“The law is a hard taskmaster…”

Peter Falk as Columbo

Actor Peter Falk played his signature role of Lt. Columbo in the 1968 TV-movie Prescription Murder—and a follow up telefilm, Ransom for a Dead Man (1971)—before settling in as the rumpled, raincoated detective as one of the rotating “wheel segments” of The NBC Mystery Movie from 1971 to 1978.  Columbo became such a small screen favorite and so firmly ingrained in pop culture that over a decade later, Falk reprised the part in a brand-new series (The ABC Saturday Mystery) and multiple movie “specials” telecast until 2003.  The character would ultimately be responsible for four of Falk’s five Emmy Awards (he was nominated for Columbo ten times); his other trophy was for his performance in “The Price of Tomatoes,” which aired on The Dick Powell Theatre in 1962.

The Wikipedia entry on Columbo reads: “According to TV Guide, the original plan was that a new Columbo episode would air every week, but as a motion picture star, Peter Falk refused to commit to such an arduous schedule, which would have meant shooting an episode every five days.  The network arranged for the Columbo segments to air once a month on Wednesday nights.  The high quality of Columbo, McMillan & Wife, and McCloud was due in large part to the extra time spent on each episode.”  There was a time, however, when the actor did commit to a weekly series—a short-lived show that in many ways gave future Columbo fans a glimpse of the things to come: The Trials of O’Brien.

Falk as Daniel J. O'Brien

Created by Gene Wang, Trials cast Falk as Daniel “Danny” J. O’Brien—a hardworking NYC defense attorney renowned for his flamboyant courtroom style.  O’Brien was dedicated to his profession for various reasons…but chiefly among them was the inconvenient truth that despite his formidable legal acumen, his personal life was a mess.  He was in arrears where his landlord was concerned, incapable of staying up-to-date with the rent on his penthouse apartment.  His ex-wife Katie (Joanna Barnes) continually hounded him for unpaid alimony, and his loyal secretary Miss G (Broadway legend Elaine Stritch) was also owed a great deal in the back wages department.  Danny was a helluva attorney, and his services did not come cheap…but this mattered little in the grand scheme of things because the money went out faster than it came in.  You see, Daniel J. O’Brien also had a bit of a gambling problem (shooting craps, playing the ponies, etc.).

The women in O'Brien's life: Joanna Barnes (L) and Elaine Stritch (R).

Again, if Wikipedia is to be believed—and since there’s a “citation needed” after this statement on the Trials page, take it cumo graino salto—“Falk often said that he actually liked this financially unsuccessful series much better than his later smash-hit Columbo.”  It’s a series that I’ve been curious to see for many years; my earliest association with The Trials of O’Brien was its memorable catchy theme, which was a track on an LP I once bought at a library sale.  (The Sid Ramin-composed tune—which sounds like that of The Odd Couple’s—was recorded and released as a single by Al Caiola and His Orchestra, who had previously hit the Top 40 of the pop charts with the themes from The Magnificent Seven [#35] and Bonanza [#19].)  A recent discount coupon sent to me by Martin Grams of Finders Keepers prompted me to purchase a DVD with two episodes from the series, including the premiere installment, “Over Defence is Out” (09/18/65).

All that needs to be said about Danny O’Brien can be discerned by the close-up of the back seat of his car after the opening titles—piled high with bric-a-brac, legal papers/folders, and assorted crap.  But just as the disheveled Lt. Columbo fooled so many suspects, O’Brien equally possesses a razor-sharp mind (and in his favor, he’s a much better dresser).  We see him work his courtroom magic as he nimbly helps a female client beat a murder rap…and once back at the office, he is inundated by both a visit from his ex-wife (he owes nine months’ alimony) and a phone call from the landlord, demanding the rent.  Fortunately for O’Brien, salvation has arrived in the form of a client—or rather, a former client.  An ex-con named Eddie Hanover (Murray Hamilton) socked away $120,000 before doing his boardin’ with the warden (O’Brien handled his defense) and now he’s going to collect what he believes to be his due.  O’Brien wants nothing to do with this, but Hanover, arguing that Danny is technically still his lawyer, hands him an envelope with the name of the only other individual who knows where the loot is hid—a man named Paul Benedict (Bill Lazarus).  (No, Jeffersons fans—not the actor who played neighbor Bentley.)

Ned Glass...though at first glance I could have sworn it was Sid James.

Eddie has left something else with his attorney—his young daughter Dinah (a pre-Dark Shadows Kathleen Cody) for safekeeping.  O’Brien only learns of this as he’s putting on his hat and coat to head out for the track.  “Hey, you like the horses?” he asks the little girl.

“You wouldn’t dare…” admonishes his secretary.  “You’re fired,” he snaps back at her.

The receipt for the missing money (Hanover stashed it in a storage shed) is not in the hotel room wall where Eddie left it; soon, O’Brien winds up having to defend Hanover from a murder rap when Benedict is croaked and Eddie is discovered hovering over his body with the murder weapon.  Add a shady insurance investigator (Ned Glass) and Hanover’s former cellmate (Vincent Gardenia) to the mix and you have a splendid introduction to what would appear to be a most entertaining series.  Danny O’Brien is Columbo with a law degree, in the second episode on this DVD he’s even shown in the courtroom complimenting on how splendid the prosecution’s witness’ testimony went.  “You know—I just don’t have any questions…oh…except one…”

The future's so bright, Vincent Gardenia has to wear shades.

