The Black Knight strikes again!

Breaking form a bit by having the cops let Carl take pictures and ask questions. All the poking around and it seems somebody's been putting on the armor and doing people in. The curator being a prime suspect as he seemed to be friends with the fiend. Sort of anticlimactic to see the killer be an empty suit of armor.

Maybe I should watch this again when I'm not so tired, but I really didn't get much out of this one. Give a little credit for breaking form with the cop and his tactics in this one, but it's still only 4 gigantic crossbow bolts.

Once again the show comes with an interesting theme, and, as usual, things go about the same way they always do, and the best part is the banter between veteran actors. Captain Rausch breaks the mold as far as police captains go. He doesn't chase Kolchak away, but instead, gives him all the attention he can. Not that it helps much, because he's a learned cop (and Kolchak comes to realize he dislikes erudite cops as much as ignorant ones), and philosophically rambles about the social and cultural implications of the crime in question.

We can see that more and more the show became a field for character study experimentation, with police officers and witnesses using the stage provided by the story, with Kolchak as the audience, just to impart their quirky wisdom. Other memorable encounters, besides the one Kolchak had with Captain Rausch, were the ones with Mendel Bogs, and all his concerns about being the unfortunate curator of a place called Camelot that would be turned into a disco (what could be more contemporary that that?) and Roger, Coat of Arms Dealer, with his whimsical attachment to medieval tradition who, by the rules of "noblesse oblige" agrees to help Kolchak with his questions, but just as long as he buys a coat of arms adornment, of course. At least we get to learn (and so does Carl) that Kolchak is a Polish family name with quite a collection of interesting ancestors.

I was also surprised to learn that you're not supposed to tamper with your phone and then ask a Phone Company (and I felt that should be capitalized dues to the importance the technician ascribes to his place of work), and that you shouldn't use telephones which are out of the official specifications. otherwise you risk having them carried away by some overzealous Phone Company representative!

OK, OK, my problem with the episode is that, after that point, I sort of stopped paying attention. I interrupted the viewing several times as it failed to keep my attention. So, in the end, apparently the culprit was an ancient knight who dabbled with black magic and it appeared as a clumsy, but superstrong (and empty), suit of armor. And Kolchak, who once again was in search of a good supernatural story, suddenly loses every single evidence he had, or realized what he had wasn't enough to print the story, so he inexplicably gives up on it after "killing" the medieval entity.

I'm not sure I understood, but I'm quite sure I'm not watching it again to find out. At least we can always count on a much more competent recap on the part of some of our fellow Sages.

The episode had very little to show for, but at least I liked the captain. "The Knightly Murders" gets 5 women disguised as British commandos.

First thing to say is what an accomplished performance from John Dehner. He stole every scene he was in. It made a nice change from the usual confrontational cops.

As others have said the ending was a bit of a letdown. What I would have done is have Kolchak remove the helmet to reveal Rausch! Not that he was a killer but had him taken over by the knight. We could have had a great scene where Rausch says

" Karl, what am I doing on the floor in medieval armour ?"

" You've been taken over by the spirit of a medieval knight"

" ( sigh) it figures all in a days work"

As for the phone company zealous engineer, customers rent lines from phone companies not phones, so if INS have unofficial lines, that is theft, anything else and the scene makes no sense.

Quite enjoyable 7/10

@HawkMan47 said:

First thing to say is what an accomplished performance from John Dehner. He stole every scene he was in. It made a nice change from the usual confrontational cops.

As others have said the ending was a bit of a letdown. What I would have done is have Kolchak remove the helmet to reveal Rausch! Not that he was a killer but had him taken over by the knight. We could have had a great scene where Rausch says

Yes, that would've been an excellent ending. But it seems the writers at that time were not very interested in twists of any kind. The idea was present a creative scenario and apply the story formula to it.

" Karl, what am I doing on the floor in medieval armour ?"

Indeed, Rausch was so erudite he might just as well say "armour" Which reminds me of Udyke giving Vincenzo some advice: "Don't castigate yourself." I take it this is rather unusual term.

" You've been taken over by the spirit of a medieval knight"

" ( sigh) it figures all in a days work"

As for the phone company zealous engineer, customers rent lines from phone companies not phones, so if INS have unofficial lines, that is theft, anything else and the scene makes no sense.

The scene looked, indeed, exaggerated. But I surmised the phone company would lease the equipment, (like our phone companies lease the modem/router) so you aren't supposed to tamper with it because it's not yours, but come to think of it, that would only be a wrongdoing if you claimed it broke by itself and you want it replaced at no cost, which would be a kind of fraud. But, yes, forbidding people to use their own phone sets makes zero sense.

I’m pleased to say this was an improvement over last week’s show. The knight in armor coming at the victims was very scary. How could you fight off something like that if you were in a closed in area? There was a motive behind the murders and a logic to the selection of the victims. There was even an interesting and semi-plausible ancient tale behind it of knights in demonic invulnerable armor killed by a battle ax blessed by Pope Gregory. There’s even a logical reason for the ax being in a museum dedicated to the knights of that era.

