“The apes have taken over…while we were busy watching television and filling our freezers, they’ve come out of the jungle and moved in!” – Professor Sam Bastion (Frank Lovejoy), Shack Out on 101 (1955/Allied Artists)

Leonard Maltin describes the cult classic Shack Out on 101 (1955) in his Classic Movie Guide thusly: “Lee Marvin is Slob in this trash classic about the efforts of hash slinger [Terry] Moore to combat Communism while juggling the lecherous advances of nearly all her co-stars.”  And that’s as accurate a description of this film as you’re ever going to get. (The film’s original title was supposed to be Shack Up on 101—but star Moore objected to its suggestiveness.) As a Lee Marvin devotee, watching this movie was pretty much a done deal—and I enjoyed the hell out of it, despite its existential bizarreness.  Marvin is wonderful; it’s as if his character from The Wild One (1954) decided to abandon the open road and make a desperately futile bid for working class respectability.

OTR veteran Frank Lovejoy is in Shack, playing a character who’s referred to throughout the eighty-minute proceedings as “The Professor.”  I think Lovejoy was one hell of a radio actor, but most of his silver screen forays showcase a thespian who can be embarrassingly stiff at times.  This movie features one of his better performances, though his romance with Moore isn’t at all convincing.  (Lovejoy's love scene with Moore, as they passionately make out while discussing the U.S. Constitution, has to be seen to be believed.)  His character is supposed to be in cahoots with Marvin’s (Slob’s not really a fry cook—he’s a Commie spy!) but anyone who’s seen I Was a Communist For the FBI (1951) will know that Lovejoy’s “traitor” persona is all just an act.

Keenan Wynn (who owns the beanery where about 95% of the film takes place), Whit Bissell, Frank DeKova and Len Lesser (Seinfeld’s “Uncle Leo”) also make appearances in Shack, a truly one-of-a-kind film written and directed by Edward Dein.  Other than The Leech Woman (1960), a wacky horror flick starring former noir siren Coleen Gray, I’ve not been exposed to much of Dein’s oeuvre, though according to the IMDb he was a rather prolific screenwriter (The Falcon Strikes Back, Calling Dr. Death, Boston Blackie’s Rendezvous). 

Shack Out on 101 was part of a double feature I ran last night (something I’ve decided to call “Cold War Paranoia Theater”); the second entry being Ladybug Ladybug (1963), Frank and Eleanor Perry’s follow-up to their critically-acclaimed debut film David and Lisa (1962),  Since Perry’s The Swimmer (1968) and Last Summer (1969) are two of my favorite 60s flicks, I’ve been wanting to see Ladybug for some time now—and got the opportunity via Five Minutes to Live (where I also purchased Shack).  Ladybug tells a fascinating story of a rural elementary school and its reaction to what may or may not be an eminent nuclear attack.  As it turns out, the sounding of the “attack” alarm is due to nothing more than a short circuit, but by the time this is discovered, events have been set in motion that result in tragedy for one of the students sent home.

There are quite a few familiar TV faces in this movie: William (St. Elsewhere) Daniels plays the school principal, and Nancy (Lou Grant) Marchand is one of the teachers assigned to lead a “patrol” of students home.  Other well-known character actors include Judith Lowery (Mother Dexter from Phyllis), Richard Hamilton and Estelle Parsons—the latter two playing the stern parents of one child who’s so freaked out by the experience that she hides under her bed when she’s refused permission to take shelter in the basement.  Miles Chapin, an actor who you may have seen in movies like Hair (1979) and The People vs. Larry Flynt (1996), plays one of the kids in Ladybug, as does Alice Playten—an actress known for both her voice work and participation in various National Lampoon productions…but for some odd reason, will always be associated (to me, anyway) as the babysitter in the Sid & Marty Krofft Saturday morning classic The Lost Saucer.

Ladybug Ladybug is reportedly based on an actual event, but of the two films I think Shack holds up better—after all, it’s essentially an espionage melodrama…and they never go out of style no matter who the bad guys are.  But if you grew up in a time when adolescents were scared shitless of the bomb (and, as the film notes, the adults are just as nervous) and were drilled endlessly to “duck and cover” at their school desks, I’m sure it will resonate; it’s definitely worth seeking out.

Webb of suspicion

In Appointment with Danger (1951), diminutive movie tough guy Alan Ladd plays Al Goddard, a postal detective who’s investigating the murder of a colleague named Gruber—and in the course of his examination finds that the only witness to the crime is a saintly nun in the form of Sister Augustine, played by Phyllis Calvert.  Sister Augustine singles out a suspect from a mug book, but his “friends” manage to croak him before Goddard can get to him—necessitating that the postal cop pretend to be “on the take” and infiltrate the gang undercover to find out what their game is…namely a big payroll heist on a postal truck.

I know, it sounds pretty routine—and truth be told, it pretty much is.  But the soon-to-be-pushing-up-daisies hood is played by Harry Morgan (billed as Henry here, he later changed it so as not to be confused with the acerbic radio-TV comedian) and his buddy, who beats him to death with a pair of bronzed baby shoes, is none other than Jack Webb.  Watching the two of them before their celebrated stint on Dragnet in the 1960s is all the fun—in fact, this movie, directed by Lewis Allen (The Uninvited, Suddenly), has the stink of Dragnet all over it.  The screenplay was co-scripted by longtime Webb crony Richard L. Breen, and two of Dragnet’s “road company” players appear in it—Stacy Harris as the “inside” man at the post office and Herb Vigran as the cop in the scene when Sister Augustine peruses the mug books.

Before creating what would become his radio and television legacy, Jack Webb appeared in a number of feature films and to be honest, he wasn’t too bad an actor.  From small, unbilled roles in films like Hollow Triumph (a.k.a. The Scar) (1948) and Sword in the Desert (1949) he went on to do first-rate work as one of Marlon Brando’s fellow paraplegics in Elia Kazan’s The Men (1950) and as William Holden’s jovial buddy in Sunset Blvd. (1950).  Dragnet, unfortunately, completely changed his personality—transforming him into the stick-up-his-ass, crime-fighting automaton that we’ve all come to know and love.  (That’s why I was disappointed to learn that Webb turned down John Landis when he was offered the role of Dean Wormer in National Lampoon’s Animal House—he would have been sensational.)  In Danger, he plays vicious low-rent thug Joe Regas, whose job skills offer little outside of beating people up…but it’s interesting to note that he doesn’t trust Ladd’s character through the course of the movie, and he turns out to be right.  (The scene where he and Ladd play handball is worth the price of admission.)

Danger features character great Paul Stewart as the gang’s leader; an Orson Welles crony, Stewart had many memorable moments in silver-screen villainy—he’s the guy who menaces annoying little Bobby Driscoll in The Window (1949), and the sebaceous Carl Evello in Kiss Me Deadly (1955).  (Even when he was playing a half-way decent guy, like in Champion [1949], there was still something a bit seedy about him.)  TDOY fave Jan “Smoochie” Sterling plays Stewart’s main squeeze, and if you look fast, Kathleen Freeman has a bit part as a nun—long before she was rapping the knuckles of Jake and Elwood Blues with a ruler in The Blues Brothers (1980).

Danger was filmed in 1949, but wasn’t released until 1951—which allowed Morgan to appear on a couple of Webb’s Dragnet programs long before he filled in for Ben Alexander as Joe Friday’s new partner in the 1967-70 TV version of the seminal cop show.  (You can definitely hear Morgan’s distinctive tones on one September 17, 1949 broadcast, where he doubles up as both a hotel manager and bank teller.)   Someone at Paramount must have liked the teaming of the two men, because they ended up on the wrong side of the law again in Dark City (1950), a seldom-shown noir that served as Charlton Heston’s introduction to the big screen.  Still, they remain the best thing in Appointment with Danger—a well-worth-your-time film noir that I purchased from the good people at Five Minutes to Live.

“When you live outside the law you have to eliminate dishonesty…” – Julian (Robert Keith), The Lineup (1958/Columbia)

One of my earliest posts here at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear was an essay on The Lineup, a CBS radio series that premiered on July 6, 1950 as an imitator of the then-popular police procedural Dragnet and lasted on the air until February 20, 1953.  Scripted by future film director Blake Edwards (who also created Richard Diamond, Private Detective for actor-crooner Dick Powell), the series starred OTR stalwart Bill Johnstone as Lt. Ben Guthrie and Wally Maher as Sgt. Matt Grebb (previously played by Joseph Kearns).  Lineup differed from Dragnet only in that its dramatized cases were mostly fictional, compared to Jack Webb’s “liberation” of actual police files from the L.A.P.D.

The Lineup was one of a handful of CBS radio series that made the successful transition to television, premiering October 1, 1954 with Warner Anderson taking over for Johnstone as Guthrie and Tom Tully pinch-hitting for Maher as Grebb (who had since been promoted to Inspector).  A third character, Inspector Fred Asher (Marshall Reed), was also added to “the lineup,” and the series had a home at 10:00pm on CBS’ Friday night schedule for five seasons before being expanded to an hour in the fall of 1959 on Wednesdays.  Tully and Reed got their pink slips, and a new cast joined Anderson: William Leslie as Insp. Dan Delaney, Tod Barton as Insp. Charlie Summers (that name sounds familiar), Skip Ward as Officer Pete Larkin and Rachel Ames as Policewoman Sandy McAllister.  Whether it was the brand-new cast or brand-new time slot—or simply that the series had worn out its welcome—the changes did little to keep the program on the air, and The Lineup left CBS-TV on January 20, 1960.  It was syndicated soon afterward; its name changed to San Francisco Beat.

