The fugitive kind

DAVID JANSSEN AS DR. RICHARD KIMBLE (LEFT), DR. SAM SHEPPARD: STRANGE CONNECTIONS INDEED

Roy Huggins always denied it, but the myth persists to this day: the hit show he created, The Fugitive, was based, at least in part, on the real-life murder trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard.

It’s impossible to say whether or not any aspect of the Sheppard case influenced Huggins’ creative process. It’s true that in 1960, when Huggins says he came up with the idea for The Fugitive, the Sheppard case had been dormant for six years. Nonetheless, considering that Sheppard’s 1954 trial for the murder of his wife was called the “Trial of the Century” and garnered international coverage (think Casey Anthony minus the Internet and 24-hour news), it’s certainly plausible that Huggins, like most Americans, would have heard about the trial and that it might have lodged somewhere in his subconscious.*

*Sheppard certainly thought so, as he threatened to sue ABC after he was acquitted in his 1966 retrial. 

At any rate, while there are obvious links between the two (both were doctors accused of murdering their wife, both claimed they saw someone else fleeing the scene of the crime, although David Janssen was better looking than Sam Sheppard), the greatest link of them is also the least obvious and the most incredible.*

*Although I’ve long had a strong interest in the Sheppard case and long been a fan of the TV show, I didn’t know about this until reading it in James Neff’s book The Wrong Man.

Hayes at the Sheppard trial.

You see, in the 1954 trial the prosecution claimed Sheppard’s motive for murdering his wife was an affair he’d had with a nurse named Susan Hayes. Sheppard originally denied the affair, and depending on who you ask he either did or didn’t consider divorcing his wife and marrying Hayes. Throughout the buildup to the trial, Hayes’ name and picture were plastered on newspapers throughout the country, columnists breathlessly discussing “The Other Woman.” Sheppard insisted that the affair was purely physical and had ended months before the murder. Regardless, Hayes – who’d moved to Los Angeles in the meantime – returned to Cleveland and appeared as a star witness for the prosecution.

After the trial, in which Sheppard was convicted of second-degree murder, Hayes returned to Los Angeles, where she eventually married Ken Wilhoit, who worked in Hollywood as a music editor and supervisor for various television series, including several for producer Quinn Martin: 12 O’Clock High, The FBI, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, and – you guessed it – The Fugitive. Paul Harvey couldn’t have made this up.

The relationship between The Fugitive and the Sheppard case was often commented on during the show’s run, and I have to wonder, assuming they were still married in 1963 when the series started, just what went through Susan Hayes’ mind when she found out what show her husband was working on. If, indeed, he ever shared the news with her.

How Stirling Silliphant was responsible for the worst movie ever made

A RANDOM SCENE FROM THE INFAMOUS MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE.  THANKS, STIRLING.

I wouldn't have thought it was possible, but I'm about to make a link between one of the most literate writers from the '50s and '60s classic era of television, and the auteur of one of the worst movies ever made.  If nothing else, this proves that you really can be six degrees of separation away from anyone and anything.

The feature players are Stirling Silliphant, the mastermind behind series such as Route 66 and Naked City and Oscar-winning screenwriter for In the Heat of the Night, and Harold P. Warren, producer, director, writer and star of the astonishingly bad movie Manos: The Hands of Fate.  If you're familiar at all with Manos, it's probably because you saw it on Mystery Science Theater 3000, where it was known as the most famous - and worst - movie ever shown on the show.  Ever.  (You can see some of the reasons why here.)

So how does a distinguished writer and producer find himself involved with such extreme schlock?  Well, it's a fairly straightforward story, according to the always-reliable Wikipedia:

Warren [an insurance and fertilizer salesman] was very active in the theater scene in El Paso, Texas, and once appeared as a walk-on for the television series Route 66, where he met screenwriter Stirling Silliphant. While chatting with Silliphant in a local coffee shop, Warren claimed that it was not difficult to make a horror film, and bet Silliphant that he could make an entire film on his own. After placing the bet, Warren began the first outline of his script on a napkin, right inside the coffee shop. To finance the film, Warren accumulated a substantial, but nevertheless insufficient, $19,000 cash (equivalent to $138,106 in 2015 dollars), and hired a group of actors from a local theater, many of whom he had worked with before, as well as a modeling agency. Because he was unable to pay the cast and crew any wages, Warren promised them a share in the film's profits.

Ah, out of such chance encounters are history books written.  I would have loved to eavesdrop on that conversation between Silliphant and Warren.

Warren:  C'mon, it's not that hard.  Anyone can do it.

Silliphant:  Anyone?  I suppose you think you could do it, Hal?

Warren:  (perhaps having imbibed a bit too much)  I don't think, so, I know so.

Silliphant:  (Wanting to teach this punk that the movie business isn't as easy as it looks)   All right, smart guy, if it's that easy, let's see you do it!  (Reaches into his billford, pulls out a couple of bills, slaps them on the counter.)  Here's a hundred bucks says you can't do it.

