Mission: Impossible (TV Series) A Cube of Sugar (1967) User Reviews

Crazy and Psychedelic, Jazz & Drugs!

[ftao-861-738382 · 8/10 · 12 July 2017]

"A Cube of Sugar" is definitely one of the weirdest episodes from the first season. The team's mission is to recover a microchip taken by an agent who happens to be a jazz musician! He's been captured and pumped full of drugs in an Eastern European prison, locked in a padded cell and bound in a straight jacket. The team also must rescue the agent before he's killed in a crematorium because he's memorized the "code" to the microchip.

This episode was influenced by the drug culture in the 1960's, especially in the music scene. The late great Don Ellis contributed an appropriate sounding jazz soundtrack. Don Ellis, who was an experimental jazz trumpeter, later composed the score for The French Connection (another drug story), but died shortly after, so he is not well remembered today. He was kind of a thinking man's Miles Davis.

Some other highlights from this episode: Crazy psychedelic dance girls in a nightclub. Rollin uses the Mother of All Multi-tools while in prison - you'll have to see all the unbelievable things it does! Barney and Willy expend an enormous amount of effort to cut and dig their way into the crematorium - they use a real power saw, you can see the light bulb dimming when they turn it on! A surprising early use of the microchip in a plot, since they were still relatively obscure in 1967. The microchip is hidden in drug laced sugar cubes, hence the title (not a spoiler since they reveal this up front).

I suppose I'm biased in this review since I play the trumpet and made a living designing with microchips (aka integrated circuits or computer chips), but even if you're not like me, you may still appreciate this episode. One reviewer complained that it's similar to another episode, but the details make it memorable for me.

Nice enough confection leaves a sweet aftertaste, despite its many sour notes

[blerpnor · 8/10 · 27 September 2023]

The plot is highly clever, and the direction, while not up to the usual M:I first season standards, rolls right along. (Note the oddly-edited moment in which the bad guy is choke-held by Rollin. Even slowed down, it seems highly disjointed.) The swiftness of the direction atones for the general lack of slickness (awkward angles, weirdly timed dialogue exchanges, especially in the apartment scene, almost to comical effect), and Francis Lederer is one of the scariest monsters to pop up in the series--I think it's the sadistic glee with which he carries out his cruel duties. To describe him as a man with no trace of a conscience is to do his character a kindness. But the improbabilities are too noticeably improbable, which is to say that our usual suspension of disbelief isn't enough. How does a latex mask afford someone (guess who?) the ability to take on the stature.and body type of another? And how many items can be crammed into a small container? Sorry to note that the nightclub music almost got on my last nerve--I have nothing against experimental sounds, but when they sound like the death rattle of some huge animal... I think that Lederer's brilliant performance, plus the surefire suspense of the rescue operation, make this one so memorable. Sloppily done but compelling.

Good but very, very poorly timed.

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 7 February 2014]

"A Cube of Sugar" is a good episode of "Mission: Impossible" but it also has to be among the most poorly timed. Only one episode earlier, there was a mission that was incredibly similar--too similar. It's really odd that they didn't play these are very different dates. Both have guys held hostage in a mental hospital and they are given mind-altering drugs in order to break the prisoners! The big difference is that in "Shock" it's the IM Force doing the drugs (along with shock treatment) but in "A Cube of Sugar" it's an enemy government that is trying to break someone.

A US agent, posing as a jazz musician, has been caught and is being held in a psychiatric-like facility and is being tormented to get him to talk. What the enemy doesn't know is that one of the sugar cubes they've found on him is NOT laced with LSD but contains an important microcircuit! So the plan is to get Rollin into the same facility and then have this magician slip out of his straight jacket and inject the prisoner with a drug that makes him appear dead--so his 'grieving widow' (Cinnamon) can claim the body and help him to escape.

As I said above, it's a good episode. Just DON'T watch it right after seeing "Shock" or it will most likely tick you off or bore you because "A Cube of Sugar" is essentially a reworking of the same story--and one that isn't as good as well.

A WILD, WILD MISSION FOR THE TEAM.

[tcchelsey · 10/10 · 22 October 2023]

Recommended 10 stars. Much credit goes to veteran director Joseph Pevney for handling this outstanding episode, one all of us kids loved growing up watching. As I have written earlier, the first season of M. I. truly laid the groundwork for what was to come, and what ingenious fun it all was. Pevney, to his credit, stands as one of the long time directors of STAR TREK and also a very good film director. He was married to child actress Mitzi Green.

Hang tight for some thrills. As the last reviewer noted, and I totally agree, this episode gets into the 60s drug culture, but very cleverly. It's all about a rare microchip that's hidden in a stash of sugarcubes --laced with LSD? This is over the top stuff. Francis Lederer portrays Senko, perhaps one of the most creepiest of villains to appear on the series. This guy is sadistic, and the one the team has to bring down ASAP.

Lederer began his long career in Germany before coming to Hollywood in the 30s. He specialized in a variety of roles, but came off best as villains.

Memorable as Count Dracula in the RETURN OF DRACULA (1957), and you can see a bit of that evil character in this episode. Watch that film if you have a chance as he comes off as a modern-day Bela Lugosi.

This classic episode has some of the best MISSION IMPOSSIBLE tricks of the trade. Rollin sits in a strait jacket in a padded cell, of course at the mercy and glee of Senko, but ingeniously escapes (and returns) to switch drug injections in the next room! He is armed with one of those miraculous M. I. tools that can widen the jail cell bars. Watch this fabulous scene, also for the way he gets out and back in the jacket. Excellent direction on the part of Joe Pevney.

Greg Morris and Peter Lupus are also working, cutting through a brick wall, which is always fun to watch, but --yes -- you can see the real fake bricks!

Similar stuff I spotted at times on MANNIX, also shot at Paramount. Top honors going to the scene where another one of those incredible rubber masks is applied and Senko (now unconscious) is in deep trouble, without giving too much away.

Those miticulously made fake masks were always a highlight, and the detailed application of the fakeup makeup. What a trip, especially for all of us amateur artists.

All in all, a gem of an episode, especially acting, and a very original script. You'll also notice Briggs (Steven Hill) has another smaller part (he's supposedly in disguise), again due to religious beliefs that would not allow him to work after sunset. I think by this stage in the series, his days were numbered, and it's a shame because Hill was an excellent actor and missed when replaced by Peter Graves.

Francis Lederer, interestingly, around this time began teaching acting (could you imagine being in one of his classes), and made real estate history as he originally owned large chunks of land in the San Fernando Valley, including what is now Canoga Park, California, later sold to make way for homes, apartments and office buildings.

SEASON 1 EPISODE 26 remastered dvd box set Paramount.