I SPY
Episode "Mainly on the Plains"
Years ago, Don Ernesto Silverando (Boris Karloff) was an uncommited scientest who pioneered the technology for the anti-missile missile. Now Silverando is an eccentric and absentminded professor trapped between his delusions of being Don Quixote and the realties of his earth shattering discovery. Super spies, Kelly and Scott are on special assignment to use their irresistable charms and wit to persuade the aged scientest to entrust his secrets to the U.S. Meanwhile, enemy agents, lacking the charisma of Kelly and Scott, have more lethal methods of persuasion in mind. Travel across the plains of Spain as agents battle over Silverando's brain.
A pleasant "I Spy" episode that showcases the legendary Boris Karloff. Shot on location in Spain. Jacinto Molina, the future Paul Naschy, can be seen as a member of a picnic group who get to bounce Karloff (or rather his double) into the air using a blanket as a makeshift trampoline. Culp and Cosby also get this treatment.
Review from Cult Movies No 14 by Neil Pettigrew.
As Don Ernesto Silvando, a thermo-nuclear scientist pursued through Spain by both the Americans and the Russians, he features in almost every scene. A likeable absent-minded professor, obsessed with Don Quixote, the role gives Karloff the chance to shine as a comic character, defiantly waving his walking stick at windmills, shouting at a herd of sheep which he imagines to be an army, and attacking a truckload of police whom he thinks are villains. As if in homage to their very English star, scriptwriters Morton Fine and David Friedkin even include a scene in which Karloff sets up a picnic of afternoon tea in the middle of a Spanish field: "I never travel without my tea service".
Bow legged Boris hobbles around enthusiastically but a stand in is used in many of the more strenuous moments, such as when he is riding pillion on the back of Robert Culp's motorbike or in a fight with staffs against Culp. However, no stand-in was used for the very un-Karloffian scene in which he is thrown onto a blanket and tossed into the air by some peasants.
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