Let's start this week at Comfort TV, where David takes three classics and three wasted tripsinto Season 3 of The Twilight Zone. No arguments from me on either list, especially when it comes to Rod Serling's disastrous track record on comedies. But, then, we can't all be geniuses in multiple genres, can we?
Let's now keep that TZ vibe going, as Jordan at The Twilight Zone Vortex asks what kind of stories would have made great episodes for an imagined sixth season of the series. This really is a great question, given the disappointment many fans have with the final season. Some of these suggestions are quite intriguing, and all of them would make great episodes of a future anthology series, if anyone out there is reading this.
Looking at the latest entry at Cult TV Blog gives me a chance to once again thank John for his terrific piece that ran on Wednesday (read it here if you haven't already), and his series on similarities between The Prisoner and Soviet Russia continues this week with "The Schizoid Man" and "The General," and you should check it out.
Staying across the pond, at Classic Film & TV Cafe Rick gives us seven things to know about The Avengers,another of my favorite imports. If you consider yourself a fan of the series, here's your chance to prove it: how many of these seven things did you know?
More from British TV: Prunella Scales, one of the stars of the all-time classic comedy Fawlty Towers, tied last week, age 93. Her career covers far more than that one program, of course, and Terence has the highlights in this tribute at A Shroud of Thoughts.
This must be my lucky week: Cult TV Lounge focuses on yet another favorite of mine, Naked City, which makes the list not only as one of the best police dramas on televisison, but one of the best drama series, period. What sets it apart? This look at season two (the first in its hour-long format) gives you a good idea.
Remember Mike the skunk? He's the newest member of the A-Team, and at The View from the Junkyard, Roger looks at his debut in the episode "The Battle of Bel Air." Actually, that's not quite right: this episode also introduces Tawnia, the replacemenbt for Amy.
Finally, the classic TV director Ralph Senensky died this week, age 102. His credits are too numerous to mention, and one of the few things that can compare to his resume is his ability to write about his experiences, which you can read about at his webite. TV
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This week, I'm pleased to present to you John Berry, who we all know from Cult TV Blog. When John answered the call for guest essays and offered to give me a hand with the Wednesday pieces, I asked him if he'd be interested in writing about British police and detective series. I've always enjoyed British police and private detective (or "inquiry agent," if you prefer) series through the 1970s—the time period that we're both interested in. They have a combination of darkness, grit, and depth that make them quite fascinating to watch. He gladly accepted the challenge, and so, as an American might say, Here's John!
by John Berry
MMitchell asked me to do a guest post on the history of British crime/detective/police TV shows, however, I'm afraid what I've done for him is far from being a systematic history. It is important to remember that thanks to the policy (of both the BBC and commercial TV stations) of wiping and reusing tapes, a huge proportion of British television before 1978 has disappeared forever. This means that the remaining TV shows are not always representative of what was actually made and broadcast, representing only what was arbitrarily selected to be archived. I've therefore decided to focus on shows that people can actually still watch and that I would recommend.
From the 1950s to the end of the 1970s TV police shows performed the function of reflecting the nature of UK policing and the public's attitude to the police. The attitude started off hugely deferential, with the famous Dixon on Dock Green (1955 to 1976), which depicts what we would now call community policing, with the titular Dixon more inclined to deal with minor misdemeanours with a clip round the ear than actually deal with serious crime. The depiction of policing was more realistic in Z-Cars (1962 to 1987) and the long run of shows in which the legendary Stratford Johns played Detective Inspector Barlow in one form or another (Softly Softly, Softly Softly Task Force, and Barlow, between the sixties and seventies) to a total of 345 episodes over multiple shows. Johns was so typecast that he even made guest appearances in other shows as his character and never really played anything else.
Patrick Mower is an actor who also had a rather typecast career in the seventies as a mouthy police officer who didn't get on with anyone else and was definitely what my mother would have called a sexy piece of work. He was in the interesting series Special Branch (1969 to 1970, 1973 to 1974) which is really two completely different shows about counterintelligence and counterterrorism. From the first block of episodes to the second, the show changed completely, becoming much less 'square' and more character-driven. It also featured the classic trope of two officers who really don't get on. Special Branch has excellent, imaginative scripts, and paved the way for the police TV of the late 1970s.
The events of the 1970s taught the public that the police were far from sea green incorruptible and this was of course reflected on TV. Perhaps the best known series along these lines was ◀ The Sweeney* (Cockney rhyming slang for Flying Squad, 1975 to 1978) and its more violent competitor Target (1977 to 1978, which also starred Patrick Mower) and The Professionals (1977 to 1983, which picked up on the trope of detectives who didn't really get on). These shows depicted police as corrupt, venal, frankly incompetent, violent, and positively criminal.
*Starring John Thaw (later to portray Inspector Morse in the series of the same name) as Detective Inspector Jack Regan and Dennis Waterman as his partner, Detective Sergeant George Carter.
We do also have some much more kindly TV detectives. I would highlight Inspector Purbright (played by Anton Rodgers) in Murder Most English (1977), adapted from Colin Watson's detective novels set in the eccentric town of Flaxborough, as a definitely 'cosy' approach to policing. Rodgers also played David Gradley in Zodiac (1974), probably the man least suited to be a police detective ever. You don't hate him, though, because he's just rather drifted into it after Harrow. He teams up with an astrologer (played by Anouska Hempel) to solve crime in this series.
However there is a much richer vein on British TV depicting detectives or detection outside of the police. These shows frequently either set in the 'Swinging London' culture of the 1960s or grittily portray the life of desperation on a cold, wind-swept island off the continent.
Perhaps the detective least able to get on with other people, Sherlock Holmes, was portrayed in two 1960s BBC series, Sherlock Holmes (1965) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (1968), Holmes being played by Douglas Wilmer in the former and Peter Cushing in the latter. Peter Cushing is my favourite Sherlock Holmes just as he is my favourite Doctor Who and for the same reason: he comes across as wonderfully cerebral and I think gives an idea of what Conan Doyle's Holmes would actually have been like. Both series suffered from extensive junking but the remains of both series have been commercially released.
