I just got the episodes on netflix and have been watching them. Let me start out by saying that I think that this is a g
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Peter Gunn
juanmonge69 — 19 years ago(September 18, 2006 07:06 AM)
I just got the episodes on netflix and have been watching them. Let me start out by saying that I think that this is a great series. It is amazing how much story, character and flavor they put into 24 minutes and the music in the chase scenes in incredible. But I must comment that in the 1980's there was a whole big todo about violence in television. leading to changes in how many shows are presented. This show would not air today; People being beaten; brass knuckled; hung; women being beaten with canes. I love it! I also love that they have a Jewish police lt., How rare is that for 1950's television. I love this show.
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PenTheater — 18 years ago(September 01, 2007 11:08 AM)
"Hey, Gunn, ever been in a fight?"
"I'll say! every week some goons are coming after me."
"Hey, Gunn, how many people have you killed?"
"I guess I shoot three or four bad guys a week."
"OK, well carry on." -
mister-mike — 13 years ago(April 14, 2012 07:07 PM)
I'm sure one of the reasons for the violence in various forms was the fact that they had a crackerjack team of stuntmen working on this show.
In season three's episode #25, Cry Love, Cry Murder, stunt man Dick Crockett, who is credited at the end of many episodes as stunt supervisor, is featured as one of Gunn's "informers" named Basher. He teaches guys (no doubt other members of the stunt team) to fall down stairs to scam insurance companies out of claim money.
http://www.mjq.net/petergunn -
telegonus — 13 years ago(August 08, 2012 12:22 PM)
True, but that was near the norm back then. I've been watching reruns of
Route 66
lately, and it's from the same period as
Peter Gunn
. It's a dramatic series, not a crime show, and it features damn near a fist fight a week. In the last one I watched there were three! TV was quite violent back then, and for some reason producers seemed to feel they had to inject either a shootoutor a fight of the week in most dramatic series. I can understand this in westerns but in shows that don't really call for violence it seems a bit much. Even the old
The Law and Mr. Jones
series, a legal show, featured a bunch of scenes of lawyer Jones duking it out with some bad guy! -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 07, 2012 10:18 PM)
It was a glorious time.
A. The fist-fights: Truly a nostalgic novelty now, the idea that at least once or twice and episode, guys were start duking it out(with stunt men usually stepping in for the main actors.) I figure two audiences were being served:- Pre-teen boys. We watched Batman and The Man From UNCLE and The Wild Wild West, and those shows came to life when the fists flew. Primal pre-testosterone was being spent watching these fights.
I recall that "Batman" in its first season would only have a "BAM! POW!" fight between Batman/Robin and the Villain and His Henchmen in the second night's episode of two. But came Season Twoeach night's episode(Wednesday AND Thursday) had a big fight in it. They knew what they wanted. - "Innocent" adults. These were the adult folks watching Peter Gunn and Route 66 and The Law and Mr. Jones and evidentlyHollywood felt that they craved fisticuff action as much as their kids did. They probably did, but we're more rough and sophisticated nowa gratuitous fistfight doesn't work on a "realistic" TV show.
The show I single out for fist fights was: Burke's Law. Gene Barry's millionaire policeman would solve a whodunnit, and if the revealed-killer was maleyou could bet on a fistfight, sometimes to the death(of the killer.) If the killer was a femalethere was a gratutious fistfight between Burke and a male early in the show. "One per episode," guaranteed.
Like I say, I kind of miss these fistfights. They were too much of fantasy to be too "violent." Modernly, the world of CSI and Law and Order Sex Crimes and the like, we're awash in gore and grue and sexual torture and I saybring back the fistfights.
B. Death of Villains. Fifties/sixties TV shows were not particularly bloody and graphic in their violence, but Congress eventually decided that they were too dependent on the hero always KILLING the villain to end the story. TV network heads were called before committees and scolded. The movement shifted toarresting villains. Maybe wounding them.
Ah, I guess.
I must admit, one goes back and watches a Peter Gunn or a Wild, Wild, West where the bad guy usually dies andit looks pretty brutal today.
There was one Peter Gunn I saw about 20 years ago(not on DVD recently) that ended in a Chinese restaurant with Gunn shooting someone dead and somebody(Gunn?) throwing a meat cleaver into a bad guy's back. Violent, baby. But no blood.
- Pre-teen boys. We watched Batman and The Man From UNCLE and The Wild Wild West, and those shows came to life when the fists flew. Primal pre-testosterone was being spent watching these fights.
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telegonus — 13 years ago(September 08, 2012 12:35 PM)
True, EC, and yet it was a strangely innocent time for TV
despite
all that violence, balanced by the Disney show,
Lassie, National Velvet, My Three Sons, McHale's Navy
, even legal shows like
The Defenders
and
Perry Mason
seldom (ever?) featured
seriously
violence scenes. Heck, the Three Stooges were controversial because of their violence and many parents groups wanted their old shorts banned or edited (but then they were pretty violent).