Falk and Dolph Sweet

Also featured in “Over Defence is Out” is Ilka Chase, who plays Falk’s mother-in-law…and she seems to have quite the affection for her ex-son-in-law despite her daughter's divorce.  “Now, Margaret, get a grip on yourself and act like a mother-in-law,” O’Brien tells her at one point, “because if we all pull together we can make this divorce work!”  (I like how Katie and Danny also remain on good terms—though with the alimony he owes her, it’s probably in her best interest—and chuckled because she rarely refers to him by his first name.)  Chase would appear in a semi-regular capacity, as would character veteran Dolph Sweet (Gimme a Break!) as Sergeant Garrison, O’Brien’s contact on the force.

The two episodes on the Finders Keepers O'Brien DVD feature original commercials...including Mickey Freeman (Private Zimmerman on The Phil Silvers Show) lighting up a Roi-Tan Falcon...

...and Hal "The Great Gildersleeve" Peary (minus his moustache!) in a Gleem ad as father to Ken "Pugsley" Weatherwax.  (The kid is named "Chester," and though Peary gives it the old college try "Chessssster!" doesn't quite roll off the tongue the way "Leeeeeroy!" did.)

The other regular on Trials of O’Brien was David Burns as “The Great” McGonigle—who functioned in the same capacity as Paul Drake on Perry Mason, except he was a little on the seedier side.  “With your reputation, I’m in trouble if I’m seen on the elevator with ya,” O’Brien scolds his legman in the pilot.  Burns would receive an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Drama for his amusing portrayal, and the series would also win a Writers Guild of America trophy for writer David Ellis and the episode “No Justice for the Judge” (with Burgess Meredith and Barnard Hughes).

Tammy Grimes, Reni Santoni

The second episode on this DVD is an October 30, 1965 outing entitled “A Gaggle of Girls” (written by Roger J. Crean and directed by Stuart Rosenberg, who also helmed “Over Defence”).  It’s a worthwhile watch—even though it’s not quite as good as the opener (and there are a few bad spots on the recording)—as our hero is pressed upon by both Katie and Miss G to take up the cause of a Sister Superior (Tammy Grimes) who’s trying to convince the owner (David Doyle) of a skeevy nightclub next door to donate both his building and garden to the church so that the nuns can expand their youth center.  One of those youths, played by a young Reni Santoni, will need O’Brien’s services before the hour is out when he’s suspected of murdering Doyle.  While the plot on this episode is paper-thin, it’s buoyed by a great performance by Grimes and an amusing presentation that the women in O’Brien’s life are just as endearingly eccentric as he is.  (Stritch threatens to report her boss to the “secretaries’ union” about her back wages if he refuses to help Sister Tammy, and when O’Brien reminds her there is no such animal she responds, “I’ll form one.”)

The episodes end with "scenes from next week."  I'm not so disappointed at missing out on "Dead End on Flugel Street" (with Milton Berle, Rita Moreno, Danny Dayton, Hal March, Conrad Bain, and Ann Corio) as I am the Columbo-Baretta meeting of "Bargain Day on the Street of Regret" with Robert Blake.  ("Bargain" also features Herschel Bernardi, Albert Dekker, Tony Musante, Philip Bruns, and Edgar Stehli.)

Slotted on CBS Saturday nights at 8:30pm when it premiered in the fall of 1965, The Trials of O’Brien faced stiff competition from both Lawrence Welk (ABC) and Get Smart (NBC), and a move to Friday nights at 10 in December didn’t do the show any favors either (that was where NBC’s popular The Man from U.N.C.L.E. held court, with ABC offering up Jimmy Dean and Rowlf the Dog).  Despite favorable critical buzz, the series was cancelled after 22 episodes, and while I’m always hesitant to offer up an opinion based on such a small sample…it’s a program I wouldn’t mind watching more of.  I don’t know if it ever became part of the Trio Network’s Brilliant But Cancelled lineup (it’s mentioned in the Brilliant But Cancelled documentary that aired in 2002) but I’d be willing to gamble that a DVD release would prove popular based on all the Columbo fans out there.  (With the number of classic television applicants for DVD-dom getting smaller and smaller with each passing year, maybe this will soon become a reality.)  I won't beat around the bush: as a lifelong Peter Falk fan, I enjoyed the hell out of this one.  If you’re interested in a purchase of what’s been discussed in this post, you’ll find it here.

“If Frank Fay were acid, he would have consumed himself.” – Fred Allen

Comedian Frank Fay holds a special place in the history of show business mirth as one of the first “master of ceremonies,” or “emcees.”  As such, he could also be considered the first stand-up comedian, as posited by Kliph Nesteroff, author of The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels, and the History of American Comedy:

For several years vaudeville used only painted signs with the name of each act to announce who was coming to the stage.  Fay changed this common practice, becoming one of the first people to actually emcee a show.  His role as an introducer and extroducer was another revolutionary shift in stand-up.  He wasn’t just introducing, but entertaining as he did so.  If the previous act bombed, he warmed the crowd back up, and if the momentum was good, he just kept the show going.

Barbara Stanwyck & Frank Fay

Fay enjoyed his greatest success in vaudeville and on stage, and while his performances were well received by audiences, offstage he was despised by his contemporaries.  (In his book on The Jack Benny Show, Milt Josefsberg related that Frank Fay was one of the few people his boss didn’t like…and Jack was on good terms with pretty much everybody.)  Much of this had to do with the man’s colossal conceit; I used a Fred Allen quote as the header for this post, but my comedy idol also had occasion to crack: “The last time I saw Frank Fay he was walking down Lover’s Lane holding his own hand.”  Benny wasn’t a fan because he detested Fay’s refusal to update much of his material (he bristled at Frank’s attitude of “You people are lucky enough to see the great Frank Fay no matter what I do”) and because of the inexcusable physical abuse he administered to his one-time wife Barbara Stanwyck (Jack and Babs were great pals).  (The old joke went: “Who is the actor with the biggest prick in Hollywood?”  “Barbara Stanwyck.”)

