A fuzzy-cheeked Stuart Whitman plays an ocean diver waylaid on a beach by 3 bank robbers posing as fishermen. But in smaller supporting roles were 2 actors who portrayed legendary Western heroes in TV series of the 1950's. Guy (Zorro) Williams played a highway patrol officer and John Hart, who briefly replaced Clayton Moore on a season of The Lone Ranger, was the highway patrol dispatcher.
5 Reviews
New Twist for Escaping
biorngm21 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Above average-themed episode with a newer twist from bank-robber escapees using a water route via a boat while abandoning their rental car after pulling each heist. There were two robbers entering and exiting the bank, one guy eating, while waiting to drive the getaway car, and of course the ringleader, operating the boat to pick up the three after each job.
The best tip Chief Dan Mathews received was from an accosted innocent skin diver and left on shore. Highway Patrol officer Edwards found the diver, revived him enough to provide Dan and Officer Hansen a description of the three, but mainly bringing the boat into the scheme of things, telling how the three escaped the beach. The method of operation was to rent a car, rob the bank, escape with the car to a secluded area, change clothes with caps, fishing gear, a stuffed with cash tackle box, escaping in a boat manned by the ringleader.
The diver received medical attention at a local hospital while Dan, Officers Edwards and Hansen positioned themselves near the shore when they knew where the next bank job was to occur. Another tip came from the rental car operator in the new town and a scan of likely banks in the vicinity. A paper cup and a paper food container were discarded at two different locations for the lab boys to have corroborating evidence.
A precise rifle shot from Officer Hansen helped Dan corral the remaining two culprits while the Coast Guard picked up the boat leader. Officer Edwards hauled the crooks away while Dan and Hansen drove away after a job well done. I liked this episode for the new twist and the customary quick work capture. Stuart Whitman, Guy Williams and John Hart are superb additions as guest good guys.
The best tip Chief Dan Mathews received was from an accosted innocent skin diver and left on shore. Highway Patrol officer Edwards found the diver, revived him enough to provide Dan and Officer Hansen a description of the three, but mainly bringing the boat into the scheme of things, telling how the three escaped the beach. The method of operation was to rent a car, rob the bank, escape with the car to a secluded area, change clothes with caps, fishing gear, a stuffed with cash tackle box, escaping in a boat manned by the ringleader.
The diver received medical attention at a local hospital while Dan, Officers Edwards and Hansen positioned themselves near the shore when they knew where the next bank job was to occur. Another tip came from the rental car operator in the new town and a scan of likely banks in the vicinity. A paper cup and a paper food container were discarded at two different locations for the lab boys to have corroborating evidence.
A precise rifle shot from Officer Hansen helped Dan corral the remaining two culprits while the Coast Guard picked up the boat leader. Officer Edwards hauled the crooks away while Dan and Hansen drove away after a job well done. I liked this episode for the new twist and the customary quick work capture. Stuart Whitman, Guy Williams and John Hart are superb additions as guest good guys.
Bank robbers put children in peril
Paularoc16 September 2012
Warning: Spoilers
After bank robbers rob banks in coastal towns, they soon dump their cars, pose as fishermen and make their getaway in a boat where a cohort awaits them. This ploy is quickly sussed out after the Highway Patrol interviews a skin diver who had been attacked by the robbers. They lay a trap for the robbers but it is complicated by the fact that two children are playing on the beach where the robbers are waiting to get on the "getaway" boat. The best part of the show was how Chief Mathews interacted with the children to get them away from the beach. It was very well done. Another high point was seeing Stuart Whitman, an actor I always liked, play the skin diver. The beach location was also interesting - a long stretch of beach with only a couple of large houses in the background. Wonder what that beach looks like today.
Interesting..
neverenoughgold1 November 2021
Warning: Spoilers
To say the least. There are two little kids on the beach, playing alone in the sand, and this creepy guy (Matthews) joins then and starts "playing" with the little tykes. Keep in mind the real crooks are also sitting on the beach just a short distance away. Now I don't know about you, but first of all I would never leave my kids alone anywhere, much less a beach in Southern California! In today's world, if the parents saw their kids approached by a stranger anywhere, there would be hell to pay!
