A Sprinkle of Cinnamon!

When the DVD format came about, but I still had a standard style TV, it would annoy me that movies played in (sometimes very narrow) letterbox format. This is a situation that has mostly remedied itself thanks to the new widescreen televisions. Anyway, at the time, I discovered that the real gems on DVD were old television series. One could get the whole screen filled, with exceptional picture quality and not a commercial to be seen, nor a cut made to the running time!

The first series I began to collect was Mission: Impossible (1966-1973.) The show went off the air when I was not yet six, so it had mostly been something I'd only ever heard about or perhaps seen clips of here and there. I'd only seen one episode in my life that had aired on LATE night TV and was grainy and hacked to pieces. So it was with great pleasure that I discovered M:I on DVD and got to witness aspects of it that made it "must see" television back in its day. I already did a post about the show many years back, but today wanted to zero in on one aspect, agent Cinnamon Carter (portrayed by Barbara Bain.)

The year before Mission, Anne Francis had starred in a female spy series called Honey West, which was a cult favorite, yet unable to sustain enough ratings to continue. It's almost a certainty that the lush name of Honey West (along with the suggestive ones given to various Bond girls) helped to inspire the unusual name of Cinnamon Carter and perhaps even inspired her eventual look.

One thing that sort of intrigued me when it came to Bain was the fact that she'd managed to win THREE back-to- back Emmys for her work on Mission: Impossible (equaling the number of seasons she appeared on the show) at a time when such things were not as predictable as they later became (Candice Bergen finally taking herself out of contention after winning five for Murphy Brown, anyone?) I wanted to see what the fuss was about. (The Golden Globe in the photo, by the way, was hubby Martin Landau's, not hers.)

The casting of the role of a lone female agent amongst a team of gentlemen was vastly important in pre-production of the series. Produced by Desilu Studios, this fact meant that non other than Lucille Ball was going to have final say on the matter. When a staff member suggested Bain, spouse of the pilot's planned featured guest Martin Landau, Lucy scoffed at hiring "someone's wife" to essay this key role. However, having met her and assessing her appeal, Ball was on board and the show had it's Cinnamon Carter.

The LOOK of Cinnamon, however, was not yet set and included some considerable glamorizing before Bain would be seen sporting the iconic blonde mane with a swoop over one eyebrow. Note this early test shot opposite the original leading man of the series Steven Hill. Bain's honey brown tresses and overall makeup scheme would soon be getting a major overhaul, one that would tantalize TV audiences.

That first year, the cast was intended to be Greg Morris, making headway as a black series lead in which his skin color is virtually un-referred to, Hill, as head of the I.M.F. (Impossible Missions Force), Bain and Peter Lupus, an all-purpose strongman and helpmate. This was the foursome intended to be used each week.

In the pilot, however, Landau proved so captivating as a "Man of 1000 Faces" that he was approached to star as a regular as well. However, because Landau was still considered a movie actor and wanted to be free to do motion pictures, he only signed on as a Special Guest Star, though appearing practically every week. This set-up had an effect upon bringing in other guest star agents as the budget couldn't always afford another specially priced actor or two in addition to what Landau was making per episode along with a guest villain.

One of my own favorite parts of the show was "The Apartment Scene," a regular feature in which the agents met to discuss their latest plan of action. Most of the decor in the apartment was either black, white or grey or else a very, very muted other color. Each of the agents wore some variation on black, white or grey as well, making for a visually arresting set-up.

In early episodes, Bain wore a surprising amount of white. She also, rather shockingly in retrospect, once repeated an outfit, a black skirt with sleeveless white top, only altering the necklace with it from a short one to a longer one and effecting bangs versus a side-swept style.  A remarkable number of the early episodes involved rigged gambling games as a way of tricking the villain at hand, too.

Bain's large eyes were painted with very heavy black eyeliner, giving her a sultry, mysterious look. As that first season progressed, her hair became blonder and more bouffant until reaching the familiar rendition that most fans of the show recall.

Clothing for her in the apartment sequences became more vivid, varied and often more sleek and glamorous than had been seen previously.

