Yes, Marilyn Could Do Drama

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"The female race is always cheesing up my life."

Jed (Richard Widmark)

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Even though she was before my time, I am a fan of Marilyn Monroe.

My admiration goes beyond her obvious physical appeal. I think she was a talented actress, too, unappreciated during her life and still so decades after her death.

And I thought I had seen all of her movies — until one day a few years ago when I happened to see "Don't Bother to Knock" being televised. I realized I had never seen it before so I watched it. That movie, which premiered 65 years ago today, was definitive proof of talent that did not depend on good looks.

In that sense, I was reminded of Grace Kelly in "The Country Girl."

Like Kelly, Monroe was always beautiful, but there were variations to her beauty. Sometimes she was glamorous; in "Don't Bother to Knock," I guess her beauty was more understated. It would take concentrated effort to mar her beauty, but you could drape her in clothes that were rather plain and that would bring her beauty down a notch or two.

That, I would say, is what they did in "Don't Bother to Knock."

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And Monroe reciprocated with a riveting performance.

It was part of her character. At first she came across as shy and demure. Her clothes were plain. Her demeanor was almost unassuming. But that was all deceptive.

Her character wanted to wear nice clothes and expensive jewelry. But she, like so many others then and now, did not feel she could ever have the finer things she desired. Some people turn to lives of crime to gain the things they want in life. When the audience first saw her in "Don't Bother to Knock," Monroe's character was content to take risks but not necessarily to commit crimes. Well, not exactly, but we'll come back to that.

She was Richard Widmark's love interest. He was on the rebound after being jilted by Anne Bancroft, who was the real glamour girl, a sultry lounge singer. Bancroft had had a fling with Widmark, decided it was one of those things and wrote him a Dear John letter. In this case, I guess you'd call it a Dear Jed letter.

Jed came to New York to try to talk Bancroft out of it, but she didn't budge. Back in his hotel room, Jed looked out his window and saw Monroe across the courtyard, wearing clothes and jewelry that belonged to her employers for the evening, an out–of–town couple (Jim Backus and Lurene Tuttle) who hired her to babysit their daughter (Donna Corcoran) while they were attending a banquet downstairs.

Widmark and Monroe agreed to have a liaison in Monroe's room. Widmark was unaware that the young girl was sleeping in the adjacent room until the girl walked in on them.

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As the evening progressed, Widmark became more and more aware that Monroe's character was mentally unstable. At one point, he thought Monroe would push the child out an open window — modern audiences would probably be shocked to see no barriers of any kind on upstairs windows — no rails or bars or anything at a time when air conditioning was still a rare luxury and the only relief to be found on a hot night came from open windows.

I'll leave some of the intricacies of the plot for you to discover for yourself, but Monroe's character continued to descend into a mental state in which she was convinced that Widmark was actually her deceased fiance.

She also bound and gagged the child with whom she had been sitting that evening. Turned out she had a history of mental issues. She had been institutionalized after her fiance's death. She had tried to kill herself, too, by slashing her wrists.

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"Don't Bother to Knock" was a mostly forgettable movie, I suppose. The characters lacked emotional depth, and there wasn't a lot of context given until near the end (which, I suppose, was typical of film noir).

But Monroe's performance as the psychologically fragile Nell undoubtedly was influenced by Monroe's own experiences with her mother. That alone would make "Don't Bother to Knock" worth watching.

It was Monroe's first truly dramatic effort after appearing in 17 other films, mostly comedies, and it was a few years before the comedies for which Monroe is best remembered — "The Seven–Year Itch" and "Some Like It Hot."

It was Bancroft's debut.

Monroe's wasn't the first film portrayal of a mentally disturbed individual — but seldom has it been as honest.

Up, Up and Away

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On this night in 1967 the United States and the Soviet Union were engaged in a great space race. Their international competition to see who could get to the moon first was constantly in the news, and both countries were inclined to jealously guard their information about everything anyway, not just space exploration, although that was high on the list.

Well, that is what I have heard. My memories of the space race are not as clear as they would be if I had been older so I was unaware of any cloak–and–dagger stuff that might have been going on. It really wouldn't surprise me, though, given the atmosphere of fear and suspicion in those Cold War days. Even at my tender age, I was aware of that much. The race was with the Russians, and it had implications that went far beyond space and the moon. The Russians couldn't be permitted to know any of our secrets, even if those secrets meant nothing to national security in the long run.

I guess I always assumed that the Russian people were subjected to the same kind of propaganda that the Americans were. Considering the nature of the Soviet government, it was probably likely.

So it wasn't hard for audiences to accept the national security angle to the episode of Gilligan's Island that first aired 50 years ago tonight, "It's a Bird, It's a Plane." They were conditioned to it.

When the episode began, an experimental jet pack had fallen overboard from a naval ship and drifted to the island, where Gilligan (Bob Denver) discovered it in the lagoon.

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Gilligan recognized the resemblance to a pack worn by fictional space traveler Buck Rogers. The Professor (Russell Johnson) recognized the potential the pack had to be their long–sought rescue.

The mere fact that the jet pack was missing was enough for the frantic folks back on the mainland to launch a massive search of the area. This had happened before during the series' three–year run. Amazingly no one ever came across Gilligan's little island during one of those searches when — presumably — no stone (metaphorically speaking) would be left unturned.

Initially the idea on the island was that someone would strap on the jet pack and fly to Hawaii, but the Professor wanted to evaluate the matter first. While he was doing that, both the Howells (Jim Backus, Natalie Schafer) and the girls (Dawn Wells, Tina Louise) tried to trick Gilligan into strapping on the jet pack and taking off.

The efforts were thwarted, though. The Professor had come up with a plan that wasn't as dangerous as having one of the castaways fly over the ocean to Hawaii. They would construct a dummy to precise height and weight specifications, strap on the jet pack and aim it at the right trajectory to fly to Hawaii with a note attached to it alerting the authorities to their location.

But Gilligan accidentally wound up riding the dummy through the jungle and burning up most of the fuel. There was enough left for maybe a 15–minute flight.

And then the castaways were given a reason to use it for that purpose.

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The search ships would be in their area the next day — according to the radio (which, remarkably, always started reporting on precisely whatever the castaways wanted to hear about the minute they switched on the radio). It was decided that someone would take that 15–minute flight to draw the ships' attention.

What remained was to choose who would take the flight. They needed to undergo a test to see who was least likely to become dizzy and light–headed.

So all four men climbed into a cylindrical contraption that could be made to spin when someone rode a stationary bicycle to generate power. When they emerged, Gilligan was the only one who wasn't dizzy or light–headed so he was chosen to fly when the search party was in the area.

The Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) had an explanation for that. Gilligan, he said, was "dizzy and light–headed all the time — he's just used to it."

