- Kruger Schtelman an ex-SS officer serving time in a communist prison is kidnapped by the IMF and made to believe he is on board a submarine. The team must get Schtelman to reveal the location of funds stolen by the Nazis before the military police close in on the IMF operation.—EEM
- A fictional Nazi war criminal imprisoned in another Po-Dunk Eastern European iron curtain country is the target of the IMF in this episode (boy, they sure had lots of fictional iron-curtain Soviet satellites, and Latin-American "Scarabajo a la Tierra" (Scum of the earth) dictator-run-nations in the 1960's, didn't they?). SS officer Kruger Schtelman is three-days away from being released from his 25-year prison sentence. This is the fourth (I believe) M-I episode in as many seasons where the IMF has to stop some character from starting up a new Nazi movement to take over, or destroy the world for their own gains.
Schtelman has a Swiss bank account number buried in his mind containing millions of dollars in cash from WW-II that the Nazis plundered during their reign of terror. When Schtelman is released, he plans to use the money to fund a new Neo-Nazi and take over the world (or whatever they want to do in their new twisted plot).
Colonel Jaroslav Sardner is the current commandant of the prison that holds Schtelman in the final stages of his prison term, and he, and his predecessors have interrogated Schtelman daily for 25-years to get the information -- but to no avail. Schtelman still hasn't cracked -- Despite being interrogated daily for 25-years.
Using a precisely executed, timed, and choreographed series of truck accidents with spilled highway loads, the IMF team blocks the transport convoy moving Schtelman to and from interrogation and prison on one street they have to use daily, despite using alternate routes. They gas the prison transport car, knocking out the car's occupants with sleep-gas, place the guards in the truck and drive the car to the warehouse. Colonel Sardners soldiers drive right past one of the truck, with some help from Barney, and head out of the city limits to form a search grid. When they have gone, the truck is opened up and ramps put in place to fool the guards, once again, into thinking the car had been hidden in the truck and then driven away after the guards left.
The IMF kidnapped Schtelman right under the noses of the Colonel Sardner, and now have to trick him into revealing the name of the bank and account number before Sardner locates the location where the IMF is hiding Schtelman. Phelps, Barney, Willie, Paris, along with Tracie, and other members of the crew designed an elaborate submarine set as a ruse to convince Schtelman that the new SS set him free, and that Colonel Sardner never broke him while he was incarcerated.
The fake submarine/sound-stage is right under Colonel Sardner's while he tightens the search grid back towards the city. The ruse inside the submarine continues.
The finale is almost anticlimactic as the IMF escapes dressed as part of Colonel Sardner's soldiers, while Schtelman bails from the fake submarine in the 'Hollywood/warehouse' "submarine/sound-stage."
Comments:
Peter graves, Leonard Nimoy, and Peter Lupus excel in their performance as "icewater-in-their-veins" submarine crewman.
Stopping Nazi new movements is always good story fodder. Forty-years and two generations later -- I would be interested to see whether or not this show would garner high audience ratings. Being of the Star Trek generation, Leonard Nimoy attracted me to the show after Star Trek was canceled. If you read Leonard's book "I am not Spock," his transition from Star Trek to Mission Impossible had some curious contractional glitches. Mission Impossible was Star Trek's sister TV show, and it was shot on an adjoining sound stage in Paramount Studios.
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