Mission: Impossible
by David Krell
david@davidkrell.com
Your mission, should you decide to accept it...
Mission: Impossible first aired on September 17, 1966. The espionage themed show created by Bruce Geller provided gripping stories, exotic settings, and solid teamwork. It became a fixture in the popular spy genre of the 1960’s.
In Patrick J. White’s book The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier, Geller explains the show’s obstacles to success and their inspiration for Geller to market the story for the silver screen.
The idea was too complex for TV and far too expensive to produce on a weekly basis. Worst of all, how could you write one every week? Logically, there was no way it could sell. So, of course, it did.
Peter Graves plays Jim Phelps, the leader of an Impossible Missions Force team. Phelps and Mission: Impossible are synonymous, though Phelps was not the only leader.
Dan Briggs originated in Geller’s concept. Steven Hill plays Briggs, but appeared only in the show’s first season. Geller initially titled the show Briggs’ Squad. Hill found later fame, recognition, and success as Manhattan District Attorney Adam Schiff on Law & Order.
White further details Geller’s vision.
With the possibility of a TV sale, Bruce [Geller] added a one-paragraph forecast. ‘The series based on Briggs’ Squad is obvious, he wrote. This group of men may attempt anything. It is probable that some of the characterizations will have to be altered to fit the Television Code. Briggs’ Squad [sic] may have to be given a semiofficial status (unknown to any of them but Briggs) by which they are actually performing their services for the United States government without any official aegis and with Briggs’ full awareness that if they are caught they will have to take the full rap as the government will not acknowledge any awareness of their existence.
The Pilot Episode
Geller’s story idea stayed basically the same for the pilot episode. Impossible Missions Force team leader Dan Briggs spearheads a mission in Santa Costa, a Latin American country. The mission goal is the removal of two nuclear warheads from the heavily protected Hotel Nacionale vault. The removal is necessary to preempt General Rio Dominguez from using the warheads. Dominguez is Santa Costa’s dictator. He uses the hotel as his headquarters.
Briggs enters 3rd Ave. Odd Lots and requests a specific recording. His request is a code for a vinyl album containing instructions with the Mission: Impossible hallmarks and a hint of Briggs’ mystique.
As always, you have carte blanche as to method and personnel. But, of course, should you or any member of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. As usual, this recording will decompose one minute after the breaking of the seal. I hope it’s welcome back, Dan. It’s been awhile.
Briggs smiles at this last statement.
In his apartment, Briggs consults dossiers to recruit his team for the mission.
Terry Targo maintains a lot of power in a small package. At 5’5” and 120 pounds, Targo has expertise in the demolition and cracking of safes and vaults. Wally Cox plays Terry.
Barnard Collier, President of Collier Electronics, gives the group gizmos and gadgets to grease the wheels of the mission. Collier often uses a less formal first name -- Barney. Greg Morris plays Collier.
Rollin Hand is Man of a Million Faces and World’s Greatest Impersonator. He provides the necessary disguise, deception, and illusion to impersonate key players. Martin Landau plays Hand. Initially, the character’s name was Martin Land!
Cinnamon Carter is Elite magazine’s Model of the Year. She has the requisite feminine mystique, a dangerous weapon in and of itself. My job’s only doing what comes naturally. Cinnamon explains. Landau’s then wife Barbara Bain plays Cinnamon.
Willy Armitage rounds out the IMF squad with physical strength. Professional muscleman Peter Lupus plays Armitage.
In the next scene taking place in Briggs’ apartment, the team leader briefs his recruits on the Santa Costa situation. Somewhat deceptively, the camera pans the squad’s serious faces, only to reveal the members are playing a penny poker game.
To gain access to the hotel vault where the warheads are stored, Briggs poses as a jewelry salesman with Willy as his man-servant. This scheme allows Willy to smuggle Terry into the vault by carrying large cases, one of which is hiding Terry.
Additionally, Hand impersonates Dominguez after the team kidnaps the dictator. Barney interferes with a political television broadcast and designs a fireworks display to divert attention from the team’s escape. And Cinnamon...well, you can pretty much guess her role.
Briggs’ patriotism shows through his duty, actions, and no-nonsense attitude in the pilot. When the real Dominguez promises Briggs that he will not use the warheads against the United States, Briggs counteroffers. I’ll give you the same guarantee, General. You read my meaning? Those things might go off, but it won’t be in my country.
Briggs outwits Dominguez and the dictator reveals the color code for the safe containing the warheads -- red, white, and blue. Briggs declares, You not only have sense. You have a sense of the ironic.
Mission: Impossible began pilot production on December 8, 1965 with Mount Saint Mary’s College as Hotel Nacionale.
