Death Wish on Tantalus Mountain (19 Sep. 1972)

Champion race car driver Alex Pareno arrives in Hawaii to attempt to break the record for driving up Tantalus Mountain. However, his chief mechanic is bludgeoned to death after catching ... See full summary »

Director:

Allen Reisner

Writers:

Leonard Freeman (creator), Jerome Coopersmith

Stars:

Jack Lord, James MacArthur, Al Harrington

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Jack Lord	...	Det. Steve McGarrett
James MacArthur	...	Dan Williams
Al Harrington	...	Ben
Kam Fong	...	Chin Ho
Ricardo Montalban	...	Alex Pareno
Diana Muldaur	...	Angela
Michael Margotta	...	Niki
Harry Endo	...	Che Fong
Al Eben	...	Doc
John Stalker	...	Gordon Miles
Wendell Martin	...	Saunders
Steve Merrick	...	Frank Brill
Leslie Vincent	...	Lefcourt (as Leslie Vincent Fullard)
Jim Simpson	...	Rudy Bender

Storyline

Champion race car driver Alex Pareno arrives in Hawaii to attempt to break the record for driving up Tantalus Mountain. However, his chief mechanic is bludgeoned to death after catching someone tampering with Pareno's car. Later, a second mechanic is killed while test driving the car. McGarrett eventually discovers plenty of suspects ranging from Pareno's fiancée Angela, who was being blackmailed by an ex-lover, to Pareno himself. However, it is eventually discovered that the killer is someone very close to Pareno.

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Mystery

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 September 1972 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Hawaii Kai, Honolulu, O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Leonard Freeman Production, CBS Television Network

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

A De Tomaso Pantera was used for the sports car in this story as the Ford Motor Co. was the sole provider of automobiles for the show. Ford had an exclusive license to import De Tomaso cars into the U.S., which meant that the show's producers could get a fancy sports car for the show and Ford got a lot of free advertising.

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Goofs

When Pareno and McGarrett leave from their initial meeting on the side of the mountain road, both cars squeal the tires but they were parked on dirt.

User Reviews

Pretty average.

Before I jump into a review, a few observations. First, 'Tantalus' was a son of Zeus and king in ancient Greece. For his sins, he was placed in Hades and tormented with everlasting thirst--and the water would recede whenever he thought he could get a drink. It's also the name of a machine from a "Star Trek" episode on a prison planet in the original series. Second, this was Ricardo Montalban's second appearance. Fortunately, this time he is NOT playing a Japanese man! It's also Diana Muldaur's second appearance, though oddly, in the first she'd been an ex-lover of McGarrett and here she plays an entirely different person.

The show begins with Montalban arriving in Hawaii with a mega-super-foxy-hot sports car. I think it was possibly a Ferrari 365 GT4 BB--but I am no expert. All I know is that I started drooling when I saw it!! He is on the island to try to break some speed record for driving to the top of some small mountain with lots of twists and turns. Unfortunately, there is someone out to stop him--and if it means killing a couple people on the way, so be it! Who is trying to kill Montalban? could it be his son with a bad haircut? Could it be Muldaur? Could it be Wo Fat....well, no, it can't be. But it's up to Five-O to try to solve the crime.

As far as the plot goes, it's pretty average. While quite different compared to the average episode, it's only major plus is seeing Montalban play a rather annoying man who treated people poorly and had major masculinity issues! But, on the other, the only major problem was recycling some old footage of a formula-1 race car for an exploding Ferrari roadster. While I am happy they didn't blow up this gorgeous car, the cars are so different that it's a pretty shabby use of stock footage...really shabby. They weren't even the same color and the body style was as different as any two cars can be!!