Murder at 50 Years

Tonight 50 years ago, CBS aired S06E20 "Murder With A Golden Touch".

A pair of greedy jerks try to have their cake and eat it too. Grant Lawrence (Peter Donat) and Joe Quinlan (John Orchard) devise a scheme to steal lots of gold from Honolulu's largest jewelry maker.

It's a plan nearly a year in the making. They try to be clever about their shenanigans including making gold look older than it is. Good luck with that by the way.

The pair is interested in messing around with multiple women even though Lawrence is married to the boss' daughter Tamisha Kayata (Haunani Minn). Her father, Tenjo (John Mamo), suspects things are amiss and hires private investigator Henry Mott (Walter Omori) to follow Lawrence.

While doing this, Mott stumbles into their plan and it gets him killed. Due to Mott being a former police officer, Five-O becomes interested in a quick way. No one is aware of the scheme even though Mott has gold dust on his clothes.

In the meantime, Quinlan snares a pair of salvagers into doing their bidding. Ed Boyle (James Davidson) and Charles Fleming (James J. Sloyan) help the pair in placing the gold near a shipwreck. When Boyle and Fleming discover what's really going on, they demand more money and get knocked off.

When it's all said and done, $1.2 million has been paid to Lawrence and Quinlan by Arthur Jentry (Peter Carew) from San Francisco. When it's discovered the gold has been stolen, Five-O pulls a fast one on Quinlan who fled to the UK and Lawrence who fled to France. The confrontation is one of the best from the series because the crooks realize they've been had too late. Their expressions are priceless! :)

Mr. Mike does a better job, even with the wonky math, in his review: https://www.fiveohomepage.com/5-0log6.htm#140

I like this episode even if Tamisha is "clueless" about her husband. She does gain the courage to bring the gun Lawrence buried in their backyard to McGarrett. Minn is in another Five-O episode – S08E16 "Legacy Of Terror". She also made appearances on the 1970s series M*A*S*H but I can't remember how many times.

Another actor who is fun to watch in this show is James J. Sloyan. He made multiple guest appearances in television shows throughout the 1980s and 1990s. One of the most memorable ones for me is a guest appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The episode titled "Firstborn" has Sloyan portraying Worf's son Alexander from the future. If you get a chance to check it out, it's worth it!

It's fun to go back and watch these episodes and see some familiar faces in earlier roles in their careers. This is one of those episodes. :)

Another bit I like is when Chin Ho goes to speak to a group of Chinese elders. It's all about trying to track down the gold. I don't know what these guys were up to, but if they wanted to remake gold bars, that would require melting. Where did the dust come from? Did they rough up the bars to make the gold look older? That's the only thing I can think of why there would be so much dust in the basement.

Another quick note, we see Boyle and Fleming in the water tied down and standing up. We see this in another episode with a girl who proved to be a liability in S05E03. A friend of mine had a father who lived in Maui and recently passed. He told me his father was buried at sea – and that's how it's done. They're standing up. As far as the filming location, they were in the Sea Life Park aquarium. There have been several underwater shots done there. It makes sense – it's safer (don't have to deal with the ocean) and the water is probably clearer. For me, it doesn't take away from the episode. :)

Happy 50th, "Murder With A Golden Touch"!! :cool:

I might watch this one tonight and give my review. It's been 30 years or so since I've seen it!

I watched it.

Bobbi, the aquarium thing makes sense! I couldn't understand how there were so many fish in the underwater shots (as well as more interesting creatures like stingrays), and how they got those fish to be so present during those shots. If it was in an aquarium, that totally adds up.

One big hole in the episode is regarding the gold bars' appearance after supposedly being underwater for 150 years. While gold doesn't oxidize, that doesn't mean it can't accumulate barnacles and other forms of sea life or debris over time. Nothing dropped in the ocean for 150 years is going to come up looking new.

The ending of "account overdrawn", sending the men back to Hawaii, was clever.... but.... let's say one man screwed the other, like each thought. What could be done at that point? The money would be gone, and the "victim" couldn't exactly report the other guy for stealing stolen money! I was sure the note was something along the lines of the funds being on hold and needing them present, but that wouldn't have made for the dramatic scene at the end!

Like Mike, I noticed that the abandoned boat supposedly called "Pacific Pearl" was actually called "Louise".

I didn't realize that Tamisha was played by the real-life wife of Marc Singer. I was a big fan of "V" in the '80s, but somehow I never knew nor looked up who Marc Singer married. I wonder what she died of in 2014, at the age of 67. Fairly young to go. Peter Donat, 19 years her senior and playing her husband Lawrence, actually outlived her by 4 years, passing away in 2018.

MURDER WITH A GOLDEN TOUCH 3 Stars ⭐⭐⭐ Out Of 4 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐. Season 6 (1973-1974).