Get Smart (TV Series) Washington 4, Indians 3 (1965) User Reviews

Have Shoe Phone, Will Travel

[zsenorsock · 8/10 · 13 February 2008]

A band of Indians stops a Greyhound bus in Arizona and demands to see a CONTROL agent on board. They present him with their demands: to return all the land taken from the Indian tribes or face imminent attack by the Indian nation. On the night desk at CONTROL, Max calls in the Joint Chiefs, cancels all leaves and puts the country on high military alert. The Air Force wants to carpet bomb Arizona, but the President decides to do something more drastic: send in Smart.

Max and 99 arrive in Arizona dressed like Richard Boone as Paladin in "Have Gun Will Travel" (in which I hope is a nice visual reference rather than coincidence) and meet Agent 43. Max decides to infiltrate the Indian camp disguised as a Topawasi brave. What he doesn't know is the brave is pledged to marry White Cloud (hotty Adele Palacios, in what curiously appears to be her last performance). Determined to stop her dad Red Cloud (Anthony Caruso) from launching his missile, he fights off the comely White Cloud's advances (Barbara Feldon makes the most of her opportunity to show her jealousy here. She makes it clear 99 now has a huge crush on Max.). Strangely, even though he does get the opportunity to stop Red Cloud, he lets the Indian Chief launch his arrow shaped missile, which lands harmlessly in the west wing of the White House.

There's inspired gags all throughout this script by Garner and Caruso. There's a running bit about how everyone confuses the Indians with India, Max's secret weapons include an electric snake ("What was that?" one brave asks. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear it was an electric snake.")and a tomahawk phone. Palacios is very attractive and funny as the hot to trot White Cloud, the opening sequence attacking the bus works nicely and the scene with the Joint Chiefs and the President on the phone is another highlight. Adams is totally in the zone and Feldon has never been so fetching as she is in her all black cowboy outfit. She has a great moment when Max leaves her in the company of Agent 43. Max tells her 43 is a good man, and 99 answers "He's half the man you are 86." A fun episode.

Too dumb to be a good episode

[FlushingCaps · 6/10 · 15 December 2020]

Three reviews on IMDB before mine-average score 9.3, prompted me to provide my thoughts.

This one begins with a bus being stopped somewhere in the Western desert by 4 American Indians on horseback. They order everyone off the bus-revealing about a dozen passengers only. The Indian chief says there is a CONTROL agent on the bus. They want him to step forward. All other passengers will be killed. Everyone steps forward but one man-revealing to the chief that he is the agent. He releases everyone else to get back on the bus, has one of his men shoot an arrow into the ground near the CONTROL agent's feet, with a message wrapped around it.

The agent, # 43 we learn, is to give this message to his government within 48 hours. Agent 43 has just begun his 3-week vacation. He phones CONTROL headquarters, where Max is apparently minding the store alone. He hears the threat read on the phone that if the US doesn't give back the entire country to this group of Indians led by Red Cloud, there will be a state of war. On that basis alone, he phones and orders all sorts of dramatic action, which brings an angry chief to the office at 4 in the morning, who becomes even more upset when he learns who is responsible for the threat-as far as Max knows, a group of 4 Indians.

Three of our armed forces military heads then enter the meeting room (the Marine general is on vacation, we are told) and they do a fine satire on he military, including the Air Force general wanting to have a saturation bombing on Arizona, before being reminded that we have a lot of citizens there. The new Army head is General Custer, and it is suggested to the chief that someone else be put in charge, people might panic if they knew who was in charge of that branch.

There is a brief phone call from, supposedly, the White House, where the Chief assures the president that everything will be fine, then gives him advice on how to get back to sleep.

Max and 99 are to get into the camp of Red Cloud and find out his actual plans. En route, they are stopped by an Indian who identifies himself as an outsider, expected to go to Red Cloud's camp. Max trades places with him, having Agent 43 hold him. Agent 99 tells Max "you're worth two 43s." Good at math, she is.

What Max learns when he gets into the camp is that the Indian whose place he took, is going to marry the chief's daughter, White Cloud. It turns out she knows he's not her betrothed, but is attracted to Max anyhow. She tells him her father has a secret weapon in a certain teepee.

Max winds up hiding in the tent when other Indian leaders arrive for a council of war. The weapon, it turns out is nothing more than what Max calls, "the second biggest arrow I ever saw."