Innocence lost? Anyway, I miss the old days...
Innocence lost? Anyway, I miss the old days...
Dan Goes to the Beach--but not to play
FlushingCaps29 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Three men are smart enough to pull of bank robberies, aided by their boss whose main role is to pilot an outboard motor boat, aiding in their escape. The whole episode is about their supposedly "clever" escapes by ditching their car before they get to any of those ubiquitous road blocks Dan sets up so reliably, walking to a nearby beach and wading out to their boss's boat to complete their getaway.
In what must have been this series' Formula A for how criminals operate, they pull off their first job without a hitch-before our cameras start rolling. We see job # 2 which includes some hitch the bad guys did not expect-which helps lead to their downfall. Then the crooks decide, or are told by the boss, that they will do one more big job either later that day or very soon, and THEN they'll move away from Dan's area, or possibly lay low for a while. Whichever, they never think the police are hot on their trail and that is how they are surprised when Dan & Co. Show up before they can getaway from job # 3. This formula was used on many episodes.
Here the trio of bandits drive their car off onto a dirt road near, but not too near, the beach. Change clothes, having one guy put the discarded clothes into a bag and hide it somewhere in the woods/bushes, etc., while they all don typical clothing of fishermen, complete with poles and a tackle box that holds all of their stolen loot. They hike to the beach and just wade out when the boat appears.
Except as they are halfway across the beach, a Scuba diver appears, coming out of the water. He approaches the men and tells them there aren't any fish out here, he's surely scared them all away. He suggests a nearby place to try. We would expect the men to thank him and let him move away before they go to their boat. Instead, they converse with him and one of them clobbers him on the back of the head. They take him to the rocks at the edge of the water and drop him there, expecting to kill him. Unseen, they complete their escape and are later seen learning about the next job the boss wants them to pull-right away.
A highway patrolman has found the escape car from this job, and Dan has learned it was rented-but doesn't attempt any sort of tracking of who rented it. Didn't know you could rent a car in those days without showing a driver's license and having the agency take note of who rented the car. He goes to the car and spots a paper cup, one normally used for drinking just behind the front wheel of the car and properly figures it must have blown there after the crooks stopped the car or the cup would have been crushed. So he picks it up with his bare hands to have it tested for fingerprints, hoping, I guess, that his handling of the cup didn't destroy the only good fingerprints that might have been on the cup.
Meanwhile, a patrolman has found the man on the beach, and Dan gets to that scene almost immediately because he was close to it in the first place. There he learns from the now conscious scuba diver that he was surprisingly conked by one of three fishermen he encountered. Dan finds a paper food container and is told by the man that one of the men he met was eating at the time. Again he picks it up with his bare hand, but it didn't matter because he's Dan. All they learn from this is that a fingerprint on one container matches one on the other one, making it clear that the fishermen were the bank robbers.
Believing their scuba guy was killed, the crooks believe the cops have no idea how they make their escape. This is another common mistake on this series, executed just a few episodes earlier in fact. They think one bonk on the head will kill a man. They could have learned better if they had just paid attention to all those Three Stooges movies...or any other crime movie they ever saw from Westerns to Detectives!
This time when they hit the beach our fishermen see two little kids playing. The only reason they don't go and bonk them is the thought that because these kids are about 7 years old, they think someone might be keeping an eye on them from one of the nearby houses. So they set up shop to "go fishing" on the beach, biding their time.
This is when Dan arrives. Seeing the men and the kids, he goes casual, taking off his jacket, putting his revolver in his pants, and heads to the beach to talk to the kids. Being the 1950s, the kids don't run home terrified of the strange man, anymore than there were of the three men who started fishing about 40 feet from where they were. Dan talks to them, tries to get them to go somewhere else. Not interested in what he tells them, the girl half of the kids suddenly tells the boy, "Let's go somewhere else," and they do.