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So Gilligan piloted the jet pack — with the radio hanging around his neck so he could hear news reports. And he did hear one — the sighting of a UFO from one of the search ships. Not realizing that the report was actually the sighting of Gilligan, he ducked into a cloud — and created an unexpected shower. The Navy called off the search.

Once again, Gilligan had thwarted a rescue.

Too Much Ginger

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Apparently one of the ways the castaways on Gilligan's Island entertained themselves was through free concerts given by Ginger (Tina Louise), the only castaway in show business.

Now I never got the impression that Ginger was a singer. I always thought she was an actress — after all, the show's theme song called her "the movie star" — and whenever she spoke of the movies in which she had appeared, they never sounded like musicals.

But in the episode, "The Second Ginger Grant," that premiered on this night in 1967, Ginger was singing on a makeshift stage accompanied by music played on a turntable that had been made from material on the island (presumably by the professor, who had many talents but still couldn't figure out how to patch the boat so they could return to civilization). Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) operated the turntable, and the other five castaways sat in the audience listening to Ginger.

I guess Ginger didn't perform too frequently. The castaways had been on that island for nearly three years, and they seemed to be enjoying her show, which would probably be unlikely if they had heard her perform on one–tenth of the nights they had spent on the island. It is hard to imagine Ginger's repertoire having been expanded any during her period of forced isolation so each concert was bound to sound like the ones that had preceded it.

Nevertheless, as I say, the castaways seemed to enjoy the performance and applauded enthusiastically when it ended. Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) was jumping up and down and applauding. She stumbled over a rock and fell backwards, striking her head. When she regained consciousness, she believed she was Ginger.

Until the Professor (Russell Johnson) figured out how to resolve the problem, it was decided that they had to humor her. Ginger had to assume Mary Ann's identity with a brunette wig and the country girl clothes Mary Ann tended to wear (both she and Ginger brought far more clothes with them than one would expect on an ostensibly three–hour cruise). Meanwhile Mary Ann continued to live out her fantasy of being Ginger.

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Ginger took over Mary Ann's duties on the island, including the cooking. Mary Ann apparently was a good cook, but Ginger warned her fellow castaways that "I may look like Mary Ann and walk like Mary Ann, but I still cook like Ginger Grant. Sorry about that."

Being a few inches shorter than the real Ginger, Mary Ann soon noticed that all her clothes were too long — she concluded it must be because of the tropical weather — so she set about altering them — much to Ginger's dismay.

(A little observation here. It was never mentioned how Ginger managed to fit into Mary Ann's clothes.)

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Mary Ann was up all night cutting Ginger's dresses so the real Ginger felt free to hang up the laundry without wearing her wig. But Mary Ann surprised her by not sleeping as late as expected.

When Mary Ann saw the real Ginger and her red hair, she passed out. The castaways could not shake her from her trance, which the Professor said was a traumatic shock brought on by seeing the girl she thought she was. He had read of similar cases being treated through hypnosis. He was reluctant to try it, but he realized he had no other option.

He tried to use hypnosis to make Mary Ann believe she was Mary Ann, not Ginger. But it backfired in a big way. When Mary Ann was brought out of her hypnosis, she still believed she was Ginger. And Gilligan (Bob Denver), who had been observing through an open window, did believe he was Mary Ann.

That set off a delicious segment of mistaken identity.

When Gilligan had been restored to his normal self, the Professor came up with what he believed would be the solution to their problem. They should ask Mary Ann to put on a show for them. Mary Ann wanted to be Ginger, but Mary Ann had no talent. Being unable to perform would create a huge conflict in her mind, the Professor said, allowing "the real world of Mary Ann to push out the dream world of Ginger."

So that was their strategy.

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And it worked. She tripped on the stage, fell, struck her head and was Mary Ann again when she regained consciousness.

That is a plot device that has been used many times in various forms over the years. It is basically the idea that if one sustains an injury that has a profound influence on him/her, sustaining the same kind of injury a second time will kind of jar everything back to the way it was. It's a plot device that Gilligan's Island used more than once.

I think it gives people a false idea of what is — and is not — possible. That is a dangerous mindset when you're dealing with the human body. That approach is always going to work in the make–believe world of TV. Not so much in the real world.

But, anyway ...

I have heard it said that "The Second Ginger Grant" is one of Wells' favorite episodes. And why shouldn't it be? It gave Wells a chance to spread her wings a little more than usual. She even did her own singing — which she did not do in the episode in which she, Ginger and Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) formed an all–female band to intimidate a visiting band into returning to the States earlier than planned — and taking the castaways with them.

But that is another episode.

A Capsule Full of Castaways

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On this night in 1967, the world was a little over two years from man's first walk on the surface of the moon.

Space travel was a hot subject on television in those days and a fertile topic for episodes of TV series, especially sitcoms like Gilligan's Island, which aired an intriguing space travel–related episode on this night 50 years ago.

The episode was called "Splashdown," and it was really two stories in one — featuring two space capsules, one carrying a two–man crew and the other unmanned. The mission called for the two to rendezvous in space. Pretty inventive, considering the kinds of space–related episodes that tended to be shown on TV in those days.

It was a grim time for America's space program; idled by the recent deaths of the Apollo 1 crew, it would not resume manned space flights for more than a year.

Incidentally, though, while the name of the episode may be an obscure term to modern viewers, anyone who was alive at the time would instantly recognize a splashdown as the final phase of any space mission.

The emphasis in the first half of the episode was on the manned space flight. The Professor (Russell Johnson) had concluded that the capsule would be directly over the island a few times as it orbited the planet, and he was determined to establish some kind of contact.

Gilligan (Bob Denver), in his usual knee–jerk way, ran off to inform the other castaways that they were going to be rescued — but they all got the idea that the astronauts had splashed down in the lagoon.

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The Professor had to explain to them that he had an idea for contacting the capsule. He would use the radio to send a signal when the capsule would be closest to the island. Since he could only transmit a weak signal, he wanted to build a directional cone to improve the strength. To operate it, Gilligan, the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.), Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and Ginger (Tina Louise) would ride bicycle–like contraptions to generate energy. That attempt failed.

Then the castaways recalled that, in an earlier mission, one of the U.S. astronauts had reported seeing the lights of Houston as his capsule passed over. That gave the Professor the idea of cutting down some logs and fashioning a large SOS that would be set on fire when the astronauts were almost directly above them during their next orbit. That was a plan that might have worked — if not for Gilligan, who backed into a torch while he and the Skipper were lighting the logs and knocked some of the logs out of place as he made a beeline for a tub of water.

The astronauts saw the message — but now it read SOL, not SOS, and the astronauts thought it was a greeting. You see, one of the astronauts was named Sol.

