Season One, Episode 8: Legacy for Lucia

Air Date: November 25, 1960

Director: Philip Leacock

Writer: Stirling Silliphant

Guest Stars: Arlene Martel, John Larch, Jay C. Flippen

"Legacy for Lucia" is one of those contrived Route 66 episodes where most of the elements come together except for its basic premise. The episode works on some levels - splendid acting, spectacular scenery - but it falls completely flat in the story department.

While Buz and Tod are working at a logging mill in small-town Merlin, Oregon (well, it's really Buz doing all the work - Tod is off tooling around in the Vette), a young and very religious Sicilian woman named Lucia Trapani (Arlene Martel) arrives in town on a bus. Seventeen years earlier, in 1943, while the war was raging across Italy, an American serviceman named Alec Haines (who grew up in Merlin) comforted Lucia (who'd recently been orphaned) by telling her that he owned the state of Oregon and if anything happened to him, she'd inherit the state upon his death.

If you guess that Alec ends up getting killed (by Germans), you guessed right. So eventually Lucia goes to Oregon because she wants to sell her state so she can raise enough money to purchase a new Madonna statue for her poor village. A do-gooder foreman at the logging mill named Morrison (John Larch) hears her story and wants to help her. He knows that local yokel curmudgeon Nathaniel Hobbs (Jay C. Flippen) was Alec's foster father back in the day. Nathaniel is an old grump who doesn't like Eye-talians much.

But Lucia drifts into his life and he slowly develops a fatherly soft spot for her. Very slowly. Before that happens, Hobbs makes her feel like sh!t and is actually the first man on a Route 66 episode to knock out Buz in a fight (!). Morrison convinces Hobbs to cut down the lumber on his land and sell it and give the proceeds to Lucia so she can buy her Madonna statue. Morrison balks at first and then eventually caves. Lucia learns more about him and discovers that Alec didn't really own Oregon and that Hobbs is really a compassionate guy under that gruff exterior. Buz and Tod, of course, join in to help. The money goes to Lucia, who gets on the bus to return to Sicily.

One thing that you can say about Route 66 episodes: It's next to impossible to keep the plot descriptions short.

Everything about "Legacy for Lucia" feels contrived. Too bad, because Arlene Martel, who'd later go on to play Spock's Vulcan bride T'Pring in the Star Trek episode "Amok Time," is outstanding in the role of Lucia. John Larch is back, too, after recently appearing in "The Strengthening of Angels." What can I say about Larch? He's always wonderful. I've never seen a bad John Larch performance. And character actor Jay C. Flippen, veteran of countless movies and TV shows (most memorably, he played Marvin Unger in Stanley Kubrick's '56 noir masterpiece The Killing) is believably gruff and believably compassionate, a testament to his fine acting skills. And it's amazing to see him kick Buz's ass. That doesn't happen often.

Add to all that the breathtaking Oregon countryside and the effective scenes where men are chopping down trees and you've got all the elements of a first-rate episode.

So where did it all go wrong? The premise sucks. It doesn't work at all. Not for a minute does the viewer believe that a woman - even from a tiny village in Sicily that's not on the map - could be so naive as to believe that an American soldier owned the entire state or Oregon, or that his verbal commitment to leave it to her constitutes a proper legal transaction. Even the most starry-eyed, naive, semi-literate, Sicilian country bumpkin would utterly reject the idea of crossing the ocean and the entire United States for something so insubstantial.

Which leads to another flaw in the episode. It's unbelievably maudlin. I don't mind maudlin in controlled amounts, but "Legacy for Lucia" has it slathered on thick to the point of being sickly sweet. Stirling Silliphant's writing, which is typically tight, powerful, emotional and edgy, just feels preachy and flabby here. There's no real tension in the episode. Sure Nathaniel Hobbs (Flippen) is kind of a jerk and doesn't like Lucia at first and is bitter, but he has every right to be bitter, and Larch's character is an ass for pestering and pestering Hobbs to sell all of his lumber to help Lucia.

Who cares about her village needing a Madonna statue? Listen, lady, try living in Laos! They've got a lot worse problems there than not having a Madonna statue. Oh yeah, and why in the hell doesn't Larch's character just leave Flippen's character alone? Quit bugging the man. Leave him be. Don't preach to him. He lost a kid who was more or less the equivalent of his son.

Where's the conflict? With whom are we supposed to sympathize? And Buz and Tod are wasted in this episode. They just stand around and act like they think Lucia is the greatest damned thing since sliced bread. Why does she have such a hold over everybody? Sure, she's kinda cute and all. But, my God, by the end credits, all of the people in this episode are ready to elect her president of the United States.

"Legacy for Lucia" is not the worst Route 66 episode ever made. The one that followed it, "Layout at Glen Canyon," is worse. But "Lucia" remains a melodramatic episode that fell apart because there just wasn't a good story to tell. Too bad, because there are a finite number of Buz episodes in the series, and I wish each one could be as superb as "Ten Drops of Water" or "The Man on the Monkey Board." No TV show bats one thousand. Even Seinfeld had that cruddy-ass final courtroom episode and the hokey clips episode at the very end to bid the show farewell.