I remember
Burke's Law
, well but not the fisticuffs. The Hitchcock shows and most anthologies were less violent, it seems. Were the Warners detective series violent? I can't remember. My sense is that
Batman
with its
parodying
of TV violence was a factor in its decline. Never again could a show feature a fistfight of the week without reminding the viewer of Batman and Robin, with those "Bams" and "Pows". To return to
Peter Gunn
, its violent scenes tended to be stylish and relatively brief. Not quite comic relief it anticipated
Batman
in its not taking itself too seriousy for several years. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 09, 2012 03:30 PM)
True, EC, and yet it was a strangely innocent time for TV despite all that violence, balanced by the Disney show, Lassie, National Velvet, My Three Sons, McHale's Navy, even legal shows like The Defenders and Perry Mason seldom (ever?) featured seriously violence scenes. Heck, the Three Stooges were controversial because of their violence and many parents groups wanted their old shorts banned or edited (but then they were pretty violent).
The Stooges were probably considered ultra-violent for TV in the sixties. I can see where some would want them banned "just because."
As for the "nicely" innocent shows, they were certainly there. TV was a more innocent medium, America a more innocent country(even as very bloody wars and riots were commencing). And most of the "nicest" shows(and the primetime cartoons like Flintstones and Jetsons) were for the back end of the infamous Baby Booomer kids.)
I rather wrestle with the word "innocent"(my word) about the fistfight scenes, and I tread a tight line here: I perhaps mean the innocence(naivete?) of the adult home viewer at the time, who would accept matters being settled with fistfights as entertainment. Its a kind of childish sentiment, and all those fistfight scenes seem rather silly now(particularly as later generations came to understand the REAL, bloody, potentially lethal aspects of a fistfight.)
I remember Burke's Law, well but not the fisticuffs.
I would add that the fisticuff climaxes were mainly in the second of its two seasons. The first year Burke generally just arrested the whodunnit killer, or briefly subdued them with an armhold or something. I guess somebody at ABC said: "For the second season, we need fistfights on Burke's Law."
I recall one where the killer was Ricardo Montalban, working on his exercise bicycle in a private gym as Burke gave him "the run down on how I know you did it."
Burke: You're under arrest for murder. My backup squad is on their way.
Montalban: "On their way?" "On their way?" They aren't here then. A mistake, Mr. Burke.
Cue the fistfight all over the gym(barbells, weights, etc.)
The Hitchcock shows and most anthologies were less violent, it seems. Were the Warners detective series violent? I can't remember.
Yes, they were. A few years ago, one cable channel ran "77 Sunset Strip," "Hawaiian Eye," "Bourbon Street Beat" and I was amused by all the fistfight scenes, practically like clockwork, always with stunt men suddenly replacing the actors, resembling them little.
(Note in passing: in the late 90's, I am certain that the writers of "Saturday Night Live" saw or knew of these "fistfight shows" because they had producer Lorne Michaels and guest host Ben Stiller face off for a confrontation (with thriller music) and begin a big fist fight, played entirely, after a cutaway shot, by young stunt men who looked nothing like Michaels or Stiller at all, as the TV thriller music played along. I loved it it was such a "throwback" sketch.)
My sense is that Batman with its parodying of TV violence was a factor in its decline. Never again could a show feature a fistfight of the week without reminding the viewer of Batman and Robin, with those "Bams" and "Pows".
Well, I guess "Batman" was mainly for kids, though they got some great actors to play the Guest Villains(George Sanders, Tallulah Bankhead, Victor Buono). So Bam and Pow was meant to reference comic book violence. But yeah, it was kind of a swan song for fistfights.
"Batman" reportedly killed off ANOTHER show prematurely: "The Man From UNCLE" was ordered, for its third season to "be more like Batman"both with more fistfights and more camp, more "Special Guest Villain" types, and even Nelson Riddle giving "UNCLE" the same kind of music he gave "Batman." This reportedly lost "The Man From UNCLE" adult and collegiate viewers. An attempt to "toughen up" in Season Four met with mid-season cancellation. (Replacement: Number One hippie hit "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.")
To return to Peter Gunn, its violent scenes tended to be stylish and relatively brief. Not quite comic relief it anticipated Batman in its not taking itself too seriousy for several years.
The Mancini music and Craig Stevens(like Gene "Burke's Law" Barrya "Cary Grant clone") kept the fights sophisticated, I think. And "Peter Gunn" was a bit ahead of the 60's model, more of a fifties holdover.