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Thus the manned capsule exited the story, but the unmanned capsule was about to enter, and it actually did splash down in the lagoon.

The castaways heard on the radio that the capsule had been on the radar of naval ships in the area which would be looking for it because it contained sensitive space data it had gathered. It was decided that the capsule would be set adrift with two people on board who would direct the ships to the island to rescue the other castaways. The Professor insisted that Gilligan and the Skipper should be on the capsule — but the other castaways also wanted to be on board, and they plotted to stow away. Before daylight the next morning, first the Howells (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer) and then Mary Ann and Ginger crept to the lagoon to be in the capsule before Gilligan and the Skipper came to board it at the crack of dawn.

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Not realizing that four other people were hidden in the capsule, the Skipper and Gilligan found the capsule too heavy to launch and started throwing overboard anything that wasn't nailed down.

That was when the four stowaways were discovered, and everyone got off the capsule. Gilligan kept an eye on it while the Professor lectured the four, warning them of the consequences of pulling such a stunt, then said there was still time to get the capsule out to sea where it could be spotted by the search vessels. Gilligan had been trying to get their attention, but he was ignored until the Professor was finished.

Then he was given the chance to speak, and he reported that the capsule had broken loose and drifted over to the other side of the lagoon. It appeared to be one more instance of Gilligan's incompetence. After all, the assumption was that he had permitted the capsule to do what it did — and because of that one more chance to be rescued had been fouled up.

What the castaways didn't know — and the viewers did know — was that the folks back at mission control had decided to call off the search and were going to detonate the capsule by remote control rather than take the chance of allowing sensitive information to fall into the wrong hands.

As the castaways looked forlornly at the capsule — which, to them, might as well have been on the moon — it blew up, scattering debris everywhere. The castaways, too, scattered.

For one of the few times they were on the island, Gilligan's incompetence did not cost the castaways their long–desired rescue. It saved their lives.

Who Says Lightning Doesn't Strike Twice in the Same Place?

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It must have been routinely challenging for the castaways to fill the time on Gilligan's Island.

Sometimes there were visitors to the island, and that usually gave everyone something to do, but other times, like the episode that first aired on this night in 1967, "Gilligan's Personal Magnetism," it was just the seven castaways on the island.

And as the episode began, the two shipmates, Gilligan (Bob Denver) and the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.), were bowling with a homemade ball and homemade pins. A storm was rapidly brewing, though, and the Skipper thought they should stop, but Gilligan went through the motions and was about to release the ball when a lightning bolt struck and sent him flying through the air.

Gilligan seemed to be all right, but his bowling ball was stuck to his hand. The Professor (Russell Johnson) theorized that the lightning affected the iron in Gilligan's blood and made him electrically charged and acted as a kind of magnet. In fact, to avoid receiving an electrical shock, any person who tried to touch Gilligan in any way had to wear rubber gloves.

The Professor figured he could use the generator from the Minnow to create a counter–charge that would crumble the ball from Gilligan's hand. In trial runs it worked, and the Professor told Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) to fetch Gilligan, which she did.

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But when the Professor used it on the ball, nothing happened.

Meanwhile, another storm was brewing — and Gilligan was struck again. This time the ball was knocked from his hand — but Gilligan had been rendered invisible.

Everyone sympathized with Gilligan's predicament at first, but but he became a bit annoying. People were always stumbling over him, and he could overhear conversations he wasn't supposed to hear. The Professor thought he had found a solution for this problem as well, and he wrapped Gilligan in strips of cloth that had been dipped in lead ore to absorb the charge.

When wrapped in that cloth, Gilligan looked like a mummy and was understandably eager to have the strips removed, but he was told they would have to stay on him for awhile. When left unattended, he went walking over to the girls' hut and frightened Ginger (Tina Louise) who went running into the jungle and snagged Gilligan's strips in her brush as she did. By the time she realized what had happened, all the cloth had been pulled from Gilligan and he had disappeared.

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When I say Gilligan had disappeared, I mean he had disappeared completely. It wasn't merely that he was no longer wrapped in cloth so you could see where he was; he had gone away, leaving a note explaining that he didn't want people stumbling over him.

The castaways lamented his apparent departure — Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) offered a reward for information on Gilligan's whereabouts; when told he didn't need to pay them money for information that would bring Gilligan back, Howell replied that his hope had been that Gilligan would overhear the offer and turn himself in — and the Professor speculated that the strips may have been applied long enough to have some effect. It turned out he was right. Gilligan, still invisible, had been sitting there listening to the nice things that were being said about him, then gradually became visible again.

Well, it helped kill some time on Gilligan's island.

Monkeying Around

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If you ever saw actor Denny Miller in anything, it was virtually impossible to forget him — even if you didn't remember his name.

At 6–foot–4, Miller was an imposing figure — especially with his chiseled (I suppose the modern term would be ripped) physique, which he parlayed into guest roles on many action/drama TV series and supporting roles in several movies. For many years he was the "Gorton's Fisherman" in TV commercials (a role that, because of the slicker he wore, concealed his physique).

As a young man, he played basketball at UCLA for John Wooden — a decade before Wooden won his first national championship.

And on this night in 1967, he played a method actor on Gilligan's Island. (The day before, Miller's alma mater, unbeaten and top–ranked UCLA, scored more than 100 points against the University of Illinois. It was the eighth time the Bruins cracked the century mark that season. That was amazing, considering it would be nearly 20 years before the three–point shot became a part of the game.)

Miller played Tongo the Ape Man on the episode "Our Vines Have Tender Apes" — except he wasn't really an ape man (although he did play Tarzan in a movie once). He was a method actor preparing to play an ape man in a movie. His mission on the island was to persuade the castaways that he really was an ape man. If he could do that, he figured he could become the most bankable Tarzan in movie history.

He carried with him a miniature tape recorder to keep a record of his adventures.

Gilligan (Bob Denver) was the first of the castaways to have an encounter with the ape man, who had come into Gilligan's hut and made himself at home.

Gilligan ran off to alert the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) and the Professor (Russell Johnson); meanwhile, Tongo found Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and Ginger (Tina Louise) gathering tropical fruit and absconded with their fruit.

The men organized a search party and went looking for Tongo. The girls remained in camp and tried to make themselves look ugly to repel the ape man. But he got into their hut and carried Ginger away.

(If you're into Gilligan's Island trivia, it is worth noting that, in real life, Miller was married to the original Ginger from the series pilot.)

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Ginger escaped from Tongo by hitting him over the head with a coconut. Since Tongo had shown an interest in Ginger, the men wanted to use her as bait so they could capture Tongo, but she would have nothing to do with it.

