Barbara Bain Movies

Returning from a much-needed vacation, Briggs is asked to take his Impossible Missions Force to the South American dictatorship of Santa Costa. General Rio Dominguez has gotten hold of two nuclear warheads and locked them in the impenetrable vault of the Hotel Nacionale. Briggs' mission--should he decided to accept it--is to remove the warheads, and, hopefully, discredit Dominguez. Fortunately, IMF agent Rollin Hand bears a striking resemblance to Dominguez; equally fortunate is the fact that Briggs has enlisted the aid of master safecracker Terry Targo (Wally Cox). First telecast September 17 1966, the inaugural episode of Mission: Impossible was written by series producer Bruce Geller, who won an Emmy Award for his efforts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Season one of Mission: Impossible finds Steven Hill heading the cast as Dan Briggs, head of the top-secret Impossible Missions Force. Issued instructions at the outset of each episode by that famous "self-destructing" tape recorder, Briggs proceeds to select the IMF operatives best suited to the covert assignment at hand. There are three "permanent" members of the team during season one: versatile femme fatale Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), electronics expert Barney Collier (Greg Morris), and muscle man Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus). As originally conceived, the fourth member of the team, master of disguise Rollin Hand (played by Martin Landau, then the husband of Barbara Bain) was supposed to have been an infrequent guest star, but audience response was so positive to Rollin that Landau ended up a series regular. However, there are instances during season one in which a guest actor is recruited by Dan Briggs for a specific assignment, notably Wally Cox in the opening episode, Eartha Kitt in the episode "The Traitor," and Mary Ann Mobley in the two-parter "Odd Man Out." In the course of the IMF's first year on the air, the team steals a pair of nuclear warheads possessed by a Latin American despot; convinces an enemy agent (Fritz Weaver) on a deadly mission that he has been in a coma for two years; thwarts the development of a plague virus by posing as spy trainees in a replicated American town somewhere behind the Iron Curtain; foils the scheme of a Communist filmmaker to fake a documentary depicting American atrocities in Indochina; infiltrates a group of neo-Nazis bent on creating a Fourth Reich; creates a phony 27,000-carat diamond in order to oust a greedy African dictator; and rigs a high-stakes poker game to retrieve a cache of secret government documents. Although Mission: Impossible's ratings were good during its inaugural season, the series never cracked the Top 30, prompting CBS to move the show from Saturday evenings to Sundays in season two. However, the series managed to win three Emmy awards, for Outstanding Actress (Barbara Bain), Outstanding Writing Achievement in Drama (Bruce Geller), and even for Outstanding Dramatic Series. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

After two years of playing to respectable but not spectacular ratings, Mission: Impossible finally attained the gold ring in season three, when it was ranked as America's 11th most popular series by the A.C. Nielsen Company. At this point in time, the series' formula had been committed to memory by its faithful fans. In virtually every episode, Jim Phelps (Peter Graves), head of the Impossible Missions Force, would be assigned by an anonymous governmental higher-up to undertake a covert mission in the interests of world peace, international security, the thwarting of big-time crime, or a combination thereof. After the self-destruction of the tape recorder from which these instructions emanated, Phelps would choose the IMF operatives best suited to the task at hand. Almost invariably throughout season three, these worthies would include sexy "mystery woman" Cinnamon Carter (Barbara Bain), master dialectician and makeup artist Rollin Hand (Martin Landau), electronics wizard Barney Collier (Greg Morris), and general-purpose muscleman Willie Armitage (Peter Lupus). Journeying to an exotic locale (usually in a fictional country run by despots or controlled by crooks), the IMFers utilized an astonishing array of disguises, props, and meticulously preplanned schemes (but seldom weaponry) to foil the villain of the week -- generally through the simple process of getting the villain to trip himself up with his own ego or greed.