Milton Berle

Fay was also an unrepentant anti-Semite, whose longtime feud with Milton Berle even got physical, with Uncle Miltie introducing Frank’s face to the business end of a stage brace (ripping his nose apart) one night during a performance after Fay commanded the stagehands: “Get that little Jew bastard out of the wings!”  The irony of this is that both Fay and Berle’s comedic styles were quite similar, that of the cocky, self-assured smartass (Fay also influenced such comedians as Bob Hope, Jack Paar...and surprisingly enough, Jack Benny) …and though comics were inclined to side with Berle because of Fay’s noxious racism, “[i]n actual fact Fay was much better than Berle,” comedian Will Jordan recalled.  “When they went onstage Frank Fay would just cut him to pieces.”  (Milton once challenged his rival to “a battle of wits,” prompting Frank to retort: “I never attack an unarmed man.”)

Knowing what I know about Frank Fay—and I apologize for the negativity in the beginning of this review, but there’s no getting around the fact that Frank was a first-class wanker—I was pleasantly surprised by Spotlight Scandals (1943), a B-musical comedy from Poverty Row king Monogram that’s been made available on DVD from Alpha Video Classics (many thanks to Brian Krey for providing the screener).  Fay plays himself (that is, his character is named “Frank Fay” …though the movie is not meant to be autobiographical), a vaudeville headliner stranded in a small Midwestern town who resorts to conning barber Billy Gilbert (as “Billy Gilbert”) out of a sawbuck to keep body and soul together.  He’s later invited to Gilbert’s home for a free feed and an impromptu concert by his host, who harbors an ambition to be an entertainer.  Hearing that Billy has socked away a great deal of money to achieve his dreams, Frank easily persuades him that New York is the place to be.

As Billy performs for agent John Blondell (James Hope), Frank punctuates Gilbert’s song with witticisms…which impresses Blondell to the point where he tells the two men he can get them work as a double act (at $300 a week).  They succeed admirably in vaudeville (considering vaudeville was on life support at the time), and eventually land a Broadway show entitled Spotlight Revue, financed by the eccentric Oscar Martin (Harry Langdon).  The team of Fay and Gilbert are the toast of the town, and one night their show finds vocalist Bonnie Baker (also playing a character named after herself) in attendance—Bonnie is a nightclub performer, but she’s also the star of a radio program sponsored by the bubble gum company run by her mother (Betty Blythe).  Bonnie wants Frank to join her radio show…but only Frank—Billy need not apply.  (I found this interesting in that both Baker and Fay had previously worked in the aural medium—Bonnie with Your Hit Parade, and Frank headlining a NBC show for Tums in the 1941-42 season.) Not wanting to deprive his partner of a wonderful opportunity (despite their success, Fay spends money like the government and is always broke), Gilbert tells Frank after their show closes that he wants to leave the act.

Spotlight Scandals amused me from the opening credits, since despite Frank Fay’s show business standing it’s Billy Gilbert who receives top billing.  Billy is a real favorite here at Rancho Yesteryear, a remarkable talent who worked as second banana alongside many of the great comedians: Laurel & Hardy (The Music Box), Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator), Buster Keaton (on live TV), W.C. Fields (Million Dollar Legs), The Marx Brothers (A Night at the Opera), Charley Chase, Thelma Todd & ZaSu Pitts (Asleep in the Feet), Our Gang, Olsen & Johnson (Crazy House) and many more.  (I sat down the other night with my favorite Wheeler & Woolsey film, Cockeyed Cavaliers…and Billy’s in that one, too.)  Gilbert also stole the show in features like Destry Rides Again (1939) and His Girl Friday (1940—a riot as “Joe Pettibone”) and his patented comic sneezing routine was borrowed to voice “Sneezy” in the Walt Disney feature Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).  As a Gilbert devotee, I don’t mind telling you he’s the reason why I was so eager to sit down with Spotlight.

BILLY: Say…are you Frank Fay the stage actor?

FRANK: Yeah!

BILLY: What do you make off like?

FRANK: What do I make off like…?

BILLY: Yeah…what do you do on the stage?

FRANK: What does Frank Fay do on the stage?

BILLY: Oh, I’m sorry…I never…uh…

FRANK (disgusted) Fantastic…

BILLY: Oh…like Sally Rand!

FRANK: Sally Rand?

BILLY: Yeah…she does a fantastic, too…

Fay then explains to Gilbert that he is not like Sally Rand since he dances without the fans—Billy: “Well…you’re liable to get arrested…”  Because Spotlight takes a surprising melodramatic turn towards its conclusion (I'll keep mum about the details), Billy is required to shift gears and place an emphasis on dramatic acting…and to be honest, he’s a bit better at making the switch than his partner.

Bonnie Baker with Orrin Tucker

What I found so funny about Fay’s performance in Spotlight Scandals is that Frank seems to have come to terms with his reputation for being a conceited jerk and decides to roll with it, fully embracing his inner ham while making a concerted effort to show some decency in his tight friendship with Billy.  I kind of wish that screenwriters Beryl Sachs and William X. Crowley (a pseudonym for B-movie god William Beaudine, who directed the film) had continued to concentrate on the Billy-Frank partnership because once the focus swings toward the romance between Fay and Bonnie Baker the film loses a bit of its momentum.  Baker was often billed as “Wee” Bonnie Baker (mostly due to her 4’11” height, but also because of her little girl voice) and as the vocalist with Orrin Tucker’s musical aggregation had chart hits like Stop! It’s Wonderful and Billy.  (Her biggest hit, Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh! reached the #2 position on Billboard’s charts in 1939—Baker performs a few bars of this in the film.)  Bonnie gets the lion’s share of the musical numbers in Spotlight (Goodnight, Now, The Lilac Tree) but I’ll come clean and admit I’m not a fan (her “little girl” novelty warbling gets old very quickly, and the rivalry she has with Iris Adrian over “Faysie” is most unconvincing).