As uneven as "Lucia" is, it's better than many of the Tod Stiles solo episodes. So maybe this entry contains too much grousing and bellyaching. If so, I am sorry. But even among those who prefer to catch their flies with honey instead of vinegar, "Legacy for Lucia" will probably never be remembered as a superb Route 66 episode. Luckily, by the end of the show's four-year run, there would be plenty of those.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

Season One, Episode 5: The Strengthening Angels

Air Date: November 4, 1960

Director: Arthur Hiller

Writer: Stirling Silliphant

Guest Stars: Suzanne Pleshette, John Larch, Harry Townes, Warren Stevens, Tom Reese

Buz and Tod drive through a dark and rainy night with the Corvette's top up. Little do they know, in this part of the country (Needles, California) there is a Christian tent revival going on, where Lotti Montana (Suzanne Pleshette, left) is about to bear her testimony. Suddenly, to the shock of Reverend Wylie (Harry Townes) and the big audience of Christians in the tent who braved the harsh showers to hear Lotti speak, she ends up bolting out of the tent into the pouring rain, leaving her daughter behind. She gets a ride with Buz and Tod, who end up motoring into a fictional town called Sparrow Falls.

As is the case on so many Route 66 episodes, Buz and Tod get sucked into the personal life of a complete stranger, this time Lotti. She's a woman with a secret past. Our heroes discover that she murdered a man who happened to be the brother of local lawman Sheriff Hingle (John Larch). It's clear that Hingle has it in for Lotti. He has a hate-on for her. He wants to lock her away for good. He hauls her in to the local jail and interrogates her. The iron heel comes down hard on poor Lotti.

Buz and Tod get closer to Lotti. They hire a local attorney, Richard Crown (Warren Stevens), to come to Lotti's aid. Shit keeps happening. Lotti seems strangely indifferent or even downright hostile to the help she's getting from Buz and Tod. Then Buz gets in a fight with Hingle and is about to kick the sheriff's ass, but one of the deputies knocks out Buz cold with a blackjack. Buz ends up in the hoosegow, but it's only temporary. He and Hingle end up developing a sort of macho respect for each other. Hingle releases Buz, who is reunited with Tod. The two buddies encounter Reverend Wylie, who shows up in Sparrow Falls to help Lotti. Buz and Tod, meantime, find out there was a third man who was with Hingle's brother the night Lotti murdered him.

Without giving too much away, Tod and Buz relentlessly pursue all the clues until they discover the identity of the mysterious "third man" who was with Lotti and Hingle's brother on the night of the murder. No spoilers here. Names won't be named on Andrew's Route 66 Blog. Suffice it to say, the identity of the mysterious figure who witnessed the crime will surprise you.

"The Strengthening of Angels" is a damn good Route 66 episode. It is often considered to be a favorite of fans (author James Rosin lists it as one of his 25 faves in his Route 66 guidebook). Like "The Man on the Monkey Board," "Strengthening" is tense, well written and contains some powerhouse performances. Years before landing a starring role as Emily Hartley on the Bob Newhart Show, Suzanne Pleshette showed off her extremely impressive acting skills in "The Strengthening of Angels." Pleshette had been guest starring in TV shows since '57, which included a role on the Silliphant/Leonard collaboration Naked City. Despite her gorgeous looks (she resembles a young Elizabeth Taylor in this episode), Pleshette plays the role with a kind of gritty realism that is thoroughly believable. And then there is John Larch as Sheriff Hingle (pictured above right). For my money, Larch is one of the greatest TV actors of all time. He's one of those solid performers like Frank Overton, who really throws himself into each and every one of his roles with a convincing intensity. Incidentally, Larch and Overton are both veterans of multiple Route 66 episodes. Larch would appear in three over his career, "The Strengthening of Angels," "Legacy for Lucia" (1960, also in Season One) and "Go Read the River" (1962, Season Two).

Like "The Man on the Monkey Board," there is a lot of tension in "The Strengthening of Angels," but a very different kind of tension. "Strengthening" is not as suspenseful as "Monkey." There is a fantastic fight scene pitting Sheriff Hingle against Buz. It's truly one of Buz Murdock's best fistfights. It looks almost real.

The episode is not so much a Whodunnit (we know Lotti committed the murder). It turns out to be more of a Whydunnit. And the resolution at the end is satisfying and plausible. And I like that Silliphant shows so much respect for the traveling tent-show Christians. They're real people, with a deep yearning for the spiritual, not cardboard, fire-breathing caricatures of Evangelists.

Warning: This isn't the best episode to watch if you're a Tod fan. Tod ends up laying pretty low in this one. He's there in much of "Strengthening," but he's content to play a largely supporting role for Buz. The story is told much more from Buz's P.O.V.

Director Arthur Hiller, a Canadian-born filmmaker, would go on to enjoy a highly successful career directing such films as Love Story (1970), The Hospital (1971), Man of La Mancha (1972) and Silver Streak (1976), and he'd serve as head of the Director's Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was also one of the most prolific directors on the Route 66 payroll, helming no fewer than twelve episodes.

He shows off his skills to full effect in "The Strengthening of Angels." The end result is a potent episode that is a definite asset to the series. While it may not pack quite yield the same emotional knockout as the episode that preceded it, this is still one hell of a good way to spend slightly less than an hour.

Rating: 8 out of 10