Reunited: Trapped on "Logan's Run!"

We grew up loving the 1976 sci-fi thriller Logan's Run. In fact, it was a huge childhood fave of mine that I still occasionally like to revisit.  The story line (of a post-apocalyptic society in which people are only permitted to live - in a general state of pleasure - until they turn 30) was exciting, scary and titillating enough to this 9 year-old that I was near ecstatic when I found out that there was going to be a resultant weekly TV series version. (Hey, there were all sorts of leftover sets, props and costumes on hand that could be put to good use.)

Michael York played Logan, a sandman whose tasks included chasing down anyone who was over-30 and did not submit to the ceremony of "Carousel," in which a chance at rebirth was possible, but more often ended in death. He "ran" when his own time was taken from him, joined on his adventure by fellow runner Jessica, played by Jenny Agutter.

Sadly, I was left bewildered when the characters I'd come to know were no longer essayed by York and Agutter. In their place were a couple of young performers who bore no physical resemblance to their big-screen counterparts. The role of Logan was now performed by Gregory Harrison (who I would soon enough come to adore in other things) and his fellow runner Jessica was played by Heather Menzies. At least I knew her from her childhood role as Luisa von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965), a much-beloved movie of mine.

Menzies was rather blatantly styled to resemble then-white-hot Farrah Fawcett, who had a small supporting role in Logan's Run, thus combining the attributes of two women into one.

Harrison was, and is, cute as a bug, but he shared almost nothing in common with the lithe, "veddy-British" York. And at this point had only scratched the surface of a screen career, unlike the then-in-demand York.

Following the series' pilot, the story focused on Harrison and Menzies struggling in the barren outside world, always looking for "Sanctuary," the promised land of all runners. The second episode found our duo surrounded by sand and rock formations with no available water.

Little do they know that they're being watched by a pair of glitzily-dressed strangers. Linden Chiles (an actor who only occasionally dabbled in sci-fi; more often portraying businessmen and lawyers) and Leslie Parrish portrayed these folks. Parrish, an actress most often used decoratively, had figured in a memorable episode of Star Trek as a crewmember who is coveted by a Greek-godlike alien.

 

Miraculously, Harrison and Menzies find a sumptuous oasis nestled in the desert and immediately hop in the water, cooling off and drinking it simultaneously.

Soon enough, they are greeted by a fellow runner who tells them that they are within striking distance of Sanctuary.

 

They are taken there and shown the "idyllic" location, complete with swans in the surrounding lake. (Not sure where this was filmed, but this is the damnedest-looking place one could think of... and I don't think it was a "set" specifically constructed for this show, but perhaps it was.)

Parrish and Chiles form the welcoming committee and show the weary couple to their quarters.

Once inside, Menzies is given a new dress "just like one she had" at the City of Domes and then is presented with an old friend of hers, a runner whose fate she was unsure of.

The old pal is played by Lawrence Casey.

Harrison can't help noticing how cozy the two are after seeing one another again and finds the whole thing rather suspect. He is also alarmed by the fact that there is a video book in their room turned to the precise page that he left his own on before fleeing the city!

Some of you may recall Casey from his days on The Rat Patrol, a WWII desert adventure series. His delicate Nordic features had taken a beating from the scorching Nevada sun. Not to seem unkind, but he was only 36 here! Having retired in 1992, he is 81 today.

There is just nothing like 1960s & '70s sci-fi when it comes to the slinky, often hilarious, costuming. I love it all so much, no matter how tacky or humiliating. And the sets, too!

These two lunkheaded guards filled out their tights pretty nicely, especially the one on the right.

But I digress. The title of this post is not "Guest Who" as I sometimes do. It's "Reunited." Thus, I have deliberately avoided letting you see the face of one of the episode's key guests. I'm rotten that way... Ha ha!  (Though I know that most of you will never ever see this program anyway!) It concerns the runner who met up with Harrison and Menzies at the tropical oasis.

Surely you've got it now...

Yes, this is Angela Cartwright. She had earned her sci-fi stripes on the series Lost in Space, but this was a reunion for her with Menzies as Cartwright had portrayed her younger sister Brigitta in the aforementioned The Sound of Music. 

