What to do when chased by 2 cold-hearted killers

Cornered, and about to die. (Click picture for larger version.)

Let us assume, for a minnit, that you are a cold-hearted killer, with a gun, and you're being chased by two cold-hearted killers, with guns.

And let us assume you run into a building, as for example a green house.

Here's what you do. You stop immediately, step to one side of the door, and hunker down on your knees so that anyone running in through the door - as for example your pursuers, will look around at eye level and not see you.

And then...you just shoot them. Bang for the lead guy, bang for his associate. From three feet away, you can't miss.

What you do not do is run to the other end of the building, and crouch down in the middle of the back hallway, so that your two pursuers can come at you in a pincer movement, trap you between them, and then shoot you down.


That's what happened to Steve Ihnat in the Felony Squad episode Target. Felony Squad ran from 1966 to 1969, and starred Howard Duff as Det. Sgt. Sam Stone and Dennis Cole as Det. Jim Briggs.

In Steve's episode, Target (Season 1, episode 24, aired Feb 20, 1967) Will Kuluva plays a mobster coming back to town to testify against the man (Steve as Vic Durant) who took over his operation. Harry Majeski's pretty young wife is played by Angelique Pettyjohn, whom Star Trek fans might recognize as the tall blonde fighter who takes on Captain Kirk in "Gamesters of Triskelion".

It's all a ploy, though. Instead of testifying against him, Majeski wants to kill Durant...and because Durant did not follow the excellent advice given at the top of this post, he succeeds.

A few Steve Ihnat screencaps

Just because it's so much quicker to upload them here...

Click on photo for full-size pic



Highway Patrol which starred Broderick Crawford. One of Steve's very first roles.

77 Sunset Strip.Kidnapper's muscle man. Virginia Gregg whacks him in the head with a frying pan

Jewel thief in Hawaiian Eye. Too bad one of his cohorts is dumb, ruins the whole plan...

A teacher in Channing, trying to force out Albert Paulson (who seems to be modeled on Einstein).

Chrysler Theater, Longest Fall of All. Supportive friend to Steve Whitman's character, an actor going through a crise d'nerfs.

Steve Ihnat and the Smirk

It's interesting to watch an actor in a series of shows and try to decide what "business" he does, that he does for that particular character, and what "business" he does because it's his own mannerisms. It's also fun to try to figure out what his real accent is, and what he puts on for any particular character.

I'll be sharing a few of Steve's mannerisms in days to come, but here is, for lack of a better word, "the smirk."



Click on photo to see larger version.

Left - Steve's normal smile. Middle, his smirk. Right, smirk as Keller in Mannix.

I'm actually not sure if it's a smirk, but he does something to his lips that makes it more than a smile!

Steve Ihnat Marathon

Thanks to a kind friend (and you know who you are ; ) ) I now have over thirty Steve Ihnat episodes that I'd never seen before, ranging from his early stuff in Highway Patrol (in which he looks very very young...well, he was young!) to later, 1970s stuff.

And it's been a lot of fun to watch them over the course of a few days.

Steve does an excellent job in Mannix: "End Game" as Gus Keller. Branded as a stoolie in a Korean POW camp 14 years ago, the rest of his squad, led by Mannix, breaks out and leaves him behind. If that isn't bad enough, when he's liberated from Chang Jou, he's then sent to Leavenworth for life. However, he's released - apparently for good behavior - and goes gunning after the men who left him behind, until finally only Joe and Art Malcom (Joe's cop friend) are left. Gus kidnaps Art and hides him in an abandoned building which he's got booby-trapped full of explosives. Joe goes in to try to rescue Art....but Keller has had 14 years to plot out his revenge...



In Blue Light, Steve plays a German officer who has disowned the Nazis and wants to escape to the West. His German accent is spot on here. (I can't claim to be an expert on accents, but having lived in Germany for three months, I know a "real" German accent when I hear one.)

Indeed, it's always fun to listen to Steve and his accents, from generic southern to Alabaman to German to generic Eastern bloc foreigner (during his Mission Impossible stints)

Mannix is a great TV series, pick 'em up to Steve's episodes, and stick around to watch the rest of these great episodes.

(Steve in Huntdown) episode 7


(Steve in Endgame) episode 19

Steve doesn't appear again until Season 5 of Mannix (1972), which has yet to be released, however, go ahead and pick up Season 3, too:

Recommended blog: The Night Editor

This is a fun little blog. (Little in the sense that the author's posts are rather brief. But clever.)

Here's a link to his entry on Raymond Burr.

http://thenighteditor.blogspot.com/2009/06/mug-shots-4-raymond-burr-aka-mastermind.html

He had a palpable intelligence that sent one message: It is your great misfortune that I am smarter than you.

Take that, Hamilton Burger!

Alex Dreier vs Steve Ihnat? No contest!

Just got through watching -- in a sense -- Sweet Sweet Rachel starring Stephanie Powers as Rachel Stanton, Alex Dreier as Dr. Lucas Darrow, the lead of the show, and Steve Ihnat as Dr. Simon Tyler, in a minor supporting role.

I say I was watching it in a sense because, since I don't like horror shows, I didn't have the sound on while it was transpiring, so I'm not really sure what the heck was happening.

But what I do know is Steve Ihnat should have been the star and Alex Dreier the second banana, and one wonders why that wasn't the case. Steve, at age 36 or so, looks older than his years, but he was still younger, more mobile and more virile looking than Alex Dreier, who was tall, looked heavier than Raymond Burr ever did, and moved with a limp. And he certainly didn't seem to have the "presence" that Burr had. (On the other hand, in doing further research, it seems he was a very admirable man. Spoke up against racism and lost his job as a correspondent as a result, if this article is to be believed. [No sources are cited.] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Dreier

So it must have been galling for Steve to be cast in a relatively small role in this thing.

The show was the pilot for the Sixth Sense, and it must have been even more galling, when the Sixth Sense made it to the small screen, that Gary Collins was given the lead. Although perhaps at this time Steve was busy writing/filming the Honkers and so couldnt' have accepted the larger role any way...

But, one does wonder about the casting. And the choice of Steve's to wear heavy glasses for the role. Perhaps it was his idea of what a psychiatrist wore, but they seem unneccesary, just obscured his face too much!











Dreier in center


Dreier on right

With a yeehaw and an oh my god!

Steve's friend, whom I'd ragged on a couple of posts ago, emailed me today, told me to send him my phone number, and said we could talk for as long as I liked.

So of course I'm very happy, not to say ecstatic.

Unfortunately I'm also terrified. As I'd posted back then, I have a real fear of talking on the phone. And since he's going to call *me*, I won't have a chance to nerve myself up with a Pepsi or a bowl of icecream beforehand.

Nevertheless it must be done and I shall do it.

After all, all I need to do is ask him a question, that'll take 3 seconds, then he can talk for 5 minutes, and so on and so on.... so I won't really be talking on the phone....

So, my day has been made. And with this guy's insights into Steve, it will make his tribute site just that much more special. So I'm very happy.