After the series premiered, some letters began to appear at the production office with negative reactions to Bain being seen situated by and interacting closely with her black make costar Morris. The studio's answer to that was to find more ways than before of putting Bain and Morris in close proximity, which is commendable when one recalls the furor that occurred when Petula Clark touched Harry Belafonte's arm during a number in a TV special of hers in 1968, almost two years AFTER this.

Occasionally, Bain would be absent from an episode as another female guest took part (or if the storyline didn't particularly dictate having a seductive distraction on hand.) One notable example of this was the time Eartha Kitt appeared as "Tina," a contortionist who demonstrated in the apartment scene how she would be able to navigate ventilation ducts in order to help with the mission. (The highly claustrophobic Bain wouldn't have been able to film this mission even if it were feasible that Cinnamon could do these things with her body!) This key TV appearance likely aided Kitt in landing the role of Catwoman on Batman later in the year when Julie Newmar was found unavailable for filming.

Outside the confines of the apartment sequences, Bain could - and did - adopt a variety of different looks in her bid to foil this bad guy or that one. Often she would turn on the charm (or the sex) to lure unsuspecting criminals into the web of her Impossible Missions Force.

Naturally, I loved it most when she would apply a big hairpiece or tease up her mane somehow in order to ramp up the glitz. Look at her tresses in the montage below! She also did a generous amount of smoking on the show that, while adding that much more mystery and allure at the time, eventually played havoc with her looks. (And Bain was already in her mid-thirties when the series began, an unusual occurrence for programs looking to add sex appeal to the mix.)

Sometimes she would be considerably dressed down, distressed or aged depending on the dictates of the story line. She's depicted here with Peter Graves, who took over as head of the IMF when Hill's religious convictions (his interest having been renewed and reinforced several years before the show) forbid him from working past 4:00 on Fridays and he began to balk at some of the physical demands of the work. Graves would become the lasting face of Mission: Impossible and even starred in a 1988-1990 rehash of the series that was born of a long-lasting writer's strike.

Unusual episodes regarding Bain include one in which only she and Landau worked the mission at hand as a twosome, an episode in which she, rather than the IMF leader, got the iconic recorded message at the beginning of the episode ("Your mission, should you decide to accept it...") and one in which she was found out near the start of an episode and captured!

During the first three seasons of the show, Bain ran the gamut as far as different looks were concerned, with her built-in austereness layered over each installment. It was an unusual role, playing a person who is forever playing another person (something explored to a far greater extent years later by Jennifer Garner in Alias, 2001-2006.)

This was a showcase TV role for a female in 1966 and her efforts won her an Emmy right out of the gate (her competition was Barbara Stanwyck for The Big Valley and Diana Rigg of The Avengers.) Get a load of co-presenter Inger Stevens' magnificent mane of hair! With her in the inset is Peter Falk.

Bain was looking on point herself the big night. Beaming in black and white, she happily accepted the award, promising that some of the people she'd like to thank (presumably Landau!) would be done so in private!

The following year (not pictured), Bain won in her category again, this time against the same two ladies who were, by now, probably beginning to have an aversion to "cinnamon!" LOL Fortunately, Stanwyck had already won one for The Big Valley the year before Mission: Impossible came on.

By the end of the third season, Mission had climbed from relative obscurity in its earliest days to a mid-sized hit to, by now, eleventh place in the ratings. A behind-the-scenes shakeup with writers and producers had rattled the expensive series' foundation and it was in this unstable climate that Landau asked for a hefty raise in pay. Trouble was... having already dealt with extreme difficulty in the face of Hill's issues and departure, the producers were not inclined to take on any more trouble, budgetary or otherwise. And, more importantly, Hill's replacement Graves had a "favored nations" clause in his own contract. It stated that no one on the show could be paid more than he. So if Landau got a massive raise, so too would he!

When negotiations fell through, Landau was OUT. Bain had also asked for and received a reasonable pay increase, but with her husband gone, there was speculation on whether she'd stay or not. Even though she was, in some ways, the face of the show and was very popular with the cast and crew, it was believed by at least one producer that she was non-essential and that practically anyone could play that thinly-sketched sort of role.