Some related trivia:- A cable channel ran reruns of a 1960 series called "Johnny Staccato" a few years ago. It was clearly a "Peter Gunn" homage jazz, cool detective(John Cassavetes!), music club HQ, half hour violent plots. Didn't lastI think because Cassavetes was a bit too dangerous an actor for a TV private eye lead.
- In the midst of his "big movie career" in the sixties, after Tiffany's, Days of Wine and Roses, two Pink Panthers and The Great Race, Blake Edwards brought Peter Gunn to the big screen with the feature film "Gunn,"(1967) which got a good "auteur" review of Blake Edwards from Andrew Sarris and which
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telegonus — 13 years ago(September 10, 2012 04:07 PM)
Well, the Stooges appeared to young children so I guess that's why they were so controversial. Two TV memories of that time: I recall hearing and reading that the dramatic series
Bus Stop
was violent and that the producers were under pressure from the FCC to change its content (or some such), which struck me as odd since never having seen the show it sounded so "innocuous", as in "how can a show about a bus stop be so controversial?". I was only about nine at the time.
Locally:
One Step Beyond
nearly got taken off the air in Boston due to extensive protests from local parents that it was giving their children nightmares. This was after its first network run, when it was shown early in the evenings in reruns. I used to watch it and it did creep me out. Most of the kids in the neighborhood were fans and indeed it frightened us more than most shows, but nightmares? I doubt it. It was strong stuff, though.
Last night I caught two
Peter Gunn
episodes, both good, with the first, set in Chinatown, concerning the theft of a fan and the murder of a shopkeeper, was excellent, highly atmospheric, and the murder, shown early on, was actually quite shocking. The series was best in these kinds of offbeat episodes set in strange places (or should I write "strange"?) such as Chinatowns. Strange to most viewers then. Also, country estates, waterfront dives, jazz clubs, fancy restaurants, museums, art galleries and the like. A surprising number of episodes
aren not
set in such places. Before I began to watch it again on MeTV my memories of the series was that nearly
all
episodes were set in such places. A fair number of entries are just crime thrillers with nothing special as to their settings.
I've yet to see
Johnny Staccato
, which I've heard great things about and which has a cult following. My sense is that it was far grittier than
Peter Gunn
[, more realistic.
Burke's Law
was sort of a Four Star (production company) follow-up to
PG
after the latter left the air, hour long, it seemed ( but probably wasn't) bigger budgeted. It certainly featured pricey guest casts and, like
Gunn
, featured a "playboy detective" as the lead. To the best of my recollection Amos Burke didn't have a "steady" like Evie on
PG
. He was closer to a small screen Hugh Hefner type of guy who just
happened
to be a police detective. The supporting regulars weren't so colorful as those on
PG
. I like Regis Toomey but he was no Herschel Bernardi, let alone Hope Emerson. The guest stars put it over and the writing was good. I really liked the episode titles, too. They featured great names.
Who Killed Snooky Martinelli?
is a special favorite of mine. The title, I mean.
Another series from that period that was extremely violent was
Cain's Hundred
, which featured Mark Richman in the lead. I remember its first episode, and indeed it was very violent. Richman had a typical career as a middling TV guest star, sometimes villain, other times not. His small screen career was similar to Brad Dillman's and pre-
5-0
's Jack Lord and pre-
I Spy
's Robert Culp. Richman wasn't particular good looking,he was rather diablical looking, I thinkwhich is probably what held him back. Also, unlike, say, Peter Falk, also not handsome, Richman didn't have a "schtick", acted like a leading man, not a character actor, thus he didn't stand out, had no "familiar mannerisms" for viewers to remember him for. He would have been wise to have taken lessons from Falk and others like him, who lucked out as character stars later on. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 13, 2012 06:38 AM)
Well, the Stooges appeared to young children so I guess that's why they were so controversial.
Yes, that's true. Their violence and meanness actually seems best suited to the tough teen/college male, out for a nasty laugh of physical pain.
On the other hand, the "kids movie" "Home Alone" struck paydirt with its long final sequence of burglars Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern getting smacked and burned with all manner of means by that little kidmeans that would kill the crooks in real life. It was all very Stoogian in the laughs derived from really painful violence.
Two TV memories of that time: I recall hearing and reading that the dramatic series Bus Stop was violent and that the producers were under pressure from the FCC to change its content (or some such), which struck me as odd since never having seen the show it sounded so "innocuous", as in "how can a show about a bus stop be so controversial?". I was only about nine at the time.
I've read that one particular episode directed by Robert Altman(soon to direct MASH) was the really violent one and was attacked, maybe pulled from re-broadcast. I guess "Bus Stop" did different anthology stories ata bus stop. Anyway, this was Altman's pre-MASH claim to fame.
Locally: One Step Beyond nearly got taken off the air in Boston due to extensive protests from local parents that it was giving their children nightmares. This was after its first network run, when it was shown early in the evenings in reruns. I used to watch it and it did creep me out. Most of the kids in the neighborhood were fans and indeed it frightened us more than most shows, but nightmares? I doubt it. It was strong stuff, though.
I'm not sure any horror movie or TV show ever "gave me nightmares." I seem to conjure them up from other sources, not by going to bed after seeing the show. Now a few horror movies kept me from falling asleep that night.
On the other hand, I still recall that radio ad in LA for Psycho on TV: "See the movie that gave the entire nation nightmares: Psycho." I guess?Last night I caught two Peter Gunn episodes, both good, with the first, set in Chinatown, concerning the theft of a fan and the murder of a shopkeeper, was excellent, highly atmospheric, and the murder, shown early on, was actually quite shocking. The series was best in these kinds of offbeat episodes set in strange places (or should I write "strange"?) such as Chinatowns. Strange to most viewers then. Also, country estates, waterfront dives, jazz clubs, fancy restaurants, museums, art galleries and the like. A surprising number of episodes aren not set in such places. Before I began to watch it again on MeTV my memories of the series was that nearly all episodes were set in such places. A fair number of entries are just crime thrillers with nothing special as to their settings.
Maybe the "strange" setting episodes were made for "Sweeps month" ratings spectaculars?
Mother's Club, where Gunn hung out and got businesswas it near the waterfront? Seemed to me maybe it was.
I've yet to see Johnny Staccato, which I've heard great things about and which has a cult following. My sense is that it was far grittier than Peter Gunn[, more realistic.
Yes..but also very similar in production values. They ran it for a whole summer a few years ago, and I watched it. I would reaffirm that John Cassavetes just seemed too rough and edgy to carry a show about a private eye. He was a fine movie actor with a sullen, surlly edgebut not TV lead material.
Burke's Law was sort of a Four Star (production company) follow-up to PG after the latter left the air, hour long, it seemed ( but probably wasn't) bigger budgeted. It certainly featured pricey guest casts and, like Gunn, featured a "playboy detective" as the lead.
And it started as a stand-alone episode of "The Dick Powell Theater," with Powell as Amos Burke. I think he was considering starring in "Burke's Law," but cancer took him and it became a Gene Barry vehicle.
To the best of my recollection Amos Burke didn't have a "steady" like Evie on PG.
That's right. Indeed, every week he had a DIFFERENT girlfriend. One of the shows many gimmicks is that Burke would get the call on the show's murder usually at his mansion while romancing his latest gorgeous pursuer(many soon to be famous TV females had these roleslike the gal who played Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island).
He was closer to a small screen Hugh Hefner type of guy who just happened to be a police detective.
And a multi-millionaire. That was the conceit: he lived in a mansion and tooled around in a Rolls Royce with Asian chauffeurbut had come up through the Police Academy to be a police captain! I often wondereddid the millionaire have to do a few years in a patrol car? Or walking a beat? Sheer fantasy.
The supporting regulars weren't so colorful as those on PG. I like Regis Toomey but he was no Herschel Bernardi, let alone Hope Emerson.
Barry was the center of everything. He was bookended by Regis Toomey as the Old C -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 13, 2012 02:46 PM)
That was a different time, too, EC; regarding the Stooges, I mean. Children's television back then was, for the most part gentle, with very few exceptions (Soupy Sales comes to mind). The Stooges were ultra-violent comics even for grownups, and parents, accustomed to seeing their kids watch things like Disney's show, Howdy Doody, the various westerns or semi-westerns, some featuring animals, such as
Rin Tin-Tin
, others offering near super-heroes in the form of the Lone Ranger, the Range Rider, Sky King and others like them. Then there was Superman, which featured some violence, but mild, cleaned up for kids. By these standards, the Three Stooges were quite shocking indeed.
To return to violence on the small screen: I wonder if the Sexual Revolution had something to do with its ebbing after 1965. Prior to 1966 one almost never saw a woman, let alone a teenage girl, in a two piece bathing suit. Belly buttons on females were largely
verboten
on the tube (there had been a ban in feature films, too, but that was lifted a few years earlier, but not
that much
earlier). Pushing the envelope,there must have been another terms for thatsort of switched, as I recall, from violence and action to sex. Not hard core, just suggestions. They were there on
Burke's Law
, mostly by suggestion, with Amos Burke always just "making out" with the babe on the sofa, with no suggestion (to a young child) that grownups went any further than that
. To little ones that's what sex was
: making out.