Well, the "war" is averted and Max is congratulated by the Chief for his good work once more.

Now the other reviewers loved this episode. I did not. Some of the silly gags worked, but it was too silly overall. This chief, with only a couple of hundred warriors thinks he can win a war with the US simply because he has a giant arrow? The arrow had no explosives, if it hit a group of soldiers standing close together it might hurt three or four of them, but that's it. The whole notion of Red Cloud wanting to declare war was too nonsensical for me. Obviously the "give back" then entire country was ridiculous-there have been a lot of improvements in the past centuries. Things are not nearly what they once were.

For that matter, I not only couldn't figure out how Red Cloud knew a particular cross-country bus would be carrying a vacationing CONTROL agent. Furthermore, since his only significance was to carry the message to his government, there was no need for a CONTROL agent to be selected. Any citizen could have been given the same message from Red Cloud and directed to take it to the government. Simply saying they would declare war without any more direct threat was also rather dumb.

Max takes with him for his mission an "electric snake" which runs on transistors and moves with "tiny, little feet." It was supposed to be used like a bug, but the only use he got out of it was to have two Indians in a teepee notice it moving along outside their teepee and have one say, "What was that?" while the other calmly said, "If I didn't know better, I'd say it was an electric snake."

Just about everything was too-silly to be fun. When Red Cloud asks the chiefs of the other tribes he's trying to get to join him, they are to throw knives into a partition (which Max is hiding behind) with the left side meaning a vote for peace, and the right side a vote for war. The four split their vote-naturally. Red Cloud then throws his knife just as Max shifts the partition, causing his "vote" to go to the wrong side. I guess we are to believe these Indians would allow their "vote" on war or peace to be decided on a matter of their knife-throwing accuracy?

For that matter, I would think lots of people-even in 1965-would take offense to the portrayal of Indians in that year still living in teepees and dressing like their ancestors did a century or so ago. I was not offended, but I think as a kid I was smart enough to know that they had modernized their lives and didn't live like that anymore.

I was surprised to see the rave reviews. To me, it was like a bad skit on SNL, or Carol Burnett, where the just pieced together all sorts of silly notions-electric snake, giant arrow-and had the actors fill in silly things to say-such as Max in his Indian disguise on his radio to 99 asking her to look up the meaning of "topawasi" (what they were calling him) and when she says it means "betrothed" asks her to look up "betrothed."

Not a horrible one, but only a 6 to me.

Let Her Rip, Red Cloud

[campbell-russell-a · 10/10 · 3 February 2014]

This was an inspired episode with not a moment wasted. There is satire on rampant military zeal with generals considering round the clock bombing of their own country. Perhaps this reflected the overkill involved in the massive escalation in bombing of North Vietnam at that time. There is a satirical spin on the general lack of consciousness of Native American land rights struggle with the Chief and the generals jumping to the conclusion that it was India rather than the American Indians threatening to attack. Nothing articulated the Red Indians (Native American) grievances better than when Max attempts to talk Red Cloud out of launching a giant arrow against Washington. Max starts by recalling the days when the "noble redman" roamed the land and hunted the buffalo and then came the settlers and then the soldiers ... Forget the past. Think of the present with your nice tiny reservations ... Think about the future; that's what's important. When Max added up the history of the white's treatment of Red Cloud and his ancestors there was only one thing left to say. "Let her rip, Red Cloud." There were great sight gags and the breaking down of stereotypes with two braves bemused by what was obviously an electric surveillance snake and White Cloud as an extremely sexy and sexually aggressive hippie chick Indian fiancé for the "topawasi" (Max). She (Adele Palacios) and Wailing Wanda - one of the Groovy Guru's agents - get my vote as the sexiest women of the series. All this and more (eg.99's overt pining for Max)in just 20 minutes! And how could Max not have fallen for 99 in her black androgynous cowboy/cowgirl outfit?

Favourite and funniest episode of all

[lbowdls · 10/10 · 16 June 2019]

This is my absolute fave episode( which from my fave show of all time is hard to narrow down) it has more gags per minute than a joke store, from beginning to end just non stop hilarity with the best and funniest characters. Including 'The electric snake' scene and 'Second biggest arrow I've ever seen' line. Too many scenes , characters and lines to mention. Nothing comedic is wasted in this episode. All the characters including Chief Red Cloud, and the bickering generals are brilliant in every way. A must see for all.