Odds on Evil

The IMF gang must break a gambler so he can't afford to buy weapons to terrorize a neighboring nation. This is not Ian Fleming's 007 or Casino Royale, it's the friendly Impossible Missions Force with Cinnamon (Barbara Bain), Barney (Greg Morris), Willy (Peter Lupis), Rollin (Martin Landau) and Andre Malif (guest star Nico Minardos). Once the mission is revealed and the mission's members selected, Dan Briggs (Steven Hill) doesn't appear anywhere else in this episode. Some of the tricks used to deprive Prince Iben Kostas (played by Nehemiah Persoff) of his money seem pretty far-fetched, even for the IMF. For example, a complex computer that reads the spin of the roulette wheel and calculates the winning number before the ball drops. Even in 2007 that kind of technology boggles the mind, so for 1966 it's a real reach. Nevertheless, Odds on Evil is still in the top 10 of the episodes of season 1. Bruce Geller could film an episode of Mission Impossible on a couple of small sound stages at Desilu/Paramount, and on the back lot and make it look like it's Madagascar or Nassau. Season 1 of Mission Impossible came along just as CBS decided to bite the bullet and go to color (color broadcasts began with the fall 1966 season, same time MI premiered), and all of the episodes in season one are a visual feast for the eyes. Paramount should consider a movie franchise based on this series. So much potential. The three Tom Cruise films, while very entertaining have little to do with the series except the music.

When the episode begins, Briggs receives his mission in a very unusual way--on an old Mutoscope machine. That's one of those old hand-cranked moving picture devices they had around the turn of the century. It seems that Prince Kostas (Nehemiah Persoff) is planning an invasion of his friendly neighboring country. To finance it, he's put aside $1,500,000. However, he has a weakness. He owns a casino and he's a terrible cheater. So, if the IM Force can manage to cheat the cheater, they could take his fortune and prevent the invasion.

This episode plays much like a James Bond story (such as "Casino Royale") as well as quite a few later episodes of "Mission: Impossible". Because of this, it's awfully familiar material. However, despite it being less original than I liked, it was well executed and fun. Additionally, I always enjoy seeing Persoff--and with a bazillion TV appearances in the 1950s-80s, there are many opportunities to indulge this! Worth your time.

I think this the only episode in the entire 7 years that the female agent kick some serious but. Seeing Cinnamon ( I know it's male stunt double) take out a killer while wearing high heels, full length gown AND a full length fur coat loaded with 1.5 million dollars was, awesome! That made me give this episode an extra 2 stars! Girl Power!!!

Mission Impossible 1/6 Odds On Evil The impossible mission here isn't getting Rollin Hand to dupe a Baccarat playing card sharping despot into losing $1.5 million dollars, but a getaway plan of five adults including well built Martin Landau and very well built Peter Lupus into an Aston Martin DB6 (in red, with embassy insignia) Barbara Bain is among the five escapees - her fur coat lined with of all those Yankee dollars - and - as this is 1966 - her coat is almost certainly constructed from the pelts of assassinated wildlife. So there we have it: Politics made possible by political incorrectness - to quote someone else: "it is an irony worthy of Chekov"

Of course, that suggests one of the early James Bond stories! Casino stories were easy for the studios to do, they didn't require any exterior locations! We do finally get some exterior scenes here, near the very end of the story. Except for those last very few minutes, we're indoors in the casino the whole time. But it was fun!

Barbara Bain looks stunning, as she usually does! Very sultry. Our usual MI team are all good. Notably, Steven Hill (Briggs) is only present for the intro scenes and the briefing to the team. As some viewers may know, Hill had a lot of friction with the producers because he insisted they respect an agreement that Hill would only have to work a certain number of hours per day, and I think he wasn't supposed to work on Saturdays. The upshot was, they used him less and less in later episodes and he was dropped at the end of Season 1.

Nico Minardos takes the role of Cinnamon's unhappy husband, which Hill (one thinks) would normally have assumed. He's fine in the part. Nehemiah Persoff, a consummate actor, does his usual all-pro job. The gambling scenes and a few others feature stacks of one-thousand dollar bills. These were legal tender, though the Federal Reserve began to withdraw them from circulation in 1969 due to supposed "lack of use." Thanks to using "pause" on my dvd, I could take a close look. The bills appear genuine: series G (Chicago) and L (San Francisco); two of the more common issuing districts. (I have some knowledge of these big bills).

I did notice that on some of the notes, a small rectangle had been placed over one lower corner; perhaps to appease the US Treasury, which was not fond of seeing any real US paper money shown on television, though the wrappers concealed the portraits (Grover Cleveland) on the notes used in the show.