So they turned to Mary Ann, who was nervous about the idea but agreed to do it, anyway.

And, with Mary Ann's help, they managed to capture Tongo.

Up until that point, no one — including the audience — knew that Tongo was really an actor. The audience had only just learned that his name was Tongo — when Ginger tried to communicate with him.

But after he was captured and cavorted around the bamboo cage in a pretend rage, the castaways left him alone, and he instantly calmed down, pulling out the miniature recorder (from where? I saw no pockets in the leopard skin he wore) and recording his thoughts. That was when the audience learned the truth.

Tongo kept up the pretense around the castaways, still hoping to fool them into believing he was an ape man. And he did — for awhile. The castaways were amazed how quickly he learned from them.

One of the funniest moments came when the Howells (Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer) attempted to teach Tongo some table etiquette, and Mr. Howell tried to interpret Tongo's grunts as indicative of a Harvard background. When Tongo turned out to be a sloppy eater, Mr. Howell concluded that he was a "Yale man."

But then an orangutan showed up and blew Tongo's cover. The castaways learned who he really was.

(It was extremely odd for an orangutan to show up on a tiny island in the Pacific near Hawaii. Orangutans are found only in the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra in Southeast Asia. The orangutan couldn't have been born on the castaways' island; to get there, it would have had to pilot its own boat.

(But little things like that seldom deterred the writers for Gilligan's Island.)

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Anyway, like most of the visitors to the island, Tongo left without rescuing the castaways. Such departures were almost always done for selfish reasons. In this case, Tongo feared the castaways would reveal his poor behavior with the orangutan, and that would wreck his career.

Rather than permit that to happen, he left the castaways on the island. The impression was given that he had promised to take the castaways back to civilization with him, but that was all their assumption. Tongo never said anything of the kind.

But many of the visitors to the island did promise to take the castaways back to civilization and then, for one reason or another, went back on their words.

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Perhaps that was the real lesson of Gilligan's Island: Trust no one. If it wasn't strictly applicable on this night 50 years ago, it was — and is — applicable most of the time.

The Two Faces of Gilligan

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"Members of the jury, friends and relatives: The case before us is one of crime and murder. Therefore, I caution you to withhold judgment until all the facts are in. Therefore, we must assume Dr. Gilligan is innocent until proven guilty. Now, where is the filthy killer?"

Judge/Mr. Howell (Jim Backus)

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I have mentioned here before that my favorite Gilligan's Island episodes were the ones in which the castaways got to play characters in spoofs of familiar fairy tales and movies.

I have heard that the episode that first aired on this night in 1966, "And Then There Were None," is Dawn Wells' favorite from the series. Wells, of course, played Mary Ann in the series, but the spoofs gave her the opportunity to get some variety.

It was as Mary Ann, though, that Wells got the episode off and running.

See, in this episode, the castaways started disappearing, one by one. Mary Ann disappeared while she and Gilligan (Bob Denver) were doing the laundry. That led to speculation that she had been taken by islanders looking for wives. Then Ginger (Tina Louise) vanished during a search of the island for Mary Ann.

The Professor (Russell Johnson) hit on the idea of dressing up Gilligan in women's clothes as bait while the Professor and the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) were close by to catch the natives before they could do anything. Nothing happened — except that Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) also went missing.

The men went running to the lagoon, hoping to save the women, but they found nothing when they got there, and some assumed the islanders had already gone.

But then the Professor concluded he had been wrong. There were no signs of invaders anywhere in the lagoon — no footprints in the sand, no tracks left by the islanders' canoes. The Professor deduced there never had been any invaders on the island.

And that left the unpleasant option that one of the men had succumbed to island madness, snapping under the stress and becoming a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde who abducted and then killed the women.

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Gilligan, of course, was very susceptible to all kinds of things, and he began worrying that he was the Jekyll/Hyde the Professor had warned them about because he had been alone with each of the women shortly before they disappeared.

But the Skipper pointed out that he had been with Gilligan and Ginger before she disappeared, and Gilligan relaxed enough to fall asleep. But each of the men disappeared, too, leaving only Gilligan. He went looking for them and stumbled near the fallen clothesline, struck his head and was knocked out. His dreams picked up where his conscious mind left off, and he dreamed about being a Jekyll/Hyde on trial in Victorian England.

And thus a spoof on that story — but it was really a spoof of all sorts of characters, both real and fictional. There were more literary/historical references in that episode than in any other single episode in the series — and possibly any such spoof episode in any other series in TV history.

Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) played the presiding judge, a character based on the famous "hanging judge" of the 19th century. Mrs. Howell's character was clearly Mary Poppins — and she was Dr. Gilligan's defense attorney. Mary Ann was a Cockney flower girl straight out of "My Fair Lady."

Ginger's character, the Lady in Red, was based on John Dillinger's — how shall I put this? — companion.

Dr. Gilligan himself indulged in a bit of literary referencing, you might say. At one point he held a lily, sniffed it and recited poetry, which was a reference to 19th–century author Oscar Wilde. (That reference may have been a bit obscure for anyone who didn't study literature in college — neither did I, for that matter, but I have done quite a bit of reading in my life.)

The title of the episode was taken directly from one of my favorite Agatha Christie books, "And Then There Were None."

The Skipper played a court bailiff, and the Professor played the prosecuting attorney. Apparently there was a bit of nepotism involved in the Professor's character's job. He called the judge Uncle Tony. He also said Dr. Gilligan was "Frankenstein, Bluebeard and Jack the Ripper, all rolled into one."

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On the witness stand the Lady in Red proved that the mere mention of food turned Dr. Gilligan into a werewolf–like Mr. Hyde.

Gilligan regained consciousness. Tangled in the clothesline, he stumbled on and fell through a trap door, the very one that each of his fellow castaways had fallen through. Dangling from the clothesline, Gilligan had, without knowing it, provided his friends with a means to escape the pit.

I have heard it said that the moral of the story is, "When your imagination runs wild, don't go along for the ride." I don't know if that was the message of the episode, but it's still good advice.

On the other hand, perhaps the episode was a cautionary tale, warning against being obsessive about food.

To Rehab a Thief

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Ginger (Tina Louise): What did you and your family do for entertainment?

Mr. Wiley (Don Rickles): We used to sit around and watch each other get skinny.

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The castaways on Gilligan's Island were always having visitors to their little island who would promise — or at least imply — that they would take the castaways back to civilization but always wound up reneging on the promise.

In the episode that aired on this night in 1966, "The Kidnapper," Don Rickles played a man who had also become shipwrecked on the island. Well, his boat was beached with a bent propeller.

He kidnapped the women on the island, one by one, and demanded a ransom for each, which Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) always paid, being the only person on the island with money.

After Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer), Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and Ginger (Tina Louise) were all kidnapped and returned, the other castaways learned that the kidnapper's plan was to kidnap each in succession and then start all over again, collecting ever–increasing ransom amounts. They decided that something had to be done so the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) and the Professor (Russell Johnson) set a trap using Gilligan (Bob Denver) as the bait — but in typical Gilligan fashion he got scared and tripped the trap. In the chaos that followed, the Skipper caught the kidnapper, and they put him in a bamboo cage.

The Professor and the Skipper immediately began working to repair the boat. They wanted to make it seaworthy for a return to civilization.

While the kidnapper was in custody, Ginger wanted to psychoanalyze him. Ginger regarded her acting experiences as the equivalent of actual experience in other fields (kind of the forerunner to the Holiday Inn Express commercials — you know, "I'm not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night ..."). She had once been in a movie about a criminal who was psychoanalyzed in an attempt to get to the root of his criminal behavior, and she persuaded a skeptical Professor to let her talk to the kidnapper and find out what made him tick.

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The kidnapper turned out to be quite a con man. He showered everyone with flattery, telling Ginger he thought she and Mary Ann were beautiful, which turned both their heads.

I could see something like that having that kind of an effect on a country girl like Mary Ann, but Ginger was a movie star who must have been accustomed to the attention of male admirers. I had a hard time accepting her response.

The Professor kept insisting that it is difficult to reform a hardened criminal, but Ginger persuaded the castaways to let the kidnapper out of his cage in a demonstration of their faith in him. And that's what they did. Then they threw a party for him. They had the best of intentions.

But the kidnapper didn't. At the party, he robbed the women of their jewelry as he danced with each. He picked the men's pockets, and then he slipped away, escaping on the boat that had been repaired by the Skipper and the Professor.

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In a kind of an I–told–you–so moment, the Professor observed that it isn't easy to reform a hardened criminal.

"Come to think of it," Ginger replied, "that's how it turned out in the movie, too."

Spoofing the Spies

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"They're going to kill me for knowing too much. That's the first time I've ever been accused of that!"

Gilligan (Bob Denver)

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One of the things I liked best about Gilligan's Island was the way the characters got to do spoofs on things and played other roles in addition to the ones they normally played. Sometimes the episodes were spoofs on familiar stories, like "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Cinderella," and sometimes they were spoofs on the pop culture of the time.

That was what the episode that aired on this night in 1966, "The Invasion," was about. To be more specific, it was a spoof of the popularity of secret agents in the movies and on television in the 1960s. I guess that was a byproduct of the Cold War with James Bond on the big screen and I Spy and Get Smart on the small one.

On Gilligan's Island the plot was set up one day when Gilligan (Bob Denver) was fishing — and hooked a briefcase with the words "Top Secret" written on it. All the castaways wanted to see what was in it, but the Professor (Russell Johnson) prevented each one from opening the briefcase, which was presumably locked.

But at one point, the Professor pounded his fist on the briefcase and the top sprung open. The Professor immediately slammed the top shut — but not before observing that it contained files of secret military plans.

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The briefcase had handcuffs attached to it, and Gilligan quickly handcuffed himself to the briefcase — before realizing he had no way to unlock himself.

And the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) noted that, whenever military agents came looking for the briefcase, they would find Gilligan attached to it — and assume he knew too much.

Later that night, while he was sleeping, Gilligan dreamed he was a secret agent (with the briefcase handcuffed to his wrist, of course) and most of the castaways were spies trying to get it from him. The one exception, as I recall, was the Professor, who played Gilligan's superior officer.

Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) played the head of the evil organization trying to get the briefcase from Gilligan, and Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) played his assistant. Mary Ann (Dawn Wells), Ginger (Tina Louise) and the Skipper all played evil agents.

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Some of the elements from secret agent/spy movies and TV shows that Gilligan's Island used in its spoof were:

• In the dream, Mr. Howell was bald, just like the criminal mastermind in the James Bond movies.
• Ginger said, "Sorry about that, Chief." If you have ever seen Get Smart, you know that was one of Maxwell Smart's catchphrases.
  Another one of his catchphrases was "Would you believe ..." Ginger used that one, too — but in another episode.

A Hair-Raising Tale

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In the episode of Gilligan's Island that first aired 50 years ago tonight, "Hair Today Gone Tomorrow," Gilligan's hair turned white overnight.

I'll grant you, in some cases that can seem like it happened overnight — but it is never like this.

The event was set up by the fact that Gilligan (Bob Denver) was worn out from doing the castaways' laundry, and the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) warned him that doing the laundry would make him old before his time. Gilligan dismissed the Skipper's warning — until he woke up the next morning with white hair.

They went to see the Professor (Russell Johnson) to see if he could tell them why Gilligan's hair had changed color. But he had no idea. He recommended that Gilligan go about his normal routine, which included doing the laundry. The Professor assured him the girls (Dawn Wells and Tina Louise) wouldn't even notice.

But they did — and fainted in his arms.

Then Gilligan overheard the Skipper and the Professor talking about his condition. "He's suffering from follicular albinism," the Professor replied when the Skipper insisted on knowing "the truth." When the Skipper asked for an explanation, the Professor said it meant Gilligan had white hair.

Gilligan didn't hear that part, though. He heard the Professor say that there was a chance Gilligan had a rare tropical disease that was making him age rapidly, and and it had a psychological effect on him. Gilligan began acting like an old man — walking with a cane, sitting in a rocking chair with a shawl wrapped around him (that would be pretty uncomfortable in the South Pacific).

He gathered everyone together to distribute his belongings, calling the Skipper Sonny (the Skipper, in return, called him Pop).

After that, the girls were talking about what to do about Gilligan. How could they convince him that he was still young and virile?

That gave Mary Ann an idea. What is it that makes a man feel young? she wondered. The answer was obvious. Love.

So she went to see Gilligan, acting as if she was in love with him.

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But she couldn't persuade him that he was still in the springtime of his life.

Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) had an idea that she shared with the Skipper and the Professor. Many women dye their hair when they reach a certain age, she observed, and that makes them feel younger. So the Professor made a hair dye from berries on the island, then he, the Skipper and Mrs. Howell proceeded to apply the dye to Gilligan's hair while he was asleep.

The next morning, Gilligan discovered that he had lost his hair overnight, and he departed to live out the rest of his life on the other side of the island. The Professor thought there had been something in the dye that had caused Gilligan to lose his hair, but he couldn't figure what it was.

The Skipper took over Gilligan's laundry duties. Not long thereafter, he awoke one day to find that his hair had fallen out, too. So he left for the other side of the island.

The rest of the castaways tried to lure them back. The Professor came with wigs he had been given by the Howells. The wigs had been custom made for Halloween costumes, he told the Skipper and Gilligan. The Howells had gone to a Halloween party dressed as George and Martha Washington.

