Thanks to a kind friend (and you know who you are ; ) ) I now have over thirty Steve Ihnat episodes that I'd never seen before, ranging from his early stuff in Highway Patrol (in which he looks very very young...well, he was young!) to later, 1970s stuff.
And it's been a lot of fun to watch them over the course of a few days.
Steve does an excellent job in Mannix: "End Game" as Gus Keller. Branded as a stoolie in a Korean POW camp 14 years ago, the rest of his squad, led by Mannix, breaks out and leaves him behind. If that isn't bad enough, when he's liberated from Chang Jou, he's then sent to Leavenworth for life. However, he's released - apparently for good behavior - and goes gunning after the men who left him behind, until finally only Joe and Art Malcom (Joe's cop friend) are left. Gus kidnaps Art and hides him in an abandoned building which he's got booby-trapped full of explosives. Joe goes in to try to rescue Art....but Keller has had 14 years to plot out his revenge...
In Blue Light, Steve plays a German officer who has disowned the Nazis and wants to escape to the West. His German accent is spot on here. (I can't claim to be an expert on accents, but having lived in Germany for three months, I know a "real" German accent when I hear one.)
Indeed, it's always fun to listen to Steve and his accents, from generic southern to Alabaman to German to generic Eastern bloc foreigner (during his Mission Impossible stints)
Mannix is a great TV series, pick 'em up to Steve's episodes, and stick around to watch the rest of these great episodes.
(Steve in Huntdown) episode 7
(Steve in Endgame) episode 19
Steve doesn't appear again until Season 5 of Mannix (1972), which has yet to be released, however, go ahead and pick up Season 3, too:
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