The Root of It All

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.