(I have often wondered why the Howells — and the girls, too, for that matter — brought so many possessions with them on a three–hour cruise. After all, no one knew — I presume — that they would be stranded on a desert island. The four of them had many changes of clothes whereas the Skipper, the Professor and Gilligan always wore the same clothes.)

Wearing the wigs, Gilligan and the Skipper tried to ease their way back into the castaways' circle, joining them for dinner — during which it was discovered that the homemade bleach that was used on the laundry had burned holes in Mr. Howell's (Jim Backus) trousers, and the Professor concluded that the bleach had caused the problems with Gilligan's hair and then the Skipper's hair after he took over the laundry.

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Nature would soon restore what Gilligan's bleach had taken away, the Professor assured them.

In the meantime, though, they had to put up with some rather unpleasant side effects.

Friends and Enemies

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Gilligan (Bob Denver): "He treated me like a father."

Mary Ann (Dawn Wells): "He was like a father to me."

Ginger (Tina Louise): "He was like a father to me."

Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer): "He was like a husband to me!"

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There is an old Chinese proverb that goes like this: "He who is suspicious of his friends has a tiger by the tail."

Perhaps a more modern interpretation would be Michael Corleone's observation (which may originally have been a quote from Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu although there is considerable difference of opinion on that) in "The Godfather Part II:" "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

Anyway ...

There may be some pretty good reasons not to tell someone if he or she will inherit anything from you after you die.

The positive side, of course, is that you receive accolades for your generosity. On the flip side, though, one or more of your beneficiaries may decide it is preferable not to have to wait for tangible proof of it.

At least that seems to have been the point of the episode of Gilligan's Island that aired on this night in 1966 — "Where There's a Will."

Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) — who was, of course, the millionaire mentioned in the show's theme song — came down with a minor malady, and all the castaways came by his hut to give him their best wishes. Touched by their concern, he resolved to remember them in his will.

It was early in this episode, in fact, that viewers saw how truly versatile the Professor (Russell Johnson) could be. He examined and diagnosed Mr. Howell with a stethoscope he made from vines and other material found on the island, and he used a thermometer that he made from the Minnow's barometer. Very clever — but he could never figure out how to patch the hole in the side of the Minnow so they could sail home.

Then, in truly Howellian fashion, Mr. Howell made a big production of announcing his decision, gathering the castaways together to tell them of the revisions to his will and giving a personal copy of the will to each. He could have gone to each one separately and confided his decision. But his ego would have none of it. Like Dustin Hoffman's character in "Wag the Dog," he craved credit for what he had done.

Not long after that, the Howells were walking in the jungle when things began happening — like an arrow barely missing him.

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Then he overheard them talking about killing "the old boar."

He assumed they were talking about him; in fact, they were talking about killing a wild boar on the island to make a spare ribs dinner for a party in Mr. Howell's honor.

(An observation here: The island was too small to be on any maps or charts, which was the reason why the castaways were never rescued — at least not during the original three–year run of the series. But it was apparently big enough that the castaways and a wild boar could coexist on the island — and the wild boar was never seen, never even a topic of conversation, until this night in 1966.)

But Mr. Howell had left, presumably to live out the rest of his life in seclusion. He staged his death in quicksand, then hid and watched what happened from a distance.

It wasn't at all what he expected.

The castaways weren't glad he was gone. They held a funeral for him with the only thing of Mr. Howell's they had — the pith helmet he had been wearing when he left his hut and had been found on the quicksand. Before they started the service, the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) asked Gilligan if the grave was the right size. "It should be," Gilligan replied. "It's 6⅞."

(That was a joke I didn't get as a child. I think it's funny now.)

The castaways were genuinely grief–stricken, and each vowed not to accept his/her inheritance.

Touched once again by their love for him, Mr. Howell, who had been watching from a nearby tree, tumbled from the branches, revealing his whereabouts.

It's still probably a good idea not to tell most people that you are remembering them in your will.

Just to be on the safe side.

Gilligan and the Beanstalk

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Mary Ann (Dawn Wells): When in doubt, use the farmer's formula: One part sunshine, two parts water and three parts prayer.

Professor (Russell Johnson): [reading from book] "The scientific approach to the rapid growth of citrus fruits is assured with the proper amounts of vitamin D, aqua naturalis and fertilizer containing sodium chloride, nitrate of potassium and calcium. If this doesn't achieve results, try one part sunshine, two parts water and three parts prayer."

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As I have observed here before, to watch Gilligan's Island, it was often necessary to suspend one's disbelief considerably. Reality programming may have enjoyed a boom in the early 21st century, but in the middle of the 20th century, fantasy ruled the airwaves. After all, Gilligan's Island was on in a decade that had sitcoms featuring things like talking horses, witches, genies and transplanted hillbillies.

Occasionally such programs would do episodes that tackled — or attempted to tackle — a serious topic, as Gilligan's Island did 50 years ago tonight with "V for Vitamins," but sitcoms that took on serious topics often seemed compelled to double down on the fantasy part to compensate.

In "V for Vitamins," the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) experienced a sudden weakness, an inability to do things he once did with ease. The Professor (Russell Johnson) concluded, after examining the Skipper, that it was due to the absence of vitamin C in his diet — a deficiency, he further concluded, that would kill each of the castaways in turn, according to their size. The Skipper, being the largest, would go first. Mary Ann (Dawn Wells), being the smallest, would be last.

Now, it is a fact that vitamin deficiencies can be serious matters, even deadly, and this might have been a great opportunity for Gilligan's Island to educate the public. Instead it veered off into fantasy.

Now, that, too, can be effective as an educational device, depending upon how it is applied. In this case, I think it was mostly applied for laughs — and, for a sitcom, there isn't anything wrong with that. But it rather starkly illustrates the difference in the objectives of sitcoms of the '60s and sitcoms of the '70s.

Sitcoms of the '70s often took on serious topics — but they used them differently. I guess that went with the territory. The talking horses, hillbillies, genies and witches were gone; they had been replaced by people you were more likely to encounter in your day–to–day life, like Archie Bunker and George Jefferson, and the issues they dealt with were issues you were more likely to deal with in your day–to–day life as well. The TV writers of the '70s didn't want to be frivolous, but they believed that the best way to handle divisive subjects was to find common ground through humor.

After learning that the Skipper had a vitamin C deficiency, Gilligan (Bob Denver) somehow found an orange in the jungle — and apparently didn't know that oranges are sources of vitamin C. Nor, apparently, did he know that pineapples — one of which could be seen on the table when Gilligan told Ginger (Tina Louise) and Mary Ann about the vitamin C deficiency they all had — were also sources of vitamin C.

