The extremely photogenic Vera Miles guests on this, the 13th episode of Route 66 season three and she, pretty much, makes the show. Miles as Ellen Barnes, a big band chartreuse whose capricious ways have caused her toward a steady fall as a cabaret singer, a stripper, and general lawlessness wanderer , escapes a bail bondsman in order to return to her hometown and to the wedding of her niece. Tod is duped into helping her escape from her day in court when he believes one of her wild tales. Learning the bondsman stands to lose $2000, Tod is compelled to find her and in the process falls for her beauty and magnetism. Buz is said to be in Cleveland suffering from the "echo virus", however fans know that his absence is, in a sad way, the beginning of the end of the series. But, we have another odd, but great episode and here, at least, Maharis isn't missed to any great extent. As stated earlier, Vera Miles is front and center. She is certainly up to the task as she plays a lost soul who, though dangerous, is a kind of soul-mate to Tod. There is actually some sparks which go unrequited for a kind of tension that is palpable. Milner turns in a fine, very understated, performance that compliments Ms. Miles' character quite well. I must say I enjoyed it and had to wait to see where it was all leading to. Like the title given to the episode it is a big enigma and the ride is the thing. I love the chances that Sterling Silliphant encouraged his writer to take and this episode is one of those just outside of the mainstream enough to be edgy and enthralling...Interesting and recommended.
Route 66 (TV Series)
Where Is Chick Lorimer, Where Has She Gone? (1962)
User Reviews
Review this title6 Reviews
12/14/62 "Where is Chick Lorimer? Where has She Gone"
schappe125 September 2015
Warning: Spoilers
Chick Lorimer is not a character in this episode. She's a character in Carl Sandberg's 1916 poem "Gone":
EVERYBODY loved Chick Lorimer in our town.
Far off
Everybody loved her. So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold
On a dream she wants. Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went. Nobody knows why she packed her trunk .. a few old things And is gone,
Gone with her little chin
Thrust ahead of her
And her soft hair blowing careless
From under a wide hat, Dancer, singer, a laughing passionate lover.
Were there ten men or a hundred hunting Chick? Were there five men or fifty with aching hearts?
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer.
Nobody knows where she's gone.
Vera Miles is a rather down to earth actress, but a good one. She plays Ellen Barnes who left her small town years ago to be a singer and has been admired- or resented- by those who left behind ever since. She's now returned for her niece's marriage. The niece, (Brenda Scott), sees he as a fee-spirited favorite aunt. Her mother, (Martha Scott, apparently no relation to Brenda), sees her as the irresponsible sibling that left her to manage everything. Frank Overton plays an old suitor who never lost interest.
Todd encounters her as the prisoner of a bail bondsman she claims has kidnapped her. He aids her escape, then goes after her to make up for it when he learns the truth. He winds up falling for her. The show winds up at the wedding with Ellen singing for the gathered group. Then the drunken bail bondsman shows up and tells everybody what she was doing when he found her: she's a stripper! She's also penniless. But that's what she did and what she had, not who she is.
The episode suffers from lengthy dialog scenes that are a bit too over-wrought and a bit of over-acting by Martin Milner at the end. It plays like a stage play, not a TV show, where we are used to more "movement". Surprisingly it was not written by Stirling Silliphant, famous for his flowery dialog, but by Larry Marcus.
(In a strange personal irony, after watching this episode, I went to see the current Meryl Streep movie, "Ricki and the Flash", in which she plays a modern version of Chick Lorimer, a woman who left her family to become a rock star and who returns home because her daughter needs her. It ends with Meryl singing at a wedding. What are the odds on that?)
George Maharis still appears in the credits of this episode and Todd has a lengthy phone conversation with Buz at the beginning. Buz is in the hospital in Cleveland with "echo virus", (which is an intestinal disorder caused by exposure to an uncleanly environment that might be akin to what Maharis actually had). Clearly, Todd tells Buz that he's looking for a couple of jobs for them. The episode takes place in St. Charles, Missouri , 245 miles from St. Louis. This is surely the episode shot right after "Hey Moth, Come Eat the Flame", the apparent last episode filmed by Maharis. Why they put him in a hospital in Cleveland, I don't know. It's the local of their previous episodes, one of which, "Only by Cunning Glimpses", was shown after "Hey Moth Come Eat the Flame". Had they already decided on the broadcast order? At any rate they either expected Maharis to come back again or they were still hopeful of it.
