Comments from The I Spy Forum continued
And the scenery!! - Wow!!! the guys strolling all around the grounds at Chichen Itza ... climbing the pyramid ... I always wondered what they were discussing ... (any lip-readers out there?) - Culp and Cosby truly were so comfortable in each other's company - and that jumped out across the camera ...
I have always felt that “I SPY” holds up “amazingly” well - even the guys' clothes "still" look cool ... but there is one “thing” that is significantly different today --- Scotty and Kelly were always picking up little kids along the way (... they arrest people for that these days!!) - there's the little boy in “Bet Me A Dollar,” (OK, so Kelly talked to the kid's Mom on the phone - who didn't speak any English), Ronny Howard at the amusement park in “Little Boy Lost,” and the adorable little girl with the flower in “Crusade to Limbo”... ahhh - those days of innocence and trust ...
This is another episode where Culp and Cosby transcended a weak storyline and turned it into an enjoyable hour of entertainment and escapism ... the scenery alone was well worth it ... and again it's an episode where the "side" elements stole the show.
This one ranks a C+ (B-) ...
As ever, Tatia
-- see more comments from Tatia Loring below --
Author: Colonel Boris Benkovski
Date: 11/15/01 10:09:38 AM
Crusade is a middle quality episode. There is very little action in it, the fight scene in the basement at the end is the only action scene, and it is quite short. The plot is average, and a bit far fetched. Even in the liberal 60`s, I think you would have been hard pressed to find a group of American intellectuals and celebrities willing to invade a small Latin American country and libeate it from a dictator. Che Guevera was at the height of his career at this time (1966), and I presume his activities were the inspiration for the plot. But other than perhaps Jane Fonda, I can`t imagine anyone really going in for Mr. Munoz scheme in real life.
But the scenery, as has been pointed out, was the high point of this episode. The scene at the pyramids especially (no it was not Chichen Itza, that`s in Peru isn`t it? Teotihuacan perhaps?) and the river walk in Mexico City. Notice that the trees were bare of leaves in many of the shots, I didn`t realize Mexico City has an autumn period.
The individual scenes offered some fun - the artist at the beginning was a good character and provided some interesting interchanges. The scenes with Shelby were good, (Kelly spent $67 on a dinner for her? In 1966 that was a lot of money for a dinner.)
The Sean Christy role was adequately played, but I never really got the feeling from him that he was the "Swashbuckler, champion of the oppressed" that he was supposed to be. And I really got tired of his use of the term "old buddy". The scene where Kelly and Scott are kidnapped and taken to the rooftop is the only tense scene in the entire first 2/3 of the episode, and I liked Scotty`s way of dealing with the bad guys, letting them know eventually that he spoke Spanish.
In the restaurant scene, as Tatia has pointed out, alot of hamming it up by Culp, and it`s quite amusing. It`s refreshing to see Kelly at a loss for words with a woman for a change, and on the defensive himself.
The actor playing the contact man who gave Kelly his instructions was played well, too. I love that line of Kelly`s when the director asks him how well he knows Sean Christy, Kelly says "We`re not close friends I guess, but we`re reasonably glad to see each other when we meet."
The scene on the river where K&S evae the bad guys is good, but then they lose the bad guys when they try to tail them, so the y have to use the clever poly in the piano bar. Kelly`s dialectical monologue is not too convincing and one wonders why Munoz fell for it, but it worked well enough in the plot. The Mexican reporter drinking his tequila with salt is a nice touch, you gotta watch for it.
Like SAM said, the scene in the hotel room is the most enjoyable of the episode, where the guys are just doing evryday things like ironing shirts. And the scene on the pyramids was one of the the most impressive scenes in the entire run of the show. The question put to Kelly "What do you believe in?" was a taut dialogue.
|