In a flurry of confusion and mixed signals, some say a hold-out, others a force-out, Bain missed wardrobe fittings for the season four debut episode and was promptly replaced in the two-parter by Dina Merrill.

So on Emmy night, the third go 'round, a highly elegant, but also very serious Bain waited for her category. This time her competition was Joan Blondell of Here Come the Brides and Peggy Lipton of The Mod Squad. Again, Bain's name was called.

With black chiffon flowing, she ascended to the stage and collected her Emmy. Publicly naming herself as the girl who "used to be" on Mission: Impossible, there were some surprised gasps in living rooms across the nation. This time, she also mentioned not only those she would like to thank, but some others who she would not like to!

Thus came the end of Cinnamon Carter for all intents and purposes. The ratings took a hit (though the show was solid enough to run for several more years, till 1973 in fact) and the series had two slots to fill. Ironically, Leonard Nimoy, who'd just come from the canceled Star Trek, filled Landau's spot. Landau had initially been offered the role of Mr. Spock on Trek, but turned it down.

Replacing Bain would prove a more complicated task. For the entire fourth season, a carousel of other ladies filled in, one being Lee Meriwether on several occasions, who was well-suited to the material and wanted the part tremendously, but ultimately wound up as the wife on The New Andy Griffith Show (1971) before settling into a long run on Barnaby Jones (1973-1980.)

A whole new tack was attempted for the fifth season when the compara- tively young (former Cinderella) Lesley Warren was picked to breathe new life into the spy series. Although clearly talented, she was never 100% comfortable on the show, nor did the team truly mesh the way it had beforehand. (But check out the young, sexy, mod Sam Elliott behind her! He was briefly a regular cast member as well.)

For the final two seasons, producers settled on Lynda Day George as the gal of choice and she fit in with the format very well. (George even scored an Emmy nomination of her own on Mission, but the statuette went to Michael Learned of The Waltons.) When George became pregnant during the final season, Ironside's Barbara Anderson capably filled in for seven installments.

Nevertheless, when most viewers think of a female on Mission: Impossible, it is Bain that generally springs to mind. She was just the right type at just the right time to become a sensation.

She and Landau had a rough patch or two after departing the show. He wound up in increasingly shoddy exploitation movies while she scored an occasional television movie. They paired up once more for Space: 1999, which can be read about here, and a couple of other lesser projects before surprising everyone with a divorce in 1993 (and neither remarried to anyone else!) Today, he's eighty-eight and she is eighty-five.

Landau, of course, wound up with a series of Oscar nominations in the late-1980s before winning one for Ed Wood 1995. Though Bain's career never went in that direction, she has continued to work as recently as last year. In 1997, she guest-starred on Dick Van Dyke's medical-set detective series Diagnosis Murder in an episode which was featuring TV spy stars of the 1960s including Robert Culp, Patrick Macnee and Robert Vaughn. Here, she played Cinnamon Carter for a final time!

Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter was glacially elegant and enticingly sultry. She could be shrill and forced whenever called upon to shriek, scream or express upset, but more often was cool as a cucumber. Her aloofness in the part could easily have been construed as snootiness, though most of her colleagues from the show found her highly professional, generous and always pleasant to be around. In the Underworld, where we only zero in on the important stuff, what we like about her the most is the dazzling combination of makeup and hairspray!

A Mission Worth Accepting

One of the most elegantly handled television series of the 60s (and maybe of all time) was the undercover agent suspense drama Mission: Impossible. Conceived during The Cold War when spies were popular in films (The James Bond series among many others) and on television (The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and I Spy), this program revolved around the I.M.F. – Impossible Missions Force.

A highly secretive branch of the US government, the I.M.F. would receive instructions regarding a sensitive international situation or serious criminal activity, something beyond the realm of regular law enforcement, and be asked to step in and solve things. The leader would then select his team from a pool of agents, depending on his or her skills, and then construct a plan in which to get the job done. Though these plans were always elaborate (sometimes ludicrously so) and exceptionally well thought-out, there was always an element of suspense thanks to the wild card actions of the bad guys the team was trying to defeat.

