The random home video observations of author and critic TIM LUCAS.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Once Upon A Time on a Lemon Farm

Tonight's viewing included "The Old Man Picked A Lemon" - Episode 29 of Season 2 of THE FUGITIVE, from 1965. It yielded something of interest.

The setting is a California lemon farm where David Janssen's Dr. Richard Kimble has found work supervising Mexican farm hands. When the beloved owner of the farm dies in a car accident, his wife Flo (Celeste Holm) is placed in temporary charge, but his errant and evil son Blaine (Ben Piazza, giving a fine performance) returns from his banishment -- he was sent away after being involved in a car wreck that claimed the life of the chief worker's daughter -- with the intention of selling the place out from under his stepmother. When Flo reveals recent codicils to the will, unknown to the son, which place her in majority ownership, Blaine hires a private investigator to research her and learns that used to work in Miami as a prostitute until eight years earlier, when the father, rich and prosperous, met her, got her phone number ("it was available"), hired her for a week of companionship and, before departing, asked her to marry him -- a story she relates to the sympathetic ear of Kimble. Blaine intends to expose her backstory unless she sells out to him for far less than her interests are worth... and, after much drama, things ultimately go the other way. The story ends with the farm's faithful Mexican workers assembling around Flo at the front porch of the family home, where she warmly invites them all inside for coffee.

If the story sounds familiar, it may be because the backstory and finale of this Jack Turley teleplay are nearly identical to Claudia Cardinale's backstory in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST (1969) -- and her participation in that epic film's finale, when she is encouraged by Jason Robards' Cheyenne to take some water out to the workers who are building the train station on her land. I had seen this episode before but never made the connection till now.

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