"Route 66"
Trap at Cordova (1961)

Director:

Arthur Hiller

Writer:

Stirling Silliphant (writer)

TV Series:

"Route 66" (1960)

Original Air Date:

26 May 1961 (Season 1, Episode 27)

Genre:

Adventure

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Route 66 | Corvette | Highway | Traveling | Number In Title

Cast

James Brown	...	Sheriff Canfield
Argentina Brunetti	...	Senora Maria Otero
Fabián Chávez	...	Himself
Dianne Foster	...	Anita Delgado
Thomas Gomez	...	Miguel Delgado
Richard Keith	...	Juan (as Keith Thibodeaux)
Tony Maxwell	...	Tino
Lee J. Roberts	...	Bus Driver

Series Cast

These people are regular cast members. Were they in this episode?

George Maharis

...

Buz Murdock

Filming Locations:

Cordova, New Mexico, USA

Diverting, but not very Compelling

Tod and Buz find themselves railroaded into teaching school children in a small, desolate New Mexican community in this pleasant, but unextraordinary episode.

Thomas Gomez's performance as the cantankerous old man who devises the scheme to trap Tod and Buz as well as singlehandedly fighting off the county that wants to bus the children to a city school is pretty much the whole show here. Although the children do manage to be cute without being too precocious and Gomez's outrageously insane plan to 'trap' the two is indeed amusing.

The episode ends with Tod giving a very prolonged speech about the slow extinction of the American small town that is honest and profound, but also a bit strained. Most Route 66 episodes are either heavy drama or light comedy, but this manages to be a mixture of both, which is diverting, but not very compelling.

Grade: B-