During its stint on CBS, someone got the idea to produce a theatrical version of the series, a B-picture that has acquired a sizeable cult following due to its crisp, no-nonsense direction by the legendary Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Dirty Harry) and suspenseful Naked City-type script by Sterling Silliphant (In the Heat of the Night).  Indeed, The Lineup starts off with a bang: the audience is taken to a pier where boat passengers are disembarking when a porter swipes a grip from art dealer Philip Dressler (Raymond Bailey, sans his Milton Drysdale toupee), throws it into the back of a waiting cab, and the cab heads off for points unknown.  The cabbie fails to see a large truck backing out in his path and he rams into it, causing the truck’s driver to exit his vehicle to start the usual “Why don’t you look where you’re going” brouhaha.  The cabbie drives around the truck, and plows right into a beat cop who’s motioning for him to stop—and as the cop’s body hits the ground he manages to get off a shot that hits the cab driver and causes him to ram into the back car of a stationary train.

Lt. Guthrie (Anderson) and Insp. Al Quine (Emile Meyer—apparently Tom Tully wasn’t available to reprise his TV role as Grebb) are curious as to why the fuss over a simple suitcase has resulted in two deaths—and soon learn that a statue inside Dressler’s case is the hiding place for a nice little stash of heroin.  A narcotics smuggling ring is operating in Frisco, whereupon innocent tourists have smack planted on them and then are relieved of their cargo once they’ve left the boat.  That confiscation job falls to a pair of hoods played by Robert Keith and Eli Wallach; Wallach is the gunman described by his mentor (Keith) as “a wonderful, pure pathological study…a psychopath with no inhibitions.”  (Maybe so, but Keith comes across as a pretty creepy customer, too—particularly his habit of writing down the last words of dying individuals in a little notebook.)  Keith and Wallach (and wheelman Richard Jaeckel) have to obtain three parcels of heroin from three separate passengers and have it ready at a checkpoint before 2:00pm.

I had seen The Lineup one time before, and to give you an idea of how long it’s been it was on a television station that interrupted the movie with commercials.  I’ve come to appreciate it a little more with a second viewing, though I’m still not certain why it’s held in such high regard by cultists—there are an awful lot of slow spots in the film (primarily the scenes in which the cops appear…when your villains are more interesting than the law you’re bound to have trouble) and many of its memorable moments and ideas have been cribbed from earlier noir movies (T-Men, Kiss of Death, The Lady from Shanghai, etc.).  It does have a wild climactic chase that kicks in around the seventy-six minute mark, and the performances (particularly Wallach and Keith) are first-rate; my biggest delight while watching the film was recognizing right off the actor who plays Wallach’s contact as Bob Bailey, a.k.a. Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar (his voice was a dead giveaway).  (Jack “Rocky Jordan” Moyles has a bit part in this one, too, as a steam room attendant.)  My copy of The Lineup came courtesy of Five Minutes to Live, which is a nice site to locate hard-to-find noirs. 

Farewell, George

From my Bombast Comcast.net webpage comes some truly devastating news.  Actor George Grizzard has gone on to his rich reward at the age of 79.

His obituary covers in nice detail his incredible acting range, particularly in the area of live theater.  I wasn’t at all aware of Grizzard’s stage accomplishments—he won a Tony Award for his performance in 1996’s Edward Albee’s A Delicate Balance, and nominations for his work in The Disenchanged (1959) and Big Fish, Little Fish (1961).  His stage debut was opposite Paul Newman, playing his brother in 1955’s The Desperate Hours, which was later brought to the silver screen with Humphrey Bogart in the starring role.  Other highlights include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (the original 1962 production), California Suite (1976) and Judgment at Nuremberg (2001).

Grizzard also did a goodly amount of television work, including the prestigious dramatic anthology Playhouse 90.  Among the series he appeared on: Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Rawhide, Ben Casey, Medical Center, Hawaii Five-O and Law & Order, on which he had a recurring role as Arthur Gold.  He also copped a Best Supporting Actor Emmy in 1980 playing opposite Henry Fonda in the TV-movie The Oldest Living Graduate.

But I’ll personally remember Grizzard best for performances in films like Advise & Consent (1962, as Senator Ackerman), Warning Shot (1967, as the flaky pilot-playboy who befriends David Janssen’s cop) and Bachelor Party (1984) because—and I mean absolutely no malice in this—no one could play a better asshole than George.  Any individual who has the cojones to play truly unlikable people time and time again is aces in my book.

R.I.P., Mr. Grizzard.  You will be missed. 

Requiem for a heavyweight producer

My Bombast Comcast.net home page reports the passing of television producer Martin Manulis, who has shuffled off this mortal coil at the age of 92.

This will demonstrate how much of a lowbrow I am, by the way.  I saw Manulis’ name and immediately recognized him as the executive producer of TDOY sitcom fave The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis—not stopping to realize, of course, that he was also the creator of television’s Playhouse 90, one of the most prestigious dramatic anthology series in the history of the TV airwaves, with productions like Requiem for a Heavyweight and Days of Wine and Roses to his credit.

Manulis was also the producer of the movie adaptation of Wine and Roses, which starred Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick., and he dabbled in film production through the 1960s with films like Dear Heart (1964) and Luv (1967) among his credits.  But it was on the small screen that he achieved his greatest fame, producing various programs from the likes of Suspense to Studio One to Adventures in Paradise to James at 15.

R.I.P., Mr. Manulis—you will be missed.

Blogs that make you go hmmm…

My good neighbor to the North, Brent McKee, has bestowed upon my humble blog a meme (and this just goes to show you how much I know—I thought it was pronounced “mem,” as when Madeline Kahn says to the cowboy in Blazing Saddles: “Tex mem?”) and to be honest, this isn’t any ordinary meme (you know what I’m talking about—the ones that ask “Paper or Plastic?”…or some such esoteric claim) but one that asks you to name five blogs that make you think.  I’m nothing sort of astonished when Brent says Thrilling Days of Yesteryear starts up the old thought processes for him because usually when people comment on my blog it’s a variation of “Lots of free time on your hands, huh?”

Anyway, here is how this meme works:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.

2. Link to this post so that people can find the exact origin of the meme.

3. Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award on your site with a link to the post you wrote.

Even though Brent’s already tagged Tom Sutpen, Stephen Cooke and Richard Gibson’s pop culturally delicious If Charlie Parker Were a Gunslinger, There’d Be a Whole Lot of Dead Copycats (which, in all fairness, has already been tagged previously)—one of the blogs I was going to include on my list, I thought I’d take a stab at this.  Here goes:

1. Blog d’Elisson – If you look at the “Yet More Self-Aggrandizement” Section in the right hand section of Steve’s blog, you’ll see a quote by me that I confess I swiped from Kaspar Gutman (Sydney Greenstreet) in the movie The Maltese Falcon.  But in “liberating” this quote I meant no malice: simply put, Steve is one of the most fascinating individuals I’ve ever met.  His blog is a living, breathing example of esoteric; he has so many interests that he reminds me of a good friend in college who could hold forth on any subject without any hint of “I know more than you do.”  (Or, as Walter Brennan used to put it: “No brag…just fact.”)  There’s always something to be learned or taken away from Blog d’Elisson—and if you ever get the pleasure of meeting the man himself in person, take it from me: there’s no pretense about him, what you see is what you get.

2. Pop Culture Petri Dish – I have only one complaint about Tony Kay’s blog…he doesn’t update it nearly enough.  As an observer of pop culture, I am full-green-envious of those individuals who dissect it better than I can, and Tony is definitely in the top five.  In watching the TV chestnut Streets of San Francisco on DVD, Tony can’t help but marvel at the huge leaps in technology made since that series’ 1972-77 run: “’Where's his cell phone?’ my mind cried out more than once as I watched a beat cop forced to run to the nearest pay phone to call in a crime scene, and observing antique equipment like Tele-type machines and, hell, electric typewriters was like peeking in on a living museum.”  Great stuff.

3. The Third Banana - As an individual who’s been known to drive people out of the TV room with cries of “That’s so-and-so!” any time I recognize a character actor, it’s nice to know that Aaron Neathery and Company are there to share their immeasurable knowledge of comedians who are either forgotten today…or were obscure from the get-go.  Case in point, this on-the-money mini-review of The Wrong Miss Wright (1937), a Columbia two-reeler starring Charley Chase that Aaron notes “is arguably better than most of his final performances for [Hal] Roach…”  Nice to know that I’m not the only one who thinks Wright is one of Chase’s best comedies.

4. Something Old, Nothing New – I’ll just put it as succinctly as I can…I want to be Jaime Weinman when I grow up.

5. Scrubbles.net – Like any good pop culture blog, Matt Heinrichs samples everything from the buffet, from Siskel & Ebert to erotic playing cards to Disneyland records.  Matt consistently emphasizes what people have long suspected but are afraid to admit: kitsch is cool.  

The Thief of Bad Gags

Back in October of 2006, I mentioned that I purchased some old-time radio programs from my good friend Jerry Haendiges that included broadcasts from The Jack Carson Show, The Fitch Bandwagon (the Phil Harris & Alice Faye years, before they switched to their self-titled series sponsored by Rexall) and the Ray Milland laugh fest Meet Mr. McNutley.  I also bought a fourth series from Jer, one that I had planned to write about after tucking a few episodes under my belt…well, as you know by now, it’s often hard for me to get around to things as quickly as I would like.  But since I was doing some random surfing earlier today and discovered that someone referenced a TDOY post for an entry on Wikipedia, I decided to have a listen to this series: The Texaco Star Theater, Milton Berle’s radio farewell that ran a single season on ABC Radio beginning September 22, 1948.

Berle’s television show, as you’re no doubt familiar, was also known as The Texaco Star Theater (only it was televised on NBC-TV) and became one of the contributing factors to the phenomenal number of television set purchases in the halcyon days of the new medium.  On radio, however, The Texaco Star Theater had been on the air since 1938, as the generic banner for shows starring the likes of Adolphe Menjou, John Barrymore, Ken Murray, James Melton, Tony Martin and Alan Young.  (In fact, Fred Allen’s show was known by that title while he was on CBS from 1940-44.)

When Berle’s former NBC series was axed on April 13, 1948, he moved to the Life Savers network in the fall of 1948, bringing along with him former NBC stooges Arnold Stang, Pert Kelton, Jack Albertson, announcer Frank Gallop, and writers Nat Hiken and Aaron Ruben.  (These two scribes were also joined by the Simon Brothers, Neil and Danny.)  In later years, Milton remembered it as “the best radio show I ever did…a hell of a funny variety show.” Though it, too, was doomed to last only one season—it’s every bit as hilarious as his unjustly neglected NBC program, and it’s wonderful to be able to get the opportunity to listen to what is almost the complete run of the series.  One broadcast from November 24, 1948 features this amusing exchange between Berle and Stang (who apparently rejoined the series—my guess is probably because Henry Morgan’s ABC program had been cancelled):

BERLE: Uh, what is your name, young man?

STANG (loudly) My name is Milton Berle!

BERLE: Milton Berle?

STANG: Yeah, I see you’re confused…

BERLE: Yes…

STANG: …I suppose I’d better explain…

BERLE: I wish you would…

STANG: I’m not the Milton Berle that has a shoe store in the Bronx…

BERLE: You’re not…?

STANG: No…that’s the first thing people think of when they hear the name…

BERLE: Now, wait a minute…wait a minute…there’s another Milton Berle, the radio star…

STANG: Yeah, yeah, yeah…you’re making the same mistake a lot of people make…that’s Burl Ives…

BERLE: Now, wait a minute…wait…wait a minute…please…look, my name is Milton Berle, too…

STANG: Oh, so you’re one of those guys who right away takes a name the minute it becomes popular, huh?

BERLE: Wait a minute…takes a name?  That’s my real name!

STANG: Milton Berle?

BERLE: Yes!

STANG: I don’t get it…if you’re here tonight…

BERLE: Yes?

STANG: …who’s watchin’ the shoe store?

This broadcast is titled “A Salute to Thanksgiving,” and the funniest bit on this (and other Berle Theater broadcasts) emanate from a feature showcased on his 1947-48 program, “(Fill-in-the-blank) Forum,” which I suspect writer Hiken “liberated” from his former boss, Fred Allen.  Here, Uncle Miltie interviews Pert Kelton’s long-suffering housewife:

BERLE: Let’s hear from the women…the lady in the second row, opening a can of beer with her tooth…Madam, uh…what is your name?

KELTON: Tallulah Feeney—I’m a homemaker…

BERLE: I see…I see…and you have a problem concerning Thanksgiving, is that…

KELTON: Yeah…how can I keep my husband from eatin’ so much rich foods?  He’s a regular Barbara Glutton…

BERLE: He must like Thanksgiving, huh?

KELTON: And how…the last Thanksgivin’, the minute he woke up, he jumped out of bed and took a big bite out of the turkey…

BERLE: I see…you hadn’t cooked it yet?

KELTON: I hadn’t killed it yet…

BERLE: He eats a lot at Thanksgiving dinner?

KELTON: Oh, brother…he knocks off a huge meal and then rolls over and goes to sleep…

BERLE: But a man’s entitled to sleep after a heavy meal…

KELTON: With his head in the mashed potatoes?

BERLE: Oh!  Oh!  He’s sure a heavy eater…

KELTON: The doctor says he has a tapeworm…

BERLE: Tapeworm?  Does he watch his diet?

KELTON: Yeah…he stopped eatin’ tape…

BERLE: Well, that does it every time…

KELTON: What a clumsy jerk he is, carving our Thanksgivin’ turkey…every year he cuts off the same piece for me…

BERLE: What piece is that?

KELTON: His thumb…

BERLE: He’s really a pest around Thanksgiving, eh?

KELTON: He means well…today, he was helpin’ me in the kitchen…and it took him six hours to dress a turkey…

BERLE: Six hours?  Why, you could dress a dozen turkeys in that time…

KELTON: In slacks and sports shoes?

The Texaco Star Theater also carried over the “At Home with the Berles” feature prominently showcased during Milton’s NBC run (with Stang playing the part of Berle’s obnoxiously bratty son)—sadly, without the participation of Mary Shipp, who by that time had found steady work as night school teacher Miss Spaulding on Life with Luigi.  I’ve noticed, however, in sampling these shows that Jack Albertson was allowed to participate more in the sketches—Albertson had a recurring bit in which he played an influential figure (movie mogul, Broadway producer) infatuated with Berle (“So it was a flop…so I lost some money…I like show business…I like you…kill me!  I like you...”), but in this exchange from a December 8, 1948 broadcast he seems to have forgotten on which side his bread is buttered:

BERLE: Our questions tonight are on radio, and here’s our first contestant—are you ready, sir?

ALBERTSON: Yes, sir!

BERLE: All right…now, for ten dollars…who is the star of the Texaco Star Theater?

ALBERTSON: Milton Berle!

BERLE: Correct!  For twenty dollars, who is the star of the Texaco television show?

ALBERTSON: Milton Berle!

BERLE: Right!  Now you’re up to forty dollars…what comedian is known for his mother laughing at him?

ALBERTSON: Milton Berle!

BERLE: That’s right again…now, for eighty dollars…who do you think is the funniest comedian on the air?  (Long pause, accompanied by audience laughter) Come on—it’s for eighty dollars…

ALBERTSON: You keep the money…I’ll keep my self-respect!

BERLE (after the audience response dies down): Thank you, Henny Youngman…

Half-Nelson

Via a post at Jaime Weinman’s Something Old, Nothing New (and the Home Theater Forum post that reveals the depressing news) I’ve learned to my consternation that the Shout! Factory release of The Best of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet due out the first of May will contain the heavily-edited syndicated versions of the cherry-picked episodes of the long-running domestic comedy; last seen in repose on the afternoon schedule of GoodLife TV (“the channel where old TV shows go to die”).

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by this turn of events.  First, I preordered the set—which usually spells trouble from the get-go.  Second, during its stint on GoodLife, Ozzie & Harriet were paired with another famous 50s sitcom family, the Williams’s (Danny, Kathy, Terry, Rusty and Linda) of Make Room for Daddy (a.k.a. The Danny Thomas Show) fame—a series also put cut to ribbons in syndication and whose repeats were used for the first (and of this writing, only) DVD release (dubbed “The Complete Fifth Season,” completely ignoring the Jean Hagen years).  On this boxset, the celebrated episode that served as the pilot for what later became The Andy Griffith Show is practically incomprehensible due to its chainsaw-like editing, a fate that also befell the Daddy episode that introduced Joey Bishop in the pilot for his 1961-65 sitcom.  (Though I maintain that much of the slicing-and-dicing of that half-hour is an insidious conspiracy instigated by Marlo Thomas to keep people from seeing what she looked like before she learned she didn’t have to go through life with her father’s nose.)

Since David Nelson has decided to go the cheap rate with his family-sanctioned DVD set. I’m guessing that the “radio episodes” that are to be included as extras in this collection are probably ones already in circulation among old-time radio fans.  I had heard quite some time ago (and I apologize for not having the full story—it’s hell getting old) that more of Ozzie & Harriet’s radio “adventures” are extant—only they’re under lock-and-key in some library collection of some college (I believe my source said Northwestern, but I could be wrong about this), tucked safely away from an admiring public.  This is a similar fate that befell some of Fred Allen’s broadcasts, which are now ensconced in the Boston Public Library (where Allen was employed while a mere sprat) so that greedy OTR entrepreneurs can’t get hold of them and sell them to people like myself.  (Joe Mackey and I once discussed an elaborate Ocean’s Eleven-like plot to rescue these tapes…but admittedly, the master plan is still in its embryonic stages.)

I don’t know if any Ozzie & Harriet fans are going to bite the bullet and still purchase the Shout! Factory set despite this revelation (in fact, I don’t know many Ozzie & Harriet fans period) but I will suggest an alternate route: check out this latest Mill Creek Entertainment release.  It’s advertised as Fun with Ozzie & Harriet, a public domain collection of thirty-eight episodes…but if you order it from Deep Discount.com, it will arrive at your doorstep with one hundred episodes under the title The Essential Ozzie & Harriet Collection.  All for the low price of $6.58, which you cannot beat with a stick.

Spirits and demons beware

Before Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis (oh, and Ernie Hudson) began investigating something strange in your neighborhood, Saturday morning kidvid aficionados knew who the real Ghost Busters were: a pair of bumbling paranormal investigators and their pet gorilla who answered to Spenser, Tracy and Kong.  (For the record…Tracy was the gorilla.)  I mentioned back in February that BCI-Navarre was bringing this Saturday morning perennial to DVD, and since it arrived in the mail this week (along with my Criterion copy of Brute Force)…well, let’s just say curiosity did the rest.

Premiering on CBS in the fall of 1975, The Ghost Busters was part of a Saturday morning tradition of live action shows produced especially for kids and adults with no discriminating taste (I used to belong to the former group—now I’m in the latter).  It reunited former F Troop co-stars Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch and allowed them to do their patented vaudeville burlesque in a series that honestly hasn’t changed all that much from what I remember.  (I will issue a caveat here: if you’re unlike me and you look upon F Troop as a television travesty, you will not want to order this DVD set.)  Though the humor is unabashedly corny and kid-oriented (many of the jokes are the sort that even Abbott and Costello would have taken a pass on) it is still amusing once I go to my “silly place.”  The running gags (Storch’s weekly struggle with a mind-of-its-own file cabinet, plus the fact that all the ghosts choose “the old castle near the cemetery” as their hideout), Bob Burns’ wonderful gorilla-suited turn as Tracy and the one-of-a-kind chemistry between Tucker and Storch still brings a smile to my jaded face (the fact that both actors unabashedly give their all to material that neither Oscar Wilde nor Noel Coward contributed to is inspiring, to say the least).  Burns observes in an interview on the DVD set that he was in such awe of his two co-stars that it affected his performance; he held back as the “gorilla” fearing he would upstage their antics.  When he finally summed up the nerve to discuss it with Tucker, the actor shrugged it off and told him not to worry about it because “I’m too old to care and Larry is too dumb.”  (Burns also reveals that Storch would refer to his pal as “Sarge,” something that as an F Troop fan I find oddly endearing.)

But the best thing about Ghost Busters is that the series attracted an impressive wattage of character talent that felt the same way Tucker and Storch did: they were there to entertain people and only too happy to get the work.  That’s why you find performers like Ted Knight as “The Canterville Ghost,” an outing that also co-stars Family Affair’s Kathy Garver and Len “Uncle Leo” Lesser.  Knight had a long association with Filmation, the producers of Busters, having done voice work on their animated shows like Fantastic Voyage and Journey to the Center of the Earth.  (Knight even posed as an animation editor on one occasion in an effort to convince a visiting businessman to invest in the company.)  Other character greats to appear on the show include Bernie Kopell (channeling KAOS’ Siegfried as Dr. Frankenstein), Lennie Weinrib, Marty Ingels, Severn Darden (as Dr. Henry Jekyll), Joe E. Ross (as Mr. Hyde—though he appears to be wearing his caveman get-up from It’s About Time), Howard Morris, Jim Backus and Ronny Graham.

Fifteen episodes of Busters were produced at breakneck speed (I believe they mentioned that it was done in about three months in one of the interviews) and of those fifteen my favorites are “The Maltese Monkey” (the plot is too stupid for words but I like Good Times’ Johnny Brown’s impression of Sydney Greenstreet and Billy Barty’s take on Peter Lorre) and “Which Witch is Which?”  This last one is a real hoot: The Dick Van Dyke Show’s Ann Morgan Guilbert is a Salem witch who comes back to take revenge on the ancestor of the man who burned her at the stake (if you guessed that it’s Storch, then you can skip this one) and Bowery Boy Huntz Hall plays her incredibly dense sidekick (and yes, he does the “Motorlips” bit).  Hall’s character (an amiable dunce named Gronk) must have been well received because he turned up in another episode, this time stooging for “Merlin the Magician”—with the titular sorcerer played by Carl Ballantine of McHale’s Navy fame.  (How Gronk met up with Merlin is left unexplained.)

This two-disc set features some generous extras, including interviews with Burns and producer Lou Scheimer, photo galleries and some trailers for Filmation series either already out on DVD or due to come (including Ark II, Space Academy, Jason of Star Command and The Secrets of Isis).  Curiously, there’s also an episode of the animated Ghost Busters, which followed the exploits of Spenser, Tracy and Kong’s descendants.  This show was so terrible that I didn’t even mind when a rival cartoon—using the characters from the Murray-Aykroyd-Ramis film—called itself The Real Ghostbusters.  (Because I know who the real originals are:  “With us on the job/troubles will fade/the Ghost Busters do it againnnnn…”)

“From West Virginia they came to stay/In sunny Cali-forn-i-a…”

While looking at some new releases over at DVD Price Search, I saw a listing for The Real McCoys: Season #1 that is apparently going to hit the streets May 22, 2007 courtesy of Infinity Entertainment.   McCoys was a monster sitcom hit for ABC (and later CBS) from 1957-63, starring character great Walter Brennan as cantankerous Amos McCoy, the patriarch of a West Virginia family who uprooted their holdings in the Mountain State and moved westward to California like a modern-day Joad family.  Dick Crenna (now being billed as Richard) co-starred as his grandson Luke, who was married to the magically babe-a-licious Kathleen Nolan as Kate; other regulars in the cast included Lydia Reed, Tony Martinez, Michael Winkelman, Madge Blake and Andy Clyde.

The Real McCoys isn’t entirely new to DVD; Rhino released two “Best of” collections a good while back but I’m glad to see that season-by-season sets are being attempted since the series ushered in the spate of rural situation comedies (The Andy Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, etc.) that dominated American television in the 1960s.  The series, although relying on the broad depiction of mountain folk for much of its humor, is one of the very few that featured positive images of West Virginians (the only other one I can think of right-off-the-bat is receptionist Jennifer Marlowe, played by Loni Anderson on WKRP in Cincinnati); the family McCoy might have been a bit uninformed on the ways of their adoptive state, but they were certainly a good role model for families back then.  I can’t help but think of the program when the University of Virginia’s “Pep Band” poked fun five years ago at their West Virginia University competitors during half-time by portraying a West Virginia girl as a “Beverly Hillbillies”-type they raised the ire of West Virginia’s then-governor Robert Wise, who demanded an apology from University President John T. Casteen III for the slight.  Had I been in Wise’s shoes, I would have painstakingly pointed out to U.Va. that the Beverly Hillbillies were from Arkansas (not West Virginia), thus saying all that needed to be said on the intelligence running rampant in that institution.  (Sadly, people still invoke the “Beverly Hillbillies” example in describing Mountain State natives to this day, as in the case of this overpaid clown from USA Today.)

Anyhoo, CD Universe is listing the McCoys set at $16.44 (which seems like a steal except their s&h rate is $6.99) for the time being…and there’s also a link to another set being released at the same time entitled Suspense: The Lost Episodes Collection which sounds as if they’re putting together episodes of the television version of “radio’s outstanding theatre of thrills.”  It sounds intriguing; I only wish there was more information to go with it.

Update: I spoke too soon about the Suspense set, DeepDiscount.com has the collection on their website and confirms that it contains thirty episodes from the 1949-54 series based on the long running radio anthology.  Nifty!

“The place—a city…the time—now…the story of The Felony Squad.”

Back in the 1970s, when I watched television shows like Charlie’s Angels and The Love Boat because I simply didn’t know any better, I remember seeing actor Dennis Cole in a number of guest-star roles and marveling at how he got the gig only because he was Mr. Jaclyn Smith…that is, I should say, because he was married to the Charlie’s Angels star from 1978 to 1981.  Suffice it to say, I was a bit cynical in my youth (I’m much better now) and I did not realize that he actually appeared in other series before he and Ms. Smith were betrothed, like Bearcats! and Bracken’s World.

Cole’s biggest TV hit was a 1966-69 crime drama called The Felony Squad, in which he played rookie detective Jim Briggs opposite partner Detective Sam Stone—who was essayed by none other than “the greatest private detective of them all,” Howard Duff (well, on radio, anyway).  The two men, mentor and protégé, worked the mean streets of an unnamed Western city (though filmed in Los Angeles) under the supervision of Captain Frank Nye (Frank Maxwell), and later Captain Ed Franks (Barney Phillips).  The other main character on Squad was Jim’s father Dan, a desk sergeant played by Dragnet veteran Ben Alexander.  (In fact, when Jack Webb revived the classic radio-television series in January 1967, he had wanted his old friend to rejoin him as Frank Smith—but since Alexander had already committed to Squad Webb was forced to call upon the services of Harry Morgan as Bill Gannon.)

Richard Murphy, a screenwriter who contributed to classic film noirs like Boomerang! (1947), Cry of the City (1948) and Panic in the Streets (1950), was the creator of Felony Squad and also wrote and directed The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1960), the TV adaptation of which was mentioned in a post by Jaime Weinman sometime back.  In its planning stages, Squad was originally titled Men Against Evil—which I have to admit, is a much dandier title.  The concept of the program was a sort of soap opera-ish look at the day-to-day routine of a police captain.  However, this idea was soon scrapped and the show was reworked into your standard police drama with the three main characters—and the title also went out the window when one of the show’s sponsors objected to the “Evil” part.  Squad premiered on ABC-TV September 12, 1966 and for two seasons was a Monday night viewing staple that, while not ruling the ratings roost, was a modest hit and had built a respectable following.  However, at the beginning of its third season in 1968, it was moved to Friday nights where it found itself pummeled senseless by CBS’ still-popular Gomer Pyle, USMC.  ABC then put the show out of its misery in mid-season on January 31, 1969.

