On this date 85 years ago, a wonderful person named
Christopher Bay Carysfort was born into the world. Years later, as an actor, he
was known mainly as Christopher Cary, and he managed to entrance me many years
after that.
Naturally I wanted to do a special post for
Christopher’s birthday. The character I’m going to highlight might seem like a
strange choice, but he really deserves the honor, as it was because of him that
I sat up and took notice of his actor.
Twenty years before he played the grizzled Captain
Scofield on Riptide, Christopher was playing characters such as Shorty
on The Big Valley, an adorable fellow who will definitely get a
spotlight post at some point. Christopher also landed his first guest-spot on The
Wild Wild West, television’s clever combination of the Western and Spy
genres.
The Night of the Poisonous Posey
is one of the more humorous episodes of the series. Of course, most of them
were a bit lighthearted in some way or another, but Posey is in a
special class all its own. One of the few episodes that actually takes place
entirely over the course of one night, it’s a devilishly clever tale of Secret
Servicemen Jim West and Artemus Gordon in a bizarre and straitlaced town known
as Justice, Nevada—where a gang of criminals has taken up shop right under the
sheriff’s nose.
The episode struck a particular chord with me from
the very first time I saw it, because you see, I grew up on the very
educational and mischievous series Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?,
featuring a kooky cast of criminals led by the eponymous female character. When
I first saw The Night of the Poisonous Posey, the gang led by Lucrece
Posey seemed to me like a 19th Century version of Carmen Sandiego’s
crew.
Over the course of the episode, it eventually uses the
cliché of the entire gang being killed off man by man, until only Miss Posey is
left. I felt that the gang was much too amusing to be left dead. Among other
weirdos, we had a Turkish firebug, a Russian food lover, and a cowboy sadist.
Since another episode, The Night of the Big Blast, actually featured a
mad scientist who had figured out how to revive the dead, I decided I would
come up with a fan story where she revived the entire gang.
Christopher’s character, Snakes Tolliver, became
the antagonist in a couple of those stories. He betrays Miss Posey in the
episode and she kills him, so I decided that upon being revived, he would be
terrified of the gang coming after him and he would want to get rid of them
first. After his attempt at that epically failed, I decided he would have to
develop more in the next story, so that he wouldn’t just be going around in
circles.
He became so much fun to develop that I began to
like him, whereas I hadn’t before. Then I went back over the episode with new
eyes, fascinated by his screentime and the actor who had brought him to life. I
decided this was an actor I needed to look up more thoroughly. And thus,
Christopher Cary was added to my list of actors to chase down every role I
could find.
It’s interesting to note that I ran across him
several other times before I actually settled in to take note. After watching Poisonous
Posey several times and loving it, I watched Garrison’s Gorillas for
the first time, in search of Wesley Lau’s guest-spot. One look at the opening credits
and Christopher and I went, “Oh man, he played Snakes Tolliver!” I thought that
was very cool that Christopher had a starring role in the series, since I
greatly enjoyed his performance as Snakes even though as of then I didn’t
actually like Snakes.
I also remember seeing pieces of both of his
guest-spots on The Rockford Files, when MeTV aired it at 10 A.M. I
thought Ginger Townsend was very cute, but very nasty, and I thought Dutch
Ingram was very cute, but very colorful in his speech. At that time, I didn’t
associate the actor as being the same one who played Snakes, but it didn’t take
long for me to start recognizing him everywhere. By the time I watched both of
the Rockford episodes in full, Christopher had become one of my
favorites. I ended up developing an extreme soft spot for both of the Rockford
characters, especially Ginger, due to my sensing chemistry between him and
partner in crime Lou Trevino, played by Luke Andreas. I have a lot of fun
writing fan stories about their adventures and their friendship.
But back to The Wild Wild West, exactly what
is the sum of Snakes’ screentime in The Night of the Poisonous Posey?
We first see him in the funeral party with the
other gang members (sans Miss Posey), acting as pallbearers for a mysterious
coffin. Artemus recognizes him in the procession, as does Jim, but Snakes
doesn’t appear to know Jim later, so they most likely have only seen his
picture prior to this night.
The funeral is only a cover for their meeting, as
their headquarters is in the funeral home. During the mock wake, Snakes
demonstrates that he is the worst organ player ever, by randomly tapping out
several mournful notes over and over with one finger. He intersperses this with
smoking a cigar and sipping a glass of water. He is calm, cool, collected, and
very self-assured.
He also bears a prominent snake-shaped scar on his
left cheek. Its origin is never explained, but it explains his nickname. It
must have been a very painful injury to have caused such a lasting token of the
incident, especially since it’s a hypertrophic, or raised, scar.
When Jim crashes the wake and the gang gets
suspicious, Snakes is the one to discover the odd wreath Jim has laid on the
casket. “Hey, Pal,” he growls in a low, gravelly voice (devoid of Christopher’s
natural British accent), “is this your wreath?” When Jim confirms it, Snakes
stares at it and mockingly notes, “Paper flowers?” Jim makes a hilarious quip
about it being a superficial relationship.
