The Root of It All 

Judy Carne, Pete Duel's "Love on a Rooftop" co-star, plays one of 3 Boston spinsters; 2young women and an older chaperone. The women are supposedly taking a Wild West tour before returning ... See full summary »

Director:

Barry Shear

Writers:

Glen A. Larson (created by), Howard Browne

Stars:

Pete Duel, Ben Murphy, Judy Carne

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
Pete Duel	...	Hannibal Heyes (alias Joshua Smith)
Ben Murphy	...	Jed 'Kid' Curry (alias Thaddeus Jones)
Judy Carne	...	Leslie O'Hara
Tom Ewell	...	Deputy Treadwell
Logan Ramsey	...	Oscar Rosewood
Mills Watson	...	Squint Simpson
Meg Wyllie	...	Prudence Palmer
Victoria Thompson	...	Margaret Chapman
Jerome Cowan	...	Waldo Hennessy
Elliott Montgomery	...	Jenson (as C. Elliott Montgomery)
Walt Davis	...	Sheriff Brewster

Storyline

Judy Carne, Pete Duel's "Love on a Rooftop" co-star, plays one of 3 Boston spinsters; 2young women and an older chaperone. The women are supposedly taking a Wild West tour before returning home. Leslie O'Hara's secretly holding a letter, which Heyes saves from a bandit gang, and Leslie wants the letter back and is willing to pay $500 for it, sparking the boys' attention. Also on the trail's a mysterious, persnickety man from the federal government. It turns out everyone's on the trail of money from a bank robbery and the letter is a key, and when we say "everyone," we mean it ...

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Plot Keywords:

flipping a coin | cigar smoking | water tower | treasure map | thousand dollar bill | 

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Genres:

Western

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

25 March 1971 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Root of It All

Filming Locations:

Stage 36, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal/Public Arts Production

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Guest star Judy Carne had previously co-started with Pete Duel. on the short-loved, but, well-received series, Love on a Rooftop (1966).

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Quotes

Leslie O'Hara: [while riding in a stagecoach] Oh, we came to look at the wild West.
Hannibal Heyes: I hate to disappoint you, but it's not like that any more. You couldn't be safer in your own backyard.
Jed 'Kid' Curry: I wouldn't say that Joshua. One morning three weeks ago, we were on a stage that was held up. By a band of very desperate men.
Margaret Chapman: You mean that could happen to us?
Hannibal Heyes: It could happen to you but not to us. Not twice in three weeks.
[gunshots are fired, the stage is robbed]

User Reviews

Everybody's a Thief!

A fun watch. The boys meet three women (two younger, one older) on a stage and end up entangled in their plans to find a buried treasure - the location of which was revealed in a letter. (The letter just didn't happen to be mailed to the woman trying to get it back after the coach is robbed.) Sooner or later, everyone and their brother is after the treasure-hunting party. I doubt even the Treasury agent is who he says he is! There's a nice little twist at the end, from a completely unexpected direction.

Hilary Thompson and Judy Carne are the two young single "ladies," chaperoned by Meg Wyllie as the older spinster. In case you don't recognize her name, you - especially the Star Trek Original Series fans - will recognize her face...vaguely...but she played the Talosian Keeper on Talos IV in the two-part Season One episode, The Menagerie. For years, the original pilot episode (The Cage) was not shown as it had a very different crew, led by Capt. Chris Pike, but the writers found a way to chop it up and splice it into the later two-part episode. Misses Carne and Thompson were all over the place on 1960s sitcoms and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In as well. Here, they act well above common expectations and turn in quite accomplished appearances.