S2.E30

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A Feat of Strength

Episode aired May 18, 1962
TV-Y7
51m

IMDb RATING

6.3/10

YOUR RATING

Adventure Crime Drama Thriller

Tod in the Los Angeles area, goes to work as an aide to a wrestling promoter who is owed a debt by a lady with a husband just released from prison in Hungary. The promoter loves the woman an... Read allTod in the Los Angeles area, goes to work as an aide to a wrestling promoter who is owed a debt by a lady with a husband just released from prison in Hungary. The promoter loves the woman and seeks to break up the marriage. Buz is not seen - he is in an isolation ward at Pacoima ... Read allTod in the Los Angeles area, goes to work as an aide to a wrestling promoter who is owed a debt by a lady with a husband just released from prison in Hungary. The promoter loves the woman and seeks to break up the marriage. Buz is not seen - he is in an isolation ward at Pacoima Hospital with a "mysterious virus".

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.3/10

YOUR RATING

3User reviews

See production info at IMDbPro

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Top cast12

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Martin Milner

Tod Stiles

George Maharis

Buz Murdock
(credit only)

Jack Warden

Sandor Biro

Signe Hasso

Eva Biro

Joe De Santis

Rudy Steiner
(as Joe deSantis)

Mushy Callahan

Referee

John Zaccaro

Vince

Dean Moray

Small Boy

Harriet E. MacGibbon

Nurse
(as Harriet Mac Gibbon)

Jesslyn Fax

Birdie

Norman Grabowski

Georgie

Al Cantor

Waiter
(uncredited)

Storyline

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Did you know

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Crazy credits
George Maharis does not appear in this episode, as he was battling hepatitis at the time of filming. However, his character of Buz Murdock is referenced in the opening scene, as Tod visits the hospital where Buz is said to be staying. At the conclusion of the opening scene, we pan up to Buz's hospital room, where a small army of pretty nurses surround his hospital bed. Though we can't see or hear Buz, a humorously prominent credit for George Maharis pops up on screen at this exact moment.

User reviews3

Featured review

Downbeat soap opera

Unsuspecting Route 66 fans tuning in to their favorite primetime show had to suffer this time through a soggy soap opera, inferior to the daytime soaps. Coup de grace was the absence of ailing George Maharis, leaving one with an hour of lousy filler.

Writers Howard Rodman and Joseph Petracca serve up a worthless screenplay, using the cliche of the fake storylines of Pro Rassling in maudlin fashion. Fans used to the brilliant writing and use of language by series writer-creator Stirling Silliphant are instead stuck with our hero Jack Warden delivering crude pidgin English.

Story is a ridiculous inversion of a "triumph of the human spirit" genre drama, in which Warden, as a Hungarian refugee fresh from imprisonment after the failed Hungarian revolution against the Soviets, is forced to play the clown-loser in American wrestling rings. Rod Serling's "Requiem for a Heavyweight" remains the greatest of this sort of TV parable, and even Route 66 used the same gimmick for an episode about a rodeo clown (starring Albert Salmi) titled "A Long Piece of Mischief". Milner is given a poor role to play, magnified by the absence of teammate Maharis, and even Signe Hasso is stuck with a weepy role as Warden's soap opera wife.