Warren:  (Angrily)  You're on!  (Slams $100 of his own on the counter.)  We'll see who has the last laugh.

(Warren begins jotting down the draft of a plot on the back of a napkin, then pauses.)  

Warren:  (Sheepishly)  Uh, Stirl, do you mind if I borrow that hundred bucks back?  I'm afraid I'm a little short right now...

All right, maybe it didn't happen that way, but the gist of it was the same.  Warren did in fact write the first outline on a napkin, right there and then.  And while Abraham Lincoln may have been able to write the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope, he also started with a lot more talent.

Manos was pretty much what you'd expect from such an auspicious start.  The movie premiered at the Capri Theater in El Paso; Warren had arranged for for the cast to be brought to the premiere by a limousine, but  he "could afford only a single limousine, however, and so the driver had to drop off one group, then drive around the block and pick up another."  As for the rest of its run,

The film was briefly distributed by the Emerson Releasing Corporation. Following its debut, the film had a brief theatrical run at the Capri Theater, as well as a few screenings at various drive-in theaters in West Texas and New Mexico towns, including Las Cruces. Reports that the only crew members who were compensated for their work in the film were Jackey Neyman and her family's dog, who received a bicycle and a large quantity of dog food, respectively, would seem to indicate that even with its extremely low budget, the film failed to break even financially. Official box office figures for the film are unknown, if indeed they ever existed. 

But here's the thing: although even Warren conceded that Manos was perhaps the worst movie ever made, he did in fact make it on his own; therefore, he won his bet with Silliphant.  (I wonder if he ever paid off?)  It's a wonder that Silliphant's name didn't pop up in the acknowledgements section of the credits, although it's more of a wonder that there were any credits at all.

As I said, such are the small events that make up history.  And now you know the rest of the story.

How life imitates art (or, at least, television)

You might have noticed that reruns are popping up more frequently on the broadcast stations at this time of the year. So why, I ask you, should a television blog be any different? I originally wrote this piece back in 2009 for Our Word, but its central figure - disgraced former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford - is very much back in the news today. And so this would seem to be an appropriate time to revisit how his hijinks validate the hokiest TV movies.  But if you want something new, check out this article, for which I was interviewed last week.

I’ve often said, in relation to the news, that “you can’t make this stuff up.” Well, here’s one that you not only could make up, but someone already did. Almost, that is.

Now, it’s not unusual to see a movie or television program with a plot that seems suspiciously to have been “ripped from today’s headlines,” but how often do you see a real-life story that seems to have been ripped off from fiction? It occurs to me that, in reading the tragic/absurd/outrageous story of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, that this is the very kind of tale we might dismiss as ridiculous if we saw it in, for example, an episode of Matlock. Yet here is a true-life story that truly sets itself up for this kind of treatment.

In the TV movie The President’s Plane is Missing (1973, based on the novel by Robert Serling), the president’s plane – aka Air Force One – goes missing from radar screens. It isn’t missing for long, however, as the wreckage of the plane is soon discovered, the crash killing everyone on board including, presumably, the president. After all, he was on board, wasn’t he?

As you might expect, this story isn’t nearly that simple.

(Warning: Plot Spoilers Ahead!)

The surprise of The President’s Plane is Missing is that it isn’t really the President on the plane, you see. He’s off in secret conducting sensitive negotiations regarding a treaty that could defuse a potential nuclear war with China. Oh, that man whom everyone saw getting on Air Force One? Wasn’t him – it was an imposter (a relative, as I recall) whose purpose is to trick everyone into thinking that the President is headed out west for a little R&R in the midst of this Cold War tension. Meanwhile, the President can conduct the negotiations personally, without the glare and pressure of the press and others.

Buddy Ebsen, forced to leave a cushy job as VP to
become Acting President

If you’re still with me here, then it’s obvious that the crash of Air Force One (due to sabotage) throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the President’s plan. Soon enough, it becomes clear that the President wasn’t on that plane at all – it’s not the plane that’s missing, it’s the President! The negotiations are at such a sensitive point that he can’t afford to come out in public and reassure the nation of where he is – so he has to let the mystery fester. Throw in an incompetent, insecure Vice President (Buddy Ebsen, left) who assumes the mantle of Acting President with a determination to engage the Chinese in war, and you have the stuff of which potboilers are made.

Although there are some fairly preposterous twists and turns, it winds up being a pretty entertaining tale of politics, intrigue, and espionage, with a healthy dose of insight into what makes airplanes fly – and crash. (Which is to be expected from Serling, a noted aviation expert as well as the brother of Rod.) In the end though, both readers (of the novel) and viewers (of the movie) are left thinking that The President’s Plane is Missing is a gripping beach read, or a couple of diverting hours on television, and nothing more. A good story, in other words, but ridiculous.

Or is it?

