Route 66/Black November

Black November
Season 1, Episode 1
Airdate	October 7, 1960
Written by	Stirling Silliphant
Directed by	Philip Leacock
Produced by	Herbert B. Leonard
— N/A	1x02 → A Lance of Straw
Route 66 — Season One

Black November is the first episode of the first season of Route 66.

Starring: Martin Milner (Tod Stiles), George Maharis (Buz Murdock)

Guest Stars: Everett Sloane (Caleb Garth)

and Patty McCormack (Jenny Slade)

Featuring: Keir Dullea (Paul), Whit Bissell (Slade), Malcolm Atterbury (Bolton)

with Guy Raymond (Skipper), George Kennedy (Thad), Robert Sorrells (Dickson), House Jameson (Clergyman)

Plot Overview

When Tod Stiles' bankrupt father died, he left the young man an inheritance consisting of little more than a brand new convertible Corvette. Now Tod and his close friend orphan Buz Murdock, a reformed gang member, have left New York in the automobile to seek their fortune across the country. Their first intended stop is Biloxi, Mississippi, where the two hope to obtain work on a shrimp fishing barge owned by a friend of Tod's.

Attempting to take a shortcut through the backwoods of the state, the two are passing close by a town known on the map as “Garth” when a rickety bridge over a shallow ditch gives way as they are driving over it, causing the axle of the car to break. Tod and Buz seek aid from a passing river ferry, but are met with open hostility by local sawmill owner Thad Skinner, who refuses them help and warns them to leave town. Skinner cites “Mr. Garth”, the town's namesake and leading citizen, and his dislike of strangers. Only when Buz bests Skinner in a fistfight do the two earn passage across the river into town.

Arriving in Garth, Tod and Buz discover a town full of people who display open hostility and fear towards them. The mechanic at the garage refuses to help them with their car. Only Jenny Slade, the daughter of the local general store, is friendly. The boys find further trouble when Dickson, the locally appointed sheriff, attempts to arrest them and Buz throws him through a window.

Finally, the pair determines to approach Mr. Garth himself. Garth receives the two strangers with no less hostility than any of the other citizens but grudgingly agrees to allow them to stay in the local garage until the mechanic can fix their car.

Despite Garth's warning not to stray from the garage, Tod goes for a night walk with Jenny while their car is being repaired. During his conversation with her, he learns of the town's almost complete isolation from the outside world, and the unease which seems to settle over the town's citizens around the coming of November. Then suddenly Tod is set upon by a gang of youths. Jenny goes for Buz's aid and he manages to rout the youths after pursuing them to the site of an abandoned prisoner-of-war camp used during World War II. Soon after they find Tod, only slightly the worse for wear from his rough treatment. Tod relates how after his ordeal he witnessed Garth's cowed son Paul place flowers on two unmarked graves under the gigantic wolf-tree growing on the bank of the river.

Dickson, however, has spied on the group and reports back to Garth. The two of them quickly decide that the two boys are close to uncovering some local secret and cannot be allowed to live. Garth then proceeds to bully Slade into using Jenny as a pretext to lynch the two on the pretense that they assaulted her.

Tod and Buz are quickly captured, taken to the banks of the river, and nooses are slung around their necks. Things look bad for the duo until Paul suddenly appears on the scene and refuses to let the proceedings continue. Paul then relates the story of what happened to the community. Fifteen years previously, Garth's other son Johnny was killed in the war. In revenge, Garth sought to stage the execution of one of the German POWs at the internment camp. The local minister tried to intercede and prevent the murder, and was accidentally killed himself along with the German youth.

The courage of Paul causes Slade and some of the other locals to come out in support of him, and the lynching of Tod and Buz is halted. Paul, handling an axe for the first time since that day, proceeds to cut down the wolf tree, which has heretofore served as a symbol of the town's guilt and enslavement to the past.

The next morning, Tod and Buz prepare to resume their interrupted journey in their newly repaired car, just in time to see Paul finally fell the tree. New and better times appear to be dawning for the community of Garth. Our two heroes say their farewells to the town and drive away, Tod with wistful memories of the lovely young Jenny.

Notes

• Stirling Silliphant essentially cribbed the plot for the series pilot from "Bad Day at Black Rock", a popular 1955 film starring Spencer Tracy. "Bad Day" also featured future Route 66 guest stars Lee Marvin and Anne Francis.

• Although the episode was set in the fictional town of "Garth" which was said to be in the state of Mississippi, the show was actually shot in the town of Concord, Kentucky.

Trivia

The Show

• In the DVD release of this episode by Infinity Entertainment Group, the 1955-60 version of the Screen Gems "Torch Lady" closing logo (with the byline "A Screen Gems Film Presentation, Television Subsidiary Columbia Pictures Corporation") is retained at the end of the episode, followed by the logo for Colex Enterprises (the show's distributor in the late-1980s)