Saturday, April 16, 2022

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - "The Contender Part 2" (1968)

 
I wasn't originally going to do this write up on Part 2 of "The Contender," but I still wanted to watch it, and when I did, I felt like I had no choice for a couple of reasons, so that's why this Saturday Night Special is what it is!

 
Barney, doing his best impersonation of the boxer Richy Lemoine is finally ready to show off his skills!

 
Sugar Ray Robinson as henchman Wesley is enjoying the demonstration quite a bit!

 
The team has secretly installed a device that will guarantee Barney's victory. This is the control panel!

 
And this baby is full of something that will bring his opponent literally to his knees.

 
When the fighter goes to use the spit bowl, he gets a big hit of whatever was in that vial.

 
Barney's opponent is quickly disposed of and then the chump of a champ Ernie Staczek sucker punches Barney outside the ring! Robert (The Silencers, Dimension 5, The Dirty Dozen) Phillips plays Staczek!
 
 
Charles Buckman has a pretty cool ride.

 
Here's where they started to lose me. How is it that Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter is able to get close to big shot Buckman without him ever trying to get her into bed. Something tells me that's what he would have done on the very first day he met her, but somehow weeks go by, and he's satisfied with just her companionship. It just doesn't work that way.

 
Wesley puts the squeeze on Rollin Hand!

 
And here's when space and time get scrambled to unbelievable proportions. Barney wins one fight after another which appears to happen in a matter of days. Sure, back in the day, fighters fought a lot more often than they do today, but still, five bouts is going to at least have to span a few months or even a few years time.

 
Barney as Richy Lemoine moves up through the ranks at an incredible pace!

 
Barney wins one fight after another and now it's time for his big pay day!

 
The time has come for Staczek and Barney as Lemoine to duke it out once and for all.

 
Now is when the real trouble begins! Buckman tells Barney that he needs to throw the upcoming championship match with Staczek, something that Barney is not real comfortable with, but the reason they've gone to all this trouble in the first place.

 
Great shot of the action through the eyes of the real Richy Lemoine.

 
In this great shot of a clinch, Staczek asks Barney what the Hell he's doing. How come he's fighting back so hard, and not going down!

 
Buckman tells Wesley that he's pretty sure they have a problem that he's going to need to deal with! He then gives Wesley a thumbtack, and Wesley is able to get it into Staczek's glove. It does cut Barney, but not badly enough to stop the fight!

 
Despite all that, Barney closes the deal, and Buckman and his associates are not happy!

 
Sweet dreams Staczek!

 
After the fight, and back in the locker room, they switch Barney and Richy back out, and nobody notices it's not quite the same guy! That's really expecting a lot out of the gullible audience, but then it was an impossible mission, so what else is new?

Friday, April 15, 2022

WILLIE WHOPPER In "Rasslin' Round" - 1934

Here's a Willie Whopper cartoon from 88 years ago, where, rasslin' was a popular past time attended by a packed house of spectators...

Little Willie is shining a man's shoes and notices the championship wrestling match coming up. He starts acting out and telling the man about the time he beat up the champ, the Masked Marvel, and won the championship!!

Willie gets limbered up by a trainer, but good!

And here's the Masked Marvel getting ready for the match.

To show off his inhuman strength, he chews the barbell in half, just to start with!

On the way to the ring, I guess his girlfriend, waves and cheers him on. It's a pretty wild bunch of characters in the background!

Finally, the announcer introduces the wrasslers to the jeers and cheers of the fans in attendance, it's a packed house!

The time keeper looks at his watch, and when it's time, he takes a big mallet and rings a carnival bell... Fight!

Willie's surprisingly quick on his feet and has MM in a very painful leg lock!.. And you see this guy yelling.. "Geeve eet to heem, Willie!"

Wow, who knew Willie was such a tiger!

Masked Marvel can' find Willie after he landed on him, that steamroller effect.