Later on,
I Spy
featured some babes, often Asian or foreign, so I guess that was okay. I don't remember too many hot babes on
The Man From UNCLE
but I'm sure they were there (I only really cared for it its first season). Then, bit by bit, the damn burst; not overnight, but it did. I think that the bikini clad Goldie Hawn and Judy Carne on
Laugh-In
got the ball rolling, after which scenes of scantily clad females, often college age and teens, were becoming commonplace, especially on movies of the week, some of which, as I remember, were quite literally erotic, in a feature film sense that was closer to the European mainstream than the American one, which surprised (and delighted) me. Your typical Duke Wayne or Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra picture were more conservative, with the likes of Jill St. John or Stella Stevens in a bikini, a lot of suggestion and smirking, but of the sort aimed at
way
pre-Boomer grownups. Great for guys over thirty and forty; nothing special for teenage boys and college students of our generation.
Stephen King's
Danse Macabre
is excellent, though I often find myself disagreeing with his aesthetic, if that's the word for it. Tastes is maybe a better way to put it. As I recall (I haven't looked at it in a while), he was very "state of the art" oriented when it came to films and television, didn't care at all for Hollywood "fakery", which is to say the obvious use of back lots instead of real locations; the artifice of the studio age, as opposed to the greater realism of the post-1970 period. I found that a bit odd since he was also a big old-time radio fan, thus capable of being enchanted by art/entertainment of another era, another kind; one that requires more imagination. Still, it's a good book, and it represents a breakthrough of sorts for classic movie lovers given King's enormous popularity and his love for old horror films. King's writings on
Thriller
probably helped revive interest in the series. All for the good, in my opinion. He was tough on
The Twilight Zone
, which he often seemed to be damning with faint praise; and he was very good at it.
Mark Richman was one of probably literally dozens of leading men (or would be leading men) who never made it on the small screen, let alone the big one. He did better than most. Of that group I'm fond of the two Rons, Hayes and Foster, though the former at least had his own series of a season. Then there were Don Dubbins, Linden Chiles and so many others. Most were good for a guest shot or two on
Bonanza
or
The Untouchables
, those big network shows; but they were billed as at best guest stars (if that), not
special
guest stars like Michael Rennie, Barbara Rush or Rip Torn. Indeed, the character actors did so much better; and in most cases they were a few years older than the better looking leading men. So many of them lucked out, even ugly duckling Telly Savalas. Carroll O'Connor, rather a second stringer among character actors, really lucked out with
All In the Family
. Jack Weston, never a star, did alright for himself. Some, like Charles Bronson, Lees Marvin and Van Cleef, made it on the big screen, including your fave, Walter Matthau. Yet based on looks and age who would have guessed circa 1963 that the then hot Richard Chamberlin, Vince Edwards amd George Maharis, to name just three, would damn near be off the radar screen ten years later (Chamblerin would soon become king of the mini-series), while many actors often billed way down the cast lists of their series w -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 14, 2012 08:27 PM)
That was a different time, too, EC; regarding the Stooges, I mean. Children's television back then was, for the most part gentle, with very few exceptions (Soupy Sales comes to mind).
AhSoupy Sales. Hilarious to me in my kidhoodand pretty hip when I watched him on VHS years later. The way he would talk to, basicallytwo gloves with animal hands on them(the nice "White Fang" and the mean and incomprehensible "Black Tooth"). A slight Bill Cosby slur to his voice. And of coursea pie in the face.
At his kids' urging, Frank Sinatra went on "Soupy Sales" to get a pie in the face. He took Sammy Davis Jr. andTrini Lopez(Dino refused.)
Time Magazine Critic Richard Corliss devastated a modern day movie star for me recently when he wrote that current so-so star Gerard Butler looksjust like Soupy Sales. Corliss is an old guy who would remember Soupy and he has RUINED Gerard Butler for me.
The Stooges were ultra-violent comics even for grownups, and parents, accustomed to seeing their kids watch things like Disney's show, Howdy Doody,
Yes. It remains odd to me that the Stooges flourished at ALL, given the hard core violence and meanness at the heart of their act. I'm not sure who their "peer" audience was at the time of their releasethe college crowd got hip much later.
There was also plenty of violence in the Bugs Bunny cartoons, of course. Sylvester would try to eat Tweety Bird and get the holy crap beat out of him by a Big Dog called Spike or something. Wile E. Coyote nuff said. Daffy Duckfamously blowing himself up in "a trick you can only do once."
Hilarious. And with some of the greatest violent sound effects in film history.the various westerns or semi-westerns, some featuring animals,
I sometimes catch for a moment or so, Gene Autry reruns, and I recall Sky King and Roy Rogers and.talk about innocence. Here were life and death Western thrillers in which everybody just seemed so NICE and harmless. Much more inclined to sing than to fight.
Not hard core, just suggestions. They were there on Burke's Law, mostly by suggestion, with Amos Burke always just "making out" with the babe on the sofa, with no suggestion (to a young child) that grownups went any further than that . To little ones that's what sex was : making out.
Yeah. I think so. TV kept things quite chaste but I went to a few movies with the parents and determined that if I was lucky when I grew up, I would get to lie in a bed with a girl and kiss her a lot. And that's all that seemed to be going on.
Some polling was done in the mid-sixties and evidently it turned out that shows like "The Man From UNCLE" and "The Wild Wild West" were mainly loved by pre-teen boysthat famously movie-mad age group. These shows had sexy women and articulate villains and were often written at an "adult" level, but I think, maybe, the makers KNEW that they weren't really entertaining adultsbut rather giving pre-teens a taste of the sex and violence to come in their lives(the violence intended to be the draft, and war). I wasn't much of a fan, but "Star Trek" played this way too..Captain Kirk got plenty o' babes(though sometimes they were green or blue), and punched his way to peace.Later on, I Spy featured some babes, often Asian or foreign, so I guess that was okay. I don't remember too many hot babes on The Man From UNCLE but I'm sure they were there (I only really cared for it its first season).
The first season WAS the bestblack and white, with the famous theme song done "Bernard Herrmann mod and thunderous" by Jerry Goldsmith and semi-serious plots. Then came a rather steady decline into mod silliness. The theme song got jazz and rock treatments, and they were coolbut they weren't "movie-ish" like Season One.
Then, bit by bit, the damn burst; not overnight, but it did. I think that the bikini clad Goldie Hawn and Judy Carne on Laugh-In got the ball rolling, after which scenes of scantily clad females, often college age and teens, were becoming commonplace, especially on movies of the week, some of which, as I remember, were quite literally erotic, in a feature film sense that was closer to the European mainstream than the American one, which surprised (and delighted) me.
Such a time to come of age. The "R" rating at the movies, all those bikini babes on TV. I recall a TV Guide ad for a movie called "Hit Woman" (I think), with an aged but still nice Yvette Mimeux in a bikini pointing a gun. And then came "jiggle TV": Charlies Angels, Threes Company. I don't know though. I like some steak to go with that sizzle.
Your typical Duke Wayne or Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra picture were more conservative, with the likes of Jill St. John or Stella Stevens in a bikini, a lot of suggestion and smirking, but of the sort aimed at way pre-Boomer grownups. Great for guys over thirty and forty; nothing special for teenage boys and college students of our generation.
I take a LITTLE umbrage regarding Misses St. John and Stevensthey filled those bikinis pretty well a -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 14, 2012 09:07 PM)
Stephen King's Danse Macabre is excellent, though I often find myself disagreeing with his aesthetic, if that's the word for it. Tastes is maybe a better way to put it. As I recall (I haven't looked at it in a while), he was very "state of the art" oriented when it came to films and television, didn't care at all for Hollywood "fakery", which is to say the obvious use of back lots instead of real locations; the artifice of the studio age, as opposed to the greater realism of the post-1970 period.
I haven't read it in a long time, but it was a nice, quick, comprehensive run through horror media in all its forms: short story, novel, TV, moviesand indeed, radio.
I think your take on King's take is about right. In his overview of "horror on American TV" his pretty good point was that heavy TV censorship prevented horror from ever BEING "real horror" on TV. (I guess at Exorcist levels; today we have the grue of "American Horro Story," but that's on cable.)
He found "Psycho" no more violent than a TV movie except for the shower scene. But he did cede the overall terror of the film AFTER ths shower scene set-up for suspense. (I rarely saw a TV movie scene with the brutality and sheer stylistic panache of the Arbogast murder. In factI never did.)
He covered "Psycho" mainly as per the Robert Bloch book(being a novelist himself) and traced Norman Bates back to the "werewolf" tradition in horror. (Just as he traced James Arness' "The Thing" to Frankenstein's Monster.")
A brief reference to "Family Plot": "A Thanksgiving Turkey." I disagree.
I found that a bit odd since he was also a big old-time radio fan, thus capable of being enchanted by art/entertainment of another era, another kind; one that requires more imagination.
His radio chapter is great, especially a listen to "Arch Oboler" a radio scare meister. King wrote about a sounds-great Oboler radio play in which a dental patient is STRAPPED into the chair by the dentist, who reveals he is the husband of the patient's lover, and now "I'm going to take this drill and let out a bit of loverboy." Sound of a dental drill. Wrote King: "I always wondered WHERE the dentist let out some of loverboy."
Also: "Mars is Heaven." Astronauts go to Mars and find it an All-American heaven of sweet moms and apple pie and green lawnsuntil nightat which all this "front" dissolves and the Martians are revealed as monsters. All in our imagination.
Still, it's a good book, and it represents a breakthrough of sorts for classic movie lovers given King's enormous popularity and his love for old horror films. King's writings on Thriller probably helped revive interest in the series. All for the good, in my opinion. He was tough on The Twilight Zone, which he often seemed to be damning with faint praise; and he was very good at it.It was tortuous reading King's chapter on Thriller, The Outer Limits, and The Twilight Zone when only Zone was really available to watch. But soon they all came back on cable or DVD, and King's writings were "borne out" on Thriller. (Which, in King's estimation, WAS truly "real horror" a few times..before the censors changed TV.)
Mark Richman was one of probably literally dozens of leading men (or would be leading men) who never made it on the small screen, let alone the big one. He did better than most. Of that group I'm fond of the two Rons, Hayes and Foster, though the former at least had his own series of a season. Then there were Don Dubbins, Linden Chiles and so many others.
I love your "collectivism" of "small" male TV names, telegonus, and cheers I know who all of those guys were. I recall a mean TV Guide article that said an actor named Burr DeBenning had the "lowest TV Q"(id) of any actor. And I knew who HE was.
But I lack your comprehensive working knowledge of their actual WORK.
Most were good for a guest shot or two on Bonanza or The Untouchables, those big network shows; but they were billed as at best guest stars (if that), not special guest stars like Michael Rennie, Barbara Rush or Rip Torn. Indeed, the character actors did so much better; and in most cases they were a few years older than the better looking leading men. So many of them lucked out, even ugly duckling Telly Savalas.
Your point here is very interesting, and I'll hazard a guess, at least about males. Most of us males are NOT square-jawed and handsome. And so we react against a John Gavin or a Frederick Stafford. For a handsome leading man to really "rise," he's got to have some other things going: Cary Grant with his great voice and super-handsome looks, yes but also grumpiness and vulnerability. Gary Cooper with his sheer height and size and quietude.
James Garner rose out of his traditional good looks with a wry voice and a great comic mannerplus some mean danger when required. But he faded back from movies to TV, unable to beat the handsome guy curse.
Meanwhile, us "regular guys" CAN gravitate to charismatic guys who don't quite have the perfect looks or trim -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 17, 2012 01:34 PM)
I'm still time strapped but caught a couple of good
PG
episdes last night: one was a revenge take with Marc Lawrence as the bad guy and a climax on a merry go round clearly inspired by
Strangers On a Train
except that there were only two people on it. A
It's a fun show to watch, especially when it featured characters that seem out of the Victorian era,a reality back thenoften spinsters or eccentric families that dress up "old-fashioned", drive, if at all, in old Packards and Pierce Arrows, speak formally in usually quasi-British accents. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 06:16 AM)
I'm still time strapped but caught a couple of good PG episdes last night: one was a revenge take with Marc Lawrence as the bad guy and a climax on a merry go round clearly inspired by Strangers On a Train except that there were only two people on it. A
Marc Lawrence was one of the great "uglies" in bad-guydom. I know he had a bigger career as a younger ugly in the forties/fifties, but I recall him in his later years as a kind of anachronism in 1971's "Diamonds Are Forever" as the mobster who throws James Bond's newest ladyfriend out a Vegas hotel window into a swimming pool ("Good aim," says Connery to Lawrence; "I didn't know there was a pool down there," answers Lawrence) and as one of old Nazi Laurence Olivier's two henchmen in "Marathon Man"(a tough killer who nonetheless turns away in disgust when Olivier goes to work on Dustin Hoffman's teeth with the dental tools.)
It's a fun show to watch, especially when it featured characters that seem out of the Victorian era,a reality back thenoften spinsters or eccentric families that dress up "old-fashioned", drive, if at all, in old Packards and Pierce Arrows, speak formally in usually quasi-British accents.
The relativity of time is its own weird thing, isn't it? Movies and TV shows of the 50's have a real "quaint" element that reflects the fact that some of the old folks watching them may well have been born inthe 1880's. Hitchcock was a spring chicken with an 1899 birthdate.
And, conversely indeed, Victorian characters(old ones or perhaps their arrested-development adult offspring) could appear on these shows.
This Victoriana sounded most in Hitchcock's "Psycho," in which (following some descriptive passages in Robert Bloch's source novel), much of the house in general and Mother's Bedroom in particular are "of another era entirely, but preserved today." -
telegonus — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 03:20 PM)
Marc Lawrence lost his menace when he got older. He was a sinister looking guy when young, then he got blacklisted, worked mostly abroad, and by the time he returned he was just an ugly older looking guy.
As to the Victorian business, well, when
Peter Gunn
and the Hitchcock half-hour were in first run the Edwardian era, like the age of Victoria but a little different, was closer in time than we are today to those shows. In other words, shave fifty-three years off a 1959
PG
or Hitch show and it's 1906, six years before the
Titanic
sank!
