Lola Albright is the costar of Peter Gunn, playing Edie Hart to Craig Stevens' Pete, and she says she appreciates the chance to play "a real woman." I've written before about Peter Gunn, one of television's "jazz detectives" of the late '50s and early '60s, and one of the points I try to emphasize is that the relationship between Pete and Edie is one between two adults, something you don't see too often anymore in a world populated by thirtysomething adolescent snowflakes. But what does that actually mean? I don't think I could describe it any better than she does:
Well, without taking away from her humanness, her first consideration is her man. Edie is not a paragon - far from it. I don't suppose you'd find her teaching Sunday school.
Are Edie and Pete in love. Well, sure. Presumably they'll marry one day—but not on the program, obviously. Meantime their relationship is—well, adult. Edie is too smart not to know better than to try to tie Pete down. It would be the surest way for her to lose him.
Then, too, his work brings him in contact with other women, many of them extremely attractive. Her sense of humor carries her through this situation, and she is able to deal with it. That's a good womanly trait. Edie also is on hand to show another facet of Pete—his sentimental side. And his steadfast side, because no matter what might happen, he always returns to her.
That's Edie for you. I wish I knew myself as well as I know her. I might add that I think the realism of this relationship is one of the things that keeps the show on top.
From your lips to today's network executives' ears, Lola. If only they knew what that kind of a mature relationship adds to a story—but then, are the viewers mature enough to appreciate it?
l l l
Carol Channing, the Dukes of Dixieland, and Wayne and Shuster headline The Ed Sullivan Show (Sunday, 8:00 p.m., CBS), while Janet Blair and John Raitt host the summer replacement for Dinah Shore on NBC at 9:00 p.m.; among their guests is the young Joel Grey. If variety's not your cup of tea, Ronald Reagan and Carol Lynley star in an intriguing G.E. Theater on CBS; Reagan plays a newspaper reporter who runs across the site of a car crash involving a famed Hungarian scientist, while Lynley is a hitchhiker who blames the scientist for the accident.
Monday night features the two stars on this week's cover, Craig Stevens and Lola Albright, in Peter Gunn (9:00 p.m., NBC). Tonight, Edie asks Pete to help a close friend of hers, singer Lynn Martel, who fears someone is trying to kill her. At 10:00 p.m. on CBS, Desilu Playhouse presents "The Killer Instinct," with Rory Calhoun as a former boxer who becomes manager of a promising young fighter. And The Arthur Murray Party (NBC, 10:00 p.m.) features a dance contest, natch; the guests are George Raft, Gene Autry, Joanne Dru, and Sheilah Graham.
On Wednesday, British comedian Dave King continues his stint as the replacement for Milton Berle's Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC). King was a somewhat surprising choice to take Berle's place, but as this week's profile points out, he was the right man in the right place at the right time. "We had heard of Dave through his agent in London," explains Larry Kanga, president of General Artists Corporation. "When we saw kinescopes of his show we were terribly excited about him as an American TV personality." It didn't hurt that the kines also impressed Perry Como, whose production company, Roncom, was responsible for filling the timeslot. Como greased the skids by introducing King on a couple of his own shows prior to King taking over the Wednesday night slot. He'll have moderate success in the States despite employing Mel Brooks as one of his writers; King will enjoy a long and varied career, encompassing straight dramatic acting on both television and in the movies, music hall appearances, and comedy series, before his death in 2002 at age 72. Of his transition to American television, King said, "There's little difference between TV over there and over here—except for your meetin's. They kill me." They kill us too, Dave.
Edward G. Robinson makes a rare television appearance in "Shadows Tremble," Thursday's episode of Playhouse 90 (9:30, CBS), which also stars Ray Walston, Beatrice Straight, and Robert Webber. It's up against NBC's Masquerade Party, and would this description cause you to tune in? "Tonight's mystery guests come disguised as an Eskimo who beats another Eskimo in a fight, a gingerbread man standing next to a gingerbread house, and a barber who attempts to fit the panelists with wigs." Well, maybe it's the kind of situation that caused VCRs to be invented.
*Actually, either Schlitz Playhouse or Lux Playhouse, depending on the week's sponsor.
Some odds and ends from the news wires: former president Harry Truman is reported to be one of the possible choices as the new host of CBS's Person to Person, succeeding Edward R. Murrow. Walter Cronkite, Ed Sullivan, and Jackie Gleason are others rumored to be in contention, but the final choice will be far less sensational and far more practical: former foreign correspondent Charles Collingwood, one of the "Murrow Boys" from the network's World War II reporting.