A good cast once again. John Dehner was appropriate to play a “living legend” of a cop. He’s something of a living legend of an actor, having seemingly appeared on virtually every 60’s show you could think of. Very prolific and he played a variety of characters from good to evil, but usually very stylish. Here he starts out as seemingly a bit of a flake – going into long flowery speeches about mankind instead of concentrating on the case. You wonder if he’s heading slowly into dementia. Only toward the end, when Kolchak accuses him of being lazy and stealing the credit from other people, does he threaten Carl. The rest of the time, he’s actually quite cooperative. That was why I didn’t understand Carl slipping the lady reporter the question about him speculating on – what was it – a female British commando? It seemed designed just to embarrass him. Yet the very next scene, Carl’s waiting to talk to the detective and get information. Seemed very odd.

Hans Conried, of course, was wonderful as the museum curator being displaced by the buyout. His fussy mannerism and annoyance as watching the museum being turned into a discotech was priceless, as well as his disgust when they tried to make him put on the heavy armor. I got a kick out of Lieux Dressler as Minerva Musso – she was sassy and snappy. But I knew she was doomed the minute she started making fun of the knight in armor, since by then he’d already taken out others who dared trespass against him. Sure enough, she was soon taken out by a battleaxe. Something I came to realize in this show is that Carl never changes his clothes. I don’t think we’ve ever seen him wearing anything but his seersucker suit and straw hat. As a result of this, perfume that got spilled on him at Minerva’s murder scene makes him reek of perfume for the rest of the episode. Two words, Carl – “dry cleaners.”

Oh and after Kolchak often pulls little cons on people to get information, how about the crest makers who sell him a McDougal family crest by just cutting the name off the bottom of the sheet? Karma again, I guess, you get what you give. At least from the exchange, we learn he is of Polish descent. I don’t remember if that ever came up before.

Well, it’s been a strange weekend and I’m way behind schedule. I’ll just wrap this up by saying this was a good episode and I’ll give it 7 crushed telephones. And next time Carl wants to find out how many pounds psi it takes to crush one, just call and ask. Don’t invite the phone man down with a phony repair job when you have bootleg phones out on display.

@mad-pac said:

CAST (including fake ones)

John Crawford ... King John

Hans Conried .... Sir Sagramonte of Antair

DIRECTED BY

Richard Thorpe

I didn't even have to look up the John Crawford credit. That was episode 16 of THE TIME TUNNEL, the first show the Sages ever did. "The Revenge of Robin Hood" was the title.

Richard Thorpe, the director of JAILHOUSE ROCK. I know there must be a story behind that.

Oh, and that Hans Conried credit is actually from me. On "The Questing Beast" episode of LOST IN SPACE, he played an intergalactic knight named Sir Sagramonte of Antair, complete with armored suit. I got a kick out of seeing him play a man associated with knights once again.

@brimfin said:

@mad-pac said:

CAST (including fake ones)

John Crawford ... King John

Hans Conried .... Sir Sagramonte of Antair

DIRECTED BY

Richard Thorpe

I didn't even have to look up the John Crawford credit. That was episode 16 of THE TIME TUNNEL, the first show the Sages ever did. "The Revenge of Robin Hood" was the title.

Richard Thorpe, the director of JAILHOUSE ROCK. I know there must be a story behind that.

Oh, and that Hans Conried credit is actually from me. On "The Questing Beast" episode of LOST IN SPACE, he played an intergalactic knight named Sir Sagramonte of Antair, complete with armored suit. I got a kick out of seeing him play a man associated with knights once again.

Ha! Good one for Sir Sagramonte. I vaguely remember that name. You're right about King John. It was the only tribute to our past shows related to Medieval times that I could find. And Richard Thorpe directed Ivanhoe in 1952 and Knights of the Round Table in 1953.

So late this week.
So a medieval knight is clanking his way, killing those who keep him up a night, seems fair. The first victim is Ward Captain Romutka killed by a crossbow bolt the size of a V2.

We then meet Captain Rausch who uses a new tactic to shut out Kolchak, ramble endlessly. He was by far the most enjoyable character in this episode. Every scene made me laugh.
I love how he pulls Kolchak's microphone close once he is in full verbal flow. "Want me, I want you", the look on Kolchak's face is priceless.

The next victim is Ralph Danvers who it establishes is involved in real estate, before he crashes towards a armored figured.

Kolchak tries to pick up on the subtle clues from Rausch and comes up with a female british commando. Feeding this to another reporter possibly as a means to distract Rausch while he sneaks into his office, it seems to impress Rausch saying Kolchak has wit.
Again we get another great scene the highlight between the two with some great lines like "What killed him? Society" and when Kolchak sums the modes of death as "a oversized arrow and an obese icepick"

Kolchak then attempts to find out more about the crossbow bolt visiting Pop, a man he has clearly bribed in the past by agreeing to write his memoirs. By the end of this scene Kolchak has learned little and it seemed would be spending the next hour listening to the exploits of Pop and cousin Rusty on lake Wisconsin.