Dan then pulls his gun and tells the men they are under arrest. Now a normal police officer would then wait for his partner up by the car to come on down, hold a gun on the men while they are searched and handcuffed, then start looking for evidence-the stolen money. Instead our fearless leader directs one thief to open the tackle box. He reaches down and grabs a handful of sand and throws it right in Dan's face starting a struggle. Somehow, Dan's partner of the week fires one shot from far away, and that stops the whole struggle. He comes along and the men are subdued as Dan finds the loot and they observe what a nice day it is for the beach.
The title "Harbor Story" is a total misnomer. We don't see any sort of harbor, only two isolated beaches-I'm sure it was one beach, with filming at two spots, probably 100 yards apart, or less. I would title it: Dan Spends Time at the Beach with Kids, but that's me.
There are multiple reasons why this was a poor episode. The biggest is the crooks' plan. They are to pose as fishermen as they walk away from the getaway car to wade out to a getaway boat. But even though fishermen being met by a friend's boat wouldn't attract real attention from anyone, they panic when the beach they use for their rendezvous is not totally deserted. That scuba guy would not likely have been questioned by the police had they left him alone. If they didn't converse with him, he probably wouldn't have paid attention to what they looked like. All he would have seen is three men meeting a buddy with a motorboat and they climbed aboard, apparently to do some fishing. Big deal.
Instead they clumsily try to kill him but because they didn't do the job right, he provides key clues to the police. At the second beach, they should have just gone out to their boat. Nobody would be questioning those little kids and if they did, they surely paid no attention to what those three men looked like. I don't see the point of donning the fishermen's disguise if they expected nobody to ever see them on the beach or heading for the boat.
The worst that would have come had the scuba guy described them to the police is the police would have said, "Yes, that matches the description of the bank robbers." But that would have been long after they made their getaway in the boat. Had they simply "started fishing" until he moved away, they wouldn't be connected with the boat even IF the man went to the police, which was unlikely.
For the stupidity of the crooks in executing their plan, the rating is fairly low. For Dan's dumbness in handling evidence he thinks might have a valuable fingerprint, I lower the score. For him almost letting himself be killed by not having the men freeze until his colleague arrives on the beach, I drop it another couple of points. That leaves us with a score of 2. Just not a well-written episode from start to finish.
It was cool to see Stuart Whitman, Zorro, AND the Lone Ranger in this episode, the latter two working for Dan.
In what must have been this series' Formula A for how criminals operate, they pull off their first job without a hitch-before our cameras start rolling. We see job # 2 which includes some hitch the bad guys did not expect-which helps lead to their downfall. Then the crooks decide, or are told by the boss, that they will do one more big job either later that day or very soon, and THEN they'll move away from Dan's area, or possibly lay low for a while. Whichever, they never think the police are hot on their trail and that is how they are surprised when Dan & Co. Show up before they can getaway from job # 3. This formula was used on many episodes.
Here the trio of bandits drive their car off onto a dirt road near, but not too near, the beach. Change clothes, having one guy put the discarded clothes into a bag and hide it somewhere in the woods/bushes, etc., while they all don typical clothing of fishermen, complete with poles and a tackle box that holds all of their stolen loot. They hike to the beach and just wade out when the boat appears.
Except as they are halfway across the beach, a Scuba diver appears, coming out of the water. He approaches the men and tells them there aren't any fish out here, he's surely scared them all away. He suggests a nearby place to try. We would expect the men to thank him and let him move away before they go to their boat. Instead, they converse with him and one of them clobbers him on the back of the head. They take him to the rocks at the edge of the water and drop him there, expecting to kill him. Unseen, they complete their escape and are later seen learning about the next job the boss wants them to pull-right away.
A highway patrolman has found the escape car from this job, and Dan has learned it was rented-but doesn't attempt any sort of tracking of who rented it. Didn't know you could rent a car in those days without showing a driver's license and having the agency take note of who rented the car. He goes to the car and spots a paper cup, one normally used for drinking just behind the front wheel of the car and properly figures it must have blown there after the crooks stopped the car or the cup would have been crushed. So he picks it up with his bare hands to have it tested for fingerprints, hoping, I guess, that his handling of the cup didn't destroy the only good fingerprints that might have been on the cup.