And I am not a farmer by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems to me that, if there is an orange or a pineapple growing somewhere, there are bound to be others nearby. It has not been my experience that one of anything — except, sometimes, humans — grows anywhere on this planet. Even a single orange seed would yield a tree that produced more than one orange.

But Gilligan claimed there were no other oranges in the jungle — and the subject of the pineapple just never came up.

Gilligan did try to be generous with the orange, offering to divide it into seven equal parts so each person could have some. But then arguments broke out about who need more and such. In the end, of course, the Professor had to point out that a single slice of an orange wouldn't be enough to help any of them. They needed more vitamin C on a regular basis. Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) tried to get people to sell him their slices.

As all this was going on, the orange shriveled in the hot sun.

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The castaways decided that the thing to do was plant the seeds, and the Professor found, in one of his books (that's another thing — why would the Professor bring along so many books on what had been intended to be a three–hour cruise?), guidelines for accelerating the growth of citrus fruits.

So the castaways went about planting the seeds.

One of the things that had to be done was to keep the seeds warm on the chilly island nights. So the men were taking turns standing watch over the torches, making sure they stayed lit.

But when Gilligan took his turn, he dozed off, and the torches went out.

Meanwhile, Gilligan fell into one of those TV dream sequences in which he dreamed he was Jack of "Jack and the Beanstalk" fame — only instead of sending him to get beans, his mother (played by Mrs. Howell, Natalie Schafer), sent him to get oranges.

On his way to the market, Gilligan encountered a con man (Mr. Howell) who talked him into giving him the jewels his mother had given him to exchange for oranges. The con man sold Gilligan what he said were "magic" seeds that would produce an orange grove. His mother was upset and threw the seeds out the window — and they magically produced a beanstalk rising to the sky.

Gilligan climbed the beanstalk and found a castle among the clouds. It was occupied by a giant (the Skipper) who had a housekeeper (Mary Ann) who was Gilligan's instant ally. The giant also had a goose that laid golden oranges, and Gilligan resolved to take it back with him. That, he was sure, would please his mother.

But there were delays in getting away from the castle. Gilligan and the housekeeper heard cries for help and freed two old people (Ginger and the Professor) who were being held captive. In typical Ginger style, the old woman insisted on rewarding her rescuer with a kiss; when she kissed him, she was transformed into a young, beautiful princess. She explained that she was a princess who had been put under a spell that could only be broken by a kiss from a young man.

The old man said that he was really a prince, and he needed a kiss to turn him back into a prince. Gilligan refused, but the princess observed that Mary Ann's kiss was what he needed.

If anything, Mary Ann was more reluctant than Gilligan, but she went ahead with it. The old man did not turn into a prince, and Mary Ann said so in disgust: "You're not a prince!"

"No, I'm not," the old man replied. "Well, don't believe everything you hear, girlie!"

(Once I saw Russell Johnson talking in an interview about that episode. He said he took the cackle and jig from Walter Huston in "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," my favorite Humphrey Bogart movie. Well, if you're gonna steal — excuse me, borrow — you might as well steal/borrow from the best.

(In fact, I saw interviews with most of the actors who were regulars on Gilligan's Island, and most, if not all, said their favorite episodes were the ones in which they got to play special characters within the context of their usual characters. "V for Vitamins" gave just about everyone an opportunity to spread their wings a little — except, I thought, for Schafer, whose contributions to episodes were typically modest, anyway.)

Gilligan tried to get back to the beanstalk, but he was cornered by the giant in an amusing sequence in which Denver's own son, Patrick, played his father, allowing Hale to play the giant.

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It was about this point when the Skipper and the Professor woke up Gilligan, whose first concern was the torches.

The Skipper and the Professor weren't worried about that. They had discovered lemons and grapefruit growing in the jungle, solving their vitamin C problem.

Which leads me to another issue.

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The castaways' island was so small it did not appear on any maps. Based on the images of the island that viewers saw, there were no volcanoes or mountains or anything like that — although there were episodes that referred to a mountain or a volcano on the island. The TV show had been on the air nearly two full seasons when this episode had aired.

In all that time on such a tiny island, doesn't it seem strange that not a one of the seven castaways had ever discovered lemons or grapefruits growing there?

Consequently the subject of vitamin C and its essential role in human health never needed to come up.

Still it was an entertaining story.

A Change of Scenery -- and Personalities -- for the Castaways

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Mary Ann (Dawn Wells): [kisses Dr. Balinkoff] That's for seeing our fire.

Ginger (Tina Louise): [also kisses him] That's for coming to our rescue.

Mary Ann: [kisses him again] That's for taking us off the island.

[Ginger gives him a long passionate kiss on the lips]

Dr. Boris Balinkoff (Vito Scotti): What was that for?

Ginger: That's for being a man!

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If you grew up in the 1960s and watched Gilligan's Island — or even if you didn't grow up in the '60s but still caught Gilligan's Island in reruns — you must remember Vito Scotti.

Scotti was an Italian character actor who was known as the man of a thousand faces because of his skill at playing so many different types of characters in the movies and on TV. He made four appearances on Gilligan's Island, the first two as a Japanese soldier who didn't know that World War II had ended 20 years earlier, the other two as a mad scientist, Dr. Boris Balinkoff.

The first time he appeared as Dr. Balinkoff was 50 years ago tonight. Dr. Balinkoff came to the island with an offer to take the castaways back to civilization by way of his island in an episode titled "The Friendly Physician." He told them he was going to rescue them. He did not tell them that he planned to use them in an experiment.

His pretense was that he had seen the castaways' signal fire, and no one bothered to ask him any in–depth questions — even when he took only Gilligan (Bob Denver) and the Skipper (Alan Hale Jr.) back to his island — initially. As I recall, the doctor's henchman, Igor (Mike Mazurki), was going to come back for the rest of the castaways. The doctor's boat wasn't big enough for nine people.

As there often were in episodes of Gilligan's Island, this episode was riddled with issues. You really had to suspend disbelief to enjoy just about any of the episodes. If you asked too many questions, well, you would ruin it!

Perhaps the biggest problem for people who weren't born when Gilligan's Island was on the air and want to see reruns of episodes is the fact that many scenes in the episodes have been cut to free time for more commercials. About the only way you can see the original episodes in their entirety is to watch the episodes on DVD.

What the castaways didn't know was that Dr. Balinkoff intended to use them as subjects in mind transformation experiments.

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When everyone was on the doctor's island — the only time, by the way, that the castaways got off their island during the show's three–year run — they were taken, two at a time, to the doctor's laboratory, where they were put into separate glass booths, the doctor pulled a lever, there were a lot of flashing lights and buzzing sounds, and the two would emerge from their booths with the other person's mind and personality.

