Hey! I Know That Guy! Episode #6

Hey! I know that guy!

It's time for another episode of Hey! I Know That Guy!

Once again, the theme of this series is one in which I pick a classic The Twilight Zone TV episode and highlight one of the actors in the episode and then delve into one of his or her major appearances in a Hollywood movie (Usually post TZ, but I'm leaving myself open in case a primo role occurred sometime before their appearance in the series.)

In the last installment I discussed the career of John Astin, an actor more well-known for his contributions in the realm of comedy.  This time I am going with a guy who was a great dramatic actor. Martin Landau had a fairly prolific career. He was a 3 time nominee for the coveted Oscar (one of which he actually won, that for playing the role of Bela Lugosi in the Tim Burton biopic of director Ed Wood.)

But that wasn't all.  He also received recognition as a cast member of the classic TV series Mission: Impossible. And among other TV roles he was the star of the highly underrated 70's TV series Space:1999, a British TV series that managed to make it's way across the pond to the States. (And was one of those way too often favorites of my childhood that didn't have enough staying power to continue past a second season...)

Up until about 1970 Landau was mostly a guest star on TV series episodes. Prior to his casting as Rollin Hand, the disguise master on Mission: Impossible, his credits numbered about 50 TV roles to only about 10 roles in film. His breakout role in film, in my opinion was as the co-star (and murder suspect) in the sequel to In the Heat of the Night, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! 

From there he went on to roles in a variety of genres, but two that stuck out for me (being a person that likes those kinds of movies) are Alone in the Dark and The Being. Alone in the Dark stands out because in that one he plays a truly psychotic evangelist who loves fire (an arsonist preacher).  

Landau, in the Twilight Zone universe, had two memorable roles. In the season 5 episode. The Jeopardy Room, Landau played the lead character, a Major Kuchenko from, ostensibly, Russia, who is attempting to defect. He is the victim of an insidious Commissar Valenko, who has trapped him in a hotel room and is egging him on with threats of various kinds.

But Landau first appeared in The Twilight Zone, an episode that was the third one of the first season, was one called "Mr. Denton on Doomsday".

In "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" Dan Duryea is a former gunfighter who has fallen on hard times.  He used to be a big guy, fastest draw in the west, and all that. Everybody who thought of himself as a big shot gunfighter would seek him out, and all failed to defeat him.  But when he killed a young fighter his conscience got the better of him and he took to drink.

He became the town drunk instead of the town gunfighter and thus the source of ridicule, especially with one unrelenting bully, Hotaling (Martin Landau). Hotaling taunts Denton into embarrassing himself with a rendition of "How Dry I Am"  in order to get his next drink.

But since this takes place in the Twilight Zone, on the scene comes Henry Fate (Malcolm Atterbury), who gives Denton some new life. Denton manages to humiliate Hotaling, but the downside is, now he will become a target once again for every wannabe big shot gunslinger.

The ultimate end of this story is that Denton indeed does end up having to go gun to gun with the next wannabe hot shot (played by Doug McClure, who just barely escaped being this episode's Hey! I Know That Guy!). Fate gives Denton a potion that is supposed to give him 5 seconds of super speed and super accuracy in shooting.  But it turns out that Fate has been playing both sides of the coin and gave the newcomer the same potion.

Landau, playing one of the less likeable characters here, always seemed to me to have that face that made him perfect, in my opinion, for playing bad guys.  And of course, over the course of his career, he did have his share.  But he also had some sympathetic characters. 

He won an Oscar for playing such a sympathetic character.  Your heart will break to see how far Bela Lugosi fell from earlier stardom to the drug addict that Ed Wood found (and probably took too much advantage of) in the biopic Ed Wood. Landau got Best Supporting Actor from the Academy for that role.

Hey, I loved that portrayal.  Mainly because I have always liked Lugosi movies (and, ok, I'm a huge fan of the real Ed Wood and his low budget schlock.) But I have to admit when he was a bad guy Landau  could exude deviousness like no one else.  But there was one movie where he played a guy who could seem good on the exterior but harbored some bad characteristics that would surprise you. That movie was They Call me Mr. Tibbs!, and the character he played was someone whom, at the outset, might come off as sympathetic.

In They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! Landau plays Logan Sharpe, a firebrand preacher and political firebrand as well. He is a prime suspect in the murder of a hooker.  In the beginning he is approached by Lt. Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), who is a friend and apparently the pastor of the church Tibbs and his family attend.

 

 

 

(Side note: This movie was a sequel to In the Heat of the Night.)

In an early scene in the movie Sharpe admits he had more than a preacher relationship with the victim. But since Sharpe is supposed to be a man of God, he doesn't want that to come out (obviously).  The investigation delves into the potential suspects, because, after all, Tibbs can't quite accept the fact that his pastor might be doing some rather un-pastor-like things. (I mean besides having a sexual relations with a hooker.  But if Jimmy Swaggart could get away with it, why couldn't Sharpe?

Ultimately the trail keeps leading back to the same people, one of whom is the landlord of the apartment of the hooker, played by Anthony Zerbe. (And there's another guy who plays slimy characters real well.) It turns out that the landlord has some drug dealing outside of the prostitution ring he is running in his apartment building, but he is not guilty of the murder.  He ends up dead, just the same, but not before Tibbs uncovers enough evidence to point to the real culprit.

You guessed it.  Sharpe. Even when he is found out it's still hard to really dislike Landau's character.  He puts enough  pathos into the portrayal that you might almost hope he gets away with it.  But Tibbs, if nothing else, is a dedicated fighter of crime, even when a good friend is the culprit. They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! is nowhere near on the same level as In the Heat of the Night, and without Landau's presence, it might be forgettable. Even Poitier seems to be just going through the motions.

Hope you are enjoying this series. Drive safely.

Quiggy