We are back to no gadgets or science fiction concepts, just a good old fashioned caper with a dash of absurd humor to make it fun.Jim and Artie are assigned to escort the Sultan of Ramapour to Washington for a meeting with Ulysses S. Grant. They are also charged with protecting a gift from Ramapour to the united states--a baby albino elephant. Their task becomes infinitely more complicated when their train is held up by gunmen who decide to take the elephant.
The robbers plan to ill the elephant so they do not have to tend to it, but still demand ransom money. The youngest member of the gang is assigned to shoot the elephant, but cannot bring himself to do it. He happens along a circus ru by gypsies who cheat him out of the animal.
Meanwhile, Jim has caught up with the gang and had the prerequisite fistfight before discovering the elephant is now in the hands of the gypsies. He has to infiltrate the circus posig as an acrobat looking for work.
They have the elephant, but it turns out to not be an albino. Instead, it is a regular elephant. The sultan is in cahoots with the robbers to extort $ 1 million from the United States as compensation for the stolen elephant. The plot twist I not revealed until the final act. It turns out to be a genuine surprise as far as plot twists for this series go.
Ruta Lee makes her second and final appearance as a femme fatale. Here, she plays Zoe, the gypsy woman in charge of the circus. Her fake accent is almost as over the top as Natasha’s from Bullwinkle & Rocky.
“The Night of the Gypsy Peril” is fun, frivolous entertainment. The sultan and the gypsies are so laughably stereotypical, it is difficult to take them seriously. But since our heroes are on the trail of a kidnapped elephant, it is kind of difficult to take any of it seriously. Just go with it.For the third time, I have to dispute Robert Conrad’s claim he did all his own stunts throughout the series run. When he has to demonstrate his acrobatic skills for Zoe, Jim never faces the camera while turning flips on the high bar. It is painfully obvious that is not Conrad. You might argue acrobatic tricks are not technically a stunt, so it does not count against Conrad’s statement, but there are still two previous incidents to reconcile.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
