Geez, it seems like there's a million of these threads in the forums. They're getting to be almost as tiresome as the Level 1 Bug itself. Doesn't anyone bother to read the pushpins at the top of the forum pages anymore? All these years of watching Buffy, Full House and Sponge Bob has definitely rotted out some brains. READ THE DAMN PUSHPIN, PEOPLE!!!!!!
There, I feel much better now.
even though it's been over a month since I last blogged. The reason why I haven't blogged in such a while: I haven't had anything to say. I don't really have anything to say now except to let my one or two loyal fans know that I'm still around. But none to fear. Soon this block I've been experiencing will be clear and I'll be back to posting useless drivel like I used to. Or something to that effect.
My main man, Crazyrhythm, must be psychic or something when he mentioned in his blog that today is the anniversary of the date in which the two-part pilot for The Untouchables first aired on The Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse. I ordered the DVD release of the show off Amazon earlier this week and it arrived today. It contains the first 12 episodes of Season One plus the two-part pilot. Boo to Paramount for only releasing so few episodes but I suppose they deserve a polite golfer's clap for including the pilot, which I hadn't seen in years. A few observations:
1. Abel Fernandez was the only Untouchable from the pilot retained for the regular series. A couple of the other characters were retained but they were played by different actors.
2. Nick Georgiade and Paul Picerni both played mobsters in the pilot but would switch sides and join the Untouchables once the series began. Georgiade joined up in the series premiere episode, The Empty Chair, while Picerni climbed aboard beginning in Season Two.
3. Bruce Gordon, as Frank Nitti, wore the traditional gangster's fedora in the pilot. Once the series began, Gordon would wear a bowler hat (which he reportedly owned himself) that became one of his trademarks.
4. The pilot marked the only time that Eliot Ness kissed a woman when he swapped spit with fiancee and later wife Betty (played by Patricia Crowley). Betty Ness never appeared in person on the regular series and was only occasionally mentioned in the dialogue.
5. Neville Brand, Bruce Gordon, and some of the other actors playing mobsters used Italian accents. Once the series began these accents were dropped for the most part and it's probably a good thing although I will say that at least Gordon didn't try to lay it on too thick. However, the same cannot be said about Brand. He kind of overdid it and it detracted from his performance.
6. Walter Winchell's narration wasn't quite as rapid fire in the pilot as it would later become in the regular series.
7. Desi Arnaz's introduction to both Part 1 and 2 were included in the episode. Walter Winchell also appeared on-camera briefly in the introductions which is something he never did in the series.
8. It's a good thing they replaced the actor playing Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik with Nehemiah Persoff once the series began. The sight of a tall, heavy set actor playing Guzik instead of the short, portly Persoff was a bit odd and detracting. Plus the actor was stiff and wooden as well.
All in all, it was great to watch an episode which I hadn't seen in a long time (unless you count the numerous footage from the pilot that always seemed to pop-up throughout the series).
As part of my on-going efforts to become a great editor at TV.com, I recently purchased all 16 episodes of another show which I edit, the 1967 ABC Western Custer. It starred Wayne Maunder in the title role and included the legendary Slim Pickens in its supporting cast. (And no, Mongo wasn't in the cast along with Slim) Watched the pilot tonight and it was pretty good. I rated it an 8 out of 10. The quality of the DVD was outstanding so at least I found one bootlegger who cares about quality. Hopefully, Ness, Rico, Hobson, and the boys won't bust him. But once again I seem to be digressing.
What was most interesting about the episode was Maunder's portrayal of Custer. It was probably closer to real life than most other portrayals on-screen. The Custer of the series was a maverick and a rebel with regards to army authority but also a brave soldier. He also had a bit of an ego that frequently got him into trouble with his superiors. Maunder's portrayal was certainly more accurate than Errol Flynn's romantic cavalier of 1941's They Died With Their Boots On or Richard Mulligan's genocidal maniac in the 1970 revisionist classic Little Big Man.
Sadly, the show was more a victim of the times than anything. It was 1967, after all, which was the height of the Vietnam War. I imagine TV audiences of the time weren't really interested in a long dead military officer who's reputation in history was fast changing from a hero (played earlier by Flynn) to a villain (as later portrayed by Mulligan). Throw in the fact that the Western genre itself was fast dying out and it's no wonder that Custer lasted only half a season. But at least some of us fans of older series can check it out and enjoy (or dislike as the case may be) a series that's nearly forgotten today.
A couple of weeks ago I purchased the series The Guns of Will Sonnett off Amazon and I got around to watching four episodes tonight. Decided to take a break from Maverick. See my previous blog as to why. Anyway, the series aired from 1967-69 on ABC and was one of the first shows created and produced by the legendary TV producer Aaron Spelling. It also starred another Hollywood legend, three time Oscar winning character actor Walter Brennan. Dack Rambo co-starred. The storyline concerned a grandfather (Brennan) and his grandson (Rambo) embarking upon a journey to find James Sonnett (Jason Evers), a gunfighter who's the son of Brennan and the father of Rambo.
I watched a couple of episodes of the show about 15 years or so ago when it aired as a rerun on Saturday afternoons on a local television station but it didn't really make an impact on me one way or the other. Perhaps I should have paid more attention because the episodes that I've watched so far have been taut, suspenseful, and well-acted. I wasn't really expecting a 30 minute dramatic series to be as good because too often dramatic shows of that length tend to be too short. In other words, you feel like you got the edited and abridged version of a story that should have run an hour in length. Classic example of this would be The Rat Patrol but I digress. Not so with Guns of Will Sonnett. In every episode I've watched so far I've gotten my money's worth.
So check this one out if you're looking for a DVD of an older series and you've got a few dollars to spare. You might be surprised. Definitely a diamond in the rough.
So I bought the entire 124 episode set of Maverick off a bootlegger from a site which I won't name. I've been watching the series for the past month or so and I think I've been watching a little too much of it. All because of a dream I had last night.
That's right, you probably guessed it already. I dreamed I was right in the middle of a Maverick episode. A Jack Kelly episode of the series to be exact. It took place in the younger days of Bart Maverick before he became a roving gambler. The plot concerned Bart being hired to drive a herd of cows to market by a pretty young damsel. I myself was a chum of Bart and a guy I knew from my old high school days (and haven't seen in nearly 20 years) played the other friend. Lee Marvin was the villain. Joakim Noah (the basketball player af Florida) made an appearance as another cowboy hired for the cattle drive.
As you can see it was pretty surreal especially since I woke up before the "episode" ended. So I'll never know whether Bart Maverick and I successfully got the cows to market and foiled the plans of rustler Lee Marvin. Oh, what might have been.
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