I Spy: The Name of the Game (1968) – Review

In the 1960s everyone was trying to jump on the James Bond bandwagon but it was not only the big screen that saw this influx of international intrigue, enter I Spy from NBC.  This action espionage series pitted a pair of intelligence agents posing as a tennis pro and his coach who would go on secret missions around the world while doing their best to look cool. Today we will be looking at these two spies as they become “The Most Dangerous Game.”

The plot of this episode finds US intelligence agents Kelly Robinson (Robert Culp) and Alexander “Scotty” Scott (Bill Cosby) lazily enjoying Acapulco until they meet up with Pentagon official Russ Conway (Kenneth Tobey) who tells them of their next assignment and it’s top priority. Turns out that a “former very important government personage” will be visiting an old friend from his West Point days, retired Brigadier General Manion (Lloyd Nolan), and while there these two plan on hunting out at Manion’s lodge. Kelly and Scott’s mission is to check out the security of the lodge while not alerting Manion as to their true purpose because the “former very important government personage” refuses to let any government agent near Manion’s lodge. He feels it would insult his old friend. Their mission, if they should choose to expect it, is to infiltrate their way into Manion’s confidence and check out the lodge without their real identities being exposed.

 

“This is more a case of Mission Improbable.”

The brilliant plan they come up with entails recruiting Manion’s girlfriend/mistress Tracy (Barbara Angely) to maneuver him into an orchestrated ambush where he would be then “rescued” by Kelly and Scott, which they hope would lead to an invite to his lodge. Things don’t go quite as planned. Manion may be a retired general but he’s not lost a step when it comes to combat and he easily dispatches the “assailants” sent against him, worst of all, he completely sees through the whole subterfuge. But Manion appears surprisingly cool with this whole setup, completely understanding that Kelly and Scott were simply doing their jobs, so he invites them up to his lodge.  Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of his feelings towards Lucy as he considers her actions to be a betrayal and “Betraying your commander in a time of war is treason. Punishable by death.”

 

“Is it okay if I toss you off this cliff?”

Kelly and Scott arrive at the lodge, not knowing that poor Kelly has been murdered, and they conclude that the security measures of Manion’s are perfectly in order. Scott radios their superiors to inform them that the place is clear for a visit by the “former very important government personage” but during a dinner conversation Kelly discovers that Manion is angry about his forced retirement from the military and he goes off on a right-wing rant about how the governmental bureaucrats are ruining America, leaving the country weak and vulnerable to enemy action. He even calls the “former very important government personage” a traitor. Realizing that this man is a little unhinged, Scott heads back to the radio room to warn his bosses of this new unsettling development. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the chance. It’s at this point the episode enters the “Most Dangerous Game” plot line, with Manion sending our two heroes out into the jungle to be hunted by him and his South American minions. Can Kelly and Scott survive the evil machinations of a mad general? Will they make it out of the jungle alive? And will someone think of the children?

 

And when will the VIP arrive?

Stray Observations:

• It’s alluded that the “important guest” is an ex-president but if that were the case no matter what this VIP wanted the Secret Service would be required to ensure the place was secure.
• Fans of science fiction will recognize Kenneth Tobey as the hero from the Howard Hawks classic The Thing from Another World.
• Kelly and Scott are given a fifteen-minute head start, the same amount of time that the big game hunter gave in Gilligan in the episode of Gilligan’s Island titled The Hunter.
• At no point do we hear what Manion plans to do once Kelly and Scott fail to check in with the Pentagon. I’m sure two missing government agents would raise a red flag or two.
• Before entering the jungle, Kelly wisely removes his bright yellow jacket but Scott doesn’t seem concerned enough to remove his yellow turtleneck.

 

The Defiant Ones.

As the plot of “The Name of the Game” was a version Richard Connell’s short story “The Most Dangerous Game” there isn’t much spy action in this particular episode of I Spy, that said, we do get to see Robert Culp going all Rambo/jungle fighter on the men hunting them, he’s able to set up some nice jungle booby-traps to thwart their pursuers. Robert Culp and Bill Cosby have great chemistry and their banter is the highlight of this episode, sadly, at no time does the plot manage to develop any sense of suspense and that is the death knell of any decent espionage thriller. Overall, this wasn’t the best offering from I Spy and while Culp and Cosby do their best to keep viewers interested, the villain is rather boring and the plot paper thin. This is an episode fans of 60s television can skip.