Birthday Tribute: Mort Mills

Here is a post that is long overdue. Since I recognize recurring characters as well as the main characters, Mort Mills and his character Sergeant Landro should have been highlighted ages ago. On this, the day after his birthday, I shall finally do a proper tribute post. (Or as much of one as I can.)

I can’t seem to find much biographical information. He was born January 11^th, 1919. While he appeared in some movies, including as a patrolman in Psycho, he was seen much more frequently on television.

He turns up everywhere. Most weeks, I run across him at least once on one show or another. He’s been on The Untouchables, Bonanza, Mission: Impossible, Mannix, Ironside, and many more. As with many character actors, I see him play good and bad guys with equal frequency, and he does both very well.

He doesn’t always appear only in a guest-star capacity. He had a steady role in the 1950s series Man Without a Gun, as the marshal and friend of the titular newspaperman. It sounds like it was an interesting series, showing how said newspaperman managed to bring criminals to justice without violence—at least most of the time. Sometimes, the marshal was needed anyway.

Another role as a main character was in a series called Dante, about a guy named Dante who opens a nightclub called Dante’s Inferno. (I am amused.) He’s supposed to be reformed, but old gangsters keep calling on him and the police think he’s probably up to his old tricks. Again, Mort played the role of the police character. The series sounds a lot like the similar-premised Mr. Lucky, which I noted moments before reading the same notation in the article.

Then there’s series such as The Big Valley, where Mort appeared in a handful of episodes as the same character—in this case, a sheriff. In one venture, Earthquake!, he interacts with fellow Perry actor Wesley Lau. Wesley plays a rather cowardly creep who can’t seem to stop having affairs with other women. When the latest venture results in the poor girl getting pregnant, Wesley’s character tries to ensure that she stays trapped under the church in the damage from the earthquake, so that his secret won’t get out. To that end, he works in the posse organized by Mort’s sheriff.

Wesley is amazing and believable in the part, somehow managing to make the character feel real and human, and it’s delicious when the truth is learned and Mort’s sheriff really gives it to him, furious over the lengths to which he went to keep his infidelity known. In the end, Wesley’s character tries to commit to being a better person, and his wife, who is really amazing, decides to adopt the child after the poor mother dies in childbirth. It makes an interesting parallel with the Barkley family and Victoria Barkley’s welcoming of Heath, the illegitimate son of her husband, into their family.

Then, of course, there’s Perry. Mort appeared in one episode before taking on the role of Sergeant Landro; in season 3’s The Slandered Submarine, he plays Barry Scott. I remember seeing him there, but I don’t recall the character’s function in the episode. I don’t think, however, that Barry was mixed up in any of the crooked goings-on.

It’s the following season, in The Difficult Detour, when Sergeant Landro makes his first appearance. An officer of the county sheriff’s department, Landro is first seen wearing a uniform instead of the suit he wears in all future appearances. (The suit surprised me, really; I didn’t think there were plainclothesmen in the sheriff’s department.) He’s pretty much a standard policeman character, kind and concerned but businesslike and efficient.

Ensuing episodes continue this characterization but also show him coming to know and remember Perry and company. While he doesn’t appreciate law-bending antics any more than the other police characters, he is generally polite and congenial to Perry. Sometimes, in later episodes, he’s somewhat weary and exasperated and resigned to see Perry appear, but never to the extent that Tragg is.

Usually, episodes with Sergeant Landro will also feature Hamilton; Landro works for Los Angeles County, as does Hamilton. He is used when cities outside of L.A. but still part of the county come into the plot. One time, however, in The Brazen Bequest, Hamilton is not used. I can’t quite remember how Los Angeles County fits into the picture in that one, as I thought the college that’s the main setting was in another county altogether. If Los Angeles County had been used, Hamilton should have been used as well. And if Los Angeles County wasn’t used, I don’t understand why Landro was there.

I don’t know why they decided to have Sergeant Landro be a recurring character, but it’s always fun when that happens. I enjoy seeing a known character pop up repeatedly. It shows continuity, which older shows weren’t always so good about.

Sergeant Landro makes the majority of his appearances in seasons 5 and 6, with three in the former and two in the latter. Those appearances are book-ended by his first appearance in season 4 and one last appearance in season 8. I wonder why we don’t see him in season 7.

I suppose it’s not a surprise Mort wasn’t asked back for season 9, since in many ways that season seemed to be revamping the Perry formula, trying both to return to its book and season 1 roots as well as to march forward into more contemporary territory. Landro could have certainly fit in, but they were probably so occupied with ideas for the new-old format that they didn’t think of calling Mort back.

Mort acted on into the 1970s, where his final appearance was on The Streets of San Francisco. Then, unless a whole bunch of credits are missing, he seemed to have retired. He lived until June 6^th, 1993, when apparently a burning cigarette started a fire that killed him. What a heartbreaking and unnecessary death!

While perhaps a lot of television viewers don’t know him by name, I imagine most everyone knows him by sight. Mort Mills was certainly an important and memorable contributor to classic television, still widely seen wherever these wonderful shows are viewed.

As a side-note, apparently Mary Treen was his cousin? (Can anyone confirm this?) Wow, she also has a very impressive resumé! http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0871695/ She sounds like she was a nice lady, too.