The third killing comes to the owner of the Canadian American Leisure Corporation (CALC), Mr Hawkin.
This is our first long look at the knight, and as it stalks toward the camera, filling the screen and then swinging it's flail (not a mace) it is very intimidating. The crushing of a telephone would later prove a valuable clue.

We then move to the Hydecker Museum which is about to be converted to the Camelot Bar.

@mad-pac wrote:
a place called Camelot that would be turned into a disco (what could be more contemporary that that?)

Yeah I guess that's the march of progress, at the time it probably seemed forward thinking, a way to display the historical objects in a more contemporary way.
We get to find out how good Kolchak's photography skills and camera are. He takes photos of the stationary bolt in a well lit room and still manages to blur it.
There is also subtle clue dropped here is that a soda pop company is responsible for the renovation.

Kolchak eventually gets round to Mr Hawkins, cleverly bluffing his way in with tales of being a frat brother of "Hawk"
He then learns 2 important things, the crushed phone and that CALC is also a soda pop company, ah how the pieces come together.

We get a short office scene this week.

@mad-pac wrote:
I was also surprised to learn that you're not supposed to tamper with your phone and then ask a Phone Company (and I felt that should be capitalized dues to the importance the technician ascribes to his place of work), and that you shouldn't use telephones which are out of the official specifications. otherwise you risk having them carried away by some overzealous Phone Company representative!

@HawkMan47 wrote:
As for the phone company zealous engineer, customers rent lines from phone companies not phones, so if INS have unofficial lines, that is theft, anything else and the scene makes no sense.

@mad-pac wrote:
The scene looked, indeed, exaggerated. But I surmised the phone company would lease the equipment, (like our phone companies lease the modem/router) so you aren't supposed to tamper with it because it's not yours, but come to think of it, that would only be a wrongdoing if you claimed it broke by itself and you want it replaced at no cost, which would be a kind of fraud. But, yes, forbidding people to use their own phone sets makes zero sense.

I did find this scene kind of odd.
Tony does say they were bootlegged lines, so I guess they had one official line and tapped all the other phones into it. Perhaps showing us the phone guy reporting them was not visual enough.
I did like how Ms Emily had a ornate pearly white phone and Updyke had a old style one with a ear piece it's a nice way to remind us about the characters.
In the end though Kolchak, the cause of all this, is the only one left with a phone!

Kolchak then visits the interior decorator of Camelot, Minerva Musso, who doesn't seem to value security. We then hear the clanking of metal to which Kolchak asks "Something wrong with your pipes?" Minerva's indignant reply was hilarious. The knight then arrives, this time swinging an axe in another impressive scene and doesn't that armor look familiar.

Rausch arrives and again shows his intelligence by not immediately blaming Kolchak. However he does use the situation to put the squeeze on Kolchak who he realizes knows more about what is going on.
Kolchak figures out that Rausch is bored of police work and is using shortcuts to solve cases. Amusingly the thing that annoys Rausch most is how this police work is impacting his weekends and his recital review.
Even when Kolchak reveals his unlikely explanation, that a suit knight dressed in the armor from the Hydecker museum was the culprit, Rausch again doesn't dismiss it but tries to look for the truth.

This leads us back to the Hydecker, sorry Camelot Rollerdisco and Bar. This leads to the curator Mr Boggs being forced into the armor which clearly won't fit. I can imagine for him the indignity and also these historic relics being manhandled was about all he could take.

Kolchak decides to find out more about the identity of the suit of armor, visiting a suit of arms shop. Here he learns about the Mettencourt? family of Burgandy.
Carl gets hustled for the information he wants, gaining a walnut family plaque that isn't even correct. (Apparently it isn't even the McDougal family plaque if google is to believed.)
Kolchak does learn how to kill the knight with an axe blessed by Pope Gregory.

Kolchak then puts things together:
The Ward boss Rotmutka interceded to allow a the Hydecker Museum (previously historically protected) to be converted)
Danvers owned the lot next door which was to be the parking.
Hawkins owned the company doing the converting and Minerva was annoying.

I liked how the victims fell together this time, with some you could work out. I did think Danvers got a little hard done, he wasn't even involved on the same site.

So into the finale. I remember at the beginning there was a real problem with lighting for many of these final scenes. I haven't found that a problem for a long time.
It works well in this scene, with Carl hiding just in view as the knight stumbles past. He then decides to snap a few picture before securing his escape route.
I would have thought by now Kolchak would have known better he has been through this many times before.
Kolchak gets his hands on the blessed axe and fortunately it's touch alone is enough to dispatch the knight.
It didn't look otherwise Carl was going to stand much of a chance as he could barely lift it.

Enjoyable episode, 2 more to go.
7 weapons I learned to identify from the Elder Scrolls games out of 10