Up until today, I had never seen an episode of Felony Squad—my curiosity in the series was, of course, sparked by the presence of OTR veterans Duff and Alexander—so I purchased an eight-disc set from one of those websites that advertise complete seasons of shows (I won’t sully the blog by mentioning the word…but it rhymes with “root peg”), thinking a series like Squad is going to be pretty far down the totem pole in seeing a proper DVD release anytime soon.  I didn’t pay very much for it but I will caveat emptor you right now: the source of these shows would appear to be old VHS tapes and while the video is watchable, the audio has an annoying hum that often makes it hard to hear the dialogue.  (I placed an order for this set back in November, and when I called five weeks later to inquire on its status, I couldn’t hear the person on the phone because it sounded as if she were working in a laundry at the time.  I guess that’s what they call in the writing bidness “foreshadowing.”)  Also, every site I’ve seen this set advertised trumpets it as “The Complete Series”; Squad aired seventy-three episodes during its three-season run but there are only fifty-two on the set.  Unless they’ve repealed some of the laws of mathematics that does not constitute “complete.”  (This is a shame, too, because the set doesn’t have the final episode of Squad, “The Law & Order Blues”—which guest-stars Carl Betz as attorney Clinton Judd in a “crossover” episode continued on Betz’s series Judd For the Defense.)

As for the show itself, it’s darned good television—it’s a shame you don’t see this one rerun much (I don’t know if FX ever showed it in its early days of operation but one of the shows features a portion of a commercial with Married with Children’s David Faustino touting Fox t-shirts…so I suppose it’s possible).  At the risk of sounding facetious, it’s sort of a Reader’s Digest version of Naked City, telescoping everything that was grand about that equally-neglected series (were it not for the DVD sets released by Image Entertainment, I would have never even caught that one) into an economical half-hour.  Squad’s other connection to Naked City lies in the fact that Walter Grauman served as the show’s executive producer; Grauman also directed one of City’s classic episodes, “Prime of Life.”  Many of Felony Squad’s episodes were directed by up-and-comers like Michael Ritchie and Richard Donner, but also featured turns behind the camera from series star Duff, future Cheers player Nicholas Colasanto and OTR veteran Lawrence Dobkin!

Duff, Cole and Alexander turn in exceptionally fine work, and of course there are plenty future stars in guest parts (Ed Asner, Charles Grodin, Ricardo Montalban, Beau Bridges, Carol Kane, Joan Van Ark, etc.).  I’ve only watched the first disc but have already viewed a couple of very good episodes: the series’ premiere, “The Streets are Paved with Quicksand,” guest-stars Darren McGavin as a sleazy attorney who accuses Jim Briggs (Cole) of brutality, forcing Stone to defend his partner in a nice little plot-twist.  “Flame Out” co-stars James Best as a slightly nutso punk (and believe me, when it comes to playing flakes, Best was…well, the best) who senselessly murders a manager in an all-night diner and then plots an extortion scheme against a married woman (Pippa Scott).  And of course, what dramatic series from the 1960s would be complete without an appearance from Robert Duvall?  Bob’s a police snitch (a real geek with Coke-bottle glasses) in “The Death of a Dream,” which finds Stone and Briggs on the hunt for a pair of muggers who commit crimes while in drag.  The lottery is at $25 million this week, so if I get lucky you may soon be able to see Felony Squad on an independent television station near you.

There’s no place like home

Okay, it’s a bit clichéd—but in this case, it’s also a completely accurate way to describe “the Luthersville experience” of the past few days; it’s always good to get back to your familiar stomping grounds…particularly if you’re a forty-two year old man who’s having to sleep on a futon.  (The ‘rents’ accommodations were a bit more comfortable: they opted to crash at a Hampton Inn in nearby Newnan.  I offered to use my La Quinta connections to snag them an employee rate, but Mom is trying to rack up enough Hilton Honors points before next year’s Shreve reunion…an event that the thought of which makes me break out in a cold sweat.)

But the title of this post is also accurate because my niece—affectionately known as the Peanut—watched The Wizard of Oz on DVD during our stay; the first of what I hope will be many visits to the Emerald City to come.  Her mother, sister Deb, experienced some trepidation over letting her view this American film classic, particularly due to its high Wicked Witch-winged monkey content.  (Deb has a tendency to be a tad overprotective at times; she reminds me of a woman in a Robert Klein routine who screeches at her son: “Don’t touch that!  You’ll get cancer!”)  But her daughter insisted that the darker elements in Oz would not bother her (she kept repeating “I’m brave” in a mantra-like fashion whenever Margaret Hamilton did her thing onscreen) and for the most part, she dug the movie up until the final ten or fifteen minutes.  When I asked why she was so fidgety, sister Deb explained that she had already seen the ending during a showing at her church.  The Peanut did, however, watch Disney’s Peter Pan with rapt attention and enjoyed the heck out of it.  Her mother, on the other hand, was not amused when I explained to her daughter just why the crocodile was constantly following Captain Hook.

Other Peanut-related activities included taking her swimming (she breathlessly informed her father via phone about how she jumped off the side from the four-foot end and touched the bottom!) and to the Mall of Georgia, where she was disappointed at the lack of a play place (there may or may not have been one, we never got the opportunity to see) but settled for a ride on a merry-go-round at the food court.  On the way home, Mom decided to drive around Deb’s alma mater, Oglethorpe University, and as Deb pointed out to her daughter the various buildings I heard an audible sigh from the back seat that seemed to say “Why did we get off the Interstate to see this?  This is cutting into my play time!”  Long treks are an anathema to my niece; we took a trip to Athens to scope out the house that her Aunt Kat will be moving into come mid-August and it was difficult for her to shake off the “Are-we-there-yet?” syndrome.

To address Pam’s query, the only equine-related activity during our stay involved feeding some leftover corn-on-the-cob to the horses—Peanut was much more stoked about a tiny litter of kittens that was dumped onto my sister by persons unknown.  Except for the sleeping arrangements, I enjoyed every minute of my vacation—though the old adage of “It’s never long enough” certainly applies here…plus, it’s difficult to shake off a night auditor’s sleep pattern in such a brief span of time; I found myself rising early enough to catch Green Acres and Gunsmoke reruns on TVLand.

“…ace cameraman who covers the crime news of the great city…”

Old-time radio historian John Dunning describes the popular radio series Casey, Crime Photographer as having “more history than substance. It was a B-grade radio detective show, on a par perhaps with The Falcon, better than Mr. Keen, but lacking the polish and style of Sam Spade.”

Now, I have nothing but the utmost admiration for Mr. Dunning—his On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio is considered by many to be The Hobby’s “Bible”—but I think his assessment of this series is a tad harsh. Any detective program will pale in comparison to The Adventures of Sam Spade, a show that I consider the gold standard of private-eye dramas, and to classify Casey as better than Mr. Keen, Tracer of Lost Persons is damning it with faint praise. The only possible way to be entertained by Mr. Keen nowadays is to enjoy it as the camp classic it has since become, particularly the character of sidekick Mike Clancy (“Saints preserve us, Mr. Keen!”), who just might possibly be the most mentally challenged character in the history of OTR. (I mean, this is a guy who makes Clem Kadiddlehopper look like Robert Oppenheimer.)

The origins of Jack “Flashgun” Casey can be traced to the 1930s detective pulp Black Mask; the hard-boiled photojournalist was introduced in the March 1934 issue by former newspaperman/ad exec George Harmon Coxe. Coxe discussed the inspiration for Casey in a 1978 interview:

I had read and enjoyed the fiction exploits of reporters from time to time, but I also knew that it was the photographer accompanying such newsmen who frequently had to stick their neck out to get an acceptable picture…This is turn meant that while the reporter with his pad and pencil could describe a warehouse or dockside fire from a safe distance, the guy with the camera had to edge far closer to get a negative that would merit reproduction. So why not give the cameraman his due? If the reporter could be a glamorous figure in fiction, why not the guy up front who took—and still does take (consider the televised war sequences)—the pictures?

So radio audiences received a formal introduction to Coxe’s creation over CBS Radio beginning July 7, 1943. The series was originally titled Flashgun Casey, but during its run it was also referred to as Casey, Press Photographer; Crime Photographer and Casey, Crime Photographer. (Apparently Casey was ducking a few creditors.) Casey snapped photos for the fictitious Morning Express, and often found himself cast in the role of amateur sleuth by getting involved in the stories he covered. Many of the plots had him stumbling across a clue in a photo he had taken (something the police had overlooked), and with the help of fellow reporter—and romantic interest—Annie Williams, they would inevitably bring the culprit(s) to justice.

What set Casey, Crime Photographer apart from its radio crime drama competition was its laid-back atmosphere, chiefly personified in its backdrop of Casey and Annie’s favorite watering hole, The Blue Note Café. There, in between assignments, they would engage in badinage with their philosophically sardonic bartender pal Ethelbert, often to the melodious accompaniment of the Blue Note’s background piano. Another factor in the show’s success was the first-rate scripting by Alonzo Deen Cole (The Witch’s Tale), who was responsible for adapting Coxe’s Casey character to radio. One reviewer at the time credited Cole’s scripts with “wit and naturalism missing from many radio thrillers.”

Matt Crowley was the first actor to tackle the role of Casey; then replaced by Jim Backus (!) and finally Staats Cotsworth, a radio veteran who also portrayed the title fourth-estate hero of NBC’s daytime serial Front Page Ferrell. The part of Annie was essayed by many different actresses: Jone Allison, Alice Reinheart, Lesley Woods, Betty Furness and Jan Miner were all heard at various times as the photographer’s main squeeze. Ethelbert was faithfully played by John Gibson throughout the entire run, and Captain Bill Logan—Casey and Annie’s contact on the police force—was portrayed by Jackson Beck, and later Bernard Lenrow. The Blue Note’s pianist was played by Herman Chittison for most of Casey’s run, but Juan Hernandez and Teddy Wilson (formerly with the Benny Goodman Trio) were also on hand to tickle the ivories from time to time.

“Self Made Hero” (7/17/47), the first of two programs that I listened to at work last night, tells the story of a young man (Jack Grimes) named Jack Clifside (one “f”), who suffers from a self-esteem problem—so much so that he reports a fake shooting incident in an attempt to impress his shallow girlfriend Myrna. The cops quickly ascertain that Jack is running a scam, and are about to run the little crumb in when Casey intercedes on his behalf. When Casey offers to have a talk with the vacuous Myrna on Jack’s behalf, the wacky complications ensue, as witnessed in this exchange:

CASEY: Gimme a cup of black coffee, Ethelbert…
ETHELBERT: Okay, Casey…you want one, Miss Williams?
ANNIE: No thanks, Ethelbert…
ETHELBERT: Casey, you look like you got troubles…
CASEY (in disgust): Eh…
ANNIE: I’ll say he has, Ethelbert—in a neat red-headed package…trimmed with short skirts, and a pair of bobby sox…a hero-worship complex, and a…very unbashful personality…
CASEY: It isn’t funny, Ann…
(Annie giggles)
ETHELBERT: You’re talkin’ about a woman, huh?
CASEY: No, not a woman, no—a goofy seventeen year old that oughta be spanked…wish I had the nerve to do it…
ANNIE: She’s developed a crush on Casey—phones him at the office several times a day, and waits for him on the street so she can (sighs) gaze at him, and…sigh…
ETHELBERT: Casey, how did you get yourself into anything like that? You ain’t no cradle snatcher…
CASEY: Ethelbert, all I did was to call on her one afternoon last week in order to…uh…um…well, to try and square something for somebody else…
ETHELBERT: She isn’t the girl that Clifside kid set off the firecrackers on account of…?
ANNIE (giggling): That’s who…
ETHELBERT: Huh?
ANNIE: But Clifside doesn’t know yet that Casey squared things so beautifully…
(SFX: phone ringing)
ETHELBERT: Will you get it, Walter…?
WALTER: Yeah, sure…
CASEY: I put off telling him that…she won’t listen to anything that I say in his favor, because…well…he’s miserable enough as it is…you know, he phones me a couple times a day, too, Ethelbert—to ask how I’m making out with her…I can’t stall him much longer! Oh, I must have been nuts to get myself mixed up in something like this…

(Note: Jim Cox, in his invaluable reference Radio Crime Fighters, mentions that an OTR trivia expert recalls that Walter—an employee in the Blue Note’s kitchen—was often referred to but never heard on-air. “Self Made Hero” puts that myth to bed, particularly since he has a line or two more after the above scene, in which he informs Casey that the phone is for him.)

Jack is upset when he learns about Casey and Myrna, and vows to throw himself off Lover’s Leap—Casey and Annie go after him, and the three of them eventually end up witnessing a hit engineered by a notorious racketeer. The program concludes with our boy Jack becoming a hero for real. “Photo of the Dead” (7/24/47) is another solid episode: a friend of Casey’s not only ends up dead but swindled out of a hefty sum by a bogus swami. Annie then poses as a potential client in order to smoke him out, and to get a nice exclusive for the paper in the bargain.

For most of the series' run, Casey, Crime Photographer was sustained by CBS—except for brief periods of sponsorship by Anchor Hocking (1946-48), Toni Home Permanent (1948-49), and Philip Morris (1949-50). The show’s association with Anchor Hocking is particularly noteworthy in that most of this series’ extant episodes (approximately 70 or so) were obtained from transcriptions saved by the glass company. The Anchor Hocking episodes often feature an opening billboard spotlighting the show’s characters:

CASEY: You know, Ethelbert—you and I have a good chance to be famous…
ETHELBERT: How’s that, Casey?
CASEY: Well, I figure if a man’s known by the company he keeps…
ETHELBERT: Yeah?
CASEY: …then he ought to be known by the company that keeps him…
ETHELBERT: That makes sense…
CASEY: And the company that keeps us is…
ANNOUNCER (Tony Marvin): Anchor Hocking! The most famous name in glass…

Casey, Crime Photographer left CBS Radio November 16, 1950—and enjoyed a brief live television run (with Miner and Gibson in their radio roles) from April 19, 1951 to June 5, 1952. (Casey was originally played by Richard Carlyle, but was replaced by a young Darren McGavin two months later.) The series then returned to radio January 13, 1954, and hung on for another year before finally getting the axe April 22, 1955—the same day that Mr. & Mrs. North and Mr. Keen also turned in their gumshoes. I have to confess, though; when I first listened to Casey, I didn’t care for it much but the more shows I previewed, the more I became a convert. Strong characterizations and good scripting have made this OTR detective series a genuine winner.

Like Lay’s Potato Chips…

…I just can’t seem to stop with just one Gunsmoke episode. I checked out four of them again last night, thanks to what I like to call the “eye of the hurricane.” (You see, tomorrow marks the start of Savannah’s city-sanctioned drunk—a.k.a. St. Patrick’s Day celebration—and things are relatively calm for the time being.) This quartet of episodes was penned by scribe John Meston, and there was nary a bad one in the bunch.

“Matt For Murder” (7/26/54) is the first of these outstanding episodes, its plot features Dodge City’s marshal accused of murdering a man named Lou Price by Price's former partner, Red Samples (Vic Perrin). What makes this entry fun is Meston’s taking historical license by having famed Abilene lawman Wild Bill Hickok (John Dehner) journey to Dodge to arrest his old friend Matt Dillon. (Matt’s friendship with Wild Bill is also briefly referred to in “Westbound,” which was discussed in yesterday’s post.) This intermingling of historical figures with Gunsmoke’s cast of characters was not uncommon on the radio western; the premiere episode (4/26/52) has Matt encountering a young William Bonney (a.k.a. “Billy the Kid”) and an additional episode on the Ultimate Gunsmoke Collection CD set is titled “Doc Holliday” (7/19/52), with Harry Bartell as the titular character.

Meston’s sharp dialogue includes a sly reference foreshadowing Hickok’s demise:

MATT: How is Abilene these days?
HICKOK: Well, I’m still sheriff there…guess I will be ‘til somebody gets around to shootin’ me…
CHESTER; Aw…nobody’s gonna shoot you, Mr. Hickok…
HICKOK: They keep tryin’, Chester…
MATT (chuckling): They keep missin’, too…don’t they, Bill…?
HICKOK: Well, so far…maybe that’s just because nobody’s tried to shoot me in the back yet…

Fans of Frontier Gentleman will no doubt recall an episode titled “Aces and Eights” (4/20/58) which centers on the events of Hickok’s shooting—and has its main character, J.B. Kendall, as a participant in that fateful card game. (Kendall was, of course, played by actor Dehner…who plays Hickok here…okay, maybe I should stop now before someone’s head explodes…)

The rehearsal sessions for Gunsmoke were fondly remembered by the cast and crew as “Dirty Saturdays,” in which the participants freely clowned and cut up during the proceedings before reverting to professionalism for the final transcribed product. A few of these rehearsals survive in recorded form, most notably “The New Hotel,” which can be heard on the 5-CD set Too Hot For Radio. During rehearsal readings, Dehner used to try and distract Bill Conrad by playing this meek, mousy character who would call out—at anytime and anyplace—“Hello, Marshal!” And Conrad would invariably respond: “Hello, John…” Both actors do this bit in “Matt For Murder,” (it’s just before Matt and Chester encounter Hickok at the train station) and because I was completely unprepared for it, I nearly spit out a mouthful of water I was drinking at the time. I’m convinced that the “John” character is the same “John Bomby” Matt talks to in “Christmas Story” (12/20/52), though when I floated this theory balloon in #oldradio chat one night, I didn’t get many takers.

The second episode I listened to was “Matt Gets It” (10/2/54), which has the distinction of being adapted as the premiere episode of the television version of Gunsmoke. Producer-director Charles Marquis Warren chose it for the first show because “It was shocking in those days to have your hero shot down.” That’s the plot in a nutshell: Dillon is injured by a gunman (Perrin) who is much faster than he. Now—this may be Monday-morning-quarterbacking, but I don’t think I would have gone with this episode as the TV debut; “Matt Gets It” plays much better after you’ve got a few Gunsmokes tucked under your belt. Had I watched the show’s lawman hero get gunned down in the first episode, my first thought would have been: “Not much of a lawman, is he?”

