- Leaving New York City behind, Tod and Buz begin their search "to catch a star" and find themselves in a nightmare right out of "Bad Day at Black Rock." The unfriendly, suspicious, and violent residents of a tiny Mississippi town have a long-held secret--and they will kill to protect it.—dubchi
- Tod and Buz, in Mississippi trying to make their way to Biloxi to meet up with Tod's friend who has oystering jobs for them, get lost. They see what looks to be a short cut off the main highway going past the town of Garth, Mississippi. Fifteen miles down the dirt road, they get into car trouble that will require a mechanic to repair. One by one of the people they meet, they are threatened to get off what they are told is a private road without receiving any assistance whatsoever from the locals, which if they do means leaving the Corvette (the only thing left to Tod by his now deceased father) behind never to be seen again. They finally at least get begrudging assistance to get the car into Garth, which they learn is controlled by a man named Caleb Garth. Even though Caleb eventually does allow the town's mechanic to repair the car for them, he also does so in a threatening manner. Even more people in town verbally and physically threaten them. The only person who shows them any kindness is Jenny Slade, the widowed grocer's teenaged daughter who was born and raised in Garth, has never left Garth and who has never met a stranger from outside of town beyond the two men who regularly deliver supplies as no one ever comes to Garth, and no one ever leaves Garth. Through it all, Tod and Buz know that the locals are keeping a town secret under Caleb's control. That secret may be unlocked by Caleb's grown son, Paul Garth, who seems afraid of his father. If Tod and Buz learn the secret, it could mean their lives as the locals seem willing to kill to retain that isolation they have built these many years.—Huggo
- This very first show begins with the pair in Mississippi, or there abouts. Buz Murdock (George Maharis) is the map reading 'navigator', and Tod Stiles (Martin Milner), is the driver of a spanking new Corvette convertible. They're looking for a short-cut to Route 66 - what they find is Trouble in a rural no-man's land, that appears to be, by the accents of the populace, Southern, these accents are not consistent enough to localize the exact location, never named.
Taking a very wrong turn on a dirt road, they are lost - and head by sight to the River. Struck by a plank dislodged from a nearly invisible board bridge over a culvert, the car spins out towards its banks. There, they meet the ferryman, who had been piloting a sawmill barge towards them as they first appeared, remarking to his single crewmember, "Nobody uses that road but us", he is tremendously disturbed at the sight of a strange car.
The Corvette's steering is disabled and it is unclear if the car can even start, but the ferryman, Skinner, threatens them, tells them to take it back out the way they came, back over the broken bridge and to be gone before he gets back. Despite the impossibility of compliance, and their own desire do what the man wants- leave- there is no reasoning with the drawling, thuggish boatman. He won't help them find a mechanic, he won't bring them a mechanic, and he won't take ferry them to the nearest town, Garth - which is across the River. He tells them that the man, Garth, doesn't want them in the town, Garth.
After an altercation that leaves Skinner unconscious, the crewman helps them push the car onto the boat and takes them across to Garth, refusing money - 'as seeing Skinner get his come-uppance is payment enough. What you use on him?" "Not us," says Tod, "Him. Buzz Murdoch - ever hear of Hell's Kitchen? In New York? He's one of the few that survived!" The crewman re-iterates the warning that they are not wanted in Garth, that Garth (the man) wants no strangers and that they had best be careful.
So, Garth is a kind of mill company town that seems to be under the total domination of a man named Garth. Moreover, there is an almost supernatural feel to the town, evident on their arrival. The people there turn and go into their houses at the sight of them, even little children hide, a small pack of young men hanging out do not flee, but sit immobile and stare without eye contact or speech in the face of the pair's repeated greetings. Only Jenny, the teenage blonde behind the counter in the general store, speaks to them, flirts a little, even, with a charm that is both innocent and courteous. That is, until her father rushes in to put a stop to it.
The pair have to throw somebody through a window in the store to get him to direct them find Garth. When they do he is in the process of beating his son, Paul to the ground- after Paul refuses to chop with an ax, as his father has directed.
Garth allows that if they go to the garage, he'll have the mechanic make a part. That mechanic is also a blacksmith, and he forges the part as they wait. Conversations with the mechanic and Jenny, who seeks them out to talk to Tod, reveal that Buzz was a foundling raised in a home, and that Todd is a college graduate whose father has recently died, leaving him the car as his sole inheritance.
In a complicated drama of southern rural stereotypes in a caricature of a company town, Garth half rips Jenny's clothes off of her in front of her father, and rouses the town to avenge her apparent rape by the strangers. The torch bearing villagers form a lynch mob to hang the two from the Wolf tree. It's Paul who saves them, nooses around their necks.
Paul defies his father, and tells the mob that Garth had murdered a young innocent man, Ludwig, a German, in retaliation for the death of his son in the war, this occurred years before: the very day that Garth got the telegram, when Paul was just a child. A flashback shows that it was an ax that Garth used, and that he killed the Reverend, too, as the man stood in front of the boy to protect him. It was that day that Paul swore never to hold or use an axe. This day, he has apparently forsaken that oath - he holds an axe to threaten his father and stop the hanging, and, when the mob joins him in standing up to Garth, he uses the ax to cut down the tree. All agree that Garth has violated the entire town simply to cover up his own criminal act.
Todd and Buzz leave the next day as heroes, having been catalysts in the redemption of the town. As they drive out, Todd expresses a wistful regret at leaving Jenny, "She's such a nice kid" he says, "They're all nice kids", scoffs Buzz.
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What is the broadcast (satellite or terrestrial TV) release date of Black November (1960) in Australia?
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