The show which possibly best epitomises the hard-bitten private detective who is well beyond being cynical, is Public Eye► (1965 to 1975), starring Alfred Burke as Frank Marker. I often think that to be a private eye you either have to have had something terrible to happen to you, or else if it hasn't, a few years of doing the job would make sure you never wanted to trust another person again. Marker even manages to get sent to prison at one point, which ensures that, as well as seeing all the evil of the world, the police are also against him.* The show's scripts specialise in a lot of human motivations and relationships, with complex and strong exposition as part of Marker's investigation.
Public Eye is known for its grittiness, but The View from Daniel Pike (1971 to 1973) makes Public Eye look like the Magic Roundabout. The reason for Pike's utter cynicism is never made clear, like it is with Marker, and this is very much the ethos of the show: it just states the hard-boiled facts without bothering too much with motivation or introspection. To go with this, Pike is frank, verging on rude with people, and yet this isn't done in a gratuitous way; it goes with the show, and having him insult his customers just seems to fit the situation. This show has not been commercially released but is online.
There is, of course, a long tradition of policemen who leave, retire or are kicked out, for whatever reason, becoming private eyes. Of those depicted on UK television I would draw your attention to Mr Rose (1967 to 1968), who is actually retired but can't stop investigating things. Bulman (1985 to 1987) is about a policeman who has also retired but keeps on. I prefer Bulman in many ways to Strangers (1978 to 1982), the show which actually depicted Bulman as a police officer, because I feel a greater sympathy for him being out of it, but still having his somewhat problematic relationship with his former employers.
There are some lesser-known series about private detectives that I think are well worth seeking out. One is ◀ The Big M (1967) about a private detective, Treherne, who begins investigating the absolute den of iniquity which is the seaside town where he lives, after the owner of the local strip club walks into his office and promptly dies. If you try The Big M, please watch at least a few episodes, because it introduces so much stuff, it takes a few episodes for it to get into its stride. And the other I like recommending to people, which nobody has ever heard of, is The Rose Medallion (1981) about an inquiry agent (private detective) called Harry who is a complete failure with women and looks after his cousin. His cousin manages to dig up a skeleton, and the rest of the mini-series is about the identity of the skeleton. Unfortunately, The Rose Medallion suffers because some misinformation about it has got loose online, and of course, people tend to copy it from each other.
Possibly more people have heard of Hazell (1978 to 1979), an excellent pastiche of film-noir detectives such as Sam Spade or Philip Marlowe, but it's a great show if you haven't. And of course, everyone has heard of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969 to 1970), the show in which one of the detectives has the advantage of being dead. This is also the only TV show I know of where I like its remake and reimagining of 2000 just as much as the original.
Finally, I have to make an honorific mention of a series that isn't currently available but does periodically find its way online before the copyright holder gets it taken down again (it is just plain contrary to enforce copyright for a sixty-year-old TV show while also not actually making it available). This show is an anthology show called Detective ► (1964 to 1969). Because it is just called Detective, it is, of course, difficult to find when it does turn up, and also episodes tend to get uploaded by the title of the individual episode, so it's honestly like hen's teeth. Being an anthology series, of course also the episodes are variable and won't be to everyone's taste, but they are quality adaptations of a wide variety of different detective stories by a broad range of authors and are great viewing.
In conclusion, there is a great history of police and detective shows on British television, it's just that Mitchell asked the wrong person to write a sensible history of the genre. TV
Mitchell here, and I very much doubt I asked the wrong person, John! A terrific look at the genre, and certainly some very interesting programs to check out if you've got a region-free DVD player or have a hankering to go surfing on YouTube.
Thanks again to John, and a reminder that if you'd like to see your name in lights—or, at least, on the splash page of It's About TV, leave a comment, send me a message via the contact form, message me on X or Facebook, or, if you're one of the lucky ones with my email address, reach me there!
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You'll notice that at 5:30 p.m., WCVB is airing It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which didn't air the previous week when it was shown by the rest of the CBS affiliates. (The station was showing the movie Bus Stop.) I say this because it is now November 1; Halloween was yesterday, which is a bit like showing Rudolph or Frosty on December 28; it loses something in the translation. Perhaps this is one of those cases where they should have thought twice before pre-empting The Great Pumpkin for a two-hour movie. The listings, in case you haven't already figured it out, are from the Eastern New England edition.
If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it here again: "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"—the more things change, the more they stay the same. Case in point: this week's cover star, Lloyd Haynes. star of ABC's successful new series Room 222.
Since Haynes plays a history teacher on television, it's natural that he has some ideas of his own about history, and some of it doesn't sound all that different from what one might read today. For example, he calls George Washington a bigot (where have I heard that before?), and is frustrated by the lack of visibility when it comes to the role of blacks in American history. South Bend, Indiana, his hometown, was run by the Ku Klux Klan and the Mafia when he was growing up.
He hit his stride during a stint in the Marines, which funded his education at City College and San Jose State, and then it was on to Heater-Quigley, where he worked his way up from office boy to production assistant, with the goal of eventually breaking into acting. After a series of successful guest spots in various series, he now has one of his own, and he's making the most of it.
And now, for some of you youngsters out there, if you ever want to understand what the 1960s were really like, I'm about to tell you. You see, Lloyd Haynes is "an enthusiastic aficionado of marathon encounter groups where people try to allieviate their Uptightness [sic] by spending several sleepless days and nights together screaming, touching, huging, nestling in 'human sandwiches,' and pouring out their most intimate feelings in continuous emotional and physical involvement." Not surprisingly, Haynes thinks "they're a gas," although they would be more likely to give me gas.
Haynes goes on to recount the time he was the only black in an encounter group. "A lady looked over at me and said, 'I hate you.' I asked why and she said, 'Because you're black.' She lived at Newport Beach or somewhere like that, you know, lily white. She figured if she could attack me, it would keep the others from finding out what was really wrong with her."
I mean, I don't want to insult any of you out there who may have taken part in groups like this (they're still out there, you know), but I don't see how anyone can read what I've just written without breaking out into hysterical laughter. It's just so, so. (If you ever want to see a great parody of these new age group therapy sessions, check out Semi-Tough, the movie based on Dan Jenkins' wonderful novel. I'd like to think we've come a long way from that white woman from Newport Beach, though I know we haven't come far enough. I'd also like to think we've come a long way from those ridiculous encounter sessions; I know that isn't true, either.
