Life of Riley starring Lon Chaney Jr.
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — Classic TV: The 40s
oldecine — 11 years ago(September 16, 2014 11:27 PM)
About 25 years ago, I owned a 16mm print, of a 1948 unsold pilot, for "Life of Riley", which starred Lon Chaney Jr., in the title role. This must have been, before Gleason, when they were looking, for someone to replace the radio Bendix, for TV. It ran a full half hour, and had beer commercials, in it, so it must have been run, on TV, at one time. Poor Chaney seemed so out of place, and he always looked like he was about to strangle the kids.
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Thor-Delta — 11 years ago(September 25, 2014 06:53 PM)
Never liked the Gleason version of "The Life of Riley". Poor series, maybe not as bad as some of the WW2-themed documentaries of the era, but not good at all. Sitcoms were among the weakest aspects of 1940s TV.the variety series and anthology series were far better by comparison.
Lon Chaney Jr. pilot, I imagine, suffered from the same problem as the Gleason version: bad, weak writing.
The Johnny O'Keefe Show dollwind it up and it makes a comeback