#nehemiah persoff

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

Have you seen Yentl (1983)?

Yes

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Haven’t even heard of this movie

Voting ended onJun 3, 2024

[kwebtv]

Series Premiere

The Wild Wild West - The Night of the Inferno - CBS - September 17, 1965

Western

Running Time: 60 minutes

Written by Gilbert Ralston

Produced by Michael Garrison

Directed by Richard C. Sarafian

Stars:

Robert Conrad as James T. West

Ross Martin as Artemus Gordon

Suzanne Pleshette as Lydia Monteran

Victor Buono as Juan Manolo / Wing Fat

Nehemiah Persoff as General Andreas Cassinello

James Gregory as President Ulysses S. Grant

Tom Reese as The Driver

Walter Woolf King as Colonel Kelly Shear

Phil Chambers as Train Captain

Warren Parker as The Engineer

Alberto Morin as The Majordomo

Clint Ritchie as The Lieutenant

Bebe Louie as Mei Mei

[tzedektzedektirtzah]

"My soul is already perplexed."

deleted scene from Yentl (1983)

[countesspetofi]

Today in the Department of Before They Were Star Trek Stars, Leonard Nimoy guest stars in "The Tiburcio Mendez Story," episode 26 of the fourth season of Wagon Train (original air date March 22, 1961). If you're playing along at home, you probably remember that Gene Roddenberry originally pitched Star Trek to the studio as “Wagon Train to the stars.”

Nimoy plays Joachin Delgado, the protégé and future son-in-law of the titular character. Mendez is the leader of a ragtag group of Californios who were displaced fifteen years earlier when the United States annexed California at the end of the Mexican-American War, and the Gold Rush brought a wave of prospectors and settlers west into the new territory. They've been living rough in the hills at the edge of the desert and robbing the occasional wagon train, partly to survive and partly to try to stem the tide of Anglo settlers.

A magistrate traveling with the wagon train believes he can get the group's original land grants restored to them if the individual members who actively committed the robberies agree to turn themselves in and stand trial. Seeing how his people, especially the children born in exile, are suffering from the harsh life in hiding, Mendez agrees to the plan. But the younger men, led by the hot-headed Delgado, resolve to stay and keep fighting.

Armed conflict breaks out between the two sides, and Mendez is fatally wounded. In tears at the deathbed of his surrogate father, Delgado promises to take Mendez's place as leader of the reunited group and see them back to California to reclaim their land.

Other Trek Connections:

This episode was written by Gene L. Coon, one of the Founding Fathers of Star Trek. He wrote or co-wrote 13 episodes of The Original Series and produced 33. Working closely with Roddenberry and Justman, he introduced such elements as as the Klingons, the United Federation of Planets, and the Prime Directive into the Trek lore.

Tiburcio Mendez is played by Nehemiah Persoff, who also played the delightfully bitchy Palor Toff in the Next Generation episode “The Most Toys.”

[loveboatinsanity]

[citizenscreen]

Birthday remembrance - Nehemiah Persoff #botd

[nerds-yearbook]

In 1942, a man had suddenly found himself aboard a ship on the Atlantic during World War II. He could only remember his name and where he was born. He did not remember anything else including how he got on the ship, but he was certain of one thing… that the ship was going to be hunted down and sunk by a U- Boat. He was in his own personal hell courtesy of… The Twilight Zone ("Judgment Night", The Twilight Zone, TV)

[larsisfrommars]

Wild Wild Reviews

The Night of The Inferno

Overall Score:

Story: 3/5

Dame: 4/5

Villain: 2/5

Gadgets: 5/5

Disguises: 2.5/5

Bonus Points: Gay Subtext: 1/5

The Yikes Dated Factor: -3/-5

Score: 14.5/25 (58%)

Tier: D

Next Review

FULL REVIEW UNDER CUT

The Story

It’s a pretty straight forward plot that introduces most of the core elements of the show fairly well. We’ve got our inflable and courageous James West, our over the top villains, our femme fatale and our gadgets but it feels as though the story is missing a limb. That limb of course is Artemus Gordon. Yes Ross Martin is there playing counterpart to Robert Conrad but he doesn’t really seem like the Artie we know and love yet. He’s less intelligent marvels at inventions that given the later context of the show he could’ve (and probably did) build himself, and lets Jim do the detective work. His disguises aren’t a big focus, and he’s noticeably more of a coward than he is later on. Luckily they fix all this almost immediately but between this and the casual early 60s racism this episode suffers a bit.

The Dame

Our woman of the week is Suzanne Pleshette!

Most of us young’uns know her as the witch Yubaba from Spirited Away and/or Zira from Lion King 2. However she was a very accomplished TV actress before that! I think she does a fantastic job as Lydia Monteran!

She and Jim have history which is always a fun gimmick, and certainly way more fleshed out than the parade of other women in this series. She’s got her own illegal business and lots of personality, a classic femme fatale. She just doesn’t have a lot in the way of complex/personal motivations and doesn’t really affect the plot with her direct actions, which is why she isn’t a perfect score.

The Villain

Our villains of the week are Nehemiah Persoff and Victor Buono!

Now I don’t know Persoff from anything other than Papa from American Tail. His character bordered on caricature/hammy but I am honestly shocked to say that he was WAY more entertaining to watch than Victor Buono of all people?! He was very animated and had a lot of fun lines. Meanwhile Buono (who I know as the unhinged King Tut from Batman) was both chronically underutilized and the crux of the more dated and problematic aspects of this installation of the series. Generally though these villains lacked the camp and ridiculous plans/motivations that I love the series for. So I’d say they’re a little subpar overall

The Gadgets

The gadgets were PHENOMENAL in this episode. If it has a real saving grace it’s the gizmos, a cornerstone of what makes this show work. We get an introduction to The Wanderer, West’s notorious toolbox boot heels, and a really fun Chekhov’s Gun scenario with the self-defense measures built into the billiards table! Excellent visuals and gimmicks that will carry on throughout the series.

The Disguises

The disguises were… eh. Which makes sense for the pilot but also it’s a shame, considering just how much it becomes an integral part of Ross Martin’s multi-faceted performance as Artemus Gordon. We get him as some sorta grave robber/carpet bagger that seems to exclusively exist to be silly at Jim’s expense, and a brief appearance as a Mexican beggar. Only one really makes sense for the story and we see it for all of two seconds.

The Gay Subtext

(Don’t ship it? Skip it!)

So long as Artemus and Jim are in an episode together the Gay score will never be 0. That being said they haven’t established a rapport, or even Artemus as a solid character yet. So is absolutely bottom rung for subtext in a given episode to me. Artemus frets over Jim a little and musters up his courage in spooky environs but that’s about it.

The Yikes Dated Factor

I’m giving this a solid -3 because yes there are more sexist/racist episodes than this but there are also LESS racist/sexist episodes of this show than this one. The only reason this doesn’t get a worse score for the yellow face is because it was part of the villain’s ploy, so they technically didn’t have a white man playing a Chinese guy. It was a white guy pretending to be Mexican pretending to be Chinese, which is almost funny, almost. But then, we got a couple white guys playing Mexicans which (there are plenty of people in the Latine diaspora who are white.) still runs into caricature and colorism issues. The baddies are all foreigners sometimes pretending to be different foreigners with some casual orientalism. But hey! At least the Spanish wasn’t gibberish!