Rare is the person who has never seen this enduring blockbuster (though they are out there!)

I couldn't love Eleanor Parker's face here any more if I tried. I also love the composition in this frame.

The actors who portrayed the Von Trapp children in the hit movie formed a close bond and a lifelong association with one another.

Many, many times over the years, often on anniversaries of the movie's release, the "kids" would be reunited for another round of photos and reminiscences.

And, every so often, such as here, they might get to work with one another again. Of course, most of the Von Trapp children moved out of the biz upon adulthood. But the ones who continued to act would sometimes find him or herself working again with their on-screen sibling.

As a regular costar, this was certainly Menzies' show and, thus, Cartwright had a less prominent role to fulfill.

Dig that "futuristic" '70s decor!

But it did at least give them the opportunity to perform together again, not to mention spend time with each other during the shooting schedule.

And Cartwright figured rather importantly in the finale of the episode, too.

This program ought to have been quite a draw for "leg men" out there! Parrish, who was then about 42, still had hers. She would retire from the screen altogether, though, the year after this. She'd just wed author Richard Bach and was always heavily invested in sociopolitical and environmental issues. She's still with us today at 86.

Her cohort on this episode, Chiles, continued to act in countless television projects and low-budget movies. He died in 2013 at age 80 after making the fateful decision to ascend a roof, which resulted in a deadly fall.

Menzies worked less frequently after this brief series was canceled. She had wed TV actor Robert Urich in 1975 and most often popped up in his hit shows. He bravely fought cancer before being claimed at only age 55 in 2002. Sadly, she later faced cancer herself and it was a shock when she died in 2017 at age 68. Harrison is a favorite here and has long had his very own tribute. Also up for the role of Logan was one Nicholas Hammond, Friedrich in The Sound of Music. Soon after, though, he landed the leading role in the short-lived The Amazing Spider-Man. (And he guested on Logan, too! Maybe sometime I'll take a look at that as well.)

Surely it was a treat for these fine, "feathered" friends (see what I did there?) to get to work together again. Cartwright opted to work less and less as adulthood took hold. Having married in 1976, she preferred to focus on motherhood to her two children as well as her lifelong interest in photography. Now 69, she periodically pops up with a cameo role in various incarnations of her old Lost in Space series.

Friends for more than 50 years.

The End! (I know... butt I just couldn't resist...!)

Designer Double-Dip: Seeing Through the Drape

The time has come again when we pull back the curtain on the sometimes easy (sometimes hard) to spot habit of Hollywood repurposing articles of costuming. It makes sense, after all. Why build something, often out of beautiful, expensive fabric and then let it languish in closeted purgatory forever? This time, the clothing barely had time to get back from the cleaners until it was used again! LOL And the actress was recycled, too!

We begin with the recycled part. In an episode of Mannix, which aired in March of 1968, we find an artist sketching away. He's drawing a rather revealing get-up on an appealingly hourglass figure. The model isn't actually in front of him! It seems he's using a telescope to look through to the next building where a young lady is posing for someone else.

We have a soft spot for the rather simian-looking actor playing the artist, Paul Mantee. It's likely due to his starring role in the sci-fi camp classic Robinson Crusoe on Mars (1964), a movie that captivated us completely as a kid. Stay tuned below for a little bonus on that point!

This is what he sees through the scope; a pretty blonde with a generous amount of her torso bared as she models for a sculptor in that building.

Mantee has someone over - TV staple William Windom (some of you li'l chicks may have grown up watching him as Seth, the paunchy, cranky sheriff on Murder, She Wrote?) He has a look through the telescope and we see that the lady in question is:

...the lovely Leslie Parrish, who played Daisy Mae in Li'l Abner (1959), was in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as Laurence Harvey's wife and appeared in countless television shows of the 1960s.

It seems she has a telltale mole along her waistline and this sparks a problem for Windom. He's just purchased an expensive Renoir painting in which the subject not only looks very much like this gal, but also has the same mole in the same spot!