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During the 60s, the Ed Sullivan Show and The Hollywood Palace were the premier variety shows on television. Whenever they appear in TV Guide together, we'll match them up and see who has the best lineup.. Sullivan: Ed's guests: Pearl Bailey, Petula Clark, comic impressionist David Frye, country singer Buck Owens, the country-rock sound of The Band, comic Rodney Dangerfield and the Feux Follets, French-Canadian folk dancers. (The quasi-official guest list also includes Lucho Navarro, voice impressionist doing sound effects, and Trio Rennos, humorous acrobats.)
Palace: Host Sammy Davis Jr. headlines a lively hour with Mama Cass Elliot, jazz great Lionel Hampton, pal Peter Lawford, singer Dana Valery, actor-singer Rosey Grier, and the Dells, classical-soul quintet.
It's a big week on TV for Sammy Davis Jr., as we'll see later on, and while Ed may have more stars—Pearl Bailey, Petula Clark, David Frye, Rodney Dangerfield—the star on Palace can do virtually everything they can do individually. (All right, there's no way he looks as good as Pet Clark, I'll give you that.) And that's just Sammy by himself; Sammy and Lionel Hampton are a great combo, Sammy and Peter Lawford make up almost half of the Rat Pack, and add Cass Elliot, by far the most talented of The Mamas and the Papas, and you have a show that literally jumps off the screen. This week, Palace tap dances to the win. And as a bonus, here's Lionel Hampton and Sammy: five minutes that clinch the victory.
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From 1963 to 1976, TV Guide's weekly reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever they appear, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the shows of the era.
Cleveland Amory likes Marcus Welby, M.D. I say that because he spends the entire first paragraph explaining to us what a General Practitioner is, as well as something called a "house call." Certainly, it helps, for you whipperstappers out there who don't remember these things, but it also takes up a full 25% of the column, leaving that much less room for him to launch one of his attacks.
Which is a good thing, because Cleveland doesn't really have anything bad to say about this show. Both Robert Young, as the good Dr. Welby, and James Brolin, as his young assistant Dr. Kiley, are "very good," and the guest on the initial episode, Susan Clark, playing a young schoolteacher who's going to die, was "magnificent." It was, Amory writes, "the finest first episode of a show we have ever seen." Various scenes are played out with a delicate mixture of humor and drama, particularly in a scene where she tries to explain her impending death to her schoolchildren, and in another when Welby gives Kiley a lesson in bedside manner: "For most of us, death comes alone, in a hospital, in the middle of the night. There may be a nurse but it very much depends on whether she has compassion or whether even she is there. Miss Adams is alone—in the middle of the night."
The second episode, in which Welby is persistent in his attempts to break through to an autistic boy, was, says Amory, "almost equally good." And at the end of this review, Amory engages in what I think is a rare moment of self-reflection, a nod to the style for which he is so well-known. He refers to an exchange between Kiley and Welby, when the young doctor, in exasperation, says to Welby, "Who are you? Sigmund Freud or Annie Sullivan?" Replies Welby, "You're too old for whimsy and too young for sarcasm." And, concluding this unusually straightforward review, Amory notes, "For a show as good as this one, aren't we all?"
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I mentioned earlier that this is a big week for Sammy Davis Jr. While he's hosting The Hollywood Palace with his old friend Peter Lawford on ABC, he's also appearing opposite himself with Lawford and their old friend Frank Sinatra in Sergeants 3, (Saturday, 9:00 p.m., NBC) Then, on Tuesday, Davis stars in the made-for-TV suspense thriller The Pigeon (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC), in which he plays a private detective trying to protect a young woman who doesn't want protecting. He's joined by a very good cast: Ricardo Montalban, Dorothy Malone, and Pat Boone in his TV dramatic debut.
But in fact, you could cover almost all of the week just with the Rat Pack. The Chairman returns for his fifth television special on Wednesday (9:00 p.m., CBS), a one-man show in which Frank belts out some of his biggest hits, including "All the Way," "The Tender Trap," "My Way," "Fly Me to the Moon," "Please Be Kind," and "My Kind of Town." Responding to the changing times, he also takes a crack at more contemporary tunes such as "Little Green Apples," "A Man Alone," and "Goin' Out of My Head." With, I might add, slightly less success.
And Frank is back on Thursday night, starring with Dean Martin in the western 4 For Texas (9:00 p.m., CBS) with Anita Ekberg and Ursula Andress making up the four.* Charles Bronson is there as well, and Arthur Godfrey and the Three Stooges appear in cameos. The last half of 4 For Texas overlaps with Dean's own show (10:00 p.m., NBC), with another terrific lineup of stars: Bing Crosby, Eva Gabor, Jack Gilford and Dom DeLuise.
*Along with Frank and Dean, of course. What did you think I meant?
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There's more to the week than the Rat Pack, though, believe it or not. (And don't tell Frank.) On Monday night at 8:30 p.m, President Nixon is scheduled to address the nation on Vietnam (the "Vietnamization" speech), and this presents an unusual challenge to the networks, since the speech comes smack-dab in the middle of the evening's entertainment. CBS lucks out; they have a block of half-hour sitcoms from 7:30 to 9:00, and so The Doris Day Show gets an unexpected night off. It's not so easy for NBC and ABC, however: NBC's movie Frankie and Johnny (starring frend-of-the-president Elvis) starts at 8:00 p.m. and gets a half-hour before being interrupted for the speech, before resuming at 9:00 (time approximate). ABC's solution is even more interesting: the hour-long Love, American Style, which also begins at 8:00 p.m., is interrupted not only for the president's speech, but for an ABC News analysis at 9:00, with Love, American Style returning at 9:30. Kind of ingenious, actually; it's made up of three separate stories, so they might be able to split the show in two without cutting into any of the stories.
ABC has some pretty adult movies on this week—adult not necessarily being a synonym for good, mind you—beginning on Sunday night with The Carpetbaggers (8:00 p.m.), starring George Peppard and Carroll Baker. Judith Crist, in what may be her Review of the Year, describes it as an "incoherent, vulgar and tedious 1964 screen version of Harold Robbins' smutty best-seller. By today's smut standards, though, it's pretty tame stuff. Heavens, Carroll Baker, as always exuding about as much sex appeal as a whole-wheat muffin, doesn't even get to strip!" It's challenged by Wednesday's presentation of Claude Lelouch's 1966 French art-house smash it's A Man and a Woman, which copped a Best Actress nomination for Anouk Aimee. The "banal romance", Crist notes, is wrapped with "so many cinematic tricks and effects that Lalouch almost manages to obscure the vapidity of performance and superficialty of the content." It is, however, quite lovely to look at, so that "even thinking folk can indulge themselves in its simple-minded sentimentality."