Among the season's most memorable episodes are the two-part "The Contenders," in which Barney poses as a boxer making a comeback to destroy a bout-fixing syndicate (also seen in this episode is real life boxing champ Sugar Ray Robinson); another two-parter, "The Bunker," wherein the IMF must rescue the wife of a scientist who is being blackmailed into conspiring with the enemy; "The Elixir," featuring Ruth Roman as an Evita-style Latin American dictator who is duped into turning her country over to a democratic government; "The Freeze," in which the team convinces a mobster that he has been cryogenically frozen for 14 years to trick him into revealing the whereabouts of some stolen loot; "The Mind of Stefan Miklos," guest-starring Ed Asner as an enemy agent who is hoodwinked into trusting his worst enemy; "The Exchange," a tour de force for series regular Barbara Bain, in which Cinnamon is kidnapped and subjected to her worst fear -- being confined in a tiny place -- as a means to get her to betray the IMF; "Illusion," another showcase for Bain as she impersonates a dead nightclub singer; "The Execution," with Vincent Gardenia as a paid assassin who rats on his boss after the IMF stages a realistic gas-chamber execution before his very eyes; and "Live Bait," featuring a young, bespectacled Martin Sheen as a cloddish enemy operative who is literally seduced into helping the IMFers rescue a double agent from a diabolical torture device. Although the series' lofty ratings, coupled with a third Emmy award win for regular Barbara Bain, should have been occasion for celebration, all was not champagne and roses backstage at Mission: Impossible. Both Bain and her husband, Martin Landau, were publicly clashing with series producer Bruce Geller over their working conditions and the quality of the scripts, and by the end of season three, the series' two most popular actors had ankled the project, never to return. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Ricardo Montalban guest-stars as Gerard Sefra, formerly the sadistic overseer of the defunct Boradur penal colony. Sefra has somehow come into possession of a sample of Cesium 138, the catalyst for a low-cost nuclear arsenal. To prevent Sefra from selling the Cesium to the highest bidder, the IMF agents concoct a scheme to destroy both the catalyst and the villain--a scheme that hinges on digging a tunnel underneath Sefra's stronghold in Boradur. Written by Judith Barrows and Robert Guy Barrows, "Snowball in Hell" originally aired February 18, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Baltic freedom fighter Nikolai Kurzon (Bob Tiedemann) has been kidnapped by Colonel Alex Stahl (Steve Ihnat), leader of the secret police in Kurzon's homeland. To rescue both Kurzon and his thousands of followers, the IMF must make it appear that Stahl has sold out his government. To accomplish this, Cinnamon poses as an astrologer with a remarkable record of accurate predictions. Much of the action takes place on an airplane that, to all appearances, is doomed to crash with Stahl aboard. Originally telecast December 3, 1967, "The Astrologer" was written by James F. Griffith. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The second multipart adventure of Mission: Impossible's third season, "The Bunker" was written by Paul Playdon. The IMF is assigned to rescue rocket scientist Erich Rojak (Milton Selzer), who is being forced to cooperate with the enemy. Not only must the agents release Rojak from an impenetrable bunker, but they must also free his wife Anna (Lee Meriwether, who is being held hostage in a maximum-security prison. Part One of "The Bunker" originally aired March 2, 1969. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Borrowing a page from "The Man in the Iron Mask," an impostor poses as Cardinal Soucheck (Paul Stevens), the much-beloved spiritual leader of a Balkan nation, while the real Cardinal languishes in prision. It is all part of a scheme by would-be dictator General Zepke (Theodore Bikel) to gain control of the country and sway the Cardinal's followers to his side. To expedite the Cardinal's rescue and expose Zepke as a fraud, the IMF agents take advantage of a bacterial epidemic. This episode of Mission: Impossible makes extensive use of a special tubular device that had only recently been developed by the US aerospace industry. First broadcast November 17, 1968, "The Cardinal" was written by Robert E. Thompson. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Like the first-season Mission: Impossible episode "The Ransom," the second-season installment "The Condemned" is an unusual departure from the series' format. Racing against the clock, Jim Phelps hopes to save the life of his close friend Kevin Hagen, who has been convicted of murder and sentenced to die in a Spanish prison. Unbeknownst to anyone, the "murder victim" is actually alive and well and living under an assumed name. Other plot wrinkles include the disappearance of a diamond tiara and the curious behavior of Webster's ex-sweetheart Luisa Rojas (Mariana Hill). First telecast January 28 1968, "The Execution" was written by Laurence Heath. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

World champion boxer Sugar Ray Robinson makes a guest appearance in the two-part Mission: Impossible episode "The Contenders", which was loosely based on an actual event in Robinson's career. The IMF must prevent Charles Buckman (Ron Randell) from gaining control of all American sports events, and thereby destory Buckman's scheme to enrich himself by fixing athletic events. Crucial to the mission is Barney's impersanationg of a boxing contender and Cinnamon's ability to wrap Buckman around her little finger. Written by William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter, Part One of "The Contender" first aired on October 6, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Written by William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter, "The Council" was the second multipart story of Mission: Impossible's second season. In their most ambitious assignment to date, the IMF must destroy a criminal empire that threatens to drain America's gold reserves. As part of the plan, Rollin concocts a dangerous strategy of his own, one that requires him to impersonate crooked businessman Frank Wayne (Paul Stevens). As it turns out, the success of the mission hinges upon a mob flunkey who has been targetted for extermination--and has already been buried alive. Part One of "The Council" was first broadcast November 19, 1967. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The title character in this Mission: Impossible episode is Raymond Calder (Edmond O'Brien), the unscrupulous manufacturer of counterfeit drugs. Distressed that Calder has exploited the needs of the desperately ill, his former colleague Dr. McConnell (Noah Keen) conspires with the IMF agents to hoist Calder on his own petard. "The Counterfeiter" was one of several excellent episodes scripted by the team of William Read Woodfield and Allan Balter, working from a story by Lily Woodfield and Joseph Gantman. It was first telecast on February 4, 1968. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Unable to recover valuable documents concerning America's missile system, the IMF must resort to a contingency plan. In order to convince enemy agents that the documents are worthless, Phelps and his cohorts work hand in glove with Susan Buchanan (Lee Grant), the wife of an American diplomat. Mrs. Buchanan's mission: To lure playboy-spy Roger Toland (Fernando Lamas) into a highly compromising situation. Originally broadcast on December 1, 1968, "The Diplomat" was written by Jerry Ludwig. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide