Around the dial

We meet a new writer this week at bare•bones e-zine, as Jack introduces us to the first of two Calvin Clements scripts in the Hitchcock Project: season seven's "Beta Delta Gamma," a creepy episode that I remember well from years past, with Burt Brickerhoff, Joel Crothers, and Duke Howard.

At Cult TV Blog, John reviews The XYZ Man, a 1976-77 British series with an intriguing, if totally discredited premise, that of a man genetically predisposed to crime. Despite the bad reputation the series has had from critics, it's worth checking out if for nothing more than its depiction of the Seventies, and as you know, we're big here on how television accurately presents a period in time.

We've linked to Bobby Ellerbee's fantastic site Eyes of a Generation many times in the past, but never before has Bobby been part of another story we're linking to—until now. Check out Garroway at Large, where Jodie tells us how some of Bobby's prized camera collection is now part of Jodie's prized camera collection!

At Inner Toob, it's a tribute to Jerry Springer, now part of Inner Toob's "Television Crossover Hall of Fame" for the many times he played different versions of himself on other television shows. I've mentioned before that Springer was a character in the first book I ever wrote (but didn't publish; maybe someday), so I'm always up for scenarios like this.

Martin Grams reviews a quartet of books this week, biographies of four varied stars whom you'll surely recognize from their work on television, in the movies, or both: actors Ray Danton, Robert Horton, and Herbert Marshall; and film director Arthur Penn. Each of them has a fascinating life story to tell, and any of these books would be valuable adds to your library.

Speaking of books, at Pop Matters, Peter Thomas Webb has a review of a book on a very interesting topic: Eleanor Patterson’s Bootlegging the Airwaves, a history of radio and television as seen through the eyes of bootlegging communities from the pre-digital era. Regardless of your thoughts on copyright law, groups like these are responsible for keeping alive much of media history.

Terence pays tribute to comedian Richard Lewis at A Shroud of Thoughts. Lewis, who died last week, aged 76, was a much-loved mainstay of the Carson-Letterman shows, as well as co-star of the sitcom Anything But Love and regular on Curb Your Enthusiasm. But, as Terence points out, that barely scratches the surface of his six-decade career.

I usually cover the Avengers reviews at The View from the Junkyard, so I thought I'd remind you that you also get regular summaries of episodes from Land of the Lost, the Seventies Saturday morning series whose theme will stay with you for days once you start to think of it. This week, Mike looks at the episode "A Nice Day," which is what I hope you're having this Friday. TV  

The New Top Ten, #2: Maigret

The first time I saw Maigret on television, I was young and impressionable and didn't know the ways of the world. It was 1993, and Maigret was running on Mystery!, the anthology series on PBS. Michael Gambon was playing Maigret, and I suppose I was attracted to the series because I'd seen and liked Gambon in The Singing Detective a few years before; I'd never heard of the character Jules Maigret, the famous French detective created by Georges Simenon. (I'd never heard of Simenon either, for that matter.) 

The first thing that puzzled me was that Maigret and all the actors were speaking British English, with no French accent, and I found this tremendously disorienting. As I say, I was a naif when it came to things like this; I was used to American television, and wasn't familiar with the British practice of having actors speak naturally, without trying to put on phony accents, French or not. I kept checking to make sure this was set in France, and that they hadn't moved the action to England or something like that, and frankly it distracted me from following the stories. I can't even remember if I saw all of the episodes. Did I mention that I was also stupid back then?

The years passed, and while I didn't pursue Maigret any further—either the series or the books on which it was based—I didn't forget about it, either. When Rowan Atkinson took his turn as Maigret in 2016, I was intrigued—The Black Adder, you know; it seems as if I was always coming to Maigret through some other series the lead actor had appeared in—and recorded it with the intention of watching it later. Well, you know what they say about intentions; by the time we could have gotten to it, we'd moved, and I lost all the episodes that were on the DVR because we changed cable companies. Oh well; c'est la vie, as Maigret would have said.

But for some reason unknown to me, either then or now, I started looking into Maigret more seriously. I even caught an adaptation of a Maigret story that was produced on Studio One back in the early 1950s; "Stan, the Killer," it was. The actor playing Maigret (Romney Brent) didn't leave that much of an impression on me, which was understandable, I suppose, since Eli Wallach was the star. But—and here's what remains a mystery to me—I started researching various versions of Maigret, trying to find which version critics considered the definitive one, if such a thing existed. 

And that's how I stumbled onto Rupert Davies. Maigret had been played by many actors both in the movies and on television; even Charles Laughton took his turn, as the first English-language Maigret. Bruno Cremer played him in the 1990s into the early 2000s and those were well-reviewed, but the versions online didn't have subtitles, and since they were all in French, they were useless to me. But the Davies version—almost everyone with an opinion thought his was the best, or one of the best. Georges Simenon himself said, "At last, I have found the perfect Maigret!" Well, that was good enough for me. Davies had played Maigret on the BBC for four seasons, from 1960 to 1963, and, remarkably for the Beeb, all 52 episodes still existed.  And eventually, as so often happens if you're willing to be patient and keep your eyes open, the series popped up on YouTube and the Internet Archives. (It's also on DVD, but it ain't cheap.)

By this time I'd gotten to know the character a little better. I still hadn't read any of Simenon's books—that would come later—but I was familiar enough with him to know that Maigret was no knuckle-dragging savage, of which no better example exists than Law & Order: SVU's Elliot Stabler; or a smart-ass know-it-all, as in every investigator who's ever appeared on NCIS. He's a shrewd judge of character, puffing on his ever-present pipe with a world-weariness offset by wry good humor, and a blunt, direct style of questioning; he's able to sense when things don't add up, skeptical when the pieces fall into place too easily, and not easily fooled. He's also experienced in the human condition, with an ability to look beyond the surface, and an unwillingness to condemn people based on imperfections in their past lives. 

Indeed, the impression that Davies-as-Maigret gives off is an overwhelming sense of humanity; he displays a particular ability to put himself in place of the victim and see where it leads him, which imbues in him an extraordinary sensitivity toward those he investigates. Even the satisfaction of solving a case comes with a particular cloud, for he knows that when he wins, someone loses his liberty, or his life. People complain that I'm too soft on criminals, he notes in one episode, but unlike the magistrates and prosecutors—bureaucrats, Maigret dismissively views them—he lives in the world of crime, and understands the human drama that plays out within. 

In her essay, "Maigret's Law," sociologist Susan S. Silbey notes that "Maigret is a believer in sociological justice [who] works to repair the torn fabric of social relations to recompose the troubled lives that end in murder." Oftentimes, "he arranges outcomes in which the guilty person feels the need to confess, or to execute their own punishment." While the bureaucrats are eager to categorize and name everything as soon as they come across it, Maigret "simply lets it register; the sorting, the understanding comes later." But then, to the bureaucrats, crime is a form waiting to be filled out, "'satisfied that [they] had done [their] duty' if they named the rules and issued notices, willing to let others do the work." For Maigret, the human element is never far from the surface; perhaps it remains there all the time, in plain sight for those like Maigret who understand it. Is this what is so often missing from American police stories? Perhaps. . .

If all this sounds terribly dense, as if one needs an advanced degree of some kind to enjoy it, forget it. The 52 episodes, all taken from the Simenon's fantastic oeuvre—he wrote 75 Maigret novels, and 28 short stories—do an impressive job of condensing the often-complex narratives into 50-minute timeslots. The cases are always interesting and the outcomes not always predictable, but the pleasure is in watching Maigret solve them—and it is a real pleasure.

What else? The location shots, all done in France, the music, and the use of colloquial French terms throughout—Maigret is always referred to by his subordinates as patron, or chief—establish the setting admirably; no concerns here that the actors don't speak with French accents! The supporting cast is led by Ewen Solon as Maigret's loyal number two, Lucas, a man with the unique ability to combine cynicism and good humor; Neville Jason as young Lapointe and Victor Lucas as muscular Torrence round out Maigret's closest associates. Helen Shingler plays Maigret's devoted wife Louise, who understands him all-too-well; as a couple, they compliment each other perfectly, and Maigret himself knows he would be an incomplete man without her.

In the end, it was very easy to come to the conclusion that Maigret should be part of the new Top Ten. I was sold on it from the first episode. There was a warmth I felt toward him—toward both the character and the actor, really; that warmth being a reciprocation of the warmth which emanates from Rupert Davies himself as he projects Maigret's inner humanity and desire for justice. Indeed, as I look through this, I find that I might have used the word "justice" many more times than I have, since justice is the unifying aspect that joins Maigret to so many of my favorite characters on television: the justice that Judd seeks for his clients, the justice that Dr. Baxter searches for in the diagnoses of his patients, the justice that is (seemingly) unattainable for Dr. Richard Kimble, the justice that is an overriding concern for the Doctor as he travels in his Tardis. And why not; the dictionary tells us that "justice" comes from the Old French justitia, which in its Latin root meant "righteousness and equity." It's a companion to the Latin justus, meaning "upright and just." The well-drawn character can demonstrate such justice, but it requires the actor to bring it out, to project it on the screen.

There had to be a reason, after all, why Simenon considered Rupert Davies the "perfect" Maigret. And while there are other Maigret stories to be told, other actors to play him and other series to watch, he'll always be Maigret to me. TV  

What's on TV? Thursday, March 7, 1963

You'll recall that a couple of weeks ago in this space, I took issue with a CBS News article that referred to Carol Burnett as the first female host of a television variety show; readers, led by James McGrail, rushed to point out the many female hosts to precede Carol. I'm fairly confident we won't see a repeat this week with the claim that Dorothy Fuldheim was the first woman in the United States to anchor a television news broadcast as well to host her own television show. Dorothy Fuldheim was one of the grand dames of American journalism and a Cleveland institution: she was a fixture on WEWS (6;30 p.m.) from 1947 to 1984, and, before that, local and network radio from 1929; she also wrote for the Cleveland Press. She was outspoken and controversial and wasn't afraid to express her opinions; watch this video of her with left-wing activist Jerry Rubin. They don't make local journalists (or personalities) like her any more, do they? You can see her on WEWS at 6:30 p.m. tonight and every weeknight in this Cleveland edition.

This week in TV Guide: March 2, 1963

One of the season's more interesting new shows, both conceptually and in practice, is The Eleventh Hour, NBC's drama dealing with the world of the mind. The Eleventh Hour—the title refers to those patients "on the verge of breakdown" and facing the last chance for treatment—is the product of executive producer Norman Felton, creator of the radio programs "Doctors Today" and "Today in Medicine" with the American Medical Association, and of the dramatic series Dr. Kildare for NBC television.* 

*Felton is perhaps best-known for a later show with absolutely nothing to do with medicine, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. 

Felton is determined to remove The Eleventh Hour from the traditional stereotypes of psychiatry; "What we're not doing is the story of Pen, Pad and Couch. Our forensic psychiatrist—Dr. Ted Bassett—is no analyst taking notes about patients' dreams. He's active, not passive. He's a therapist, a healer." The field of psychiatry has been relatively untouched by television, so Felton has established an advisory board comprised of 20 psychiatrists and four psychologists, plus psychiatrist Dr. Harold Arlen as technical advisor. In so doing, Felton and his staff have unearthed some potential concerns; after viewing the pilot episode, one psychiatrist wondered if viewers, after seeing various mental illnesses dramatized, might wonder if they themselves are suffering from the same illness. Felton reassured the doctors that while the show will deal with serious issues and how people can get help, "At the same time we want to entertain and hold an audience so that our program doesn't end up on the Sunday morning schedule." 

The lead characters of The Eleventh Hour are Wendell Corey as the aforementioned Dr. Theodore Bassett, a forensic psychiatrist and former lawyer, who is often called in to consult on cases involving an accused's sanity or state of mind; and Jack Ging as clinical psychologist Dr. Paul Graham*. Originally Ging was to be another psychiatrist sharing the office with Bassett, until it was pointed out that in real life, psychiatrists do not share offices. Changing Ging's status created another problem, this one with the American Psychological Association, which accused the show of portraying psychologists too often with "little resemblance to the realities of today's methods for care and treatment of the emotionally disturbed." (Graham, for instance, is the member of the duo most likely to enlist the use of such tropes as ink blot tests.) The network replied that "the psychologists were preoccupied with professional status." I had no idea that the behind-the-scenes story could be so dramatic!

*Unlike psychiatrists, psychologists are not medical doctors and, for example, cannot prescribe medication. Their title of "doctor" refers to their Ph.D. or Sc.D. degrees.

If you're a longtime reader, you'll know that I have a great admiration for The Eleventh Hour, and particularly for Wendell Corey's performance. Corey portrays Ted Bassett with great sensitivity and compassion; the opening of the first episode sets the tone for the series. A disturbed patient is running berserk through the hospital halls, trying desperately to escape. As he reaches the elevator, the doors open, revealing our first look at Dr. Bassett. The patient comes to a complete stop, as Bassett holds out his hands and offers him a small smile of reassurance. The patient, calming down, takes Bassett's hand, and then allows the orderlies to lead him away. Bassett watches after him, saying, almost to himself, "Poor damned soul." 

Wendell Corey and Barbara Rush

Some critics found that opening melodramatic, carrying overtones of the "great white father" school of medicine. On the contrary, I found Corey's gesture to be deeply moving, the kind of caring that I'd want from my doctor in a similar situation. Corey is, in fact, the fulcrum around which this show pivots; Jack Ging's character is very good, equally committed to helping his patients, but I so admire Corey's performance as Dr. Bassett; it's no easy feat to take a broken person and try to put him back together, to find out what's at the root of the problem and treat it; but Corey gives you confidence that it can be done.

(Corey leaves the series after the first season, and is replaced by a similar character, played by Ralph Bellamy, for the show's second and last season, which has not been made available on DVD; if anyone is aware of a—ahem—gray market dealer who has it, please let me know.) 

Mental illness is precisely that, an illness; it should be viewed without stigma or prejudice. Those who scoff at such diagnoses, who think of it as a weakness, or who view it as a crutch, are not just misinformed, they're ignorant. As such, I'm a great believer in psychiatry, though one has to be very careful about the psychiatrist as well as the technique involved. You might recall a similar series, Breaking Point, which will be premiering on ABC in the 1963-64 season. I liked that show as well, and thought that it dealt with the issue with sensitivity. These shows, for the most part, avoid easy answers in favor of hopeful ones; the illnesses from which these patients suffer will not go away magically. It will take work, it will take desire on the part of the patient to get better, but these doctors will be there to help him on the way. Sam Rolfe, the producer of The Eleventh Hour, says that "We want to let people know that when a man is boxed in, when it's a case of 'I've lost my job and my world is tumbling down'—there are doctors for that, too." Doctors like Ted Bassett, whose philosophy, Wendell Corey says, is "Never mind the past. Let's give the patient a future." In this cruel, cruel world we live in today, it's impossible not to be moved by it. 

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ABC's new fall season

Spring is just around the corner, at least according to the calendar, and it's oft been said that in springtime, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Unless, that is, he happens to be a young television executive, in which case springtime means his thoughts are focused, rather heavily, on the upcoming fall season. And, according to the Hollywood Teletype, there's quite a lot to think about. Titles for the new season are said to include The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters, starring Dan O'Herlihy; Butterball Brown, with Mickey Shaughnessy; Ready for the People, starring Everett Sloane; Arrest and Trial, with Ben Gazzara and Chuck Connors in a 90-minute drama; Please Stand By, a sci-fi anthology; The Fugitive, with David Janssen; Breaking Point, starring Paul Richards; The Patty Duke Show; The Greatest Show on Earth, with Jack Palance; Mr. Kingston, with Peter Graves and Walter Pidgeon; Thunderhead, starring George Montgomery; The Young and the Bold; and Archie. In the New York Teletype, a separate item mentions the upcoming 90-minute Jerry Lewis Show.

Some of these probably ring a bell. Please Stand By made it to the tube as The Outer Limits, while The Young and the Bold wound up as Channing and lasted one season. The Fugitive and Patty Duke speak for themselves; Arrest and Trial was truly innovative, but it took until Law & Order to make it work; Jaimie McPheeters was also one season and out, as was Breaking Point (unjustly) and Greatest Show. And you probably know about the bomb that was The Jerry Lewis Show.  The others left less of an oil slick than Jerry, but disappeared beneath the waves nonetheless.

As for the shows that have to go to make room for future hits, they include The Jetsons (which had a longer half-life than all but a couple of the new shows), The Rifleman, Going My Way, Our Man Higgins, I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, The Gallant Men, Naked City (a true classic), My Three Sons (which moved to CBS and ran for another seven seasons), and 77 Sunset Strip (although that survived by moving to another timeslot; the reformatted Sunset Strip was a disaster). Fred Astaire's Premiere anthology probably won't be back, but even if it is, Fred's already decided to return to movies (a good idea). 

I always enjoy looking at these proposed new series—which ones succeed beyond our wildest dreams, and which fail miserably, which cancelled shows are totally forgotten (like last week's My Friend Tony), and which are remembered forever (the aforementioned Jetsons). The fact that the young television executive, given the choice between love and television, chooses television, perhaps explains why TV itself seldom fulfills our expectations.

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And this serves as a nice lead-in to our next story, an interview with Dr. Gary A. Steiner, a psychologist from the University of Chicago, who's done a comprehensive study of television viewers, the findings of which are summarized in his new book The People Look at Television. In the TV Guide interview, Dr. Steiner explains "what viewers say they want to see on television and what they actually watch," and this should be good.

First of all, says Dr. Steiner, "everyone—highbrows included—watches mostly light entertainment," which includes action, comedy, variety, light drama, and sports. That accounts for roughly two-thirds of the average viewing week. Another large chunk of viewing comes from newscasts, making up anywhere between 25 and 40 percent of viewing. However, "heavier fare—serious drama, classical music, heavy information such as public affairs presentations" makes up less than 10 percent of the average viewing diet.

Isn't it the case, though, that viewer choices are based on what's available? Well, no. Even when given the choice, viewers, including better-educated ones, turn overwhelmingly to light entertainment. "Four out of five times" the college-educated viewer will pick light entertainment even when public affairs broadcasts are available. Even those viewers who say they want more public affairs programming consistently choose light entertainment shows when they have a choice. "So there is little evidence in support of the argument that viewers watch so much trivia because trivia is all they are offered."

As far as that light entertainment goes, Dr. Steiner's survey found that about every genre of programming has as many supporters as it does critics, meaning that for every critic who claims there are, for example, too many Westerns on TV, you're likely to find a satisfied fan. There is, in other words, "no simple change in program composition that on balance would satisfy more people than it would dissatisfy." 

There is, however, some correlation between education and the choice of entertainment; college educated viewers will turn from light to heavy entertainment when it's available. The general public, in such cases, still prefers light entertainment, and public affairs programs run a distant third. As for the fact that viewers say there needs to be more public affairs programming, Steiner speculates that this could be similar to "speed limits or integration—they recognize the need for information as a need for the country in general," not specifically for themselves. 

In general, viewers think there's too much violence on television, and they're particularly concerned about the exposure children have to such shows—both on shows designed for adults and for children. "It is the eye-gouging, slapping, hitting over the head—not mowing down with machine guns—that causes the greatest concern." They understand the need for commercials, but find them too long and interrupt too frequently, and at crucial points during a broadcast; they like commercials for beer, food, and automobiles, and dislike those for bathroom products, cigarettes, and undergarments. (I wonder what they'd think of today's commercials for, among other things, vaginal deodorant?)

In conclusion, Dr. Steiner gives us an idea of what the "composite viewer" wants. "First and foremost, give me more programs that are fun and worthwhile programs that I find relaxing and entertaining but, at the same time, are in some way informative, uplifting, useful." Make programs that are "safe for children and attract and hold their attention." Don't give us commercials that insult our intelligence, and don't interrupt in the middle of a program to show them. Raise the average level of all programs, rather than offering a few outstanding shows each year. And, since it's hard to control the amount of television watched by both adults and children, help us out by making those hours a little more worthwhile. "Television could certainly stand improvement. But all things considered, you're doing a good job."

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A pair of legal dramas lead off the week: Sam Benedict (Saturday, 7:30 p.m., NBC) has a change-of-pace episode, in which star Edmond O'Brien plays a dual role: high-powered attorney Benedict, and ne'er do well Charlie Dunphie, who's guilty of having bilked 17 charities—in order to support the 17 orphans he tends to on the old showboat they call home. I don't think the story is up to the caliber of most of the show's episodes, but it gives O'Brien a chance to show off his acting chops, and that's always welcome. Later, on The Defenders (8:30 p.m., CBS) the Prestons take the case of Luke Jackson (Rubert Duvall), a convicted murderer who's spent the last seven years on death row, and now a model of rehabilitation—just in time to be strapped into the electric chair. 

Looks as if whoever owned this issue planned to watch it as well!

If you're looking for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I have just the thing for you. It's the NBC Opera Company world premiere production of Gian Carlo Menotti's made-for-TV opera "Labyrinth" (Sunday, 2:00 p.m. ET), and when I say that it was made for television, I'm not kidding; the special effects and trick photography involved make it almost impossible for the opera to ever be performed on a stage. You can see the broadcast here, and it's a good thing that the video exists, because the opera was never rebroadcast and, aside from a 2020 performance at Ventura College, it has never been staged anywhere else. It saves us from having to ask the question: if an opera is performed and no video of it exists, did it really happen?

Sunday evening, Ed Sullivan's headline guests are Kate Smith, Bob Newhart, Anita Bryant, Nancy Walker, and Charles Nelson Reilly. He's also got a British ventriloquist, a Spanish dance group, and a hand-balancing act, but I think his main lineup would have won the day, regardless of what show it might have been going against (8:00 p.m., CBS). And on an NBC News Special, John Chancellor takes a look at the European Common Market, progenitor to the European Union. (10:00 p.m.) I don't know that it was a good idea then, any more than it is today.

Future Oscar winner Beatrice Straight stars as Edith in Monday's Ben Casey, a drama filled with family tensions: her niece Greta (Diana Hyland) is being controlled by her domineering mother; and Edith is refusing to undergo critical surgery until Greta is given her freedom. I wonder how Casey's going to handle this one?

The luminous Diane Baker appears as a young blind woman who's the target of farmer Lloyd Bridges' affections in The Lloyd Bridges Show (Tuesday, 8:00 p.m., CBS). Efron presents a rather interesting profile of the man whom she describes as "an enormously frail personality—so gentle and shy that it takes an hour of conversation before one gets any definite impression of him at all." His friends paint a similar picture;  Aaron Spelling, producer of Lloyd's current anthology series, calls him an enigma, "full of sweetness, full of love," while his wife Dorothy notes how "children worship him, flock around him." Both add, however, that his desire to love and please everyone is a source of trouble for him; "poor judgement," says Spelling, while his wife feels others take advantage of his gentle disposition. Not everyone is a fan; one critic says he doesn't believe all the talk of love of life and people: "He's weak, unrealistic. He refuses to look life in the face." Bridges himself doesn't particularly like the description of himself as a "gentle muscleman," but admits to a lack of aggressiveness, which could be due to a lack of confidence in his own abilities. Even though his new series lags in the ratings, he's enthusiastic about the opportunity to show that he can act, that he's not just the adventure star of Sea Hunt; he calls it "the biggest opportunity of my life." In the end, the series does leave the air after a single season, but Lloyd Bridges seldom leaves the small screen; he'll be back in Rod Serling's existential Western, The Loner, and was a fixture in guest appearances and TV-movies (not to mention his memorable role in the movie Airplane!) until his death in 1998.

Pop singer Joanie Sommers is Wednesday night's star; she appears first as one of Perry Como's guests on the Kraft Music Hall (9:00 p.m., NBC), along with Gene Sheldon, Charlie Manna, and the Four Step Brothers; later, she shows up on The Steve Allen Show (11:15 p.m., syndicated), with jazzman Frank Rosolino and singer Dean Reed. James Stewart makes a rare appearance on series television on Thursday, portraying himself in his real-life capacity as a brigadier general in the Air Force Reserves, on My Three Sons (9:00 p.m., ABC) in an episode in which Robbie is competing to win a high school letter for science achievement. 

On Friday, Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert presents its last show of the season, "The Latin American Spirit," featuring his new symphonic arrangement of West Side Story, along with pieces by Aaron Copland, Heitor Villa-Lobos, and Oscar Fernandez (7:30 p.m., CBS). Later, on The Jack Paar Program (10:00 p.m., NBC), former Vice President Richard Nixon makes his first network TV appearance since losing the election for governor of California last November. He's given Jack carte blanche on any question topics, and even takes time out to play a composition of his own on the piano. The audience reaction shows that even after his defeat, he remains a popular political figure.

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Ann Flood is frustrated. She's already an established star of daytime television as Nancy Pollock Karr, the fresh-scrubbed heroine of CBS's The Edge of Night. Before that, she was Liz Fraser Allen, the fresh-scrubbed heroine of From These Roots. And therein lies the rub: Flood, whom everyone describes as warm and sweet-hearted is feeling a little stifled. "I've been cast as the all-American-girl type, the sweetheart type, for years. For a change, I'd like to be the Other Woman." 

No matter what kind of character she plays, though, she's committed to the world of the soaps—which, for the most part, are still being done live. "I'm not pursuing a stellar career," she tells TV Guide. "My home is most important. I don't want my work to interfere." Earlier in her career, she was a fixture on just about every evening dramatic anthology, an experience she found "thrilling," but no longer. "Now it would interfere with my family."

So she doesn't get a chance to demonstrate a hard edge in her soap roles; maybe she makes up for that in her personal life. Her favorite show is The Untouchables; when she and her husband visited Chicago recently, the first thing she wanted to see was the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. And she's a ferocious debater in social gatherings—"If it's a theatrical crowd, she's arguing about Method acting. And if it's a non-theatrical crowd, it's politics. She's usually denouncing union corruption." Listening to her husband talk about her, she says with a twinkle, "Down deep, this all-American girl is really Eliot Ness."

Ann Flood is too experienced, too well-known, to be considered a startlet, but I enjoy these kinds of stories because you're inevitably drawn to find out what happened to the rest of her career. And in her case, the answer is formidable. She continues to play Nancy Pollack Karr until the series ends in 1984, during which time The Edge of Night transitions from live broadcast to tape, and from CBS to ABC. She remains married to Herbert Granath, from 1952 until his death in 2019. Ann Flood dies in 2022, at the age of 89, proof positive that nice girls don't always finish last.

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MST3K alert: Bride of the Monster (1955) An intrepid female reporter investigates a mad scientist who is attempting to harness atomic energy to turn people into superhuman monsters. Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, Harvey B. Dunn, Dolores Fuller. (Thursday, 5:00 p.m., WFMJ in Youngstown) Two words: Ed Wood. Need I go any further? It may not be Plan 9 from Outer Space, but it doesn't have to be, does it? TV  

Around the dial

One of the reasons for this website is my belief that classic television has value: not just entertainment value, but something beyond that. Fortunately, David feels the same way at Comfort TV, where he writes about how classic TV inspires still inspires people every day.

At Cult TV Blog, John writes about "Fear of God," an episode of the 1978-80 British anthology series Armchair Thriller. As good as the writeup on the episode is John's comment that "when I started blogging about old TV I had no idea how much like being an archaeologist it is, often like assembling the pieces of a pot and still not being sure about it." You and me both, John.

The View from the Junkyard has moved on to the Tara King era of The Avengers, and, as Roger says, while Tara, unlike Emma Peel, is more typically "a damsel in distress," the series has also become "a huge amount of fun." Typical is this week's reviewed episode, "Game."

The 1970s sitcom Good Times was more than just a popular sitcom and spinoff from Maude: it was, as Terence points out at A Shroud of Thoughts, a historic television series. Find out what makes this series special, and why.

Remember Warren Beatty's big-screen movie Dick Tracy? Martin Grams does, and this week he shares the bizarre story of the battle between Beatty and the Chicago Tribune over movie rights to the story, and how this results in Beatty making 25-minute TV specials—in character as Tracy. Read about it here, and see the latest installment.

At Drunk TV, Paul reviews the 1990 cable movie Psycho IV, which manages to be both "lumpy and unnecessary" and "entertaining." Anthony Perkins returns as the unfortunate Norman Bates, with Olivia Hussey as his equally disturbed mother.

I've written several times about how there was television prior to World War II, and how further development (understandably) went into hibernation during the war. But as the Broadcast Archives recalls, RCA reminded people that after the war, TV would be back. 

Finally, my latest appearances on the Dan Schneider Video Interview are now up. It's a classic TV doubleheader: first, a look at the legacy of legendary television producer Quinn Martin, followed by an affectionate salute to Fred Rogers. TV