The System (Mission: Impossible)
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The System is an episode of the television series Mission: Impossible. It originally aired on 1969-01-26 as part of the third season. The episode was written by Robert Hamner and directed by Robert Gist.
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[edit] Tape scene:
Jim walks in an outdoor corridor of a building and steps into a "private" entrance ("exit") that leads to another corridor. Jim unlocks a door, comes into a doctor's office, opens a drawer and extracts a reel player and a kraft envelope containing two large transparencies that he displays on a mural light viewer.
[edit] Summary:
To send to jail Syndicate big brass Mr. V., the IMF creates bookkeeping mess thanks to Barney's confusing extra-money and Cinnamon's two fat amounts of money in a casino and simulates a phony death threat on the casino owner: Mr. V.'s lieutenant Johnny Costa, turns him paranoid and forces him to testify in court against his boss.
[edit] Cast and details:
Casino owner Johnny Costa and his henchmen Arnie and Wilson, a Baccarat dealer, New York head mobster Constantine Victor aka Mr. V. and his secretary Markos are played by James Patterson, Robert Yuro and Joel Lawrence, magician Tony Giorgio, Val Avery (returning from "The Execution") and Peter Marko--because of the fear of call tracing and bugged conversations, Costa uses the customers' phone booth to contact his boss in New York.
Jim poses as Syndicate hitman Vince Mason; Jim plays dice and wins at the table therefore he's invited to go to Costa's office where he confesses his tricked dices and that he refuses to kill a big shot but knows the man who will. Jim offers Costa to sell the information and stays at the Gulfstream Motel; Jim presses a vinyl with Rollin's imitation of Mr. V. at Cinnamon's bedroom; Jim is ordered to go to Costa's office and is drily ("You can drop that smile off your face") and softly threatened to identify the killer replacement: "Otherwise, I'm not the only one that will get killed".
Rollin imitates two voices: Markos over the phone and tells Costa that he sends him a bookkeeper named Anderson and Mr. V. for a vinyl, he forges Costa's handwriting for huge cash amounts (a $25,000 check and a $30,000 message), and poses as Syndicate bookkeeper Herbert Anderson carrying austere spectacles who steps into Costa's office to do an audit, asks to see the last count in the safe and finds an unexpected total of $198,684 and Costa reacts by saying: "You're pushing for a hospital bed or the morgue." and Rollin replies quick: "Funny. I'd think it was the other way around." Later on, Rollin is sat on the boss' chair with the two casino employees (the cashier, the Baccarat dealer) and shows to Costa the two money evidences; Rollin goes to the phone booth and receivs a call from Mr. V. (the recording) and passes the handset to Arnie--on his way to kill him--who is told to obey Anderson's will; Rollin along with Willy, armed with pistols, break in the office of Costa who phones and alerts Mr. V., arrests him but, scared stiff, he escapes from the stairs and hides behind a table in the casino room; they shoot point blank at him: close-up of three bullet's impacts on the wall; Costa locks himself up in the counting room.
Cinnamon poses as Baccarat addict/system player Katherine Griffith who stays at the Gulfstream Motel as Jim--her phony name only appears in the "City Trust & Savings Bank" check; the part of Cinnamon vaguely refers to "Odds on Evil" due to the setting and the game; Cinnamon seduces Costa and asks him a $500 credit to prove her gambling system work; Cinnamon returns to the Casino the day after and asks a $250 credit that turns into $25,000 in cash then she stops at the Baccarat table and passes a hidden behind the cards wrapped note for a $30,000 winning hand ("Pay her 30 thousand, Johnny Costa") to the dealer; Costa tightens the wrist and the hand of Cinnamon real hard and threatens her to confess who frames him, Willy enters with a shotgun and Cinnamon gets down, triggers two fires (the table's objects and the window blow up) with a floor remote control and Costa jumps out of the window, goes to the counting room to get the money in a black briefcase.
Barney poses as Mr. V's New York operator over the phone; helped by a yellow screwdriver and carrying an olive drab bag, Barney penetrates the closed and currently cleaned up casino at night via the basement and crawls into the ventilation shaft that leads to the highly protected counting room (made of reinforced steel with a floor sensitive to any pressures). Meanwhile, Costa and his two men wait for the delivery of the casino's funds inside the counting room when a buzzer occurs. Wilson answers the call from the intercom and unlocks the silver door (notice the cheap-looking texture) and let pass two Security men pushing a trolley with six "BJ" boxes filled with cash. Arnie closes the door and he and Wilson spread the contents of the boxes on a marked green table and Costa does the counting with his little notebook--he finds a total of $173,684--, then the two men put the money in one soft bag and Costa store it inside a safe. The two men leave silently with the trolley, Costa activates the floor with his key, tests it by launching a matchbook which triggers an alarm, cuts the noise, re-activates the floor, turn off the light and locks the door cold. Barney removes the grid of the vent with a reversed screwdriver, keeps it inside, magnetizes a mini torch to the ceiling of his shaft, unfolds his telescopic arm equipped with a mini flaslight, moves it to the safe, sticks a printed circuit (electronic numbers device) to the safe's knob to crack, opens the door and grabs the money bag with the crowbars (notice the fluid u-turn camera shot), brings it back, adds a wad of $25,000 and put it back; Barney operates the vinyl recording to Arnie.
Willy poses as an un-named hitman replacement; Willy goes down to the basement and opens the window and plays the money machine when Jim denounces him to Costa's gang, he runs and hides in the basement's ventilation shaft; finally, he uses a pump-action shotgun (see "The Widow" and "The Photographer") to scare Costa.
Barney, Willy and Rollin stage the future fireworks in Cinnamon's motel room: Willy puts holes on the wall with a drill to simulates bullet's impacts, Barney connects wires from the remote control to the detonations. The cinematographer introduces micro photography to shoot gambling tables level with the ground by using a snorkel camera--the perspective is distorted as a wide angle lens: see Jim's dice game scene as well as Cinnamon's impressive Baccarat scene. The police outcome contains a footage from "The Town". No dossier scene. During the apartment scene, Rollin imitates the voice of Markos.
[edit] Stock music:
- "The Diplomat" (the introduction of the casino setting of Act I; Cinnamon asks $30,000 of winning cards to a Baccarat dealer)
- "The Contender" (Jim leaves Costa's office safe; Costa runs away from Willy and Rollin and takes refuge in the casino room)
- "Operation Charm" from the MISSION LP (Cinnamon enters the casino in her sparkling dress)
- "The Council" (Willy and Barney prepare the fireworks in Cinnamon's bedroom)
- "The Heir Apparent" (Barney removes the grid of the vent, brings back the money bag and add an extra wad of cash into it)
- "The Mind of Stefan Miklos" (Rollin shows Costa the two big money evidences in his office; inside the phone booth, Rollin talks to Arnie and Wilson; Costa jumps out of the window of Cinnamon's bedroom and goes to the counting room)