Also on Wednesday (10:00 p.m.), NET presents "The Heartmakers," a Science Apecial that examines the development of the artificial heart, featuring interviews with two of the most renowned heart surgeons of the day, Drs. Denton Cooley and Michael DeBakey. And on Thursday, for us early risers, Today (7:00 a.m.) has an interview with the three Apollo 11 astronauts, returning from their world tour. The moon must have been the only place that Bob Hope didn't go to entertain Americans in uniform, but Thursday evening, he stars in a 90-minute change of pace special (8:30 p.m., NBC). Rather than his usual mixture of skits, musical guests, and jokes, it's a full-fledged presentation of "Roberta," the musical comedy that made him a Broadway star in 1933. John Davidson, Janis Page, and Michele Lee costar in the show, taped at the Bob Hope Theatre on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas. And not to be left out, ABC offers This is Tom Jones (9:00 p.m.) with Connie Stevens, Matt Munro, the Moody Blues, and Shecky Greene, followed at 10:00 p.m. by It Takes a Thief, with Fred Astaire guesting in his second appearance as Alistair Mundy, Al's (Robert Wagner) master thief father.
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Not so fast, my friend! The Doan Report takes a look at the early ratings race, now that we've had a couple of months to digest the new shows. The most successful among the rookies are Marcus Welby, M.D., The Jim Nabors Hour, Room 222, and The Bill Cosby Show, and old favorites like Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Jackie Glason Show, Mayberry, R.F.D., The Glen Campbell Goodtime Show, and Family Affair are, in the report's words, "looking strong."
On the other hand, there are those that aren't looking so hot, and most of them won't surprise you. ABC's experiment with 45-minute programming, The Music Scene and The New People, are said to be in "deep trouble," along with Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, the movie spinoff starring Monte Markham in the role made famous by Gary Cooper,and Jimmy Durante Presents the Lennon Sisters. You might, however, be surprised to see The Brady Bunch on the list of endangered shows, though after a slow start, the sitcom manages to "hang on" for five seasons, plus countless spin-offs and an enduring place in the hearts of many television fans to this day. Mission: Impossible, too, is said to be in trouble, and while there's little doubt that the series isn't the same without Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, it will continue until 1973. Not every series is so lucky, though; I Dream of Jeannie, one of NBC's "worries," will go off at the end of this season, as will newcomer Bracken's World and The Leslie Uggams Show, and The Ed Sullivan Show will continue for just one more season.
Of course, as one series leaves the air, another is set to take its place. With an eye toward some of its weak links, ABC is said to be lining up variety shows for Johnny Cash, Engelbert Humperdinck, and Pat Paulson. (Dick Cavett is also said to be on this list, but he unexpectedly winds up in Joey Bishop's timeslot after the latter quits his show.) They're also rumored to be preparing a version of The Odd Couple, with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman. CBS's summer hit Hee Haw is being primed for a return, and NBC's working on a hour-long show for Flip Wilson. Surprisingly, all of these make it on the air (with varying degrees of success, it should be added); however, there's no record of an Arte Johnson show ever hiting the small screen, and a pop show version of Harper Valley, PTA does make it—in 1980, with the former star of Jeannie, Barbara Eden.
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Edith Efron is back this week with the fourth in a series of articles on the relationship between television and children, this one asking the simple question: "What is TV doing to them?" Unfortunately, for such a simple question, there's no simple answer; instead, what Efron mostly gets is a series of contradictions.
For example, everyone agrees that parents could use some guidance in helping them determine what their children watch. The PTA has such an advisory group; so does the National Association for Better Broadcasting, a television watchdog. The two groups agree on virtually nothing; while the NABB says that Heckle and Jeckle is "a cartoon series of excellent quality," the PTA calls it "just a heap of rubbish." Likewise, NAAB says that American Bandstand "lacks grace and gaiety," while according to the PTA, it has "gentle manners, good taste and friendly gaiety."
Likewise, the American Council for Better Broadcasts has formed its own advisory group of critics to provide aid and comfort for parents; their recommendations are similarly contradictory. Their opinions on Gunsmoke run from "Too gory and violent" to "Suitable for family viewing," and when it comes to Lost in Space, it's either "Marked by violence, greed, selfishness, trickery and disregard for accepted values" or "imaginative, with good moral concepts." Thanks a whole hell of a lot, right?
Efron asks several pointed questions about the relationship between children and TV: What picture of Man is TV teaching our children? What picture of personal relationships is TV teaching our children? Moral conflicts? Sociopolitical problems? In almost every case, these and other questions can be answered "Take your choice." Writes Efron, "[C]ritics dedicated to child welfare are in belligerant disaccord about whether or not any given show is Ethical, True or Beautiful." Furthermore, "The quarrels range through every kind of programming that children see—everything except late-night fare." They can't even agree on the problems, so is it any surprise that they can't agree on the solutions?" Should television be realistic or soothing? Is a specific drama educational or pathological? It all depends on who you ask.
At the risk of engaging in amateur psychology, I think the rise of this question, which, in one form or another, has been around since the beginning of television, can be related directly to the state of the family in the changing times of the '60s. Increasingly, television is looked upon as a babysitter, and teens are becoming more autonomous in their viewing selections. Parents are less available to directly oversee the programs that their young children watch, and the generation gap makes it less likely that teens and their parents are even in the same room, let alone watching the same programs. (Ed Sullivan discovered this to his dismay; by introducing rock acts to the show, he actually highlighted the gap and wound up undermining the homogeneity of his audience.) Experts debated the effect of shows like Howdy Doody on children, but it's likely the discussion took place in an environment much changed by 1969.
And so, in the end, it's appropriate that we end this week the way we started. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Or, if you prefer, sic semper erat, et sic semper erit: "Thus has it always been, thus it shall ever be." If we've anything at all from the last six years of TV Guide, it's been that. N'est-ce pas?