The unforgettable opening theme (with famous music by Lalo Schifrin) showed an animated fuse burning while rapid-fire clips from the episode in question flickered on the screen. The (abhorrent to many die-hard fans of the show) film series starring Tom Cruise kept this music, but little else.

Though few casual viewers of the show recall it, the first season featured a team leader named Dan Briggs, played by Steven Hill. When Hill began to experience (and cause) trouble due to some newfound religious beliefs, he was segued out and replaced from season two on by Peter Graves, who played Jim Phelps. Phelps and his team of Rollin (Martin Landau), Cinnamon (Barbara Bain), Barney (Greg Morris) and Willy (Peter Lupus), though they were only together for two of the seven seasons, are the most iconic and well-remembered group from the run of the show.

Despite the intense secrecy regarding the instructions given to the team (the leader frequently had to use code words or step into offbeat buildings in order to retrieve his envelope and tape recording), the man on the tape would state the following, “As always, should you or any of your IM force be caught or killed, the Secretary will disavow any knowledge of your actions. Good luck, Jim. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds” and the tape would then “dissolve” in a huge cloud of smoke! Really private!

After a while, since the same people were chosen almost every single week, scenes involving the agents being selected out of a dossier were dropped. However, most episodes retained the debriefing scene in which the agents assembled, always glamorously dressed in shades of black, white and/or grey, and revealed tidbits of the plan -- just enough to intrigue the viewer.

Graves was a handsome and stalwart lead who stayed from season two on and even headlined a brief late 80s revival. (Greg Morris’s son Phil also starred in this as Barney’s son.) Landau got a nice acting workout as a master of disguise. Barbara Bain, in particular, was a breakout star of the show. Possessing an amazingly cool and beguiling face and a sleek figure, she added immeasurable class to the proceedings and picked up three Emmy Awards in the bargain! Morris was notable as the first black lead on a TV series in which no reference was made to his color. (When some racist viewers wrote in to complain that he and Bain were too close together, writers wrote scenes that placed them interacting even more closely!) Amiable muscle man Lupus could barely put five words together, especially at first, but his goodwill with audiences kept him there through the series. He would later shock his costars and the rest of the world with a full-on nude spread in Playgirl magazine.

In a startling and very messy break, Landau and Bain departed the series after three seasons. The complicated details of the split (with both sides blaming the other) led to career trauma for the couple. They later had a modicum of success (mostly on a cult level) with the British sci-fi series Space: 1999 before winding up in utter garbage like The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan’s Island! Not even Nostradamus could have predicted that Landau would eventually carve out a solid career as a supporting actor in films again, even winning an Oscar! Bain fared less well, but worked in some nice projects here and there. The once tight couple divorced in 1993.

Replacements for the departed cast members included, over the years: Leonard Nimoy as another master of disguise, Lesley Ann Warren as a nubile distraction, Sam Elliott as a hunky doctor and Lynda Day George, who did surprisingly well as a latter day re-dux of Bain, even copping an Emmy nomination for herself. When she went on maternity leave, Ironside’s Barbara Anderson stepped in for a while. Directly following Bain’s departure, a series of actresses filled in as agents. The most frequent was Lee Meriwether.

The show eventually moved from mostly foreign settings to mostly urban American areas which served to erode it’s uniqueness, but also kept it going after there had been so many fictional Slavic nations, Latin dictatorships and obscure duchies that it had worn thin. The budget decreased in time as well, however, and the series lost a bit of its luster. (However, times were becoming less glamorous anyway as the 70s rolled in, so it likely didn’t stand out so much at the time.)


Fans of Star Trek should take particular delight in watching M:I on DVD as the series share many, many guest stars in common. Remarkably, for a show about spies and crime, there was very little gunplay or bloodshed. The stories relied more upon intricately planned “stings,” much of which the audience was expected to grasp without a lot of explanation. The early seasons, in particular, devote an almost fetishistic amount of attention to the details of how the various gadgets work and the amount of trouble it took to complete the tasks at hand. This fact may be as off-putting to some viewers as it is fascinating to technology geeks.

The allure for me is in the crisp, clean photography, the stylish clothing of the performers, the dedicated teamwork of the agents and the elaborate hoaxes which were pulled on the villains.