User Reviews

Review – Kidnap Copter All action from the opening scenes, kidnappers with hunting rifles in a shack with a young victim, Dan on the way to the scene after the victim is shot trying to escape, with HP Officers fending off rifle shots from the shed while tending to the shot youth. Three HP Officers in this episode with Dan, the HP copter pilot and a doctor to care for the wounded. Never a dull moment with the kidnap victim in desperate need of hospital assistance, pinned down with rifle shooting criminals is a very remote area. Crush the shack they are in with the copter since they cannot move the victim until they capture the kidnappers. The HP did its job without any ransom paid and the victim is off to get medical attention asap. Worth watching as the story moves along rapidly; for every crisis there is a solution with Chief Dan Mathews and the HP.

I enjoyed this episode this morning on ME-TV, but got to thinking about what I call plot holes, really just flaws in the plans of the kidnappers that make me think it wasn't quite so good of an episode.

The story begins with scenes of a kidnapped young man being led to a mountain cabin by two men with rifles. He is being held for a $50,000 ransom, apparently to be collected by a third man in the gang, someone who is never seen. The kidnappers are dressed as hunters.

It comes that the plan is for the third member to collect the ransom and come to the cabin-which apparently has no phone, common then. The two bad guys tied the victim's hands behind him and blindfold him, telling the young man that the blindfold keeps him from seeing their faces-which is the only thing keeping him alive. They do not tie him to a chair or anything else.

Keeping an almost constant vigil at one of the cabin's two windows, one man spots a uniformed man with a badge. His partner reassures him that it's just the game warden, probably wanting to see their hunting licenses.

Now the cabin has, apparently, not even a bathroom in which they can hide their victim-Jerry. So they untie him and take off the blindfold and warn him not to say anything that will get him shot. Gee, they just told him that if he saw them they'd have to kill him. Seems like he might be willing to take a, pardon the phrase, "shot" at getting away in the game warden's presence. But he doesn't and the game warden seems not concerned about the well-dressed young man who does not possess a hunting license, as they tell him that this guy's just here to watch. Since they took the blindfold off, they leave it off, with Jerry being indirectly told that they will have to kill him once they get the ransom money.

The game warden has heard the description of the kidnap victim and immediately goes to phone the Highway Patrol. A patrol car is sent up to investigate. Now with only his hands tied, while the bad guys are focused on the cops, Jerry races for the open door and tries to escape. He is shot in the back and seriously wounded. One of the bad men is also wounded in the leg, but he seems to get around OK for the rest of the day.

The patrol officers retreat to safety and phone headquarters where they speak to our man, Dan. One of the reasons Dan was so good at his job was he had superior equipment. We are told that they can't get any other cars to the remote site quickly because it is 200 miles away. So Dan gets into his usual tiny helicopter, squeezing in beside the pilot and a doctor for the wounded kidnap victim, hanging his right leg outside the chopper as usual, and flies to the cabin site, getting there, we are told, in 10 minutes. Who else in the 1950s had a helicopter that could travel 1200 MPH?

Trying to rescue Jerry, the cops were repulsed by the rifle shots of the crooks. Plan B had them station two cops to fire at each window while Dan in the helicopter directed the pilot to drop onto the roof of the cabin several times to get the feeble thing to crash down, forcing the bad guys to evacuate where they could easily be taken prisoner. Is this a spoiler if I report that it worked?

The climax was a cool finish to a decent episode, but aside from Dan's "Superchopper" the problems mostly stem around the kidnappers' plans being so dumb. They were posing as hunters, but never thought to have a hunting outfit for their victim. Jerry stood out like a soar thumb to the ranger, which is the big reason the game warden reported the group.

The men were happy to kill Jerry later, and had no qualms about firing at the cops, but they never thought of grabbing the unarmed game warden while they were holding rifles and he was talking to Jerry. They were going to kill Jerry because he could now describe their faces to the authorities. But Jerry's body being found anywhere near there would surely have led to the game warden being able to do the same later on. The crooks would have been far safer to tie up the game warden while they had him.

Furthermore, why on earth didn't they tie Jerry to a chair or something once they removed his blindfold? Then he wouldn't have run out the door and they wouldn't have had to shoot him? They fired at him, obviously trying to kill him. Had they done so, how did they ever think they could escape without a hostage. Their "plan" was to hold up in this little cabin where it would be quite difficult for a couple of cops to move in on them. But in time, many other cops would be summoned.

I also think it worth mentioning that this remote cabin was not a good place to hold the man hostage because nobody could phone to report anything. Their third member couldn't phone to tell them he has the ransom and they can let the kid go and rendezvous. With a well-dressed young man, those two hunters did not blend in had anyone spotted them. I ask: Were they sure they could trust the third man to not just flee to Mexico or somewhere with the $50,000? You could live several years comfortably on that money 65 years ago.

At one point, the one bad guy told his partner they can't kill the kid until they collect the ransom. But the kid's parents had already agreed to pay the money, as their guy was collecting it. If they decided they wanted to hear that the boy was OK, how could this be accomplished without a phone at the cabin? No, this hideout was really poorly chosen for several reasons.

It was still a decent episode, just not nearly as good once you think about the crooks' plans. I still give it a 7.

**SPOILERS** I liked it, in spite of a couple of differences. One, how were the kidnappers supposed to get away? Two, the building that they showed was not a dilapidated shack, but, a pretty nice cabin; it just needed a little T.L.C., maybe sister up a couple of support posts and roof beams, and some decent shingles. In reality, I'm sure that the shack was very unsafe.

As far as the kidnappers went, well, just everything went wrong. It was interesting watching the bad guy, after they had been discovered by the game warden, telling the kid that "no hard feelings, but we gotta kill you - you understand". Yeah, sure. Of course they shot him in the back when he tried to get away. I don't know all the details, but there was a "Lindburg Law" in some jurisdictions that would allow for the death penalty in kidnap cases, so, it's hard to tell about that. BUT, shooting him is definitely attempted murder. Interesting thinking how it might have played out. "Ed" the first kidnapper, didn't actually SHOOT at the chopper, "second kidnapper did. He also was the one who plugged the kid. Now, if you saw it, it looked (to me, at least) like Ed was visually measuring #2 for a coffin after he was hit. Might have turned on his pals, huh?

They never covered it, but how were the bad guys supposed to get away at all? The chopper was a Bell 47, a workhorse small copter for the Army and Police forces at the time. The actor flying it was an actual pilot, and it was really cool watching him show off how it was done VERY COOL. The actor who played the dispatcher was a prolific yeoman bit and cameo player, Terry Frost who was in a lot of westerns, and must have chafed at being only a microphone man (R.I.P.Mr. Frost). Neat episode.

Two kidnappers are holed up in an abandoned hunting shack. They kidnapped the adult son of a wealthy family and are holding him for $50,000 ransom. A Game Warden becomes suspicious and phones the Highway Patrol. The shack is in an isolated area over 200 miles from Patrol headquarters. To make matters worse, the kidnap victim was shot in the back while trying to escape and the two culprits with rifles prevent the patrol officers from getting the victim to the nearby helicopter. This episode, as the title indicates, is all about law enforcement's use of helicopters. Whoever was piloting the helicopter was very skilled as there's an amazing scene where the helicopter is used to collapse the dilapidated shack. It was nice seeing Robert Bice as the Game Warden - he appeared in a couple of Perry Mason shows as one of the detectives in the Paul Drake Detective Agency. A solid if not particularly memorable episode.