An Odd Lot 50 years on

Tonight 50 years ago, CBS aired "The Odd Lot Caper".

Richard Basehart portrays Donald Murdock who is an ambitious real estate developer. He's also in a wheelchair but that doesn't stop Murdock from being a demanding, self-centered jerk. He has a grand plan on the horizon and when he's unable to get investors excited and opening their wallets, Murdock comes up with the perfect plan.

Murdock hires Laughlin (Ron Hayes) who has worked for Murdock in the past. Laughlin creates a team of Linc (Daws Dawson), Jersey Frazer (Morgan Sha'an), and Yoko (Nephi Hanneman). These three are small time hoods. A fourth member is Martin Johnson (John Farias) who is a computer expert. He's brought in to screw with the computer to cover up the crime. The bottom line is that these guys are set to steal stocks from a couple places around town. They also burn the books to cover what stocks are stolen.

After the heist, Murdock makes a lot of noise about the lack of police action. He comes across as a major ass, but that's the point.

In the course of the investigation, Five-O talks to some of the women who deals with the stocks every day. One woman, Mrs. Finley (Tuulikki Gottschalk), can describe a unique bond/stock that came across her desk. If she can recognize the bond again, the Five-O team has cracked the case.

Everything leads back to Murdock and that unique stock is found in his vault. McGarrett gets the last laugh, of course, telling Murdock that the tycoon is looking at 20 years in prison.

Mr. Mike does a better job, including his cool gallery! His review is here: https://www.fiveohomepage.com/5-0log5.htm#114

Again, not one of my favorite episodes. It's kind of 'meh' to me. I like Basehart, as he proves his acting prowess again. He would later be in the pilot of "Knight Rider" as Wilton Knight, the founder of the Foundation of Law and Government (FLAG). While Wilton passed in the pilot, Basehart narrated during the intros and outros. Wilton Knight is the one who rescued Michael after he was shot in the face and his partner was killed. It was Wilton's foundation that built KITT. But I digress. :)

This episode is pretty cool in showing off the stock players too. Danny Kamekona even shows up as the first computer geek who is killed at the beginning. His murder takes Five-O's focus off Murdock long enough for the heist to take place. Laughlin even makes mention of that fact. However, it doesn't last.

There seems to also be a lot of running around by Five-O in this episode as they track down the items used in the heist. As always, they get the bad guys!

Happy 50th, "The Odd Lot Caper"!!! :cool:

Glad you mentioned Richard Basehart as Wilton Knight from the Knight Rider pilot. That’s who Basehart will always be to me. As well as the narrator of that iconic Knight Rider intro. “A shadowy flight into the dangerous world of a man… who does not exist”. :)

Bobbi
Thanks For The 50 Year Anniversary Episodes. The Odd Lot Caper is a personal favorite. Laughlin and Murdock are outstanding villains. It's an outstanding investigative Classic HFO episodes. McG and the HFO team don't have much to go on early in the investigation. They were able to obtain a fingerprint belonging to Jersey from his hotel room. Also, Chin pounds the shoe leather tracking down the 4 torches picked up by Jersey. It was a brilliant plan by the crew burning the books 📚 and taking the stock paper. I didn't like the ending when the lady suddenly remembers an odd lot stock. Danny asked the ladies earlier but they could not think of anything. I agree with Mr. Mike and others that some of the stock information is confusing. Murdock contacts a friend of his who sends him a bunch of replacement stock. McG then later investigates Murdock's office area finding the odd lot stock. This ties Murdock to the stock robberies. Had they not found this odd lot stock, I wonder how this would have been solved. I guess they could have Laughlin testify giving him immunity or something. JC

The whole episode was very confusing. They didn't explain what was going on very well for the viewer, and it was especially difficult to follow if you weren't familiar with the ins and outs of 1970s stock trading.

I didn't understand McGarrett's willingness to listen to Laughlin's offer for a "deal". Usually McGarrett shouts, "NO DEALS!", but here he seemed to want to deal with the most major of the criminals (Laughlin, who committed multiple murders) to bust a stock thief (Murdock).

If ever there was a time to shout "NO DEALS!", it was this one!

Oddly enough, this episode might have been better off following the trail of the scammer played by Danny Kamekona, who was murdered very early in the episode for unrelated reasons!