MISSION IMPROBABLE: CINNAMON CARTER DOES DIETRICH

Bain as Cinnamon as Dietrich

MISSION IMPROBABLE: "CINNAMON CARTER" DOES DIETRICH.

In the season three episode of Mission: Impossible entitled "Illusion," Barbara Bain, playing model-turned-spy Cinnamon Carter, summons up the image of a woman who was murdered by imitating her act in a nightclub. Intentional or not, Bain does an absolutely hilarious take-off on Marlene Dietrich, flat, off-key singing in a German accent and all. Arguably, it's the best acting Bain ever did on the show. Rarely did Cinnamon (or Bain) ever show emotion, and when Cinnamon -- arrested and jailed during a mission in another episode ("The Exchange") -- seems to break down in her cell, it's hard to tell if Bain is actually acting or just pretending to act like Cinnamon does. Incredibly, Bain won an Outstanding Actress Emmy for all three seasons that she was on the show, while her much more talented husband, Martin Landau, while nominated each year, never won (he did, however, win a well-deserved Supporting Actor Oscar for Ed Wood.) You just never know ... To be fair to Bain, while a great actress she may never have been (My mother used to say, "she only has one expression!") she did add a certain something, a kind of oomph to Mission: Impossible, and both she and Landau were missed when they left the show, although Leonard Nimoy was a great replacement for Landau.

Verdict: They should have recorded Cinnamon's singing on an album and played it at parties for laughs!