Route 66 I'm Here to Kill a King (1960–1964) Online

I lived in Niagara Falls when this episode was filmed and my mother and I went downtown to watch some of the scenes being made. Heck, we might even be IN the crowd scene on Main Street. We saw Marty Milner come out of his trailer/dressing room on a side street and he threw this starstruck 15-year old a big smile. (Swooooon...!)

Of course the episode never aired because of the Kennedy assassination later that year. I finally bought the boxed set of the whole series and I'm looking forward to going through all of them, but I skipped ahead and watched this one today.

There are a couple of ironies, besides the "lone gunman" referred to by another reviewer. The king mentions having visited Dallas on his tour. Also, the motorcade really caused flashbacks of the Zapruder footage, except that the Kennedys were in Lincolns (an irony in itself) and the king's entourage were in Cadillacs.

One of the best things about watching this series now is just the backgrounds of the USA in the early 60s. Not to mention that Tina Louise's hair was THE quintessential 1963 hairstyle (I have my high school yearbook from that year to prove it).

"I'm Here to Kill A King" is a total departure for Route 66 as the story hangs on an evil Tod look-a-like. With film techniques advancing in the sixties it became much less difficult for an actor to be in a scene with himself as if an identical twin. Think Elvis in Kissin' Cousins and Serena in Bewitched. This episode predates those and I would imagine this amazing "trickery" would grab the viewer, but so many years later it is practically boring as the story isn't particularly exciting taken on it's own.

Tod and Linc are working at Niagra Falls. As so happens a confluence of events is unfolding at the same time with the visit of a Middle Eastern King. Those simultaneously occurring events include the king's murderous military commander whose slick worldly assassin accomplice form a conspiracy to kill the king. It bears mentioning the slick assassin is a dead ringer for Tod! The assassination is to take place when the king makes a public appearance. There is the implication that the look-a-like assassin must be made a sacrificial lamb by swift action after the king's death.

As previously implied this isn't the best Route 66 episode. It reaches far to attempt turning the series into a thriller and on it's own merits only modestly succeeds. That said, taken in context of post November 22nd, 1963 history this is one of the most unsettling examples of art not just imitating life, but predicting it. The comparisons to the assassination of John F. Kennedy are impossible to ignore. First, the show was to air the very night that Kennedy was killed in Dallas (cancelled at the time of course). If that wasn't enough in itself some of the other elements are downright scary. There's the story line that is based on a conspiracy masquerading as a lone assassin - with every passing year since 1964 The Warren Report has lost credibility to where it is finally seen as the government "whitewash" it most certainly was. Take the lone patsy to be eliminated immediately after the king's murder...Well, before this episode finally aired Lee Harvey Oswald had already been eliminated. Maybe weirdest of all is the assassin taking his kill-shot from a grassy overlook...Why of all scenarios was this the one the writers chose? Folks you just can't get away from the eye-popping allegorical elements of this episode, filmed well in advance, to the actual events of November 22nd. Even the victim being a "king" and Kennedy's era being tagged "Camelot" becomes eerily prescient.

In the end "I'm Here To Kill A King" becomes one of the series absolute must-see episodes. Though we know all of the tragic similarities to one of the nation's darkest hours are purely by chance, the sum total of all things considered demand your attention. Taken in this larger context an episode which by latter day standards (take out the novelty of Tod playing two roles) would perhaps rate a 6 at best now is practically a 8 or better. This bears reinforcing: one of a handful of must-see Route 66 episodes!

This episode did not air during the series original run due to its similarity to the then recent Kennedy assassination and was eventually broadcast 4 months later. It involves a killer with an almost identical resemblance to Todd who is hired to assassinate a visiting Arabian King while he tours Niagra Falls.

One of the best aspects of this series was the fact that, by and large, the characters and story lines dealt with very real and universal issues yet this episode seems to throw all that out the window. The problem is the fact the killer looks EXACTLY like Todd with absolutely no distinguishable differences. Some other series have dealt with someone looking similar to one of the series cast, but they usually have SOMETHING that is slightly different about them whether it is a different hairstyle, mustache, glasses, or accent. This guy even sounds exactly like Todd as Linc talks to him on the phone and doesn't in the least sense that anything is wrong. This is just not realistic at all. Yes people can sometimes resemble someone else, but there are usually always some differences even small ones, there HAS to be. The episode is simply using this scenario to create a broad metaphor about what separates us and turns some to the dark side, but even this doesn't get tackled as deeply as it should. Overall this episode works too much off of one gimmick and never goes any further. It also resembles the film THE PARALLAX VIEW, which as a story is much better.

For what it is worth Milner seems to do a pretty good job in the bad guy role and this may be his best performance of the entire series. It is also fun to see Louise in a small role as well as Loggia dressed up to look like he is of Arabian descent and speaking in an accent.