Jimmy Hollywood, Eddie Bartell, and Sydney Chatton were collectively known as The Radio Rogues and the trio plied their talent for mimicry in movies like Hollywood Hotel (1937) and Reveille with Beverly (1943).  They imitate luminaries like Peter Lorre, Red Skelton, and Jimmy Durante as one of the highlights of Spotlight—they’re Baker’s supporting act in a nightclub sequence.  Harry Langdon is good as always (if underused), and I always enjoy having character great Iris Adrian around…even if I couldn’t quite figure out why she’d ever entertain thoughts of throwing Harry over for Frank Fay.  You might also recognize the kids portraying Gilbert’s young sons (though they’ve sprouted up like weeds) as Billy “Butch” Lenhart and Kenneth “Buddy” Brown—the two moppets who make an enemy of The Great Man himself in Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941).  Spotlight was co-produced by none other than “Jungle” Sam Katzman—who demonstrates how to promote Monogram’s product by having director Beaudine insert a quick shot of a poster for Bowery at Midnight (1942—starring Bela Lugosi), a Katzman release, in one scene.

The print isn't exactly pristine...but that gentleman on the right is 'Snub' Pollard, who goes uncredited at the (always reliable) IMDb.  (The actor at the mike is James Bush, who plays Baker's colorless boyfriend in the film.)

Fay in Harvey

At the time of the film’s release, Daily Variety announced that Spotlight was the “first of the Billy Gilbert-Frank Fay series of co-starring comedy-dramas” …but I guess someone forgot to tell Frank this.  The entertainer opted out of any future romps with Billy Gilbert, prompting Monogram to embark on a short series of comedies that paired Billy with Shemp Howard and ‘Slapsie’ Maxie Rosenblum (Three of a Kind, Crazy Nights, Trouble Chasers).  Frank appeared in only one more motion picture after Spotlight, 1951’s Love Nest (I wonder if Fay’s ego took on that of Jack Paar’s in a steel-cage death match?); his movie resume was kind of spotty (God’s Gift to Women, Nothing Sacred, They Knew What They Wanted) but it mattered little—his real strength was performing on stage.  A year after the release of Spotlight he’d appear in his true triumph with the hit comedy Harvey (Frank was the original Elwood P. Dowd).

Bing Crosby in Blue of the Night

An apocryphal story relates that Frank Fay had once been called to testify as a witness in a court case and when he was asked what his occupation was he replied: “The world’s greatest comedian.”  Later, he was asked why he would risk antagonizing a jury with this lack of modesty and Fay retorted “I had to.  I was under oath.”  Spotlight Scandals is a hidden jewel of a programmer, a very entertaining quickie featuring a team that could have worked well together in future ventures had one of the members not suffered from tremendous “self-confidence.”  As a bonus, the Spotlight Scandals DVD also features an abbreviated version of the two-reel comedy Blue of the Night (1933), considered by many to be Bing Crosby’s best of the eight shorts he made for comedy king Mack Sennett.  It’s a slight but fun story, with Der Bingle stealing Marjorie “Babe” Kane away from fiancé Franklin Pangborn and appearances from Bud Jamison, Mary Treen, and Toby Wing.

Adventures in Blu-ray: The Delinquents (1957)

“They try to tell us we’re too young…” That lyric from the classic Nat King Cole song has special resonance for young Scotty White (Tom Laughlin) …because the parents of his best girl, Janice Wilson (Rosemary Howard), have requested that he no longer date her.  It’s not that Scotty is an inappropriate suitor for Jan’s attentions—they just feel that a girl her age (she is sixteen, going on seventeen—as another song goes) shouldn’t be “going steady.”

Despondent, Scotty cracks under the strain of his teenage angst and goes on a three-state killing spree.  No, I’m just kidding about this—but he does hook up with a crew of young lawbreakers more than up to that particular task at his local drive-in.  Bill “Cholly” Charters (Peter Miller) and his gang step in to keep Scotty from taking a right pummeling from some other rough boys (even though Cholly’s pal Eddy [Richard Bakalyan] is responsible for the event that snowballed into the fracas), and a grateful Scotty allows Cholly to help him out with a bit of dating subterfuge: Cholly will masquerade as Jan’s new boyfriend, and pick her up at her home to take her to the movies.  Once they’re out of sight from her folks’ house, Scotty will take the baton from Cholly and continue the date portion of the evening.

Cholly snows Mr. and Mrs. Wilson (James Lantz, Lotus Corelli) with a yarn about working as an apprentice stockbroker (that reminds me: I should probably invest in hoodlum futures), and once he’s collected Jan, he persuades Scotty to attend a “party” that’s scheduled to be held at a seemingly abandoned house in the woodsy part of town.  Janice isn’t particularly wild about the idea…and her instincts prove right on the money: there’s drinking!  And dancing!  To raucous hopped-up jazz music!  Why…it’s almost as if this new crowd that’s adopted our young lovers are…delinquents!

Before he became the critically-acclaimed director of such films as MASH (1970), McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), and Nashville (1975), Robert Altman held the megaphone on a low-budget teensploitation flick known as The Delinquents (1957), filmed in Altman’s hometown of Kansas City, MO (depending on the source, the budget ranged from $45,000 to $63,000).  Motion picture exhibitor Elmer Rhoden, Jr., president of the Commonwealth Theaters chain, wanted to reap some of that sweet, sweet drive-in cash and hired Bob (who had been making industrial films and docs locally for The Calvin Company) to tackle the project; Altman scouted locations, cast the film, and cranked out the screenplay (inspired by j.d. movie successes like The Wild One, Blackboard Jungle, and Rebel Without a Cause) in about a week.

Many of Delinquents’ actors were local Kansas City-ians of Altman’s acquaintance (his then-wife Lotus Corelli plays Mrs. Wilson, while their daughter Christine essays the role of Sissy, Scotty’s kid sister) but Bob and Elmer made a pilgrimage to The Golden State to find more practiced thespians who could play the three male leads.  Peter Miller, who portrays Cholly, had not only appeared in Blackboard and Rebel but had on his resume Forbidden Planet (1956) and Crime in the Streets (1956).  Character veteran Richard “Dick” Bakalyan (as Eddy) had his first important dramatic film turn in Delinquents; he would later appear in such films as Von Ryan’s Express (1965) and Chinatown (1975)…but he’s probably best known as “Cookie” in the Walt Disney Studios’ “Dexter Riley” trilogy: The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes (1969—though he’s called “Chillie” in this one), Now You See Him, Now You Don’t (1972), and The Strongest Man in the World (1975).  (Andrew “Grover” Leal humorously refers to Dick as Disney’s “Everyhench.”)  In addition, Bakalyan graces the cast of The Cool and the Crazy (1958), also produced by Rhoden, Jr. and directed by TDOY idol William Witney.

The star of The Delinquents (as Scotty) was Tom (Tommy) Laughlin—it was not, as previously reported, his feature film debut (Laughlin was also in These Wilder Years and Tea and Sympathy), but it served as an important launch pad for a motion picture career that would later be defined by the 1967 biker classic The Born Losers and cemented by 1971’s Billy Jack (Tom plays the same character in both movies), a film that has an inexplicable cult following.  (Laughlin’s Billy Jack is a man dedicated to teaching peace and non-violence by beating the stuffing out of anyone who looks at him cross-eyed.)  Billy Jack was such a monster box office hit that it led to a slate of follow-ups: The Trial of Billy Jack (1974), Billy Jack Goes to Washington (1977), The Return of Billy Jack (1986), and Billy Jack at Waikiki (1990).  (Um…I think this last title may be incorrect; I may have it confused with a “Ma and Pa Kettle” vehicle.)  In later years, Altman might have regretted selecting Laughlin for his movie; the two repeatedly clashed during the making of Delinquents, with Bob memorably describing the star as “an unbelievable pain in the ass.”

Absent the problems with Laughlin, Altman’s film went smoothly: The Delinquents was put together in three weeks, and the finished project was picked up by United Artists (for $150,000) for distribution, ultimately earning a nice return of $1 million.  But Bob wouldn’t look upon his debut feature with fondness in later years; UA altered the ending and included some sappy Crime Does Not Pay-like narration at the movie’s conclusion, which the director didn’t find out about until he attended a preview of the movie.  Delinquents played mostly at drive-ins, but it did attract the notice of The Master of Suspense—who hired Altman to direct episodes of his TV series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents (and that led to future assignments on boob tube classics like The Millionaire and Combat!).  Still, when London’s National Film Theatre put together a retrospective of Altman’s work in January of 2001, The Delinquents was noticeably absent (a program note stated that Altman preferred that it not be seen).

Is the movie terrible?  No, it isn’t—unless you have loftier expectations from a drive-in teen flick.  What’s very impressive about The Delinquents is the level of professionalism present in such a low-budgeter; Altman demonstrated with this debut that he was a talent to watch, even though devotees may be disappointed at the lack of a film signature…save for a free-wheeling party scene that previews Bob’s fondness for free-wheeling improvisation.  The acting may be amateurish at times (this tends to happen when you use amateurs) but the black-and-white photography is a standout (cinematographer Charles Paddock noted that Altman suggested he watch The Asphalt Jungle to emulate its style) and again, the overall product is quite polished.  (The music from KC’s own Julia Lee and the Bill Nolan Quintet Minus Two in the opening nightclub scene is first-rate, too.)

The Delinquents makes its Blu-ray/DVD debut today, courtesy of Olive Films—“a boutique theatrical and home entertainment distribution label” (according to the company) that has made many their releases available to this humble scrap of the blogosphere (thanks to Bradley Powell) to review from time to time.  Fans of Robert Altman (and believe me—there’s an army of them out there) will want to add this to their video shelf so that they can truly appreciate a major filmmaking talent learning his craft.

“And now it’s time for another special feature…”

Hello, Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful.  Honest Ivan here again...but not to sell you anything.  When the DISH Austerity Program first went into effect in the House of Yesteryear, I was a little crabby…and I may have even whined a little.  (How do I know this?  Well, when about half a dozen people say to me “Will you stop whining, ferchrissake?” that’s a little hard to ignore.)  I had reached a point where I started to sound like Karl Swenson in The Birds: “It’s the end of the world!”

But a month into our whittled-down package…I’m beginning to think that Nietzsche guy was right.  I speculated that when I first announced the DISH news this experience might be a positive one for TDOY, in that such a removal of this distraction might provide the impetus for more prolific blogging.  At the risk of tooting my own piccolo, I have been en fuego in the month of August.  While the ‘rents search in anxiety for something with which to be entertained (Mom is so sick of Dad’s constant watching of MSNBC that I think she’s on board with Giant Meteor in November), I sit smugly in Count Comfy von Chair with my tablet, composing blog post after blog post.  I’m not going to lie to you.  Occasionally, when I get wind that a movie I wanted desperately to see is playing on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™, I tear up a little.  But it passes quickly.

