"The Grandstand Play" is 50!

Tonight, CBS aired S03E23, Part 1 of "The Grandstand Play".

Major League baseball player Lon Phillips (Pernell Roberts) has moved to Honolulu and the minor leagues after his wife's death. His son, Gary (Elliott Street), is developmentally challenged and Lon figures Honolulu is safer than most cities of the time. It also help he has a friend not he team, Coley Bennett (Jock Mahoney).

The episode opens at a baseball game that Lon is playing in. Gary is in one of the house seats very near the governor and a guest (Barry Atwater). Gary makes his way to the concession stand to buy a hot dog where he meets an older woman (Electra Galias) who can barely stand up. Because of his manners, she kisses him and then wipes the lipstick off with a handkerchief.

This same woman is later found dead under the bleachers, strangled to death. Five-O is on the scene immediately with McGarrett meeting the governor and his friend in the locker room. The woman was Emily Workman and the governor's guest is her husband, soon to be ex, Lester. Workman explains to McGarrett that Emily had a habit of becoming drunk and publicly embarrassing him. They're separated and going through a divorce.

While that's happening, Danno is talking to people who could be witnesses in the press box. Gary is among the people to voluntarily speak to Five-O. Turns out, Gary wasn't supposed to leave his seat and when his dad shows up, becomes skittish with the police. Five-O knows something else is going on and Gary isn't being 100% truthful.

In the mix is Horton (Don Chastain), who is the one who actually killed Emily, and his girlfriend (Josie Over). We see them burning some negatives at a point in the episode and she wants to get away clean. When they see a picture of Gary and Lon in the newspaper, they know they have a witness to take care of.

Horton begins snooping around, even going to the Phillips apartment where he gives the landlord (Ed Fernandez) a bogus story about looking for someone else. Meanwhile, he makes multiple phone calls to the place at the same time Jenny (Peggy Ryan) is trying to call in too.

She keeps trying, at one point telling McGarrett and Danno that she got a busy signal but it wasn't. The three figure out someone else is trying to call in. She eventually contacts Lon who arrives at Five-O.

Lon isn't forthcoming with McGarrett but does tell him about the guy snooping around and he finally shows McGarrett the handkerchief he found in Gary's dresser.

Kono stakes out the apartment but Gary runs when he spots Kono. The chase is on with Horton on Gary's tail. Part 1 ends with Horton getting into car and aiming for Gary.

Mr. Mike does a much better job in his 4-star review covering both parts: http://www.fiveohomepage.com/5-0log3.htm#71

Todd recently posted on the forum that is an underrated episode. I agree! It's excellent. It's also a study in contrasts. On one hand, we see the loving father-son relationship between Lon and Gary and on the other, the Workmans being the epitome of dysfunction.

There's a goof too: the handkerchief when it's originally seen had the initials EW in cursive but when we see it with Lon at Five-O, the initials are printed. It's not so much of a distraction as to take away from the episode. But Atwater's haircut leaves a lot to be desired! :)

We get to see the Five-O team in action with various tasks. While they know Gary had something to do with Emily's death, they discover pretty quickly he's a witness rather than a perpetrator. They also know Gary's life is in mortal danger. McGarrett handles Workman himself and through their conversations we discover the divorce proceedings are nasty with a custody fight for the children.

Somehow, Gary eludes everyone even taking a bus tour of Honolulu. It shows Gary's innocence and builds the tension and urgency of the need to find him. But when he bolts after seeing Kono, he takes a bus to parts unknown where he becomes a sitting duck for Horton.

At the end of Part 1, we're left wondering what happened to Gary. Was Horton successful in silencing the witness? We'll have to wait until next week to find out!

Happy 50th "The Grandstand Play, Part 1" :cool:

I'm going to do the same as I did for "F.O.B. Honolulu" and put Part 2 in the same thread as the first!

"The Grandstand Play, Part II" aired tonight 50 years ago on CBS.

This concluding episode wraps up what was aired last week. We discover Lester is in cahoots with Horton and his girl. Lester wanted incriminating evidence against Emily but what he got were a pair of crooks playing both sides.

Horton has enough and kills Lester after the latter put together their scheme. That leaves Gary.

In his walkabout town, Gary meets some local kids who are playing baseball and he tells them he can get the whole group in for free. However, Five-O has also pieced together the puzzle and McGarrett has ordered HPD officers on every gate. This is after he speaks to Coley who says Gary never misses a game. McGarrett knows this is their one chance to find Gary and hopefully before it's too late. Because of this, Gary backs out his deal to the other kids and they sneak into the stadium as they've always done.

Horton's girlfriend finally spots Gary and signals Horton who goes after him. As he's trying to strangle Gary, McGarrett and Danno show up and save the day. McGarrett also lets out his frustration on Horton beating the living crap out of him! Danno catches the girlfriend as she tries to run.