I remember those Victorian homes and their old ladies on the porch, just starting wear their shawls this time of years. Indeed, the interior of those homes was very like the Bates house, which I've always found strangely,how to put this?inviting
. To my eye, that big house on the hill has a cozy familiarity to it, and, were I able to go back in time to visit the motel, if I didn't know better, I'd half-expect Mrs Bates to be just another old lady, crankier than usual, not dangerous at all. Even with all the horror movie trappings,the rainstorm, the clouds moving ominously behind the housethe setting of
Psycho
is really no scarier than your friendly neighborhood cemetery on Halloween, or a Halloween party staged for kids at the nearby elementary school.
Ah, but this is the
Peter Gunn
board! The show was cool and stylish and yet it did, like
psycho
, channel horror or at least old dark house stories, every few episodes. Indeed, Mother's place is strange and mysterious, a waterfront "dive" (but not really) for hipsters, jazz fans, the odd and the eccentric. It might look scary to what they used to call "squares", especially the street outside, but to hip people it was a neat place to go to, enjoy a few drinks, listen to some jazz, "people watch". I remember a few like that from when I was young, including some diners that didn't serve alcohol, in some
very
rundown city neighborhoods, that were great places to eat late at night, and also a nice way to watch some very offbeat people in their element, so to speak. -
ecarle — 13 years ago(September 18, 2012 09:27 PM)
To my eye, that big house on the hill has a cozy familiarity to it, and, were I able to go back in time to visit the motel, if I didn't know better, I'd half-expect Mrs Bates to be just another old lady, crankier than usual, not dangerous at all.
Indeed. This is partially the reason why Arbogast could mount the hill to that house and likely not realize that he was in a horror movie. It is a very "comfortable and accessible" kind of Victoriana. Hitchcock told Truffaut that this kind of house was actually quite common in rural California(and San Francisco) in 1960.
Even with all the horror movie trappings,the rainstorm, the clouds moving ominously behind the housethe setting of Psycho is really no scarier than your friendly neighborhood cemetery on Halloween, or a Halloween party staged for kids at the nearby elementary school.
It feels that way TODAY. I think in 1960, the accumulation of perverse horror actually built up to real terror shower scene, clean-up scene, staircase murder, fruit cellar.
BUTtodayit is a rather cozy film indeed. Not THAT scary. And it creates one one critic called "a lurking nostalgia for evil."
Ah, but this is the Peter Gunn board!
Sure, but we bring our "Psycho" magic whereever we go and "Psycho" WAS contemporary to "Peter Gunn."
Indeed, in the many Gunn episodes I watched, a suspect being interrogated by Gunn would often say:
Suspect: That's all I have to say to you. You're not the police. I don't HAVE to talk to you. Scram.
Whereas in Psycho we get:
Norman: I didn't think the police went looking for people who AREN'T in trouble.
Private Eye Arbogast: But I'm not the police.
And later:
Norman: Mr. Arbogast, I think I've talked to you all I want to. And I think it would be much better if you would leave.
Which is another way of saying: "That's all I have to say to you. You're not the police. I don't HAVE to talk to you. Scram."
(Which is why Arbogast tries a bluff about coming back with a warrant.)
Not to mention: I've always felt that stocky,short and plainish Martin Balsam may have been Hitchcock's "realistic spoof" ON Peter Gunn, and the 77 Sunset Strip cool guys. Wanna see what a REAL private eye looks like? Hitchcock was saying: behold Arbogast.
The show was cool and stylish and yet it did, like psycho, channel horror or at least old dark house stories, every few episodes. Indeed, Mother's place is strange and mysterious, a waterfront "dive" (but not really) for hipsters, jazz fans, the odd and the eccentric. It might look scary to what they used to call "squares", especially the street outside, but to hip people it was a neat place to go to, enjoy a few drinks, listen to some jazz, "people watch".
I would here like to raise a "childhood memory" of that time in TV. Unlike today when you've got 500 cable channels on HD with stereophonic sound, back then, there were really only three networks and, depending on the town, maybe a few independent channels.
So TV was a much more "lonely medium," and a prime-time-late-night show like "Peter Gunn" would kind of play out in the quietude of 50's/60's b/w TV. Maybe in a darkened living room, the light gray light of the broadcast image the only light.
Its a "feeling" that is hard to replicate in words.
I remember a few like that from when I was young, including some diners that didn't serve alcohol, in some very rundown city neighborhoods, that were great places to eat late at night, and also a nice way to watch some very offbeat people in their element, so to speak.
Yeah, I think I found a few like that. They are very interesting if you stay wary and watchful for "problem patrons" before they explode.