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MST3K alert: Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) Milwaukee TV Debut. A Florida game warden investigates mysterious deaths in the Everglades. Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepherd, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey, Bruno Ve Sota, Gene Roth. (Friday, 1:00 p.m., WTEV in New Bedford) This time, it isn't just the movie that sucks! We've got a hero who's a jerk, a sheriff who's an idiot, a cheap hussey, a fat guy, and monsters that suck the lifeblood out of their victims. I ask you, what more could anyone look for in a movie? TV
If you enjoy the content here and want to support my broader creative work, please consider making a donation at my Ko-fi page. Any amount you contribute helps me continue writing, researching, and sharing these articles and projects. Thank you!
I don't generally begin things with a non-television thought, but Bob Sassone had a very interesting piece last week that's stuck with me the more I've read it. It's called URL vs. IRL, and it's all about how we ought to be spending more time in real life (IRL) rather than on social media (URL). I won't attempt to summarize it here; I'd prefer that you go to the link and read it for yourself, because then you won't be deprived of either his fine writing or his excellent reasoning.
Suffice it to say that, as someone who spends a pretty fair amount of time online, I not only feel his pain (to coin a phrase), I feel it myself. This may sound strange coming from me, given how I not only write four pieces a week for this site, but also spend time on X, Facebook, and other platforms in support of my writing projects. Quite frankly, though, I'm sick and tired of it all. I've met some wonderful friends through these platforms, and I've been the beneficial recipient of some brilliant insight from others (I'm not shy about admitting it), but it all gets quite tiresome and demoralizing to witness all the internecine fights among (and between) various cliques, the clickbait masquerading as news, the dull-witted stupidity of some people, the elitist condescenation of others, the cheapening and coarsening of debate and conversation, and the effort required to make one's way through it all. It's harder to get through X or Facebook while avoiding all this crap than, one supposes, it is to make your way through quicksand. (Which isn't usually all that deep, as it happens.)
Again, this has nothing to do with television, except that I think it's good for all of us to reflect on it periodically and do something about it, So instead of hate-surfing the web, watch a decent television show from the past. Better yet, instead of streaming some mindless stupidity on YouTube, go out for a walk. Don't worry about the resolution of your screen; think more about the amazing experience of real-life HD that can be found simply by looking all around you at the miracle and wonder of God's creation. You might even find yourself making a habit of it, as I hope will be the case with me.
At Comfort TV, David's journey through the 1970s continues with Saturday night, 1976: CBS's heavyweight lineup starts to show signs of fatigue, but can anyone else catch up? Holmes and Yoyo, Mr. T and Tina, and Doc suggest that the answer is "no."
The 50th anniversary Space: 1999 celebration concludes at Captain Video with a comic book and record set of the pilot. "It's fun to read as you hear!" I don't know if we have tie-ins like that anymore; I suppose in the era of streaming and DVD, why would you bother?
At Cult TV Blog, John's investigation as to whether The Prisoner references Soviet Russia brings us to the episode "A, B and C," in which the analogy actually matches up pretty well. Food for thought, for us Prisoner aficionados, the next time we watch the series.
Our friend Gill is celebrating the tenth anniversary of Realweegiemidget with a look back at some of her biggest posts from the past ten years, as well as a preview of coming attractions. I hope you're making her a part of your regular blog reading.
At Mavis Movie Madness, Paul looks at the seriously intense (not to mention kinky) 1975 telemovie thriller The Legend of Lizzie Borden, with Elizabeth Montgomery's spellbinding star turn as the title character. It's a fascinating part of Americana; you can actually read the trial transcripts online!
One of the last greats from the Golden Age of movies and television (Lassie,Lost in Space, and Petticoat Junction to name a few) was the great June Lockhart, who made it all the way to age 100 before dying last week, and Terence has a very nice tribute to her at A Shroud of Thoughts.
If you're out trick-or-treating tonight, be careful, and watch out for the goblins—not just those in costume, but the ones in real life. TV
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If it seems as if we haven't done one of these in awhile, you're right; the last time was in June, if my memory is correct. And there's a good reason for this: there hasn't been much of a change in my viewing habits over the summer and fall. It's been the same shows, week after week, month after month, and while they wouldn't be part of the regular rotation if they weren't fun to begin with, all good things have to end sometime. (And for some, not a moment too soon; I'm looking at you, Joe Mannix!) Following the break for sustained Christmas programming, you can expect to see a shakeup in the lineup, but in the meantime, let's take a look at a couple of notable episodes from the dramatic anthologies of the past, and see what they tell us.
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I must admit that it's taken me far too long to watch Samuel Beckett's controversial absurdist play "Waiting for Godot," and while I'm not going to pretend for one minute that I understand it, I will say, with confidence, that my cultural experience has been enhanced by watching the edition that appeared on the 1961 NET Play of the Week production, starring Burgess Meredith and Zero Mostel as Vladimir and Estragon, the play's protagonists, who spend a couple of hours doing—well, doing nothing. Add in Kurt Kasznar as Pozzo, and Alvin Epstein as Lucky, the slave, and you have it. What it is is, of course, up to interpretation.
I'm not going to presume to try and explain the premise of "Godot," other than to say that the titular character, Godot, never shows up. Will he? Did he ever intend to? Is there, in fact, any such person as Godot? We'll never know, and Beckett doesn't intend to help us figure out the answers to any of these questions, or anything else, for that matter.
So what does one do when confronted with a story that one can't really describe? Describe it, naturally! Not the story per se but the production, which I enjoyed a great deal—more than many of the contemporary critics, if the reviews I've read are any indication. For one thing, it was clearly and undeniably a television adaptation; the limits of the set were apparent, the staging was minimal, and the direction clearly a product of the live TV era. I am, of course, a sucker for all of these things. Given the choice between the Metropolitan Opera's "Live in HD" series of broadcasts and the old, studio-bound operas of NBC Opera Theatre, I'll opt for the latter any time. I suppose it's a product of being a television historian, or maybe it's just misplaced nostalgia for a time that preceded my own viewing, but I do enjoy the limitations inherent in even the best of these old made-for-TV productions. And even though this wasn't a live broadcast, it well could have been, based on what we saw.
Burgess Meredith is, without question, one of those actors who elevate everything in which he appears. He's one of the most natural of actors, and here he tosses off Beckett's challenging absurdities as if they were the most natural thing in the world. Zero Mostel, on the other hand, can be a bit broad, and we see that here. Now, I didn't bring any preconceived notions or prejudices to my viewing of this, which means that I don't have a definite idea of how Estragon, Mostel's character, is usually played, or should be played. What I do know is that he and Meredith made, I thought, an effective team; more so than some of the gimmick casting that Broadway has been known to indulge in over the years.