This part is pure insanity, MM's in a foot lock, a hot dog seller comes by, Willie takes some mustard, grabs a bun, and chomps down on the brute's toes!!.. ??

Now it's time for Willie to take some punishment, like being slammed around like a rag doll.

At the end of a round, his girlfriend hands him a tube of cold cream!.. Again, ??

Willie coats himself with the cream and heads out to fight the beast... I was thinking that cold cream isn't very slippery, is it? Say like, cooking oil or butter?.. Oh well.

Masked Marvel just can't get a grip on Willie, and is wearing himself out from his attempts to get ahold of the little fart.

Then, Willie makes the mistake of pulling off Masked Marvel's mask!

Willie snaps back to the real world and notices that the Masked Marvel is the guy in the seat, and it's time for him to eat his words!..

But, MM goes all fairy and says... Oh, you naaasty man! Okay class is over today, have a good weekend, and don't forget to pet your doggies and kitties!

Wednesday, April 13, 2022

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE - "The Contender" (1968)

 
I felt like watching an episode of "Mission Impossible" the other night, and after reading the scores of names that were on the show over the years, I settled on Season three, episode two from 1968 for this week's Wild Wednesday spectacular.

 
And now you know the reason why!
I don't watch it much anymore, but for a good thirty years, I was a big fan of the sweet science known as boxing, and at least one thing I learned from it, was that a man named Walker Smith Jr. aka Sugar Ray Robinson will probably be forever known as the pound for pound, best boxer in the world.

This episode is about trying to bring down a big time sports fixer. For the sake of the nation, it would look bad to have a known crook having anything to do with professional sports, so they have Barney change his appearance to look like a known boxer who can't fight anymore because of injuries to his hands as a war hero.

Sugar Ray has the role of Wesley, the right hand man of big time sports fixer Charles Buckman, the guy who needs to be eliminated. Charles Buckman was played by Ron Randell who was in "The She-Creature," and the episode of "The Outer Limits" called "The Duplicate Man."

So why do they call him Sugar Ray Robinson instead of his real name of Walker Smith Jr.? When Ray was 14, he was too young to enter a boxing tournament, so he borrowed the birth certificate from an older friend of his named Ray Robinson, and the name stuck.

Barney had done some boxing and was Sixth Fleet Champion in the service, so with some practice, they think they will be able to pull this off. He looks pretty good!

 
Barney's sparring partner is played by Robert (Hawaiian Eye, The Wild, Wild West) Conrad.

The boxer that Barney is going to impersonate is named Richy Lemoine and is played by Ron (The Fortune Cookie) Rich.

As a professional fighter, Sugar Ray Robinson won 40 fights before suffering a loss in a re-match with Jake LaMotta. In 1952 Sugar Ray retired with a record of 131–3–1–1. He became a singer and a dancer for three years, and then returned to boxing, and went on to have an incredible final record of 173–19–6. 
 
This young boxer just stood up to Charles Buckman, and refused to throw a fight!

Wesley is not such a nice guy, and pushes the young fighter down an open elevator shaft!

Keeping it legit, long before Michael Buffer and his classic "Let's Get Ready To Rumble," Jimmy Lemon Sr. was the biggest name in the world of boxing and wrestling announcers!

Peter Graves looks perfectly ridiculous disguised as a peanut vendor!

There's a great wikipedia page about Sugar Ray Robinson that everybody should read so they could understand how great this man really was, and one of the most interesting stories is about Sugar Ray's title match in 1947 with a boxer named Jimmy Doyle.
 Sugar Ray had a dream that he had killed Jimmy Doyle, and tried to back out of the match, but he was convinced by a preacher to go on with the fight. After getting knocked unconscious in the 8th round, Jimmy Doyle died later that night.
When Sugar Ray found out that Jimmy Doyle was going to use the money from the fight to buy his Mother a house, he donated the money from his next four fights to her.
That's the kind of guy he was!
 
 
Sometimes there's just too much story to pack into one show!

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