The Blushing Pearls, The Avenging Ace, and Mort Mills

It’s been enjoyable to watch the early season 3 episodes on MeTV this past week. A lot of them I haven’t seen in quite a while.

I particularly delighted in The Blushing Pearls. I generally really like the episodes with Oriental twists, and Nobu McCarthy is one of my favorites of the Oriental actresses who were often seen on classic television. Her character is so cute and sweet, and I felt so bad for her, being manipulated by the other characters in the story.

I agree with Perry in thinking that the guy she’s dating, Grove, is a heel and worse. He seems so adamant in having faith in her until he sees the picture, and then suddenly his entire viewpoint changes and he unshakably believes she’s guilty. It reminds me of something Officer Eve Whitfield says on Ironside, when she can’t believe in the innocence of someone she’s been interested in. The guy ends up being proved innocent, and Eve says that if she had really loved him, she would have believed in him all along.

Now, I'm not saying that there are never cases where it's human to doubt even someone you care about, or even that sometimes doubt is justified, but in this case I think it's terrible for Grove to completely refuse to even consider that the poor girl might be innocent. (I'm not typing her name because I'm not quite sure what it is. I'm getting two different spellings from different websites, and I had personally thought her name was something else.)

The Perry episode works out good and satisfying in the end for both Nobu’s character and Grove. He (presumably) has the girl who has loved him all along and Nobu’s character has her uncle’s bookkeeper Toma, who has likewise loved her. Although Grove will also have to deal with the shame of his father being the murderer, oh gosh.

It also boasts the infamous scene where Perry starts a fire in the alley to convince the real thief of the genuine pearls to try to run out with them and get caught. I love the epilogue, where Hamilton sends him a citation for burning trash without a license. Paul, who was so sure that Perry would get in big trouble for his stunt, gets quite a kick out of it.

The Blushing Pearls has a very intriguing, eerie, and ominous music score, one that I don’t think is used very often on the series. It’s also featured in The Impatient Partner, where it perfectly suits the bizarre things happening to poor Amory Fallon. Since I watch that episode more, I’ve thought for some time that the music score was created for it. It was a bit of a surprise to hear it in this earlier episode. I’ll be paying close attention to see if it gets into any other episodes.

Another thing I managed to see a bit of this week was the Avenging Ace movie. I wasn’t available for the one last week, and my negative feelings on the first film made me most unenthusiastic about even trying to catch the one this week even though I was available, but from what I managed to see of it, I think I like it better than the first installment. I’ll have to see it in full and make an assessment then.

One of my other issues with Perry Mason Returns was how little time was actually spent in the courtroom. It looked like The Avenging Ace went to court a lot sooner and probably spent more time there. Also, it’s one of the films with David Ogden Stiers as the prosecutor, and I wish I had remembered beforehand that he might be in it, because I am very interested in seeing all the ones with him. Charles Winchester is one of my most favorite characters on M*A*S*H.

I feel a bit chagrined, as I try to make a practice of never judging a series by its pilot. A pilot, with a different feel and tone from the series proper, is usually never a good judge of what an entire series is like, particularly if it’s a pilot movie. The only pilot movie I have ever seen that’s really a good example of the series that follows is the one for Cannon. It’s glorious, just like an extended episode instead of something darker, more suggestive, and with different characterizations, as the ones for, say, Hawaii 5-O, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Kolchak: The Night Stalker are. (Okay, so at the time they made at least The Night Stalker movie a series wasn’t in the works, but still.)

Anyway, Perry Mason Returns can definitely be considered a pilot for the television movie series. And I judged the entire series on it. I should watch at least one other movie in the series before determining if it’s all like that.

I do know that in any case, just having Perry and Della around won’t feel like Perry Mason proper to me. But if the plots are executed better than in the first film, and they spend more time in court, I think I might be able to appreciate the series a bit more.

This weekend is the 56th anniversary of the premiere of our series. I’m trying to decide whether to make a post on the actual day or if I should wait till the next day, since the 21^st is on a Saturday. I also have a birthday post to make this week, which is certainly a happier prospect than a memorial post.

Speaking of both birthday and memorial posts, I was watching The Untouchables on Friday night and ran across Mort Mills. (He pops up everywhere.) I realized that I’ve never really highlighted him or his Perry character on the blog. And that is totally a terrible omission, as his Sergeant Landro character recurs for several seasons. I think we see him at least eight times.

Originally I didn’t like the character too much and that was why he didn’t appear in my stories or on the blog. Now, however, I’m not even sure why I didn’t like him. He’s a perfectly fine character and a good, upright policeman. And even if I didn’t like him, I shouldn’t allow personal feelings to keep me from highlighting a recurring character on the blog.

I should try to find a place for him in a story. I still may have a bit of trouble with that, however, as when he appears it means something is happening in Los Angeles County rather than the city, and the city police will most likely not be involved. I think I’d find it a bit hard to write a whole multi-chapter story without the city police! On the other hand, though, there are those episodes where Andy appears if some element of the crime involves his jurisdiction, so maybe I could get Sergeant Landro into a story that would have the city police, too.