The Wild Wild West (TV Series) The Night of the Bottomless Pit (1966) User Reviews

Call It Just a Whim

[DKosty123 · 7/10 · 11 November 2009]

This is pretty much an average episode. At the beginning of the show, Jim West deliberately subs for a French man going with a group of condemned men to Devils Island. Artie then comes to the island in disguise to try and save Jim who has been put into a large pit as punishment by the ruthless Island Commondant.

While this one is OK, it is pretty much straight forward fair & sticks pretty much to the formula used for each show. There is a big guy who is the right hand to the ruthless Island commander. He is always expected t take on the odds & has a couple of spars with West as well. The good thing is the bad guys are punished at the end of the episode.

A satisfying episode which uses several sets which show up in multiple episodes as the back lot only has so many places too shoot.

The devil of Devil's Island

[ShadeGrenade · 9/10 · 15 December 2013]

Jim takes the place of a French prisoner on the infamous Devil's Island because he wants to rescue an agent named 'Vincent Reed' ( Tom Drake ). The Kommandant is the sadistic 'Gustave Mauvais ) and when Jim stops a roller from crushing an elderly prisoner, he finds himself in a pit with other men, including the one he is searching for. The question now is - how to get him out? Perhaps Mauvais' sexy wife 'Camille' ( Joan Huntington ) might have the answer...

By 'Wild, Wild West' standards, this is fairly conventional stuff. I think on reflection it would have better suited the black and white Season 1. 'Papillon' it is certainly not. This was Marcuse's second time in the show, the last was as 'Dr.Vincent Kirby' in 'The Night Of The Sudden Plague'. No gadgets for Jim here. We never find out just how Reed wound up on Devil's Island nor why he is deemed important enough to stage a break-out. Arte's main contribution is to pose as a Foreign Legion officer on the island because of cowardice.

Jim getting 20 lashes and thrown in the Pit

[marsnook2007 · 10/10 · 15 June 2020]

When Jim is carried back after he gets the 20 lashes and they start to throw him in the Pit there doesn't seem to show any wilts from the lashes on his back.