This post is going to serve as sort of a guide to the “new” Thrilling Days of Yesteryear—what you can expect in terms of content and such.  Not all of what I write about will appeal to everyone, so if you have an idea of what will appear on the blog on a daily basis you can plan your visits accordingly.  (In a perfect world, of course, you would not only read every utterance you would pledge complete and unwavering fealty to TDOY…but alas, we do not live in such a Utopian existence.)

Mondays – Book reviews.  Again, because I’m under oath—or am I?—I must truthfully admit the few times I reviewed a book here at TDOY in the past is when someone graciously sent me a free copy for the blog.  (No money exchanged hands, I cannot emphasize this enough.  It’s more “quo” than “quid”—if I may indulge in a little pun.)  In most cases, there were books that I paid for myself with TDOY funds simply because it was something I was excited about reading.  Since I invested in the new computer three years ago and it came equipped with Kindle. I have found that it’s relatively inexpensive to build an electronic library if you just keep an eye peeled for book bargains.  (BookBub is a great resource in giving you a heads-up on this.)  So I’m going to make a concerted effort to read more than I have previously (the Kindle allows me to effortlessly sit in Count von Comfy and accomplish this task), and we will see where that takes us.

Tuesdays – It was Todd at Sweet Freedom who first instituted “Overlooked Tuesdays” and in the beginning, I tried my darndest to structure TDOY so that movies that don’t always receive the greatest number of electrons here in the blogosphere would be featured on “Overlooked Films on Tuesdays.”  My track record for participating, sadly, was the very definition of “spotty”; I blame this on the fatigue and ennui I experienced after completing Serial Saturdays and Doris Day(s) on Mondays.  (More on this in a bit.)  Nevertheless, I have seen the light, brother, and am committed to making certain an overlooked motion picture gets its due on Tuesdays, be it an edition of “From the DVR” or “Grey Market Cinema.”

Wednesdays – If you’re going to place a bet in the pool of “Which feature will have the shortest shelf life at TDOY”, this might be the nominee that will pay off big time.  It’s not that I don’t enjoy a good shoot-‘em-up, it’s just that the number of economically-shot oaters in the Dusty Thrilling Days of Yesteryear Archives has diminished in recent years: many of my B-Westerns were relegated to the trash can (I decided about a year-and-a-half ago that I was going to stop recording movies at anything lower than SP speed) and the others wound up on the eBay runway.  I know I’ve got some on hand; it will just require my digging through a—what I call for lack of a better word—“pile” of DVD-R discs.  Still, B-Western Wednesdays is back with a vengeance, baby—so saddle up for some good ol’ rootin’-tootin’ fun (in memory of my dear departed Facebook compadre Lloyd Fonvielle).

Thursdays – Thursdays will be devoted to “silent cinema”; it can take the form of comedy shorts that I’ve acquired over the years (my recent review of Steve Massa’s Lame Brains and Lunatics no doubt inspired this) …or “On the Grapevine,” which spotlights DVDs purchased from Grapevine Video.  There may also be silent films both unknown and well-known tossed into the mix (discs purchased from Flicker Alley and Milestone Films).  And there may be an occasional “talkie” featured as well (I’ve socked away quite a few Alpha DVDs.).

Fridays – It’s Forgotten Noir Fridays!  (Don’t tell me you’ve relegated yesterday’s post to ancient history already.)  VCI Entertainment and Kit Parker Films’ acclaimed DVD series will be examined on a weekly basis, one movie at a time.  By the way, I made a lulu of a boo-boo yesterday in my review of I’ll Get You: according to friend of TDOY/film historian Richard M. Roberts, the Lippert film library was never “orphaned.”  “Robert Lippert Sr. sold the rights to those films to the Weiss Brothers in the early 60's, where Weiss Global International kept them in perpetual television syndication into the early 80's,” Richard wrote me in an e-mail.  “When Adrian Weiss passed away in the early 00's, the rights and materials to the Lipperts and all other surviving Weiss product was sold to Kit Parker, who has made them available ever since through VCI.”  I am so grateful that Richard is around to keep me honest.

I’ve made the decision that with the exception of an occasional post (like this one) or the announcement of swag to give away, weekends will be kind of quiet here at TDOY.  (Hey, I have book reports to write.)  Which means that Serial Saturdays will be retired (though I had two chapters left in The Black Widow—if I can locate the DVD I’ll try to wrap those up) and as for Doris Day(s)…well, again—a little honesty is in order.  I have to watch these episodes in order to transcribe the dialogue…and then a second time (I generally speed this up if I’m in a hurry) for the screen grabs.  I just don’t have the intestinal fortitude for this anymore (and my recent diabetes diagnosis doesn’t help, either—Doris is awful gooey at times).  Maybe if MeTV decides to add it to its schedule (I’ve seen the traffic for Mayberry Mondays shoot up since they started airing RFD reruns, and I think I thank them for that) I may apply some paddles but for now you’ll just have to settle for memories of Leroy B. Semple Simpson.  (Andrew “Grover” Leal keeps insisting I’ve lost the Doris DVDs…this is simply not true, though I sometimes wish it were.)

So there you have it: the new Thrilling Days of Yesteryear.  (I feel like I just participated in a network upfront.)  Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and meet me back here Monday.

Phat boys

In his book Lame Brains & Lunatics, film historian Steve Massa describes the comedic trio known as A Ton of Fun thusly: “{T]he idea being that if one fat guy was funny, then three would be a riot.”  The corpulent threesome was comprised of Frank “Fatty” Alexander, Hillard “Fatt” Karr, and Bill “Kewpie” Ross, with Alexander and Karr the silent comedy veterans. (Karr had a starring series of “Funny Fat Filbert” comedies for Josh Binney Comedies before moving on to Fox and then Universal; Alexander was a Mack Sennett veteran in addition to stops at Century and Vitagraph.  He then worked as a foil for Larry Semon for nearly a decade.)  From 1925 to 1928, the plus-sized mirthmakers appeared in thirty-six two-reel comedies for producer Joe Rock and his Standard Cinema Corporation.  (That’s why seeing “A Standard Comedy” at the bottom of some of the comedies’ title cards is often funnier than the content in those two-reelers.)