The gang eventually decides to let Jim see inside the
coffin. It’s filled with ice and bottles of liquor. Snakes holds him at
gunpoint, showing in the process that he is left-handed—an interesting contrast
to Christopher’s usually right-handed characters.
Cyril the Firebug threatens Jim with being set on fire.
This prompts Jim to start a huge brawl right in the funeral home, pitching gang
members right and left. Snakes at one point ends up in the coffin and at
another point, crashes into Little Pinto, the sadist. Finally Sergei, the
Russian food lover, throws a knife at Jim that stops him in his tracks. Snakes,
bearing his gun again, exclaims, “Now hold it right there!” This time he has a
very pronounced Southern accent.
Everyone goes into what seems to be the morgue. A
secret panel opens up in the wall and a table comes out. Jim is noticeably
surprised by this, but the gang is not. Jim is also surprised to discover that
their leader is a woman—a very intelligent, nasty, and cold-blooded woman.
Although she is involved in a very male-dominated operation and prefers to wear
trousers instead of dresses, she still likes to be treated like a lady. Brutus
and Pinto both rise when she enters, with Brutus taking her cloak and Pinto
pulling out her chair (and giving Brutus a death glare as she sits down). I
wonder a bit if Pinto has a bit of a crush on her, but that is a musing for
another time.
Pinto and Snakes sit together at the table, which
is particularly delightful to me since Pinto is played by another of my
favorites, H.M. Wynant. Snakes is quiet as the gang is introduced to Jim;
Snakes’ introduction mentions that he is an explosives expert.
Posey then notices a strange gavel with a pink bow
on the table. When she questions the gang on its origin, Snakes seals his doom
by saying, “The chairman of the board should have a gavel; everyone knows
that.” While supposedly touched, Posey is also suspicious. She wants Snakes to
call the meeting to order with the gavel. He tries to weasel out of it,
stammering, “I’m not the chairman.” Posey gets Brutus to use the gavel, since
he would be protected from a disaster due to the metal glove he wears. He
brings it down and the explosion knocks over a candelabrum on the table.
Snakes, meanwhile, leaped up and tried to run away,
but froze at the explosion. Pinto, with clear hatred in his eyes, grabs Snakes
and wrenches his arms behind his back. Posey approaches him, and Snakes, still
stammering and trying to save himself, says, “You don’t think I had anything to
do with that, now, do you?” She sneers at him, commenting on his trembling and
calls him a boy. Suddenly she rakes a fingernail across his cheek. She keeps a
fast-acting poison under her nails, and although Snakes tries to get out his
gun and fire at her, he collapses before he can accomplish this. Posey tells
Pinto and Sergei to remove the body.
All in all, Snakes has less than ten minutes of
screentime, is quite a cowardly and nasty fellow, and exits the scene rather
ignobly. But Christopher showed his great talent with even this little-seen
character, developing things about his background such as his left-handedness
and his place of origin. True, Christopher had a struggle holding the Southern
accent he apparently wanted the character to have, but the changing voice added
to Snakes’ colorful nature.
There’s also most likely more to him than might
initially meet the eye. Posey’s gang is made up of the people she feels are the
most capable of being the six regional leaders handling crime across the world.
Even though Snakes seems weaselly and yellow, he must also be very dark,
intelligent, and a good leader, to command however many criminals are under his
charge.
He dresses like a riverboat gambler. That is very
likely what he is, and his criminal operations probably center around the
waterfront, perhaps on the Mississippi River. His accent, when Christopher can
hold it, is stereotypical South and I haven’t been able to put a state on it. I
decided on either Texas or Virginia, and when Denver Pyle played a Virginian on
Perry Mason with the same accent, I decided to make Snakes a Virginian
as well.
Snakes is very self-assured, but quickly falls
apart under pressure. He also can apparently say and do stupid things at the
wrong moment that put him in a great deal of hot water. But you have to respect
the nerve of the man, to keep on denying his involvement right up to the last.
Compared to most of the other gang members on
Posey’s board, Snakes is actually among the least strange and is perhaps also
one of the most realistic (i.e., not larger than life) and well-rounded, along
with Brutus. The others, as amusing and endearing and colorful as they are,
tend to stick with their calling cards for their personalities: fire, food,
spiders, torture. . . .
I wouldn’t expect anything less of Christopher
Cary, an amazingly talented man who could make any part, big or small, feel
very real. The Wild Wild West staff must have been impressed too,
because they asked him back for the series’ only two-parter, in season 4, The
Night of the Winged Terror, and he played the leading villain, Tycho.
That will be a discussion for another time.
Happy
Birthday to a delightful actor and charming human being, who is loved and
missed by loved ones and fans alike.