Walt Disney has sued ABC for antitrust violations, claiming the network is preventing him from shopping programs to other networks. Of course, ABC and Disney have had a long and successful relationship; the network even helped finance the construction of Disneyland. But TV Guide has reported in the past of Disney's growing frustration with the network over, among other things, limiting the variety of programs aired on Disneyland; too many Westerns for Walt's taste, if I recall correctly. Eventually, Walt takes his show and move to NBC. The irony, of course, is that now Disney owns ABC, although I don't think Walt would be pleased with either the studio or the network nowadays.
Jim Aubrey has taken over for Hubbell Robinson as programming chief for CBS, and in many ways the medium will never be the same. Robinson left CBS for a chance to run a proposed big-name series sponsored by Ford. (Ford Startime). During his tumultuous tenure at CBS, Aubrey will be responsible—according to his many, many critics—for pandering to the lowest common denominator* with shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Gilligan's Island, Petticoat Junction, and The Munsters. All of which, by the way, were pretty successful.
*His formula for success was said to be "broads, bosoms, and fun,"
YouTube provides a wealth of obscure television that has fallen into the public domain or otherwise avoided legitimate DVD release, and one of those series is Markham, the private detective series starring Oscar-winner Ray Milland that ran from 1958 through 1960. I like Ray Milland, and I like private detective stories, which made the series worth checking out. The results of my experiment in a moment.
As for my own experience? Well, some of these words seem a bit harsh, but I can't really argue with the conclusion. To me, the show was run-of-the-eyeball, or at least run-of-the-mill. There was nothing terribly different or exciting about it; one episode featured Markham being locked out on an apartment balcony building during a freezing storm which will surely mean the end of him if he doesn't figure out some way of reentry into the building. All the way in the leadup to this situation, I'd hoped that Markham was just playing it cool, letting the killer fall into his trap - but no, Markham actually fell for the rather lame maneuver that allowed his adversary to trap him outside. It was, to be honest, a bit disappointing. There are other episodes, of course, some of them much better than this. And, as long as we are being honest, there never has been a private detective series on television in which a plot similar to this hasn't shown up somewhere along the line—with the exception, perhaps, of the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes, who was never bamboozled by anyone.
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad Markham is out there, just in case I get the urge to sample it again. I could be wrong about it, and it wouldn't be the first time I've felt that way about a series I wound up loving. But as long as TV Guide felt the same way I did, I don't feel so bad.
Finally, a story that only someone of my age, or a little older, can really appreciate.
It turns out that around this time there was an organization known as the American Ionospheric Propagation Association, or AIPA for short. The club has members from teens to sexagenarians, publishes regular newsletters, and has regular conventions at which officers are elected, business is conducted, and members share their latest discoveries. Now, you're thinking, this is all well and good, and we know what AIPA stands for, but just what does AIPA actually do? I'm afraid the answer to that will result in another question, because the members of AIPA keep each other informed on the latest developments in "TV-DX." To which your reaction, quite rightly, should be to ask what that means.
Many of you may have experienced something similar when listening to the radio, when at the right time of the year and right time of the night you might be able to pull in radio broadcasts from St. Louis or Chicago or somewhere on one of the coasts; that's how I got to hear Jack Buck and Vin Scully and Lloyd Pettit when I was growing up. Television could work the same way, at least before cable and satellite, when you depended on a pair of rabbit ears and an outdoor antenna to get your television. Even in the '70s, living in the World's Worst Town™ with little more than a single aerial sticking out of the back of a black-and-white portable in my second-floor bedroom, I was able to get faint signals from the Twin Cities, 150 miles away. I got to see the odd half of football in the old World Football League (Channel 11), or the beginning of A.M. America (Channel 9), and on occasion part of a late movie or local show. It was quite the thing for me, and I was only looking for the Twin Cities; imagine what it would have been like had I gotten a signal from Montana or Michigan or—gasp—Iowa!
Really, moving that aerial around, twisting the dial this way and that, trying to see what came out of a field of static, was all rather exciting. And while I have nothing but love for cable and satellite and the wonderfully crisp, shadow-free pictures that we get, I admit that it makes the pursuit of television just that bit less romantic, even as television did the same to radio. It's all just a bit too easy nowadays, though I don't know what you can do about it. After all, if there's no room for romance in the shows we watch, what hope do we have for the rest of the television hobby? TV
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Thanks for writing! Drive safely!