Todd's attitude toward Ellen seems to change from scene to scene, suggesting that some of those scenes were originally "Buz" scenes. Now it's all Todd.
(This is the first review I've posted since Martin Milner's death. He had a long and productive life and was an under-rated actor. R. I. P.
EVERYBODY loved Chick Lorimer in our town.
Far off
Everybody loved her. So we all love a wild girl keeping a hold
On a dream she wants. Nobody knows now where Chick Lorimer went. Nobody knows why she packed her trunk .. a few old things And is gone,
Gone with her little chin
Thrust ahead of her
And her soft hair blowing careless
From under a wide hat, Dancer, singer, a laughing passionate lover.
Were there ten men or a hundred hunting Chick? Were there five men or fifty with aching hearts?
Everybody loved Chick Lorimer.
Nobody knows where she's gone.
Vera Miles is a rather down to earth actress, but a good one. She plays Ellen Barnes who left her small town years ago to be a singer and has been admired- or resented- by those who left behind ever since. She's now returned for her niece's marriage. The niece, (Brenda Scott), sees he as a fee-spirited favorite aunt. Her mother, (Martha Scott, apparently no relation to Brenda), sees her as the irresponsible sibling that left her to manage everything. Frank Overton plays an old suitor who never lost interest.
Todd encounters her as the prisoner of a bail bondsman she claims has kidnapped her. He aids her escape, then goes after her to make up for it when he learns the truth. He winds up falling for her. The show winds up at the wedding with Ellen singing for the gathered group. Then the drunken bail bondsman shows up and tells everybody what she was doing when he found her: she's a stripper! She's also penniless. But that's what she did and what she had, not who she is.
The episode suffers from lengthy dialog scenes that are a bit too over-wrought and a bit of over-acting by Martin Milner at the end. It plays like a stage play, not a TV show, where we are used to more "movement". Surprisingly it was not written by Stirling Silliphant, famous for his flowery dialog, but by Larry Marcus.
(In a strange personal irony, after watching this episode, I went to see the current Meryl Streep movie, "Ricki and the Flash", in which she plays a modern version of Chick Lorimer, a woman who left her family to become a rock star and who returns home because her daughter needs her. It ends with Meryl singing at a wedding. What are the odds on that?)
George Maharis still appears in the credits of this episode and Todd has a lengthy phone conversation with Buz at the beginning. Buz is in the hospital in Cleveland with "echo virus", (which is an intestinal disorder caused by exposure to an uncleanly environment that might be akin to what Maharis actually had). Clearly, Todd tells Buz that he's looking for a couple of jobs for them. The episode takes place in St. Charles, Missouri , 245 miles from St. Louis. This is surely the episode shot right after "Hey Moth, Come Eat the Flame", the apparent last episode filmed by Maharis. Why they put him in a hospital in Cleveland, I don't know. It's the local of their previous episodes, one of which, "Only by Cunning Glimpses", was shown after "Hey Moth Come Eat the Flame". Had they already decided on the broadcast order? At any rate they either expected Maharis to come back again or they were still hopeful of it.
Todd's attitude toward Ellen seems to change from scene to scene, suggesting that some of those scenes were originally "Buz" scenes. Now it's all Todd.
(This is the first review I've posted since Martin Milner's death. He had a long and productive life and was an under-rated actor. R. I. P.
Did Carl Sandburg ever see his poem-namesake episode?
cwjonesfam22 August 2020
I was an Education Park Ranger at the Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site in Flat Rock, NC, 1987-92, teaching all things Sandburg. He was not known to watch much TV as he was busy writing there at his home from 1945 until he died in 1967. (He didn't know who Bob Dylan was when the singer came to call, but Sandburg was a collector and singer of old folk songs which might have prompted the visit.)
So I wonder if someone told Sandburg about the use of the Chick Lorimer poem on tv in 1962, or if perhaps CBS asked his permission to have it quoted in full in the show. And then I wonder how many viewers went hunting a copy of "Chick Lorimer" when the poem is actually titled "Gone", and one of many in Sandburg's book, Complete Poems - which won him a Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1951. Just another example of the literary value of the Route 66 tv series.
