According to the DVD notes on this episode, Richard Boone was a big fan of "The Maltese Falcon" and wanted to make a falcon-like mystery with this episode. Maybe so, but while it has a lot of colorful characters--a beautiful woman who says she's dying, a man with a scar, a young dreamer who's in search of a valuable winged lion (instead of the black bird) and a Casper Guttman-like power broker, the story is kind of a mess and comes off more like "Mask of Demitrios" rather than "Falcon" with the mysterious Celine (Denver Pyle) in the Demitrios role.
Speaking of which, Pyle does the most UN-Denver Pyle like performance I've ever seen him do. He does not talk or act like we've seen the familiar character actor do in the past. He's actually quite compelling in his little scene, but at this point we're no longer that interested in the story.
There is one "Falcon"-like scene where Boone and Pyle open a bag that's supposed to be full of money, but is nothing but dusty, crumbling paper. This foreshadows a scene in the John Wayne-Richard Boone western "Big Jake" twenty years later.
Speaking of which, Pyle does the most UN-Denver Pyle like performance I've ever seen him do. He does not talk or act like we've seen the familiar character actor do in the past. He's actually quite compelling in his little scene, but at this point we're no longer that interested in the story.
There is one "Falcon"-like scene where Boone and Pyle open a bag that's supposed to be full of money, but is nothing but dusty, crumbling paper. This foreshadows a scene in the John Wayne-Richard Boone western "Big Jake" twenty years later.