But here's the thing—and, as I often point out, there's always a thing:I did actually find that "Godot" made more sense than I thought it would. Now, this might be my own personal interpretation, or perhaps I'm seeing it through a more contemporary influence than others, but when you look at this Godot character, who's talked about constantly but never seen, what does he remind you of? For me, it was the endless series of promises that comprise so much of what we're fed nowadays. Politicians promise us they'll take care of what ails us, but do they? Doctors promise the latest vaccine will keep us healthy, but does it? We're always being told that we have to be more patient, more understanding, willing to come back day after day after mind-numbing day, with the promise that things might have improved by then.
You notice all the similarities here? We're always being promised something that never comes to pass, just like Godot's promises that he'll be here tomorrow, or perhaps the day after tomorrow, or possibly the day after that. Godot is, if you want to look at it, the Big Brother of absurdist theatre, unseen but influencing everything. Or, like The Prisoner, Godot could be us, only we don't see ourselves as we truly are, which only underlines our own weakness. Perhaps he's dead. Perhaps he doesn't even exist. Maybe he never did; maybe we're all just being fed a line. And yet: he continues to control our lives, and nothing ever changes.
To me, it makes perfect sense, which is to say that it makes no sense at all.
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And now for something completely different, namely Graham Greene's magnificent novel The Power and the Glory, which was translated into a somewhat less magnificent 1961 television broadcast produced by David Susskind, starring Sir Laurence Olivier, and co-starring George C. Scott, Julie Harris, Martin Gabel, Roddy McDowall, Keenan Wynn, Patty Duke, and Cyril Cusack, among others. Like "Godot," The Power and the Glory has the feel of a television play, rather than a movie. Perhaps something from the Hallmark Hall of Fame, back in the day what one could count on quality from that series.
Unlike "Godot," which actually benefits from the claustrophic atmosphere created by the studio-bound production, The Power and the Glory is a sprawling, epic saga taking in a priest's twin journey: one that takes him through various parts of Mexico during the persecution of Catholics, in search of safety and rest; the other, a journey of self, as he discovers how, despite his many flaws and failings, the priesthood is something that fundamentally, and permanently, changes a man. He can leave the active priesthood, he can be defrocked or laicized, but the mark remains on him: he can never escape the fact that he will always be a priest.
Our whiskey priest, played by Olivier, is only too well-aware of his limitations: not only is he an alcoholic, more concerned about getting his next drink than anything else, he also fathered an illegitimate child while in the clerical state. His failings have imposed a crushing burden on him, a sense of unworthiness that is painful and heartbreaking to witness. Although Olivier has a tendency to chew the scenery, especially in the early going, the pain he exhibits is undeniable, and impossible to ignore; it is present in every syllable he utters, every motion he makes, every thought he espouses. His quest for wine to be used as a sacramental for the Mass, which ends with him drunk and held in a squalid jail cell, is typical: his inability to procure the wine is both cause and effect of his desire for drink. His drinks to forget his failures as a man, a father, a priest. His depression over his condition merely reinforces his weaknesses, his dependency on alcohol. It is a most vicious circle.
I wrote about The Power and the Glory in a TV Guide feature from a couple of weeks ago, when the production was looked upon with great anticipation. For Olivier, it was a return to the medium which had given him an Emmy for his performance in The Moon and Sixpence, and it was expected that The Power and the Glory would be equally heralded. In the event, it was not. It was good, and at times better than that; the performances, especially those by Scott as the relentless office obsessed with the priest's capture (think The Fugitive's Lieutenant Gerard, only with a Spanish accent and a persecution complex) and Martin Gabel as Scott's cynical superior, are intense. And as I say, even though the great Sir Laurence's essay on the role—broad at times, mannered at others—still conveys the sense of nobility that remains embedded in this man who finally realizes that his death may afford a dignity to his life that life itself often failed to deliver.
What these two productions do have in common, above all, is that they both exist today, a somewhat unlikely result given all of the television history that has been lost in the mists of time (or the dumpsters of various networks). That dramas such as these might show up on television today is a pretty unlikely thought. Maybe "Godot," because for all its inscrutability, it does, as I said earlier, lend itself to gimmick casting, the type that PBS is so fond of (think Steve Martin and Martin Short, for example). The Power and the Glory, however, is far less likely to show up any time soon, especially given its subject matter of religion, the third rail of American culture. And the idea that human dignity can rise above even the greatest of a man's failings and give his life (or any life, for that matter) meaning? Well, talk about absurd. TV
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I never watched the early-morning educational on a regular basis; I was too busy getting educated myself, at dear old Longfellow Public School in Minneapolis. (Of course, I was also two years old when this issue came out.) I remember Sunrise Semester, but I know the rest of them only through the pages of TV Guide. And these programs, shown on commercial television, offered not just variety, but some pretty heavy topics: "Some Organic Chemistry," "Political Parties and the Founding Fathers," and "Reproduction of Cells," and that's just today's lineup. There's even a program called English for Americans because there was a time when newcomers to America wanted to sound, you know, like Americans. All these treats for Halloween '62 come from the Eastern New England edition.
Every so often, we encounter one of these "Week to Watch!" issues, when television is filled with big-name, marquee-value specials. Back in the 1960s, they frequently happened around Thanksgiving, but nobody's waiting around this year! Most of this week's issue is devoted to backstage looks at the feature presentations, so let's get right to it and see just how special this week really is!
The week starts with Saturday's Ernie Kovacs Special (8:30 p.m. ET, ABC), one of the comedian's monthly appearances, sponsored by Dutch Masters Cigars. Kovacs, in an article accompanying the special, describes it as "a half hour composed of Beethoven's Fifth, a girl in a bathtub, an interview with Horace Gridley, the noted molester, and Stravinsky's 'Firebird Suite.'" Scattered throughout, he continues, are blackouts done to the tune of "Mack the Knife" (in the original German," plus "Mona Lisa" sung in Polish, and a section of the program devoted to "Sex and Violence." There are also "some complimentary phrases dedicated to Dutch Masters Cigars." And lest anyone think Kovacs isn't responsible for the content, "I direct the show. I also write and produce the show. Do you realize how much money I would be making if this show had any kind of decent budget?!" It's an absolutely delightful half hour, available on DVD in the Ernie Kovacs collection put out a few years ago by Shout!