The story about this episode is far more amazing than the episode itself, which is amazingly bad. It was originally scheduled to be shown on the day President Kennedy was shot, (some sources say it was scheduled for 11/29 but most sources show "A Cage in Search of a Bird" was shown on that day). Many sources say this episode was shown on March 20, 1964, a week after the intended finale, the two part "Where There's A Will There's a Way", which would really be ending with a whimper rather than a bang, since neither episode is very good. Other sources say that "I'm Here to Kill a King" was never shown on the network and was not seen until the show was syndicated years later. It might have been better not to show it at all.

The problem with it, aside from its poor quality is that it's about an assassination attempt. That makes its intended broadcast day ironic in the extreme. It's also that staple of 60's TV series that were running out of good story ideas, a "Double Trouble" episode. The lead actors in a series get tired of playing the same character all the time and the writers come up dry so they inevitably come up with an episode in which there is a perfect double for the lead character- a look-alike and sound alike so close to the original that even his family and friends can be fooled. The one difference is that the double is opposite in character to the hero. The hero gets blamed for his misdeeds while the hero's friends can't understand why their friend has changed so much. There's the inevitable split-screen confrontation between the yin and the yang and a violent confrontation at the end, with the hero wondering what it would be like to be the opposite of what he is. The lead actor gets to show his acting chops and the audience gets to wonder if there is such a thing as person who looks and sounds so close to yourself that he could so easily impersonate you. The story is so based on this corny idea that it usually has little substance or credibility of its own, as is the case here.

Another problem with the story in this episode is that it's not organic. It's a series about two guys who motor around the country, get various jobs and meet people on the job and in the community in which they are temporarily living. The stories tend to rise from those people and that community. They are of the place where the story transpires and reveal something about the location. This episode has an excellent location: Niagara Falls, but it has nothing to do with that location except as a backdrop and the people of the area are extras in the story.

Instead, it's a story of a visiting Arab potentate whose chief aide, (Robert Loggia) wants him assassinated. He hires a guy who happens to look exactly like Tod Stiles, who is in town with his pal Linc looking for a birthday present for Linc's mother. There Linc encounters the assassin, who happens to be in the same store and he talks to the man as if he was Tod. This clues the bad guy in that he has a look-alike and he figures that's convenient. He finds Tod and kidnaps him, which sets up the split screen sequences. Todd and his "evil twin" have some conversations about their contrasting outlooks on life. Martin Milner is suitably oily and arrogant to make a convincing bad guy. As Tod he mostly looks on with a shocked expression, especially when the assassin coolly shoots an agent pursuing him. . The bad guy doesn't kill Tod, which would seem the logical thing to do. Instead he handcuffs him to a metal bar in a boat and then goes out to kidnap Linc, who conveniently has a job repairing those binocular viewers at the lookout points around the falls, which gives the assassin a perfect opportunity to impersonate Tod and get a shot at the Arab King as he views the falls.

The DVD places this episode in its original intended slot so I'm reviewing it in that order. But what a dumb show it would have been for this great series to go out on!

"To Kill A King" is an episode that I have great interest in. When I visited Niagara Falls in 1992-93, some of the areas hadn't changed since the episode's 1963 filming. The plot is interesting, and Robert Loggia (who is Italian-American) is convincing as an Arab king.

One special thing that sticks out in my mind about this outing is how a Muslim (and a king) is portrayed with sympathy, not as some cartoon bad guy. Martin Milner stretched himself here, playing a dual role.

On the surface, the thriller aspect is so-so. But add in the great performances and how it mirrored (and forecast) the John F. Kennedy assassination, and it is one amazing episode!

Amazingly and tragically the Route 66 episode entitled: I'm here to kill a king was about a Todd Stiles (Martin Milner's character) lookalike who is a paid assassin. Also in the episode are Robert Loggia and Tina Louise. The lookalike is paid to kill a visiting Mideastern political dignitary while the foreign politician is taking a stroll through a park. The murder uses a high powered rifle high atop a grassy knoll like area. The blame is then tried to be put on Stiles after he is spotted by the actual assassin in a local store.

Ironically, the episodes original air date was suppose to be November 22,1963, the same day JFK was shot to death. Obviously, the episode did not air on the 22nd. Most if not all television networks were covering Kennedy's death.

The episode did finally air in 1964 after the season & series finally of Route 66. This is one of the greatest examples of life imitating art.

I remember watching this series faithfully as a kid and how much more dramatic and real it seemed than a lot of the fairy tale TV back then. I am confident that it would hold up on TV today were it ever replayed To me it sort of leads to Easy Rider. It seemed like a manifestation of Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run. The acting was wonderful and I can still see the two main characters Tod and Buzz, not to mention that car. I can even remember the theme music which I have not heard for over 40 years. What a shame that Maharis left the series. That killed it. It was filmed largely on location, a novelty for those days. It showcased the corvette before it became an American classic. I wonder to if buddy films were inspired by this great show. The main writer was Sterling Silliphant who won the Oscar for In the Heat of the Night and he knew how to write drama. I wish it could be rented. One of my great regrets is never seeing how it ended. I only wish IMDb has a full episode guide. If anyone knows how to find out how it all ended, please let me know.