Hollywood Flashback: Igniting the Fuse on the Original Mission Impossible
It didn’t have Tom Cruise dangling from an airplane — it didn’t even have Peter Graves thumbing by way of IMF dossiers in his residence — however the Mission: Impossible TV pilot nonetheless managed to gentle the fuse on one in all Hollywood’s greatest motion franchises.
The brainchild of Rawhide alum Bruce Geller, the 1966–73 CBS sequence blended two of the period’s favourite film genres — spy thrillers and heist dramas — right into a exactly executed hour of espionage, full with self-destructing tape recorders, necktie cameras and rubber masks that one way or the other made Martin Landau seem like whichever fictional Japanese European despot wanted toppling that week.
Every Impossible Mission Drive member introduced a selected experience and simply sufficient cool to depart a mark: Landau’s chameleonic Rollin Hand (changed by Leonard Nimoy in season 4), Greg Morris as gadget genius Barney Collier, Peter Lupus as strongman Willy Armitage and Barbara Bain as Cinnamon Carter, an ex-fashion mannequin whose fashionable poise made spying seem like a photograph shoot.
The workforce’s first chief, Daniel Briggs, was performed by Steven Hill, who left after season one when Friday evening reshoots conflicted along with his Orthodox Jewish observance. Graves, as Jim Phelps, took over. However the present’s breakout star may need been its theme track, that jazzy, bongo-driven earworm by Lalo Schifrin. As a result of actually, what’s a mission with out that music?
This story appeared in the Could 21 problem of The Hollywood Reporter journal. Click here to subscribe.