As this is all going on, Lon is losing his mind but warms up for the game anyway. The episode ends when father and son are reunited and McGarrett walks away. Surely onto other cases awaiting him and his team.

Mr. Mike's excellent write-up includes both parts here and I'm going to advertise it again! http://www.fiveohomepage.com/5-0log3.htm#71

There are some funny parts in this show. Due to a conversation McGarrett has with Lester, he sends Danno and Chin to talk to the 14 private investigators in Honolulu. Chin bullies his way to read one set of books as Danno swaggers into another office and finds a tape recorder in a desk drawer. The second scene cracks me up every time. ;)

The detectives hit pay dirt with a Mr. Galvin (Tom Fujiwara) who explains to the McGarrett and Danno he was paid to follow Emily "for a month firm" – only Horton and the girl got in the way. When McGarrett asks if Galvin can work with a police artist, he does one better giving them a photo of a meeting between Lester and the girl.

Another good scene for the cynics: Lester meeting the girl one last time. He tells her the bank is closed and their scheme to get pictures but not release them is funny since he was paying both times. The first directly and the second via alimony he was paying Emily.

Again, the father-son relationship shines through as Lon is clearly concerned about Gary. If Lester took half that energy into his own family, there might not have been so much dysfunction. :)

As Todd as mentioned before on the forum, this is an underrated episode. I wouldn't say it's one of my favorites but it's definitely a well made episode and one I could watch and rewatch.

And with that, Season 3 comes to an end. :)

Happy 50th, "The Grandstand Play, Part II"!! :cool:

Because of Bobbi's writeup, I decided to watch this again. I had only seen it once before -- back in the 1990s. I was excited to see it back then because it featured Elliot Street, who did a good job playing a delusional serial killer in "Draw Me a Killer" during season 6 -- the episode which really got me hooked on the show.

While Elliot plays "challenged" individuals in both episodes, this one is different because he's sweet and gentle here, whereas he's temperamental and violent in "Draw Me a Killer".

As Mike mentioned in his review, this episode didn't need to be a 2-parter. They extended it unnecessarily in various ways, including a painfully long "previously on" segment, at the beginning of part 2 (I think it was about 7 minutes!) This episode and "Three Dead Cows at Makapuu" were both two-parters which honestly would have been better served as 90-minute episodes, but splitting the episodes made it easier on CBS, as it didn't require any kind of preemption. There was a 90-minute episode of "The Rockford Files" (on NBC) around the same time period, and I thought it worked well.

Villain Horton's girlfriend, despite being complicit in everything that happens, doesn't seem particularly comfortable with any of the murders, and tries to talk Horton out of the premeditated one (Mr. Workman) and the attempted one (Gary).

I found it strange that Five-O didn't realize that the villain could be an employee of the stadium, especially since Mrs. Workman's maid told Chin that the person blackmailing her was "someone she met at the stadium".

I felt Horton got off way too easy at the end. Not only was he resisting arrest, but he tried to kill McGarrett by strangling him, and McGarrett was barely able to escape. Rather than punch the guy and risk him continuing his aggression (which he had after several other punches), why didn't McGarrett simply pull his gun out and shoot the guy? That actually would have been satisfying to watch. Also, Danno screwed up after arresting Horton's girlfriend, by simply leaving the scene and forcing McGarrett to contend with the very large Horton by himself!

When Horton first was about to approach Gary on the street (prior to being interrupted by Kono puling up), what was his plan? Was he really going to attempt to strangle the kid in broad daylight on a public street? In fact, Horton staying around to murder the kid at the stadium -- knowing it was crawling with cops -- wasn't particularly smart, either. It wasn't even clear if Gary could identify him, and surely there could have been a better place to attempt to get to Gary.

Pernell Roberts, despite giving a good performance as Lon Phillips, wasn't well cast for this role. He played a Major League Baseball player with "a few good years left", who decided to move to Honolulu to take care of Gary, after Gary's mom died. This would have put Lon Phillips around age 34, given the trajectory of a typical Major League career. Roberts was 42 at the time this episode was filmed, and looked even older. He also didn't have the physique of a star ballplayer. Even if you ignore Roberts looking too old for the part, the age didn't make sense, as Gary was supposed to be around 17 or so, which would have made Lon Phillips a teen dad! (It should also be noted that Street was too old for the part, as he was 26 at the time of filming, and didn't look like a teenager.) When in uniform, Pernell looked more like a coach or manager of the team, rather than a top player. This little continuity/casting problem could have been fixed by simply adjusting the story to where Phillips was about to retire from MLB, but decided to play a final year or two in Honolulu where his son lived. This could have easily made sense for Phillips being over 40.

For reference, going into the 2021 MLB season, there are only two active over-40 position players -- Albert Pujols and Nelson Cruz.

I still think this was a very good episode, but it would have been even better if it were compressed into 60 or 90 minutes.