I sampled some of A Ton of Fun’s clowning this week in an Alpha Video Classics release available from Oldies.com entitled Three Fatties (the alternate name for the chubby trio).  The DVD box boasts that it’s an “exclusive collection of nine vintage shorts” which is a bit of an “expedient exaggeration,” to quote Cary Grant’s character from North by Northwest.  I’d seen two of the two-reelers previously in other collections: Heavy Love (1926) is available on the American Slapstick DVD, while Three of a Kind (1926) is among the many comedies spotlighted on Slapstick Encyclopedia.  Fatties does include the first Ton of Fun collaboration, Tailoring (1925)—and while I’ll freely admit I don’t have the inside skinny (sorry about that) on how Alpha decides which shorts will make their DVD’s final cut, they might have wanted to strike this from the list.  The print is in abysmal shape, so bad it’s a chore reading the title cards at times (which is a shame, since they actually provide a few laughs; one describes a character as so cheap he “fired a shot Christmas Eve and told his children Santa Claus committed suicide”).  Tailoring is a pretty incoherent affair with a Katzenjammer Kids vibe; one of the Fatties (the print is so bad I can’t tell which member it is) is made up to look like “The Captain” from that classic comic strip while the other two are dressed like overgrown children.

Massa describes the Ton of Fun comedies as “a clever and fun series” …though I think the jury is still out on the “clever” part.  He further observes that “[t]he usual format for the shorts consisted of putting the Fatties in situations and locations where fat men should fear to tread and then milking all the weight-related gags possible...”  Maybe I’m being a bit too harsh (or maybe I haven’t seen the Fatties at their best) but I didn’t find many of the shorts on the collection particularly outstanding…though they do provide some amusement from time to time.  The aforementioned Heavy Love features the plumpish threesome as carpenters, building a house for Lois Boyd (another Sennett veteran, and a frequent leading lady in their comedies); I examined Boyd during Love, and she didn’t seem to exhibit any signs of mental illness—so why she employed these jamokes in the first place is a complete mystery.  Heavy Love does wrap things up with a funny closing gag involving an eccentric who informs Lois and the boys the house has been built on the wrong lot and will have to be moved.

There are some risible moments in Old Tin Sides (1927)—the porcine trio help out in a general store—including a little old lady who somehow gets a leaping fish down her skirt (it’s a long story) and goes through some hysterical gyrations and leaps courtesy of a stuntman.  The two-reeler also features hilarity as the TOF and their boss flood the cellar with homemade applejack and drunkenly break out in a chorus of “Sweet Adeline.”  In addition, I liked Standing Pat (1928)—the penultimate Ton of Fun comedy—in which our heroes use a miracle cleaner to destroy both suits of clothes and cars of unfortunate customers, then later have to deliver a crated piano to a music professor (one of their earlier victims).  The stunt work featuring the team losing control of their car and then the runaway piano as it meanders down steep hills will appeal to anyone who enjoys physical comedy.

The cleaning fluid plot in Standing is reminiscent of the “Bright-O” gags featured in the Three Stooges short Dizzy Doctors (1937) …and to be honest, much of A Ton of Fun’s shtick is similar to that of the later comedy trio who made a cottage industry out of face-slapping and eye-pokes.  Both teams relied on physical destruction for comedy, and as someone once observed of the Stooges, at times the titles of their shorts were funnier than the finished product (the Ton of Fun comedy The Heavy Parade [1926] is a take-off on the 1925 M-G-M classic The Big Parade.)  Two of TOF’s shorts are titled Three of a Kind and Three Wise Goofs (1925), which could easily be appropriated for Stooges shorts.  (They actually do share one title: A Ton of Fun’s Three Missing Links [1927] features the boys as motorcycle patrolmen…though the Stooges’ similarly-titled comedy in 1939 has Moe, Larry, and Curly loose in the jungle making a movie.)

I did get a kick out of seeing a few familiar names in the credits of these shorts: Tay Garnett, who would later direct films like The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), is credited with the title cards on Three Wise Goofs, while Raymond McCarey (brother of Leo) and Pinto Colvig are credited as writers on Standing Pat.  Ray would go on to direct such funsters as Laurel & Hardy (Scram!), Our Gang (Free Eats) and the Three Stooges (Three Little Pigskins), while actor-animator Colvig is best known as the voice of Goofy in those classic Walt Disney cartoons.  Harry Sweet was in the director’s chair for Three of a Kind; he also acted in silent films but is perhaps best remembered for starting up the shorts department at R-K-O and helming many of the early Edgar Kennedy two-reelers until his untimely death from a plane crash in 1933.

I picked up Three Fatties during the Oldies.com continuing-in-perpetuity 5 for $25 sale (though I think it’s now 10 for $39.90), and while the print quality isn’t particular sparkly (the screen grabs probably tipped you off to that) the comedies are mostly watchable (Tailoring is the only one that’s really terrible).  If you’re looking for a way to sample the work of a forgotten comedy trio for pennies on the dollar, this is the advisable way to go.

“Git gat gittle giddle-di-ap giddle-de-tommy riddle de biddle de roop da-reep fa-san skeedle de woo-da fiddle de wada reep!”

