A group of lack clad acrobats break into the US mint in Carson City, Nevada to steal currency plates and replace them with forgeries while trying to make their caper look like an accident. The ruse does not fool anyone, so too ad for them.Jim follows a lead from a pretty girl--did not see that coming, did you?--to a traveling circus run y big game hunter Warren Trevor, played by a young Robert Loggia. Trevor has stolen the plates so her can print up enough legitimate cash to buy his own country in Africa.
“The Night of Sudden Death,” so called because none of the mint workers were supposed to survive the “accident,” is a mixed bag. It is typical Wild Wild West fun, but did not quite utilized Travor’s big game hunting obsession in any logical way. I expected to see an homage to The Most Dangerous Game wherein Trevor wants to hut the famed Secret Service agent as the ultimate challenge. Instead, Trevor is your typical power hungry villain who wants to be a fly by night dictator.
He only uses his hunting skills in the end after Jim and Artie have foiled his plan by recovering the plates. There is only a brief struggle I which Trevor is thrown into a lake and eaten y an alligator. Considering one of the early action sequences was the same thing happening to Jim with the exception Jim’s alligator assailant did not survive the encounter, Trevor’s end does not speak well of his alleged mad big game hunting skills.
His fate does remind me of how much I expected Steve Irwin to eventually get eaten by a crocodile and found it deflating he met his fate by in a freak accident by a sting ray. Krikey, the indignity!.
It should not surprise you there is plenty of philosophizing that man is the only animal who kills for sport and is somehow lesser in the natural world for it. Well, we have opposable thumbs and can alter our environment, so there to suit our needs. Plus, we are the only creatures on Earth aware of our own mortality, so we have foresight. Take that, animal kingdom!
This is the first episode in which Artie acts like a full partner to Jim rather than just serving as the gadget man who shows up in a goofy disguise at the climax. Although he does the latter here and makes one very disturbing clown. Artie is the one who recovers the plates and torches the money while Jim turns Trevor into gator vittles.
“The Night of Sudden Death” is worth watching, but not a classic. Trevor does not live up to the promise of villainy he is supposed to be. Oh, and in spite of Robert Conrad’s claim he did all his own stunts, it is pretty obvious that is not him being ambushed from above by an acrobat in the first act. Our little secret, I guess.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