The radio version is far superior—and one of the reasons this is so is this classic moment of Chester’s reaction to Matt’s shooting:

CHESTER: Grat hit him, first shot…I could tell…Mister Dillon still got one off…I don’t know why he had to miss him…
DOC: Well, of course he missed him, Chester…Matt was out on his feet when he fired that shot…
CHESTER: He dropped his gun ‘fore he fell…
DOC: And who wouldn’t, with two bullets in his arm?
CHESTER (after a pause): Is it ruined, Doc? His arm?
DOC: No…no, it’s not ruined…it’ll be stiff for a while…but…
CHESTER: Doc?
DOC: Mm-hmm?
CHESTER: I’d-a tried to kill Graf is I’d-a had my gun out—I was gonna pick up Mister Dillon’s and do it, but Grat kicked it away from me…
DOC: It’s a good thing he did, too…
CHESTER: …I wanted to kill him…
DOC: I know…I know how you felt…
CHESTER: It’s a terrible thing, watchin’ a man like Mister Dillon get shot that way, Doc…
DOC: Of course it is, Chester…but killing Grat won’t help him now…
CHESTER (his voice rising in anger): Well, if Mister Dillon dies, I’ll kill him…I’ll get me a shotgun and I’ll kill him! I’ll blow him in half and then we’ll see how doggone fast he is…

Because the radio Gunsmoke has taken the time to establish the idolatry Chester has for Matt, that’s why “Matt Gets It” works so well. In fact, the friendship between the two men is just one of the many things I admire about the radio version, Chester Proudfoot being one of OTR’s most memorable characterizations. It’s important to note that Chester wasn’t Matt’s deputy (as he was on the TV show), but more of a helper/hanger-on; he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed (actor Parley Baer characterized him as “a dependable non-thinker”) but he made up for his lack of smarts with an incredibly fierce loyalty.

The other outstanding feature of this entry is Vic Perrin’s performance as Dan Grat, the gunslinger who puts Dillon temporarily out of commission. Perrin was one of Gunsmoke’s “repertory company” regulars, who was also multi-talented enough to pen five of the show’s radio scripts. I’m sure there were occasions when Perrin played a good guy on the show, but his portrayal of villains stand out in my mind—they always seemed to have this…haughtiness about them, as if they were insulted by the very idea of someone like Matt daring to challenge them. Perrin also appeared on programs like Dragnet, One Man’s Family, and Fort Laramie—but he’s probably best-remembered as “the control voice” on TV’s The Outer Limits (1963-65).

“Kitty Caught” (10/16/54) is yet another 24-karat Gunsmoke gem, in which our favorite dance hall gal is taken hostage by a pair of bank robbing brothers (Dehner, Larry Dobkin) who threaten to kill her if Matt goes after them. It’s a powerful episode that finds Matt resorting to cold-blooded murder to save Kitty, plus there’s a nail-biting scene where Matt and Chester—who are stationed just a ways outside the cabin where she is being held by the two brothers—are desperately trying not to make any noise so that she won’t be harmed…and then we hear the unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake…

Finally, I wrapped up my evening of pure audio pleasure with “Chester’s Murder” (1/15/55), yet another variation of Gunsmoke’s recurring “duty vs. friendship” theme. This time, Matt’s loyal helper has been accused of murdering a man (James Nusser) he had a disagreement with in a saloon earlier in the evening, and Dillon is forced to place his devoted friend under house arrest. Vic Perrin is in the cast—so you can pretty much guess who the bad guy is in this one—along with Lawrence Dobkin, who plays Sam Noonan, a character who would later become partners with Kitty in the Long Branch Saloon, thus establishing her role as businesswoman on the television series.

“I’m that man…Matt Dillon, United States marshal…”

As I continue to fight the Dreaded Pre-Spring Head Cold (which, in new developments, I have successfully passed on to my father, sister and niece—call me contagious!) I fed my Gunsmoke jones at work last night with some more episodes from Radio Spirits’ The Ultimate Gunsmoke Collection. First off the bat: “Westbound,” originally broadcast January 3, 1953. This one was a first-time listen for me, and I was really entertained by it: Matt and Chester arrive in Abilene to take Jack Daggett (Sam Edwards) back to Dodge—but encounter interference from both Daggett’s brothers (Barney Phillips, Larry Dobkin) and the rather uncooperative Abilene populace. My favorite is a timid hotel clerk played by John Dehner, who attempts to be the gracious host while at the same time wishing Dillon would find some other hotel room to keep his prisoner in:

CLERK: Thank heavens, gentlemen, you’re leaving…
MATT (with heavy sarcasm): Yeah, we’re leavin’…and I wanna thank you for your wonderful hospitality…I’ll be glad to recommend your hotel to anybody who plans to stop over in Abilene…
CLERK (meekly): Oh…I…hardly know what to say, Marshal…you simply don’t understand…you don’t know these Daggett brothers (quickly) no…no offense personally, Jack…I have to live in this town, and…
MATT: Come on, Jack…you boys run quite a bluff, you’ve got everybody in town jumpin’ sideways…
DAGGETT: You’d be smart if you did, Dillon…
(SFX: door open)
CLERK (calling after them): Good luck, gentlemen…eh…best of luck to…to all of you…!!!
MATT (chuckling): All of us…well, that’s hedgin’ his bet…

In the booklet that accompanies the CD set, OTR historian Anthony Tollin comments that “Westbound” shares many similarities with the 1952 film classic High Noon (in fact, a famous article in Time magazine once described the show as “the High Noon of broadcasting”). I certainly won’t quibble with this comparison, but in listening to the episode I couldn’t help but notice that it shares more kinship with two other classic Westerns: 3:10 to Yuma (1957) and Last Train From Gun Hill (1959). (The Gun Hill connection is not entirely coincidental; Gunsmoke scribe Les Crutchfield, who wrote “Westbound,” receives story credit on the John Sturges-directed film.)

I followed “Westbound” with “Word of Honor” (1/10/53), which provides a nice showcase for Howard McNear as his Doc Adams character is abducted to treat a dying man. Upon his return to Dodge, he refuses to identify his kidnappers because he gave them his word of honor as a physician. This show was followed by “The Cast” (12/12/53), another Doc-oriented episode, only in this one he doesn’t quite sound like his usual self. There is, of course, an explanation for this: veteran voice actor Paul Frees substitutes for McNear for this one-time-only broadcast. It’s quite jarring to hear Frees imitate McNear, to be sure—but you get used to it after a minute or two. In this show, Doc’s life is threatened by a widowed husband (Tom Tully) after his wife dies during surgery. This plot of simple folk distrusting doctors and modern medicine would get quite a workout on Gunsmoke, showing up again in the episodes “Cow Doctor” (5/28/55) and “The Surgery” (2/23/58), to name a few examples.

(While I’m on the subject of Paul Frees—I got a postcard from Bear Manor Media announcing their soon-to-be-released publication of Welcome, Foolish Mortals…The Life and Voices of Paul Frees, written by none other than the man behind the panda, publisher Ben Ohmart. I’m a little financially strapped right now, but I plan to snag a copy come next payday—as a cartoonist friend of mine used to say, “Paul Frees is everywhere!”)

“The Cast” also allows Gunsmoke fans to hear the program’s first sponsor: Post Toasties (“heap good corn flakes”) backed with Sugar Krinkles (“the sugar rice treat that’s just right sweet”). I’m not certain how long Post’s association with the show lasted, but you can pretty much tell that it was doomed from the get-go; the commercials are completely incongruous with Gunsmoke’s gritty realism, sounding instead more appropriate for sponsorship of something like The Lone Ranger.

I wrapped up my mini-Gunsmoke festival with a broadcast originally heard July 5, 1954: “Hack Prine,” the first episode sponsored by the program’s better-known bread-and-butter, L&M/Chesterfield. “Hack Prine” isn’t necessarily the best show, but I think it’s probably the most representative—I would choose this entry if I wanted to introduce a novice listener to the joys of the program. All of the regulars are in place here, and the plot—an old gunfighter friend of Matt’s has been hired by one of Dillon’s enemies to kill him—encompasses an oft-recurring Gunsmoke theme, that of duty vs. friendship. (Tollin notes in the booklet that “Hack Prine” was also adapted as the pilot for the television version.) Four regular members of the show’s “repertory company”—Dobkin, Dehner, Vic Perrin, and Harry Bartell—are also in the supporting cast of this episode as well.

“You gotta start off each day wit’ a song…”

The legendary Jimmy Durante has been gone for close to a quarter of a century, but even those people who have never heard of “Schnozzola” are familiar with his unforgettable catchphrases like “Ev’rybody wants to get inta da act!” and “I got a million of ‘em!” His lengthy show business career encompassed stage, screen and television—but it was radio that made him a household word during the 1940s.

Born on New York’s Lower East Side in 1893, Durante learned to play the piano at seventeen, and managed to eke out a living pounding the keys in beer gardens and nightclubs (he once worked at a club with a singing waiter named Eddie Cantor). In 1923—with his partners Eddie Jackson and Lou Clayton—he opened up the successful Club Durant, a thriving hot spot that soon ran afoul of the law and was closed by Prohibition agents. By that time, the trio of Durante, Clayton & Jackson had a toehold on Broadway, and though they disbanded the act in the 1930s, the three remained friends for life—both Clayton and Jackson became Durante’s business managers when he took his solo act to Hollywood.

Durante’s first radio gig had him substituting for his singing waiter friend on his phenomenally popular The Chase and Sanborn Hour from September-November 1933. He then replaced Cantor on a permanent basis in April of the following year, inheriting Eddie’s sixty-minute show with announcer Jimmy Wallington and orchestra leader Dave Rubinoff in tow. By this time, however, the show was drawing its last breath, and it departed NBC on September 30, 1934.