Meanwhile, a patrolman has found the man on the beach, and Dan gets to that scene almost immediately because he was close to it in the first place. There he learns from the now conscious scuba diver that he was surprisingly conked by one of three fishermen he encountered. Dan finds a paper food container and is told by the man that one of the men he met was eating at the time. Again he picks it up with his bare hand, but it didn't matter because he's Dan. All they learn from this is that a fingerprint on one container matches one on the other one, making it clear that the fishermen were the bank robbers.
Believing their scuba guy was killed, the crooks believe the cops have no idea how they make their escape. This is another common mistake on this series, executed just a few episodes earlier in fact. They think one bonk on the head will kill a man. They could have learned better if they had just paid attention to all those Three Stooges movies...or any other crime movie they ever saw from Westerns to Detectives!
This time when they hit the beach our fishermen see two little kids playing. The only reason they don't go and bonk them is the thought that because these kids are about 7 years old, they think someone might be keeping an eye on them from one of the nearby houses. So they set up shop to "go fishing" on the beach, biding their time.
This is when Dan arrives. Seeing the men and the kids, he goes casual, taking off his jacket, putting his revolver in his pants, and heads to the beach to talk to the kids. Being the 1950s, the kids don't run home terrified of the strange man, anymore than there were of the three men who started fishing about 40 feet from where they were. Dan talks to them, tries to get them to go somewhere else. Not interested in what he tells them, the girl half of the kids suddenly tells the boy, "Let's go somewhere else," and they do.
Dan then pulls his gun and tells the men they are under arrest. Now a normal police officer would then wait for his partner up by the car to come on down, hold a gun on the men while they are searched and handcuffed, then start looking for evidence-the stolen money. Instead our fearless leader directs one thief to open the tackle box. He reaches down and grabs a handful of sand and throws it right in Dan's face starting a struggle. Somehow, Dan's partner of the week fires one shot from far away, and that stops the whole struggle. He comes along and the men are subdued as Dan finds the loot and they observe what a nice day it is for the beach.
The title "Harbor Story" is a total misnomer. We don't see any sort of harbor, only two isolated beaches-I'm sure it was one beach, with filming at two spots, probably 100 yards apart, or less. I would title it: Dan Spends Time at the Beach with Kids, but that's me.
There are multiple reasons why this was a poor episode. The biggest is the crooks' plan. They are to pose as fishermen as they walk away from the getaway car to wade out to a getaway boat. But even though fishermen being met by a friend's boat wouldn't attract real attention from anyone, they panic when the beach they use for their rendezvous is not totally deserted. That scuba guy would not likely have been questioned by the police had they left him alone. If they didn't converse with him, he probably wouldn't have paid attention to what they looked like. All he would have seen is three men meeting a buddy with a motorboat and they climbed aboard, apparently to do some fishing. Big deal.
Instead they clumsily try to kill him but because they didn't do the job right, he provides key clues to the police. At the second beach, they should have just gone out to their boat. Nobody would be questioning those little kids and if they did, they surely paid no attention to what those three men looked like. I don't see the point of donning the fishermen's disguise if they expected nobody to ever see them on the beach or heading for the boat.
The worst that would have come had the scuba guy described them to the police is the police would have said, "Yes, that matches the description of the bank robbers." But that would have been long after they made their getaway in the boat. Had they simply "started fishing" until he moved away, they wouldn't be connected with the boat even IF the man went to the police, which was unlikely.
For the stupidity of the crooks in executing their plan, the rating is fairly low. For Dan's dumbness in handling evidence he thinks might have a valuable fingerprint, I lower the score. For him almost letting himself be killed by not having the men freeze until his colleague arrives on the beach, I drop it another couple of points. That leaves us with a score of 2. Just not a well-written episode from start to finish.
It was cool to see Stuart Whitman, Zorro, AND the Lone Ranger in this episode, the latter two working for Dan.
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