Herbert Leonard and Stirling Silliphant were producing BOTH Route 66 and Naked City at this time, and they were clearly pushing both shows in the "cutting-edge, socio-psycho, avant-garde, contemporary relevance, message picture" direction which, despite the fact that I admire their adventurous-ness as "break-out" artistes of the youth-oriented early '60's, still feel that the results were often labored, contrived, and embarrassingly overwrought. Such is the case here.
It's pointless to engage in pseudo-analysis of this episode (since I obviously didn't connect with much of it), so I'll just list a few of my trivial complaints and observations:
TWO ASSETS: 1.) Great location photography-- gas station, streets, diners, etc.... that's really what small town life looked like at that time.
2.) An engaging (and all too rare) performance by John Marriott, the black actor who play's Tod's fisherman pal near the beginning. He first distinguished himself as Cal, the Giddens' house servant in William Wyler's superb "The Little Foxes" (1940).
MANY LIABILITIES:
1.) Robert Emhardt's broad performance, earning him two knock-out punches from the much younger and stronger Martin Milner (the first of the blows was totally uncalled for). No law-suits for assault back then.
2.) What's with the crying woman in the office when Emhardt was on the phone with Tod?
3.) The on-set makeup lady should have powdered down Vera Miles oily forehead (sorry, but it bugged me).
4.) Tod's "I NEED YOU" to Vera. Really? And he's only been without Buz for a couple of days. So the writers already used up the "Tod falls madly in love with a troubled woman" plot-line in his FIRST solo show.
5.) The "carved" headstone for Frank Overton and his wife in the graveyard. I HATE it when the set crew paints letters on a headstone that look like they were done an hour before the scene was shot. Why not at least dust them down a bit?
6.) What in the world was that scene about in the darkened Riverboat theater...especially when the Snidely Whiplash/Simon LeGree dude and the girl came in to rehearse in the middle of the night?? WAY over my head, I'm afraid.
7.) Whatever happened to the relationship between Vera Miles and Martha Scott? Why didn't it resolve itself? Too much artsy/"meaningful"/philosophically abstruse dialogue between Milner, Miles and Overton, I guess.
I ended up wishing Tod would have decked Emhardt a THIRD time; at least it would have been good for a laugh. LR