The Wild Wild West (TV Series) The Night of the Death-Maker (1968) User Reviews

Oh Brother, Where Are Thou Wine

[DKosty123 · 8/10 · 3 August 2009]

A group of brothers monastery & winery is taken over by some bad guys headed by a ex army officer unhappy about US Grant not promoting him. Wendall Corey serves as the head man & his group has stolen plenty of weapons. Their goal is to kill Grant & then take over California.

Artemus gets wise when he tastes some of the Brothers wine & finds it is not up to what it should be. This same plot gets reused a couple of times in the series but this is one of the better ones. Irving J Moore directs this one & his direction seems to help as he directs some of the better episodes of this series.

Veteran character actor J Pat O'Malley makes his only West appearance.

One Of Wendell Corey's Final Roles, Taylor Swift Look Alike Villain

[verbusen · 7/10 · 6 February 2024]

After cutting off cable TV recently I was in search for something light to watch along with my wife over dinner and decided to give this episode a try. My experience with WWW is watching it as a child in reruns and on and off since but its been years since I last watched it. I find it being like most action TV shows, repetitive. This episode is no exception but I really enjoyed watching Angel Tompkins, the villainess, who struck me as having an uncanny similarity to Taylor Swift! I mention this as a time capsule review because if I had watched this in 2014 and not 2024 I never would have thought this but Taylor Swift in 2024 is a corporate media darling so she is unavoidable to see on a daily basis. I even put both of their photos side by side and you could ask random people who was Taylor and I bet a few would guess wrong! Besides Angel, Wendell Corey is the main antagonist and I was wanting to see him slur his dialog like he did in other films he did around the time like, Women of the Prehistoric Planet and Agent for HARM. Surprisingly Wendell acts more like the 1950s Wendell version then he does late 1960s Wendell. Sadly for him he would pass away not long after this was made. I noticed Arthur Batanides in a small henchman role, I enjoyed him a lot in the John Carradine Z schlock The Unearthly and also in Star Trek as no doubt a soon to dead crewman. Another notable I saw was J. Pat O'Malley as Brother Angelo, his parts were mostly wide shots not the typical close ups of his recognizable face. Some things I noticed, some of the action music sounded a lot like Mission Impossible theme music to me. And a scene where Jim could have burned a guy alive but instead they briefly show the knocked out henchman in a corner. My wife enjoyed the episode so it was a good time to watch over dinner. The stinger end aboard the train with beautiful women was perfect for an ad lib joke I made that made my wife laugh. 7 out of 10.

Too many times revenge matters

[oscar-35 · 15 December 2012]

*Spoiler/plot- TNOT Death Maker, 68. West and Gordon stop plans to assassinate President Grant devised by a bitter officer that was stripped of his military command years before to get revenge.

*Special Stars- Robert Conrad, Ross Martin, Wendell Cory, Angel Tompkins, J Pat O'Malley Roy Engle *Theme- Seeking revenge is often a energy consuming goal.

*Trivia/location/goofs- Air date 2-23-68. Takes place in San Francisco, CA. Watch for the Gatling machine gun in the street organ grinder's instrument. Angel Tompkins, J Pat O'Malley, and Roy Engle(President Grant) are veteran TV actors of many shows. Mr. Conrad's short stature/height for a leading man (5'7") was compensated for with shoe 'lifts' in his boots, casting short stunt people, and short leading ladies. In fact his show was known for needing so many short stature love-interest roles for women among females actresses, it became a staple for actresses in Hollywood.

*Emotion- Vengeance scenarios have become overused and too boring with this production company in Season Three. I was not impressed by the ' bitter military officer seeks revenge' scenario plot line. The guest star lead villain's performance is forgettable.....many time villain roles fail to deliver enough 'gravitas' to balance with the strong leads of Conrad and Martin. The inclusion of President Grant spiced-up the drama. It seems in Season three, too many times revenge matters featured heavily in too many different episodes. This is not vintage W3.

the swiss falcon does not exist

[karl-1964 · 5/10 · 5 May 2012]

There is only one pepper box that was ever taken into consideration for use by an army. This is the Swedish five-barrel made by Feilitzen. In the late 19th century many British officers used the privately-purchased 4-barrel Lancaster pistol in preference to the standard-issue Beaumont-Adams and Webley revolvers as it had greater stopping power, a faster rate of fire and was quicker to reload.[14] This break-action pepper box, available in calibers as large as .476 (with even a double barrel version in caliber .577 available) worked in a similar way to the Sharps Pocket Pistol: its striker, not the barrels, revolved

(Wilkopedia 05-05-2012) this is not only mistake I found with the show

they should hire history and or firearm expert