Foreign Soil     

EYE OF EVIL 
The exotic being Escape's self-avowed stock-in-trade, 
its characters are unlikely to sport New Hampshire or Maryland accents. 
Rather, its jungles jingle with such British--as in colonial British-- 
and pseudo-Asian and -Indian tongue-thespianizing, 
as would fell a Sumatran elephant that has withstood years 
of malaria, tropical heat, and poachers behaving badly. 
"Eye of Evil" is yet another 'specially written' original story 
set in yet another less-than-hearty darkness. 
(There is a rumor--an echo of what 
happened in real life to HGWT-- 
that an Indonesian car mechanic, 
claiming to be the son of Joseph Conrad, 
sued CBS and the producers of Escape for plagiarism, 
and won in a local Jakarta court.) 
But never doubt that there is fun to be had in a Burmese jungle... 
Escape loves to traffic in maybe-meaningful twaddle, 
so Kathleen Hite uncorks a deucey: 
"I shall fail if where I look my eyes see no beauty." 
There is also the Burtonian line "Well before the rains set in..." 
(whichever Richard Burton you're imagining, it's the wrong one). 
Deep in this Hite humidity, everyone catches accent fever. 
Chester fans will be thrilled to hear Parley Baer do a neat English accent. 
Jack Kruschen, again surprisingly convincing as a native 'boy,' 
gets to say more than once: "Only way to save esteemed friend. And... self." 
(Think Pink, Peter Sellers, and Fu Manchu).
The key to surviving this episode is to pay close attention 
to everyone's pronunciation of the Burmese boy's name, 
best rendered phonetically as 'Moongba.' 
As Dehner and Baer wrestle with their English accents, 
the name of the Burmese boy changes 
from Mangba to Muhngba to Moongba. 
Moongba himself calls himself Moongba. 
When Dehner gets emotional in the frantic action scene, it's Moongba; 
but when things settle down, he goes back to Muhngba. 
Finally, Ben Wright--born in Britain he--zings Baer and Dehner 
with his effortless pronunciation of the M-word, 
and puts the lowly colonials in their proper place. 
Alas, Hite only uses the word 'poppycock' once. 


February 20, 2006 


Copyright © 2006-2011 E. A. Villafranca, Jr.  
All Rights Reserved