77 Sunset Strip: The Navy Caper (1961)
Season 4, Episode 13
8/10
There is an espionage tale in here somewhere
6 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Jeff is asked by the Navy to test the security around a new "miniaturized" computer, the Mark 26. I guess the previous 25 prototypes must have had issues.

Anyway, Jeff is allowed near carte blanche, anything short of murder, in his test. So he invites Kookie, Suzanne, and Roscoe to assist.

Kookie gets to play a regular sailor, and his job is to cozy up to the admiral's driver. This is the admiral in charge of the entire Mark 26 project.

Suzanne is a photographer for a French magazine, doing some story on the naval base where the Mark 26 is located.

Roscoe is just the general lookout, also doing his usual inquiries.

The team is to get close to various people on the base, in an effort to learn where the new computer is located. If Jeff is successful, he will be able to steal the computer and show the flaws in base security.

Unknown to the team, there is also a team of spies/thieves - it is not clear which - who know that Jeff and Suzanne are there for the computer, and decide to use them for their own nefarious purposes.

In a nod to something that will be used by many shows like Mission Impossible later, the bad team fixes Jeff's phone so it can be redirected to one of their own. This way they are able to send in one of their own as an alternate Navy officer.

Much of the show is about Jeff's team performing what is now called "social engineering", get various pieces of info. Among these efforts is Jeff's talking up the admiral's daughter, played by a (relatively) young Ellen Burstyn - she had just turned 29 eight days before the show aired.

Jeff finally gets to go for the computer, and with Kookie's effort, is successful. Of course, the Navy officer who set up Jeff's test is now aware there may be interlopers, so he is racing to the scene.

Meanwhile, the bad guys take the computer from Jeff, but Kookie, Roscoe and a base MP stop most of them. Jeff has a chase and shootout with the remaining bad guy, and recovers the computer.

It was a decent show, and one where we get to see Ellen Burstyn in one of her TV outings, before she became more well-known in movies. Thanks, MeTV+.
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