Gilligan and Mr. Howell (Jim Backus) were switched. The Skipper and Mrs. Howell (Natalie Schafer) were switched. And Mary Ann (Dawn Wells) and the Professor (Russell Johnson) were switched.

Ginger (Tina Louise) was switched with Igor. That was the doctor's big mistake. Igor was a strongman, and now he had a mind that was allied with the castaways, not the doctor. In the dungeon where they were all being held, the Professor/Mary Ann encouraged Ginger/Igor to break the chains that kept them where they were.

She protested that she wasn't strong enough to break anything more than a fingernail. "You are now," the Professor/Mary Ann told Ginger/Igor.

And Ginger/Igor did, indeed, break the chains and freed her friends.

Igor, in Ginger's body, was no use at all to the doctor.

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That is a good example of plot inconsistency. Before the audience saw Ginger speaking with Igor's voice, the doctor was trying to speak to Igor and persuade him to manhandle the castaways. But Igor, having Ginger's mind, refused.

At that point, Ginger's body came to the doorway.

"Igor, what has happened to you?" the doctor asked.

"I'm in here," Ginger said in Igor's voice, pounding her fist on her chest. "Feels good!"

Now, if the doctor didn't know that Ginger and Igor had been switched, who threw the lever in the laboratory? Everyone else was chained up in the dungeon.

Well, that was when the castaways revolted. They all went to the laboratory, where everyone was restored to his or her original self. Then the castaways put Dr. Balinkoff and Igor into one booth and a cat and dog into the other booth and locked them in, then left the laboratory. Gilligan was the last to leave, and he threw the lever before leaving, switching Dr. Balinkoff and Igor with the dog and cat.

The castaways intended to take the boat back to civilization. As they were leaving, Dr. Balinkoff and Igor came running out — this time with the minds of the dog and cat.

They were followed by the dog and cat speaking in the voices of Dr. Balinkoff and Igor.

That was another inconsistency. Who opened the booths and freed the four?

Oh, and as for the boat. The castaways went back to their island to pick up a few supplies, then they were planning to leave — but before they could leave, the boat sank in their lagoon.

And the castaways were stranded on the island again.

Bringing a Serial Killer to Justice

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At some point 65 years ago this month, the movie "M" made its debut.

It was a remake of a German movie that was made two decades earlier, and it had roughly the same plot — the search for a serial killer — but the setting shifted from Germany to Los Angeles, presumably to take advantage of the locations in the Los Angeles area that had been frequently used to tell stories on the big screen — and continued to be until the Victorian neighborhood underwent extensive renovation starting a few years later. Several locations in the movie do still exist, however, and are sometimes used in movies today.

I have never seen the 1931 movie, and I only saw the 1951 version recently. It is not the greatest movie ever made. At times, the editing seemed choppy to me, and the story isn't told as smoothly as movie stories tend to be told today.

But I found myself thinking of several things as the movie revealed the various themes that were happening at once. And it had an unexpected ending for a movie made early in the 1950s, a decade that is routinely savaged as the "Leave It To Beaver" decade.

I thought, for example, of the notorious child murders in Atlanta in 1980. That is probably the only case of child serial murders to receive national attention in my lifetime. Maybe there are other, equally obvious examples that I am simply forgetting, but that really is the only one that comes to mind.

It isn't, unfortunately, the only case of an individual child murder that comes to mind. I've known of many of those in my life. Too many.

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"M" was an interesting movie for several reasons.

While it was kind of raw in its presentation, the nature of the story was raw — and, I am sure, shocking for movie audiences of that time. I have long thought that many of the things that we find repugnant, like child murder and sexual assault, do not happen with any greater frequency today than they did many years ago. They are just spoken of more frequently.

That, it seems to me, was what people really found shocking about such stories in 1951 and even when I was growing up long after "M" was in the theaters. It was the kind of thing that nice people simply didn't talk about.

But ignorance is not bliss, and that was one of the unspoken lessons of "M." If a serial killer is on the loose, knowledge really is power.

The people in "M" knew there was a serial killer on the loose, and the chief of police even made an appearance on TV to warn citizens of the danger. But things were different 65 years ago. TV was not in every home, and many people had to see TV from the display window at the appliance store. That was what was shown in "M," and it must have looked perfectly normal to audiences in 1951, but it looks odd to audiences who can carry TV with them in a phone/computer/camera/TV gadget that is small enough to fit in one's breast pocket. Such audiences can't comprehend a time when everything wasn't available on demand.

(If the movie is ever remade again, that is something that will have to be rewritten. It wouldn't be hard to do, but it would have to mention all the ways that the police could get the word out and solicit the public's assistance. You know. Along with TV, radio and newspapers, the police could be shown preparing messages for Facebook, Twitter and all the other social medial outlets.)

If you think about it in the context of 1951 vs. 2016, you are left with the truly inescapable conclusion that the story's writer was positively prescient. The words that came from the police chief's mouth in his address on TV could be the same speech, virtually word for word, that was given by Atlanta's mayor to his terror–stricken city three decades later.

David Wayne played the child killer, driven by a compulsion that was the result of ideas that had been planted in his brain by his mother when he was very young.

The police were getting desperate. There had been too many deaths and too few plausible leads, and they began to harass mobsters, who did not appreciate the increased police attention. It kept them from doing business so they decided to find the killer themselves. And they did.

He was taken to a parking garage for a mock trial and was convicted by a jury of mobsters.

As I say, it wasn't an artfully done movie.

But there was a remarkable moment at the end when the murderer spoke for himself and explained how all these blood sacrifices had been his way of seeking salvation.

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The movie featured several familiar faces — or, at least, they would become familiar to audiences in the years ahead and mostly on television after it became more of a fixture in people's homes.

David Wayne tended to play supporting roles in movies. His performance as the child killer in "M" was a rare opportunity to see him in a leading role. His TV credits were extensive, mostly in guest roles but occasionally in recurring ones.

Jim Backus played the mayor but was better known later in his career as Mr. Howell on Gilligan's Island and the voice behind Mr. Magoo.

Raymond Burr was many things in his career. He played Perry Mason and Ironside, but in "M" he played a gangster named Pottsy.

Oh, and one more thing. Do you know what the M in the title stood for?

It was the code name for the operation that was intended to apprehend the killer. The name was Operation: Murder. That implies that murder was such a rare occurrence in 1951, even in a big city, that the effort to capture a serial killer could be code–named "Murder" — when, in fact, murder was not necessarily a rare occurrence. As I wrote earlier, I think things like that probably just weren't spoken of as much 65 years ago.

If a new version of the movie is ever made, the title will need to be changed — perhaps to a C for children or K for kids.