LAND OF THE GIANTS-BRAINWASH (with Steve's log entry)

 BRAINWASH

PRODUCTION 15

AIRED-1-12-1969---14TH

WRITER-WILLIAM WELCH

DIR-HARRY HARRIS

 

TEASER

Day: Steve and Fitzhugh, carrying a wire plug, hide at a fire hydrant from a giant policeman numbered 778 (Chip Morton). They cross a street, leaving the wire and hide in an abandoned storm drain. 778 reports this to a Dr. Kraal (Mr. Farnum) who wants the humans caught unharmed. Steve finds an exit right into the forest but it is blocked by rocks. The two men find an electric conduit plugged into the city main. Following it, leads them to a switch. Fitzhugh warns him not to throw it. Steve says, "Isn't that what switches are for?"  When Steve throws it, they find themselves in a well lit computer complex--all Earth sized instrumentation.

 

ACT ONE  

Fitzhugh and Steve look around the complex and hear Shepard Space Center in Brookside, Kentucky trying to contact 275 Exploration Team. Captain Ashim of the secret police and Kraal hear Steve try to contact the center back. Three years ago one little man escaped from them. Others of his group died under Kraal's experimentation with new methods--rather than tell Kraal about where the complex was. It almost cost both of them their jobs. Steve leaves to bring Mark back--warning Fitz not to try anything with the radio until he gets back with Wilson. They can receive but not send. Steve suspects it may be an elaborate giant hoax--a trap. He uses thrown rocks to avoid giant policemen searching for the transmitter---which Fitzhugh makes easier for the giants by sending messages against Steve's order. In Spindrift, they hear him. Steve calls him an idiot. Mark scrambles the message Fitz sends. He asks Barry for a portable jammer which Barry gets, "Here, Mr. Wilson."  Mark then turns the walkie talkies into portable transmitter jammers which the girls and Barry spread out through the forest--so as not to lead the giants to the spaceship---which if not jammed, they would find. Ashim was almost fired when Kraal killed the former group of Earth people. Kraal refers to the any little person as "it"  and doesn't really see it a crime if one or two of them die. Fitz finds a decayed body in the complex behind a console--he followed a microphone wire to it. He runs out into the daylight into Steve and Mark who usher him back inside. Using the wire, Mark finds a recording the dead man made, telling them about a 2 minute destruct level and recognizes some of the equipment, components of which as having been built in one of his own plants. 275 was caught in the same space warp Spindrift was. Fitzhugh and Steve dig through the dirt exit into the forest. Steve tells the others, Valerie telling him that at first the sound of the squealing was making her climb the trees but now she is starting to like it--it may mean a rescue party will be able to find them and get off this world. Steve alerts the others, finding Dan with a hurt shoulder which he hurt while running away from a security officer. One comes at them as they talk, taking them unaware! Suddenly, the spot him, towering over. 

 

ACT TWO

Steve diverts the giant for Dan to get away but is caught himself. Dan alerts a worried, caring Val, who asks too many questions for his liking. Steve tells Ashim he knows Ashim could crush him if he doesn't answer his questions--which he won't. Ashim then acts nicer, wanting only the transmitter. "I'm not telling you that,"  Steve insists. Dan gets Mark to go to Steve while Fitzhugh plays nursemaid to Dan's dislocated shoulder as an excuse to remain behind. Kraal tests his foam invention on a tough convict who tells them everything truthfully without straps on his chair to hold him in. He was planning to kill the guard with a hidden tool he made and escape. Kraal sprays some on Steve who falls against the books on Ashim's desk. The convict falls off the chair...and dies from the foam.

 

ACT THREE

Ashim leaves to wash some of the foam off his hands while Kraal supervises the removal of the dead convict. Mark, without any help from a brainwashed Steve, climbs up to him and tells him to tell Ashim the other members of his group are in the basement ready to blow up the security building. Ashim leaves again to check on this and Mark gets Steve down, talking to him harshly and warning him not to give him any trouble. Steve remains passive and does whatever Mark says. Mark makes him wipe the foam off himself. Ashim returns and finds the pin and rope. Steve comes back to normal and the pair of men escape the building to a the drain area. Kraal tells Ashim if the foam is wiped off after a few minutes of being sprayed--it is harmless. Steve thanks Mark, touching his shoulder. Fitzhugh takes Dan's place in the woods at the radio jamming but Kraal sprays him with the foam, Ashim at Kraal's side. Fitzhugh begins to show the giants where the complex is.

 

ACT FOUR                

Steve tells Val to get Betty and Barry and go back to the ship and to forget the jamming. She obeys, "You're the boss."  Steve gets back to the complex, just as Mark makes contact with the Space Center but needs 5 minutes more. Steve tells them they haven't the time, "The giants used the foam on Fitzhugh."  He moves for the destruct lever and has an all out fight with Mark. Steve even throws Dan to the floor when Dan interferes, siding with Mark. Machines blow up and spark during their fight. Steve hits the switch just as Kraal finds the place and begins filling the complex with foam. Ashim has had his men block off all the other exits as to Fitzhugh's instructions. Kraal and Ashim order Fitzhugh to wipe the foam off himself. Steve, Mark, and Dan find both ways out blocked. Foam fills the corridors. Steve tells the two men, "Back to the complex and don't let that foam touch you--it's a killer!"  Massive amounts of the stuff flood them in; Dan and Mark telling Steve, "There's no way out."   Steve looks, "Then we'll make a way out! Start digging."  They grab shovels to dig a way out the roof on a small hill. Above Ashim muses to Kraal, "In a year or so we may even find a way to reach the planet of these little people. They may be small but they must be rich beyond our dreams."  Ashim's foot caves into the weak area of the ground...the three men see it lower at them. Steve yells, "Grab on! Quick!"  The trio ride up on his foot as Kraal helps Ashim pull it out and up. Just then the entire complex blows up.