When Governor Sanford was first discovered to be “missing,” the immediate question raised by many was what would happen if there was an emergency in South Carolina and the governor couldn’t be found. State law, apparently, requires a transfer of power from the governor to the lieutenant governor (if the governor is going to be traveling, for example) in order for the LG to exercise any executive power. Failing that, the speculation was, the state could have been up a creek if anything had happened while Sanford was incommunicado. Was he out on the Appalachian Trail, as his aides first reported? No, it turned out he was in Argentina, and – well, the rest of the story kind of goes downhill from there.

While it’s true that Sanford was incredibly incompetent in this whole situation (not to mention a real knucklehead), he also presented validation to a score of screenwriters, authors, and others who over the years have cooked up the kind of quasi-outlandish plots we saw in The President’s Plane is Missing. I mean, there are easily a half-dozen story ideas alone in this situation.

There is that natural disaster idea that so preoccupied everyone at first, that South Carolina is hit by a hurricane while the governor is out, and there’s nobody around to take charge. Sanford could have been injured or kidnapped in Argentina, with nobody knowing where he was. (Thrown in some kind of secret illness requiring medicine that he needs to live, and you’ve really got a story.) He and his mistress could have been involved in a auto accident that kills the mistress. (In that case I suppose he could place a call to Ted Kennedy for advice, but that’s a different story altogether.) Or it could have been Sanford killed or injured in the crash. (see: Fordice, Kirk.) As you can see, the possibilities are endless – and that’s without having to even touch Serling’s plot.

(As an aside, we haven’t even mentioned Fletcher Knebel’s novel Vanished (which, in 1971 was made into the very first two-part made-for-TV movie) dealing with a top presidential aide who – well, vanishes. As I recall, the plot of this story closely parallels that of Serling’s story, in that the vanished aide is actually conducting sensitive, top-secret negotiations. And perhaps that’s what Sanford should have been doing; as Jim Geraghty commented upon learning that Sanford was in Argentina, he’d better be returning with some long-lost elderly Nazi in handcuffs. But we digress.)

It is rare that one is handed such an opportunity in real life. We’re often fond of saying that art imitates life, but in reality life imitates art just as often. We should, one supposes, be grateful to Governor Sanford for providing us with the suspension of disbelief that so many of the summer blockbusters require. We can now go to the movies, watch television, and read potboiler novels without guilt, secure in the knowledge that what we’re really doing is researching how our national leaders operate.

The fugitive kind

Roy Huggins always denied it, but the myth persists to this day: the hit show he created, The Fugitive, was based, at least in part, on the real-life murder trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard.

It’s impossible to say whether or not any aspect of the Sheppard case influenced Huggins’ creative process. It’s true that in 1960, when Huggins says he came up with the idea for The Fugitive, the Sheppard case had been dormant for six years. Nonetheless, considering that Sheppard’s 1954 trial for the murder of his wife was called the “Trial of the Century” and garnered international coverage (think Casey Anthony minus the Internet and 24-hour news), it’s certainly plausible that Huggins, like most Americans, would have heard about the trial and that it might have lodged somewhere in his subconscious.*

*Sheppard certainly thought so, as he threatened to sue ABC after he was acquitted in his 1966 retrial. 

At any rate, while there are obvious links between the two (both were doctors accused of murdering their wife, both claimed they saw someone else fleeing the scene of the crime, although David Janssen was better looking than Sam Sheppard), the greatest link of them is also the least obvious and the most incredible.*

*Although I’ve long had a strong interest in the Sheppard case and long been a fan of the TV show, I didn’t know about this until reading it in James Neff’s book The Wrong Man.

Hayes at the Sheppard trial.

You see, in the 1954 trial the prosecution claimed Sheppard’s motive for murdering his wife was an affair he’d had with a nurse named Susan Hayes. Sheppard originally denied the affair, and depending on who you ask he either did or didn’t consider divorcing his wife and marrying Hayes. Throughout the buildup to the trial, Hayes’ name and picture were plastered on newspapers throughout the country, columnists breathlessly discussing “The Other Woman.” Sheppard insisted that the affair was purely physical and had ended months before the murder. Regardless, Hayes – who’d moved to Los Angeles in the meantime – returned to Cleveland and appeared as a star witness for the prosecution.

After the trial, in which Sheppard was convicted of second-degree murder, Hayes returned to Los Angeles, where she eventually married Ken Wilhoit, who worked in Hollywood as a music editor and supervisor for various television series, including several for producer Quinn Martin: 12 O’Clock High, The FBI, Cannon, Barnaby Jones, and – you guessed it – The Fugitive. Paul Harvey couldn’t have made this up.

The relationship between The Fugitive and the Sheppard case was often commented on during the show’s run, and I have to wonder, assuming they were still married in 1963 when the series started, just what went through Susan Hayes’ mind when she found out what show her husband was working on. If, indeed, he ever shared the news with her. TV