User Reviews

Continuing my reviews of African-Americans in film and television for Black History Month in chronological order, we're now at 1965 with the second episode of "I Spy", A Cup of Kindness. In this one, Kelly Robinson's (Robert Culp) former mentor (David Friedkin) comes to his old pupil in Hong Kong for help in getting a component for him to avoid getting killed. Alexander Scott (Bill Cosby) lends a hand in helping Kelly distract some hotel proprietors from the safe that Scott and the former mentor are trying to steal from...It takes a while but there are some good action scenes and some humorous ones concerning Culp and a lady (Irene Tsu) that I found pretty amusing. Cosby doesn't really do much here except some small talk and setting up some explosives but does show some charisma for a person whose main profession at the time was stand-up. And there is one cute scene where he talks to a little Hong Kong girl (Robin Lee) in her language. "I Spy" marked the first time that a man of color shared a starring role in series television with his white counterpart. This particular episode I watched on the Net Nights section of the From the Archives blog. I've seen at least 4 more episodes on DVD that I checked from the library years ago. One with Don Rickles and one with Wally Cox from there were pretty funny. I'd have to see a few more episodes to really judge how good "I Spy" was but I liked what I saw so far. By the way, vintage commercials of the time were inserted between the scenes when I watched this.

Russ Conley, a former instructor of Kelly's, delivers a message to Kelly and Scott in Hong Kong. Decoded it reads, "This man double agent -- kill him."

Conley tells the agents that he botched an assignment in Honolulu, was captured and cracked. The department believes Conley is a traitor. But Conley says he's learned that a key device is in Hong Kong. He asks for Kelly and Scott's help to get it back -- and save his own life.

Supposedly these two adlibbed all their lines on this show.

The one big downside is that all he gun shots are over dubbed with really bad western gunshot recordings complete with the ricochet bullets! Why?

Also the fight scenes are cartoonish and not remotely believable.