Cinnamon
Bain reprised her role on the November 13, 1997 episode of Diagnosis Murder. The episode features other 1960’s spy tv icons -- Robert Culp (I Spy), Patrick Macnee (The Avengers), Robert Vaughn (The Man From U.N.C.L.E.). Bain is the only one who appears as an updated version of her character.
Lynn Elber’s November 12, 1997 Diagnosis Murder article for Associated Press explains why.
[C]orporate synergy proved useful. Bain could reprise her Mission: Impossible role because the rights are within the Viacom Inc. family, which produces Diagnosis: Murder. The other three TV spies, lacking similar connections, play newly written characters.
Ted Johnson’s article Wry Spies in the November 8, 1997 issue of TV Guide offers further insight on Bain’s portrayal. When asked who should play their characters in feature films, Bain responds,
I don’t think about it that much. Nor do I think about Cinnamon Carter. I’ve been asked to [re-create the role] many times, and I didn’t want to. But [Diagnosis Murder] came up, and it was kind of the right moment to consider it. In particular, it’s Dick’s show, and I have soft spot in my heart for him.
Bain also details her last challenge to getting the role.
The part was written for me by [executive producer] Bruce Geller. And he got me approved up to a certain point, but they were a little nervous, like, ‘The girl, who is she?’ [Lucille Ball] owned the show. I was told to go to her bungalow on the Paramount lot and to bring along the latest piece of film I had done. The latest at the time was a comedy. And I wasn’t about to walk into her bungalow with a comedy. I couldn’t do it. I was just going to walk in with me. So I did. And she just looked me up and down and said, ‘Looks OK to me.’ That was it.
Dick Van Dyke starred in Diagnosis Murder as Dr. Mark Sloan. Van Dyke and Bain share another connection to Van Dyke’s classic sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show.
In the episode Will You Two Be My Wife, Bain plays Dorothy, the hometown sweetheart of Rob Petrie (played by Van Dyke). She loses his heart to Laura.
CBS first aired the episode on January 16, 1963.
The Spock Connection
Star Trek buffs enjoy a Leonard Nimoy connection to Mission: Impossible beyond Nimoy’s characterization of Paris, a replacement character for Rollin Hand later in the series. Steven Lance covers this territory in his 1996 book Written Out of Television.
The Mission: Impossible pilot, filmed in 1965, featured Martin Landau as Rollin Hand in what was written as a one-shot guest-starring role. So impressed was the CBS network with the character and Landau’s performance that they urged him to sign on as a regular. Landau declined the offer. He had already turned down the producers of Star Trek when they had offered him the role of the half-human half-Vulcan, Mr. Spock. Landau was at that time not interested in committing to a weekly television series; he wanted to continue his work in motion pictures.
Landau committed to the series but he and Bain did not renew their contracts for a fourth season, leaving clear voids for a master of disguise and femme fatale. Regarding the former, the concurrent cancellation of Star Trek in 1969 gave Mission: Impossible the opportunity to complete the Nimoy circle. Lance explains.
Meanwhile, over on the very next sound stage, Paramount’s premiere science fiction series, Star Trek, was just about to be canceled [sic] after completing its third season. One of the show’s co-stars, Leonard Nimoy, still had two years remaining on his five-year contract. And without the bangs and pointed ears, Leonard Nimoy’s facial characteristics were strikingly similar to Martin Landau’s.
Revival
On October 23, 1988, ABC debuted its renovated Mission: Impossible. This updated version has its roots in the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike. Because the strike threatened television production, the new version used a new cast but old scripts. It offered several bows to Mission: Impossible tradition.
Again, Bob Johnson provides the familiar voice on a self-destructing recording.
Again, the instructions for the first meeting contain a welcome back greeting for Phelps similar to the one for Briggs in the original pilot.
Again, Peter Graves plays Jim Phelps.
Family tradition manifests with inspired casting. Grant Collier is Barney Collier’s son and the IMF’s next generation electronics wizard. Greg Morris’ son, Phil, plays Grant.
Father and son join forces in a first season episode entitled The Condemned and again in the second season, two-part premiere entitled The Golden Serpent.
Mission: Accomplished
Throughout the run of Mission: Impossible, the show captured the imagination, fascination, and attention of audiences with a variety of program choices in the espionage genre. Lalo Schifrin’s pulse pounding theme matches the compelling stories.
The show changed characters frequently and shifted focus from the international, political arena to domestic, criminal threats. In The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows: 1946 - Present, Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh trace the general change in the stories.
The top-secret assignments taken on by this elite group of agents usually involved disrupting the activities of various small foreign powers seeking to create problems for America or the Free World. By the last season, the agents had begun to run out of little Communist countries and obscure principalities, so they concentrated their efforts more on dealing with organized crime within the United States.