I wish I had known about this episode in 1992. I'd have asked Sandburg's daughter Helga all about it. She was a fireball writer herself and liked to talk about her activist father and his work. And like Silliphant (and born the same year) she was cutting edge and would have surely known the use of her father's work in a groundbreaking 60's tv show. Helga was 44 when this show aired and I just bet she heard about it soon after, if in fact she didn't see it firsthand.
RIP Carl and Helga Sandburg....and Chick Lorimer, wherever you've gone.
So I wonder if someone told Sandburg about the use of the Chick Lorimer poem on tv in 1962, or if perhaps CBS asked his permission to have it quoted in full in the show. And then I wonder how many viewers went hunting a copy of "Chick Lorimer" when the poem is actually titled "Gone", and one of many in Sandburg's book, Complete Poems - which won him a Pulitzer Prize for literature in 1951. Just another example of the literary value of the Route 66 tv series.
I wish I had known about this episode in 1992. I'd have asked Sandburg's daughter Helga all about it. She was a fireball writer herself and liked to talk about her activist father and his work. And like Silliphant (and born the same year) she was cutting edge and would have surely known the use of her father's work in a groundbreaking 60's tv show. Helga was 44 when this show aired and I just bet she heard about it soon after, if in fact she didn't see it firsthand.
RIP Carl and Helga Sandburg....and Chick Lorimer, wherever you've gone.
TOO ARTSY
lrrap3 November 2019
Herbert Leonard and Stirling Silliphant were producing BOTH Route 66 and Naked City at this time, and they were clearly pushing both shows in the "cutting-edge, socio-psycho, avant-garde, contemporary relevance, message picture" direction which, despite the fact that I admire their adventurous-ness as "break-out" artistes of the youth-oriented early '60's, still feel that the results were often labored, contrived, and embarrassingly overwrought. Such is the case here.
It's pointless to engage in pseudo-analysis of this episode (since I obviously didn't connect with much of it), so I'll just list a few of my trivial complaints and observations: TWO ASSETS: 1.) Great location photography-- gas station, streets, diners, etc.... that's really what small town life looked like at that time. 2.) An engaging (and all too rare) performance by John Marriott, the black actor who play's Tod's fisherman pal near the beginning. He first distinguished himself as Cal, the Giddens' house servant in William Wyler's superb "The Little Foxes" (1940).
MANY LIABILITIES: 1.) Robert Emhardt's broad performance, earning him two knock-out punches from the much younger and stronger Martin Milner (the first of the blows was totally uncalled for). No law-suits for assault back then. 2.) What's with the crying woman in the office when Emhardt was on the phone with Tod? 3.) The on-set makeup lady should have powdered down Vera Miles oily forehead (sorry, but it bugged me). 4.) Tod's "I NEED YOU" to Vera. Really? And he's only been without Buz for a couple of days. So the writers already used up the "Tod falls madly in love with a troubled woman" plot-line in his FIRST solo show. 5.) The "carved" headstone for Frank Overton and his wife in the graveyard. I HATE it when the set crew paints letters on a headstone that look like they were done an hour before the scene was shot. Why not at least dust them down a bit? 6.) What in the world was that scene about in the darkened Riverboat theater...especially when the Snidely Whiplash/Simon LeGree dude and the girl came in to rehearse in the middle of the night?? WAY over my head, I'm afraid. 7.) Whatever happened to the relationship between Vera Miles and Martha Scott? Why didn't it resolve itself? Too much artsy/"meaningful"/philosophically abstruse dialogue between Milner, Miles and Overton, I guess.
I ended up wishing Tod would have decked Emhardt a THIRD time; at least it would have been good for a laugh. LR
It's pointless to engage in pseudo-analysis of this episode (since I obviously didn't connect with much of it), so I'll just list a few of my trivial complaints and observations: TWO ASSETS: 1.) Great location photography-- gas station, streets, diners, etc.... that's really what small town life looked like at that time. 2.) An engaging (and all too rare) performance by John Marriott, the black actor who play's Tod's fisherman pal near the beginning. He first distinguished himself as Cal, the Giddens' house servant in William Wyler's superb "The Little Foxes" (1940).