Sunday bring a triple-header of specials, beginning with The World of Bob Hope (7:30 p.m., NBC), which is not the typical Bob Hope special we've all come to know and love; instead, it's a documentary look at Hope, narrated by Alexander Scourby, that not only reviews his show-biz career, but gives us a glimpse at what life is like for Hope on the road, interacting with friends, and talking about her personal and private life. That's a good lead-in to The DuPont Show of the Week (10:00 p.m., NBC), which features none other than Joan Crawford, narrating "The Ziegfeld Touch," a look at the legendary producer and impresario. The documentary combines vintage film clips featuring stars of various Ziegfield Follies shows, including Fanny Brice, Eddie Cantor, Will Rogers, and W.C. Fields, and contemporary performances by musical-comedy performers, recreating performances from the era.
Now, if you're not in the mood for this, I recommend the David Susskind-produced adaptation of Graham Greene's novel The Power and the Glory (9:00 p.m., CBS), with a sterling cast topped by Sir Laurence Olivier, and co-starring George C. Scott, Julie Harris, Martin Gabel, Roddy McDowall, Keenan Wynn, Patty Duke, Cyril Cusack, and others. (It's really too bad they couldn't have gotten some bigger names, isn't it?) The star, of course, is Olivier, who won an Emmy the previous year for "The Moon and Sixpence." Booton Herndon's profile of Sir Laurence is an admiring one, though he doesn't shy away from the actor's faults, including two spectacular and very public divorces.
But the man often referred to as the world's greatest actor comes off as sincere and unpretentious, admired by his colleagues and those who work with him (Keenan Wynn made two cross-country trips just to shoot one scene with Olivier "Because this guy is the greatest", and a valet remembers Olivier waiting around for an hour after a shoot in order to give the man a ride back to Manhattan), and his dedication to his craft is without question (he spent days just working on the Latin accent he used in the production). History records that The Power and the Glory, which tells the story of a "whisky priest" in Mexico during the Catholic persecution, will fall short of its lofty ambition; Greene himself hated the adaptation, and critics gently chided Olivier for a tendency to ham it up at times. Nevertheless, its themes of faith, human frailty, and redemption are timeless, and the thought of a special like this appearing on commercial television today is just a dream. And you can see it all here, including the original commercials.
On Friday, James Arness is the unlikely host for The Chevrolet Golden Anniversary Show (8:30 p.m., CBS), a variety special celebrating the 50th anniversary of the American auto manufacturer. These anniversary shows used to be quite common; the Ford 50th Annivesary Show, nearly a decade earlier, not only ran two hours, it was broadcast on both CBS and NBC simultaneously.* Many of us have seen clips from this show, as well as The Edsel Show, which didn't commemorate an anniversary but did celebrate the launch of Ford's new automobile. (Only retrospectively does it look like a special covering the christening of the Titanic.) Anyway, back to Chevy; this "fun-filled" hour looks back at comedy and songs from the last 50 years, and features a lineup including Art Carney, Nanette Fabray, Tony Randall, Allen Case, and Eileen Rodgers. Now, if Matt Dillon ends the show by gunning down Henry Ford at high noon, I'm tuning in.
*It should be pointed out that at the time (1953), neither network covered 100 percent of the country, necessitating a multi-network purchase to cover the whole nation.
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Granted, after all this, anything else is likely to pale, but there is certainly more worth watching: for instance, who could pass up John Carradine as "a half-crazed old man" (is there any other kind? I say this, of course, as a half-crazed old man myself) scaring Tom Poston and Elizabeth Montgomery with talk of vampires and such on Monday's Thriller episode "Masquerade" (10:00 p.m., NBC), which you can watch here. And on PM East . . . PM West (11:15 p.m., WBZ), Mike Wallace and Joyce Davidson's guests are monster and horror figures from the movies, including Theodore, movie host John Zacherle, "Famous Monsters" editor Jim Warren, and producer Mike Ripps. By the way, did I happen to mention that the next day is Halloween?
Perhaps it's interesting only to me, but Tuesday's ABC News Closeup! (10:00 p.m.) on "The Awesome Servant" seems to strike a chord with today's world. It deals with the growing trend toward automation in industry, the unemployment it has caused, and the fear engendered in those losing their jobs. The special includes looks at a meat processing plant and a data processing center, and how jobs have been both lost and created in the process. Most of us are, I trust, familiar with the effects AI is having on various industries, from acting to writing; I've known several of my writing colleagues who've lost jobs because they've been replaced by AI. Like so many things, there's no easy solution to this problem; it's also clearly a situation that continues to replicate itself over and over again, in every era and generation.
Wednesday's daytime rerun of I Love Lucy (10:30 a.m., CBS) is highlighted by a rare television appearance from William Holden, playing himself in a classic episode in which he meets Lucy, who's wearing a fake nose. We all remember that one, don't we? There's also a very funny takeoff on The Untouchables, entitled "The Unscratchables," on Top Cat (8:30 p.m., CBS), involving a gang of jewel thieves (fresh from the Louvre, perhaps?) who hide their stolen loot in T.C.'s garbage can.
Speaking of can, the question is whether or not William Shatner can bail himself out of trouble in an episode of Dr. Kildare that finds him being sued for malpractice after a patient he treated and released dies afterward. (Thursday, 8:30 p.m., NBC) Will Shat discover that the Kobayashi Maru doesn't work in Blair General and that he's going to have to act his way out of this one? Tune in tonight and find out.
And on Friday, Dinah Shore welcomes Dean Martin and Donald O'Connor to the spot she shares on an every-other-week basis with The Bell Telephone Hour. (9:30 p.m., NBC) Ironic, isn't it, that' just an hour before we were celebrating the anniversary of the company she used to shill for, Chevrolet? You can still see the U.S.A. in your Chevrolet, apparently, just not with Dinah. And what fun would that be?
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This week Gil Seldes gives us his opinion on two of television's legendary series, The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock Presents. One of the reasons I enjoy reading contemporary reviews of classic series is that, over time, such programs can become so wound up in reputation that it becomes difficult to, as John Ford might say, separate the fact from the legend. The good news, for fans of both shows, is that for the most part they live up to their reputation.