 

TAG

The blasts kill Ashim and Kraal but the four Earth men survive. Helping Fitzhugh, Steve says, "You see, sometimes it pays to be small." 

 

 

 

 LAND OF THE GIANTS-LOG ENTRY--BRAINWASH--JAN. 12, 1984--

CAPT. STEVE BURTON REPORTING

     The equipment of Shepard Space Center in Brookside Kentucky was found by Fitzhugh and I, being chased, as usual by a giant policeman of Security HQ. The Earth size instrumentation, a computer complex was put in here some three years ago by the members of a missing space exploration team from the space center--designation code of the team was 275 Exploration. Their team was caught in the same space-time warp we were caught in. They had a transmitter installed in this complex which was in a slightly underground cave (the ends of which could be reached from both the forest on one side and the giant city on the other through a drain pipe sewer). The transmitter could reach Earth and did when Fitzhugh and I tried it. But they couldn't hear us. Well, had I allowed Mark five more minutes--five which we didn't have--he would have been able to make contact. We couldn't wait since the giants--Security Captain Ashim and Doctor Kraal were just outside the complex.

     I never should have left Fitzhugh alone. First, he continues to call Earth on the radio despite my warning not to. Good old Mark allowed for this by scrambling the message, ordering the others to turn on their walkie talkies after he converted them to portable jammers---which would protect the Spindrift from being found as the scrambling was coming from it. Betty was keen to note that part and Mark was already working on a solution. I really do have quite a team, Fitzhugh aside this time.

     Mark and I returned to Fitzhugh, who found a decayed body of one of the astronauts--the last survivor of the top secret flight, a mike still in his hand---which lead to our finding a recording he had made-telling us about the two minute self destruct switch. The giants want the complex to learn about Earth technology some more which will eventually be able to get them to fly to our home planet of Earth. While Mark worked on the system, parts of which were made in his own plants back on Earth, the others scattered the jammers, having to patiently listen to the squealing things---good souls all--since Val admitted to the squealing having her climbing the trees at first. But with the hope of it being our rescue enabler--she began to like it. Betty also looked a bit bored what with hanging around the forest with nothing to do but stand by a squealing radio but Barry kept her spirits up telling her they could stand it.

     Checking on Dan, I was caught getting him away from a giant security patrolman--Dan's shoulder had been hurt before this with a brush with another giant---the Security men were all over the park. Captured I was repulsed when Dr. Kraal used a brainwashing spray on a giant convict--a tough killer. After being sprayed, the convict tells the giants the truth about his crimes and his plan to escape prison, killing the guards with a weapon he had fashioned. Just after, the convict collapsed and died from the foam. I had already been sprayed!

     Captain Ashim didn't seem the evil type. He just wanted the transmitter badly. He also fought with Kraal over the doctor's experimental foam but gave into using it. Three years ago the evil doctor used it on the group of 275, killing just about all of them. One escaped--the one Fitzhugh found dead in the cave. How did he die, I wonder. With all the deaths of the little people, Ashim looked like a fool to his superiors----not so much that he killed Earthlings but that he still was no closer to finding the complex. Ashim lost his temper at one point, yelling he could crush me like a bug in less than a second but then he acted as if he was sorry he lost his temper. All he wanted was the transmitter. His better judgement lost out to accepting Kraal's influence and foam spray--with Kraal telling him it doesn't matter if one or two of the little people die from this---no one else would know. Listening to Kraal would cost Ashim his life---literally making him put his foot in it.

     When Ashim left to wipe the foam off of himself, Mark who had already single handedly snuck into Security HQ, now got me out. It was an amazing rescue as Fitzhugh attested to. Mark talked harshly to me and roughly pushed me around, I think actually enjoying giving me orders and mad at not just that I gave away the transmitter area to the giants---I had no choice I was drugged with the truth serum foam---but I suspect Mark's resentment of me had built up for some time about so many things---me being leader for one. However, I owe Mark my life and my freedom and am properly grateful.         

     I suppose Mark and Dan might have thought I was still under the influence of the drug-docile creating serum foam when I set the switch on the complex for self destruct. The giants used the foam on Fitzhugh whom they found in the forest and zeroed in on the complex. Dan and Mark fought me hard---and it was with great displeasure I had to knock an already hurting Dan down. I couldn't let the installation fall into the giants' hands. The giants filled the caverns with the foam after they blocked us in. The foam chasing us through the caves, began to fill the main room. Desperate, I ordered the other two to start digging a way out, climbing up a small dirt hill to the roof! A rash and futile act but we had to do something---and that was nothing compared to the hasty action of jumping on Ashim's shoe. Yes, you read that right---his shoe---the luckless giant put his foot right into the complex, we jumped on and rode out just as the complex exploded, killing both Kraal (no loss there) and Ashim. Being small, we were unaffected by the blast. See, sometimes it pays to be small. 

     We wiped Fitzhugh off and I was clean since Ashim and later Mark had ordered me to wipe the foam off myself.