his IMF team back undercover to run a mission to make genuine U.S. defense information is actual erronous and fake. The Diplomat was penned by Jerrold L. Ludwig, and had an original airdate of 1 December, 1968. To make…

Mission: Impossible (1967) – Action!, and The Train

Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) is missing from this week’s first mission (apparently he was written out of the script as punishment for observing his religious beliefs), so Cinnamon (Barbara Bain) picks up the mission while Rollin (Martin Landau) concocts the plan in Action! written by Robert Lewin. This episode first hit the airwaves on 4…

All the President’s Men (1976) – Alan J. Pakula

One of the films that are on DK Canada’s What Else to Watch list after I screened Battle of Algiers is one of my favorite newspaper films, All the President’s Men. Based on the brilliant expose by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein the film is as relevant now, perhaps more so, as when it was…

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) – Frank Capra

DK Canada brings me this Frank Capra classic from its What Else to Watch list following its recommendation of It’s A Wonderful Life. THIS movie makes me regret the fact that schools, as a rule, no longer have civics classes. It needs to be seen, as it shows the good and the bad of democracy,…