Serling has described episodes of TZ as being mostly "far out," which is just fine with Seldes: "I, who am not even a mild addict of science fiction, find I like the far-outs better. In those, The Twilight Zone not only kids me, it kids itself. In the others, it gets all solemn and allegorical." As an example of the former, he cites a pair of well-known episodes: ◀ "A World of His Own," in which Keenan Wynn plays a novelist who brings his characters to life through a tape recorder; and "The Arrival," with Harold J. Stone as an investigator who can't crack the case of an airliner that lands without any passengers or crew. Seldes praises the ending, with Stone's desperate cry of despair, as "magnificent." Less successful is one of the "important" episodes, "Two," with Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery as the last two survivors of a world war. It was, says Seldes, little more than "boy meets girl." Turning to Hitchcock, there is "The Changing Heart," with a clock-maker (Abraham Sofaer) who can't bear the thought of his daughter (Anne Helm) leaving him, and "Specialty of the House," a darkly humorous story of cannibalism, with Robert Morley and Kenneth Haigh.
"At their best," Seldes writes," both of these programs are first-class entertainment and they are always well-made and thank heaven no one has inflated them beyond their proper length, which is half an hour." Of course, The Twilight Zone would go to an hour for its fourth season (a story in inself), but the half-hour format is perfect for these tales; "I have in recent weeks seen three hour-long dramatic shows which among them hardly contained more entertainment than a single show of either of these."
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I'm well aware that not everyone will find a certain item as interesting as I do, and I do sometimes write about particular issues multiple times. Yet, that's the way of it as a historian; you trace certain significant trends as they evolve through the years, as a means of measuring their impact on whatever it is that you write about. This week, that issue is television sponsorship, as seen by the editors.
A recent FCC hearing "confirmed what everyone knew all along: Many sponsors censor their shows." It's not necessarily as nefarious as it might sound; sponsors, risk-averse as always, seek to avoid "anything that might offend potential customers or place their products or companies in a bad light." And that's an understandable position, one for which you can hardly fault them, given that they're spending millions in support of their product. The threat comes when things get out of hand, and when writers and producers start to self-censor in an effort to proactively appease the sponsor, in which case "the result is bound to be bland, unimaginative programming." (Ask Rod Serling about the effects of sponsor pressure.)
So who's to blame, if not the sponsors, nor the content creators? It is, according to the editors, "a television system which permits an advertiser to decide upon, and to buy, the editorial material that surrounds his advertising." An advertiser can't do that in newspapers or magazines, and "television can't possibly be an independent, mature communications medium until he can't do it there either." The answer, ironically, could lie in the rising costs of television production, which is increasingly requiring multiple sponsors for a broadcast. The more sponsors a show has, the less influence any one sponsor can have on that show's content. Still, recent episodes of The Defenders and Bus Stop encountered significant opposition from a sponsor who threatened to withdraw sponsorship from both episodes. Will the producers of these shows seek "safer material" as a result?
What is the relevance for today's television? Well, oftentimes, ad time is sold through brokers, meaning that the sponsor might not even have an active role in determining what programs they sponsor. For this reason, sponsorship boycotts, while they may be good for headlines, often have no impact on overall content unless a program becomes too toxic for anyone to touch. On the other hand, in an era of corporate activism, one can't rule out coordinated efforts by various sponsors to influence programming. The real test comes when a network makes decisions that appear to be at odds with the network's own priority, which is presumably achieving successful ratings in a given demographic. When that metric begins to take a back seat, then we'll know there's something to worry about.
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I mentioned at the outset that this issue is dominated by the week's special programming, but there's still room for mention of a serious topic: whether or not television is being used as a "scapegoat" for social ills. Edward Walsh, the Patterson Professor of Journalism at Fordham University, thinks it is, and says that those who put down television need to take a good look in the mirror first. If, as Walsh suggests, television bears some responsibility for the sharp rise in juvenile delinquency in the nation, is it solely TV's fault? Or, as Walsh suggests, should the parents who "lash out at television as the great debaser of modern society" take a closer examination at the programming they watch? For "it's their viewing habits that set the pattern for those of their children, at least up to the age of 10."
Walsh refers to what he calls "a triangle of responsibility" regarding mass media, involving the government, the media themselves, and the public. Each bears a particular obligation to see to it that mass media remains a responsible part of society. And yet there's another triangle, one that has been around much longer and goes to "the very core of our society": the church, the school, and the home. Each of these has greater responsibility than that of the government or the media, but so far they've escaped the bulk of the blame. And that's not right, says Walsh; according to Fr. J. Franklin Ewing, an anthropologist at Fordham, "Culture is not an inhuman juggernaut. The participants in a culture are individuals. If errors, inadequacies or dangers appear to you to exist in TV, you are the one to do something about this."
Indeed, writes Walsh, "Television content is a symptom of our social problems more than it is a cause of them. We may decry the great incidence of violence in the medium, but we must also remember that the age of mass communication has been an age characterized by violence." To the extent that television reflects the world in which it exists, "Can our society condemn television without condemning itself?"
Furthermore, there's the question of those who use television as a babysitter or pacifier. According to Dr. Wilbur Schramm, Director of the Institute for Communication Research at Stanford University, "If we do not introduce our children to books, simply because television is so easily available, then we are being foolish. If we do not help our children to build up healthy contacts with other humans their own age, simply because television 'keeps them at home,' then we are truly doing them an unkindness." One could, I suppose, say the same thing about social media.
Parents must take responsibility for their duties as parents: keep informed of what's on TV, and carefully supervise what their children watch. If this results in them developing good taste in programming, their influence will help elevate the quality of the content. "That is a long-range job," he concludes, "but most jobs worth doing are long range."
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MST3K alert: Plan Nine from Outer Space (1956) Reports of flying saucers terrify San Fernando Valley. Bela Lugosi, Vampira. (Saturday, 11:15 p.m., WPRO in Providence) Now, you didn't think we'd pass up the opportunity to spotlight one of the worst, if not the worst, movies ever made? It's never better than in the Rifftrax edition—featuring a colorized version of Plan 9—in which our heroes play off the energy from a live audience to deliver a memorable interpretation of this epic failure. Who could ask for anything more? TV
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