His next venture appeared a year later in October 1935 with The Jumbo Fire Chief Program—one of the most notorious flops of Radio’s Golden Age. Based on impresario Billy Rose’s stage musical (which Durante was concurrently appearing in on Broadway), it was a lavish spectacle whose weekly $15,000 bill was paid for by the good folks at Texaco. Its extravagance was naught, however—its rating was a dismal 4.1 in January 1936 and it departed the airwaves a month later, following by the stage show which at that time was also awash in a sea of red ink. (Durante would later appear in a film version of the musical in 1962.)

Although he continued on in the public eye, mostly with a series of second-rate films, it wasn’t until 1943 that Durante was presented with a pair of opportunities that would allow him to pull himself out of his then-financially dismal straits: one was a booking at the Copacabana in New York (where he soon packed the place every night) and the other a guest appearance on NBC’s Camel Caravan. On that broadcast, producer Phil Cohan noticed a contrast between the veteran Durante and a young comic also on the program named Garry Moore. Moore had been tapped as the summer replacement for Camel’s The Abbott & Costello Show, but Cohan approached both men with an idea of teaming up for a possible fall series. Fate stepped in when Lou Costello was struck down with a case of rheumatic fever, which forced him off the air and necessitated a quick replacement—the agency, a little nervous about Garry’s youth and lack of name recognition, found themselves sold on Cohan’s idea on a Durante-Moore teaming, and rushed the show into production in only two weeks.

It took some time to catch on, but Durante and Moore found their niche, moving to CBS in the fall of 1943 with The Jimmy Durante-Garry Moore Show. It lasted four seasons before “The Nose” (Durante) and “The Haircut” (Moore) agreed to an amicable parting of the ways. So Durante found himself back at NBC on October 1, 1947 with The Jimmy Durante Show, a half-hour comedy-variety program sponsored by Rexall Drugs. Announcer Howard Petrie would introduce the star as “Rexall’s prescription for a pleasant evening” as Roy Bargy’s orchestra broke out into a rendition of “Inka Dinka Doo” (Durante’s theme song, which he had introduced in the 1934 film Palooka).

Listening to Durante’s Rexall program made me a convert to his unique brand of music and comedy; before that he was always kind of an acquired taste for me. (This stems from the fact that my exposure to Durante was in a series of cringe-inducing MGM “comedies” in which he co-starred with silent comedy great Buster Keaton—though 1932’s Speak Easily is The Blind Squirrel Film Theory™ exception here.) Jimmy’s supported by fine writing, exuberant musical numbers (I love “I Know Darn Well I Can Do Wit’out Broadway, But Can Broadway Do Wit’out Me?”), and a superb cast of stooges including Florence Halop (who specialized in a Mae West sound-a-like named “Hotbreath” Houlihan), Candy Candido (“I’m feelin’ mighty low…”), Alan Reed, and Arthur Treacher, who played Durante’s butler (I guess Jack Carson let him go as a result of The Sealtest Village Store). Later in that first season, comic actor Victor Moore also joined the show as Durante’s foil and “the Lothario of the lumbago set.” There’s even the presence of a young Peggy Lee, who was the show’s female vocalist. I sampled a broadcast from April 7, 1948 last night, as announcer Petrie engages in a little banter with the Schnozzola:

PETRIE: Ah, Schnozz…I’ve never seen you so happy…what’s the cause of all this gaiety?
DURANTE: It’s ineveritable, Howard—you can’t help be…(the audience laughs at Durante’s mispronunciation of “inevitable,” so he ad-libs) that’s what it says…it’s ineveritable, Howard—you can’t help bein’ jolly when ev’rybody is nice ta you…why, this mornin’ on da bus I gave my seat ta a little ol’ lady…and as she sat down, she grabbed my nose and said “As long as you’re standin’, I’ll hold your bundle”…chivalry is not dead…
PETRIE: Durante the politician…always mingling with the people…uh, but Jimmy—do you think it’s wise for someone running for office to openly support another candidate?
DURANTE: Whaddya mean?
PETRIE; Well, look at you…you’re wearing Dewey buttons all around your waistline…are you supporting him?
DURANTE: No, he’s supportin’ me...my suspenders are busted! If da Dewey buttons give out, I’m in trouble…all I got is a Hoover button holdin’ up my undies…
PETRIE: Well, Jimmy…now that your name is on the ballot, I suppose you’ll start campaigning in earnest…what’s the main plank in your platform?
DURANTE: Howard, I got an idea that’ll non compos your mentis…if I’m elected, I’m gonna move all da men outta the state of South Carolina, move in nuttin’ but women and appernt myself Honorary Governor…
PETRIE: But, Jimmy…if you did that, you’d be the only man among ten million women…
DURANTE: Dat’s what I like—even distribution! (laughs) Ah, Durante—you musta been readin’ Oliver Twist, you’re full of the dickens tonight!

On this broadcast, Jimmy’s guest is “sarong girl” Dorothy Lamour:

DURANTE: Ah, Dorothy—seein’ you again fills me wit’ more joy than da tinkle of da Good Humor wagon…whaddya been doin’ wit’ yourself?
LAMOUR; Oh, same old thing, Jimmy…in Hollywood, a girl gets so bored…out every night with men that are tall, glamorous, exciting, debonair…I’m tired of going out with that type of man!
DURANTE: You are?
LAMOUR: Yes…what are you doing tonight?
DURANTE (laughing): I know dere’s a million good lookin’ guys but I’m a novelty…but, Dottie—you and I were made for each udder…can’t ya picture us on a desert island…livin’ an exotic, lazy life beneath da banana trees…just you…me…and Lana Turner…
LAMOUR: Lana Turner? What’s she doing there?
DURANTE: Somebody’s gotta peel da bananas…!!!

Most of Durante’s solo shows available today are from his 1947-48 season for Rexall (I think there’s only about a half-dozen missing), which are populated with guest appearances from the likes of Bing Crosby, Lucille Ball, and Boris Karloff. There’s even a brief four-week period where Durante is off the show due to his being hospitalized, and several big-names fill in during his absence, including former partner Garry Moore, whose December 31, 1947 broadcast with co-guest Red Skelton is a hysterical half-hour of fun.

I also listened to a rare December 24, 1948 show—rare in that apparently only three programs are in circulation of Durante’s 1948-50 series for Camel Cigarettes, which began on October 8, 1948. Bargy, Reed, and Halop made the transition to the new program, and Durante inherited both a new announcer (Verne Smith) and a co-star in comedian Alan Young. Young, who had previously headlined his own series on ABC from 1944-47, brought back memories of the previous Durante-Moore partnership, and even though NBC gave him his own show in January 1949, he stayed with Durante until April, when he was replaced by Don Ameche. The 12/24/48 program is, of course, a Christmas Eve-themed broadcast:

YOUNG: Jimmy, I guess now’s a good a time as any…here’s my Christmas present to you…
DURANTE; Aw, Alan—you shouldn’ta done it…it’s a beautiful gift…I’ll lift da cover (SFX: cover opens, music plays) ah, just what I wanted—a musical garbage can…
YOUNG; Well, Jim—with all your important friends I’ll bet you forgot about poor little me…
DURANTE: Alan (laughing, then ad-libs) he said dat kind of shy…Alan, you’re laborin’ under a mispreaprehension…
YOUNG: Jimmy, I’m afraid you’re laboring under a mispronunciation…
DURANTE: Wait a minute…but dat’s neither Kris nor Kringle…here’s my present to ya…don’t spread dis around, but I knitted it myself…
YOUNG: Well! That’s a lovely tie—but what’s this lump hanging on the side of it?
DURANTE: Dat’s da big toe…it started out ta be a pair of socks…

Jimmy and Alan are joined by Rose Marie—who, in the 1930s, was the Brenda Lee of her day; a young girl (billed as “Baby Rose Marie”) with an adult voice who appeared on radio with Rudy Vallee and several programs of her own. Rosie does a cute Durante impersonation (Durante: “How do you like dat—I’ve been transcribed to a more convenient body!”) and sings a great duet with the Schnozz to boot. It’s a wonderful seasonal show, with appearances from Arthur Q. Bryan and Ruby Dandridge (on loan from The Judy Canova Show?), and it’s a treat to enjoy both Young and Rose Marie, years before their successes on Mister Ed and The Dick Van Dyke Show, respectively.

June 30, 1950 brought an end to radio’s Jimmy Durante Show, giving the veteran entertainer one more chance to close with “Good night, Mrs. Calabash…wherever you are” before conquering television with All Star Revue (1950-53) and The Jimmy Durante Show (1954-57). The “Calabash” line was for many years the subject of speculation as to just who the mystery woman was; Durante’s widow revealed after his death in 1980 that it was simply something Jimmy had created for radio—but as George Burns observed. “She gave Jimmy one of the most important things any entertainer can have—a great finish.”

I’m a big fan of The Jimmy Durante Show, and what ultimately makes the program so entertaining is the man himself—his gregarious manner and infectious good cheer makes the proceedings an absolute joy to listen. I’ve learned that it’s practically impossible to dislike Durante; he mastered the art of malaprops (I chuckle when he remarks that a gesture “warmed the cocktails of my heart”) long before Jane Ace married husband Goodman or Leo Gorcey became a Bowery Boy. His singing voice, growly and ragged, certainly wasn’t the finest (“I got dat note from Bing Crosby—and boy, was he glad ta get rid of it!”) but could nevertheless put across a ballad that would bring a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat (I think his version of “Young at Heart,” featured in the closing credits of the 1976 film The Front, is miles and away better than Sinatra’s). His partner Lou Clayton succinctly sums up the unique person that was Jimmy Durante: “You can warm your hands on this man.”