He frantically asks Mantee how one gets to that room across the street. (Um... go downstairs, cross the alley, enter that building and then go up??)

By the time he arrives (maybe he took a taxi? LOL) the girl is gone. And the sculptor is not particularly eager to help.

Thus, Windom must hire the title detective Mannix in order to find out just what is up. He has the painting brought down....

Sure enough, the gal looks similar...

...and there's the mole, 'cause, you know, Renoir just couldn't resist dabbing this dark brown spot onto "his" masterwork!!

Close-up of "The Girl in the Frame" - the name of this installment of Mannix.

Incidentally, the real Renoir subjects tended to be far more nude and far more zaftig... But, you know what? I do think I see a mole on the center woman's behind!

Later, when Mannix catches up with the model, she's sporting one of those lunatic (and wonderful) hairstyles that could only have come from the mid-to-late 1960s. And it does turn out that she is - whether aware or not - part of an art forgery ring. But that Grecian get-up she was sporting in the first scene. Where have we seen that (and her!) before....?
 

Oh, here she is! Parrish had guest-starred on a September, 1967 episode of the famous sci-fi series Star Trek. As Lt. Carolyn Palamas, she was called upon to join a landing party in order to investigate an alien being seemingly in the form of Greek god Apollo who is holding their craft in stasis.

Apollo (played by one Michael Forest, who has a tribute to him here) is immediately taken with the young lady. And since so often the females on Star Trek were photographed with back-lighting and through gauze almost as thick as an Indian blanket, she is indeed lovely (she was thirty-two at the time... hardly Lucille Ball in Mame, 1974!)

Forest is unhappy with the way she looks in her Starfleet uniform. He thinks she should have one arm (and more!) bared. So with the wave of his hand, she is suddenly transformed into this eye-popping creation. Trek designer William Ware Thiess was legendary for exposing unexpected parts of the female form in his costumes, making sure to keep the crotch and nipples well covered as the censors dictated, but showing off other bits in the bargain.

Forest decides that the two need to head off on their own for some quality time, much to Captain Kirk and the others' dismay. But there's nothing they can do about it.

She isn't terribly resistant to the idea either, claiming to be able to do more good for their current problem this way. (BTW, color variations on this costume are due to the different sources used for these images. The unrestored visuals show it as more of a rosy pink while this color-corrected shot at right reveals its more true, shocking pink tone.)

Parrish looks smashing at the side of Forest and seems strangely keen on being with him, even though he is so threatening to her entire starship full of fellow crew members.

It's tough to blame her, though, as he looks so cute in his slinky little gold toga!

This was a fairly daring glimpse for 1967 TV. She looks half naked here. An unused ending (nixed by the powers that be at NBC and never filmed) had Parrish winding up pregnant at the end of the episode! Both Star Trek and Mannix were Desilu productions and often shared common actors (and apparently some costume pieces, too!)

Being loved by a god isn't always easy....! Michael Forest had nice things to say about Ms. Parrish, saying she "was a delightful person to work with; no problems; never any difficulties; we would just discuss what we were going to do and we would do it. She was excellent and very personable. William [Shatner] was a bit of a problem, however. You never saw me standing with him; we were always in different shots. We would be talking to one another, but we wouldn't be on camera at the same time. I'm sure that's what he stipulated - because I was so much taller." An earlier screencap does show that in long-shot they were shown together (and also demonstrates that Shat's fears were valid! LOL But Apollo was supposed to be much taller, fer cryin' out loud...! Vanity...) Ms. Parrish left acting in 1974 and turned her attention to producing, social activism and television broadcasting. She is still with us today at age eighty-five!

Bonus Pics! 

Mr. Paul Mantee in Crusoe, taking a Martian bath!

Watching this movie on TV as a kid was a thrill, but never more so than when this fleeting rear nude scene (inset) came about! It was one time when cropped pan 'n scan afforded a somewhat better view.

This here Robinson Crusoe made me tingle in strange places!

I mean, he's drifting into Clint Walker territory here...! Paul Mantee. Robinson Crusoe on Mars. Be there!

Farewell till next time!