MANY LIABILITIES: 1.) Robert Emhardt's broad performance, earning him two knock-out punches from the much younger and stronger Martin Milner (the first of the blows was totally uncalled for). No law-suits for assault back then. 2.) What's with the crying woman in the office when Emhardt was on the phone with Tod? 3.) The on-set makeup lady should have powdered down Vera Miles oily forehead (sorry, but it bugged me). 4.) Tod's "I NEED YOU" to Vera. Really? And he's only been without Buz for a couple of days. So the writers already used up the "Tod falls madly in love with a troubled woman" plot-line in his FIRST solo show. 5.) The "carved" headstone for Frank Overton and his wife in the graveyard. I HATE it when the set crew paints letters on a headstone that look like they were done an hour before the scene was shot. Why not at least dust them down a bit? 6.) What in the world was that scene about in the darkened Riverboat theater...especially when the Snidely Whiplash/Simon LeGree dude and the girl came in to rehearse in the middle of the night?? WAY over my head, I'm afraid. 7.) Whatever happened to the relationship between Vera Miles and Martha Scott? Why didn't it resolve itself? Too much artsy/"meaningful"/philosophically abstruse dialogue between Milner, Miles and Overton, I guess.
I ended up wishing Tod would have decked Emhardt a THIRD time; at least it would have been good for a laugh. LR
Only highlight is Vera Mills
wfavreau29 June 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Vera is a great actress and portrayed a down to earth character you can sympathize with. Everything else is wrong about this episode. First this is probably the first episode without Buzz. Buzz and Todd play great of each other without one it makes you feel the puzzle is missing the best piece. Instead of rewriting you have 2 playing both parts as Todd so he seems to be bipolar. Second the supporting cast is dull and 1D. Lastly the rude bonds broker didn't get what he deserves and you wonder why a guy who professed his love for Vera's character would turn on her. Why would a town believe such a rude bondsman is odd and how did he get there in time to disrupt the wedding? Skip this disaster. The first 2 1/2 seasons before are the best.
Vera Miles Showcase
dougdoepke13 November 2015
A prodigal younger sister returns home to face her unforgiving older sister, an admiring niece, and an ambivalent ex-suitor. Tod, along with an angry bailbondsman, is on her trail after the ex-stripper broke Tod's finger at a gas station.
The opening scene at the rundown station is a grabber. It looks like the filming crew had just arrived and did nothing to clean up the leaves and junk cluttering up the grounds. It's a great slice of back-road authenticity. In my little book that sort of thing was a key part of series appeal-- no hint of Hollywood here. However, the episode itself is too talky and directionless for my liking. It's like the producers have an outstanding cast but are unsure what to do with them. Reviewer Schappe may be right that there was backing and filling going on without Maharis. There's really not much story. Vera Miles is a fine actress, as Hitchcock knew, and she gets the spotlight here with lots of lines. However, the poetic dialog with Tod, along with their tentative romance, comes across as more contrived than usual. At the same time, delicious yucko Robert Emhardt (Harris) gets to really ham it up as the scammed bondsman. That moon-faced mug of his is like no one else's. Overall, the entry's really a Vera Miles showcase, but without much else to recommend it.
The opening scene at the rundown station is a grabber. It looks like the filming crew had just arrived and did nothing to clean up the leaves and junk cluttering up the grounds. It's a great slice of back-road authenticity. In my little book that sort of thing was a key part of series appeal-- no hint of Hollywood here. However, the episode itself is too talky and directionless for my liking. It's like the producers have an outstanding cast but are unsure what to do with them. Reviewer Schappe may be right that there was backing and filling going on without Maharis. There's really not much story. Vera Miles is a fine actress, as Hitchcock knew, and she gets the spotlight here with lots of lines. However, the poetic dialog with Tod, along with their tentative romance, comes across as more contrived than usual. At the same time, delicious yucko Robert Emhardt (Harris) gets to really ham it up as the scammed bondsman. That moon-faced mug of his is like no one else's. Overall, the entry's really a Vera Miles showcase, but without much else to recommend it.
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