The only occasion in which I previously saw The Danny Kaye Show prior to welcoming gradual telecasts of the series being released to DVD was a clip showcased on CBS: On the Air, the all-star gala stretched over seven nights to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Tiffany Network.  Kaye was one of the co-hosts for the Wednesday night edition, and they showed a sequence from his popular variety hour in which he chatted up precocious child star Victoria Meyerink, who would soon enjoy a short career of popularity appearing in films like Elvis Presley’s Speedway (1968) and on such shows as Green Acres and My Three Sons.  (My memory is a bit rusty regarding the content in the clip, but I vaguely recall he sang a song to her as well.)

On the Air then reunited Kaye with a teenage Meyerink, whom I had caught in an ABC Afterschool Special entitled “It Isn’t Easy Being a Teenage Millionaire” two weeks earlier.  (It would be Victoria’s last gig as an actress, according to the [always reliable] IMDb; since that time she has worked as an award-winning television producer.)  I remember the entertainer gulped nervously and ad-libbed about how much she’d grown.  (Look, I know that kind of gives off a creepy vibe—but Danny was referencing what he always said to her whenever she appeared on his show as a child.)  Kaye’s variety series, which aired over the CBS Television Network from 1963-67 for a total of 120 telecast episodes, has been MIA on home video for many years save for a 1993 video release entitled The Best of Danny Kaye: The Television Years, which spotlighted classic musical moments from the series.  It was released to DVD in May of 2012, and later in December of that same year Christmas with Danny Kaye, a single disc with two Yuletide-themed telecasts (one with Nat King Cole and the other with Peggy Lee) broke the log jam: there have since been a number of small collections containing uncut episodes of the variety hour starring the “Everyman of Entertainment.”

The latest Danny Kaye Show DVD release is Danny Kaye: Legends, an MVD Visual collection released this past October 16th that my Facebook chum Jeff Abraham (at Jonas PR) was generous enough to bring to my attention by sending a screener my way.  Young Meyerink is featured in two of the telecasts, dated January 4 and January 11, 1967.  Meyerink’s spot would usually occur near the end of the program; to demonstrate his amazing rapport with audiences, Danny would set aside time at the end of each hour for a “quiet” segment: an informal interaction with the studio audience and viewers, telling jokes and singing songs in an intimate setting that allowed him to take a breath from what was surely a strenuous workout for a man of his age.  Kaye was 52 at the time The Danny Kaye Show premiered on CBS-TV…but with his vim and vitality he often seemed twenty years younger.

Danny Kaye: Legends is comprised of six telecasts from the 1963-67 variety series.  The first two episodes feature guest stars Lucille Ball (11/04/64) and Imogene Coca (12/09/64)—Lucy did a 1962 TV special with Danny pre-Kaye Show, and Imogene would not only be one of Kaye’s frequent guests she was an old friend from back in the days when the two made two-reel comedies for Educational (she and Danny, along with June Allyson and Barry Sullivan, appear in 1937’s Dime a Dance).  These two programs are among my favorites on the set, not only because of Lucy and Imogene but because the black-and-white episodes of Kaye’s show seem to be of a better visual quality than the later color efforts (the series discarded its monochrome origins in the fall of 1965 as part of CBS’ commitment to make buying a color TV worth the effort).  Granted, the color technology back then was still in its experimental stage…so live and/or videotaped programs are not without their problems.

Old Home Week!

The Lucy show highlights include a hilarious tour-de-force in which the two redheads play theatrical troupe actors forced to play all the roles in a production due to a snowstorm sidelining the rest of the company; Lucy and Danny have to make quick costume changes to take on all the parts, and afterwards Danny presents some footage shot from backstage to emphasize the craziness that went on.  With Imogene Coca, the duo perform send-ups of Gilbert and Sullivan and Swan Lake—the latter quite reminiscent of the climactic ballet scene from Knock on Wood (1954).  The musical guests are a bit disappointing—though I’ll admit there may be more fervent Tony Bennett (on the Coca telecast) fans out there than I.  Vocalist John Gary warbles a couple of tunes on the Lucy program; Danny seemed quite taken with the singer (Gary would host a summer replacement series for The Danny Kaye Show in 1966) and never seemed to run out of superlatives to describe him.  Me?  Meh.

This sketch could have been a Lucy Show episode!

"Little Latin Lupe Lu..."

A September 29, 1965 telecast with Shirley Jones and the Righteous Brothers also threatened to put me to sleep (sorry, Mrs. Partridge)…though Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield do sing their big hit You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.  The duo also play lawyers in a musical sketch about “Man vs. Woman” that’s a bit lame (Danny and Shirl are fighting the age-old “battle of the sexes”) but does feature Kaye Show regular Harvey Korman as a judge and this individual playing the bailiff…

…is Thurl “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” Ravenscroft, one-time Sportsman Quartet member and voice of Tony the Tiger (the animated mascot for Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes).  Always nice to see Thurl, as you might imagine.

Appearing in a sketch with Danny is the incomparable Harold Gould.  Other performers I spotted in skits on both DVDs include Jamie Farr and Henry Beckman.

Disc 2 spotlights the aforementioned January 4 (Louis Armstrong) and January 11, 1967 (Vikki Carr and Liberace) programs plus a March 1, 1967 telecast with guest star George Burns.  I love anything with Satchmo, so I’m tempted to call the January 4 telecast my favorite of the bunch; Armstrong sings So Long Dearie and duets with Danny on When the Saints Go Marchin’ In, which the duo performed in The Five Pennies (1959).  The Carr/Liberace program has some great moments—there’s this “James Bond” spoof with Liberace as a super villain…

This “James Bond” spoof isn’t uproarious funny…but I owned a paperback in my youth entitled The TV Book, which had a feature entitled “A Pictorial History of Television” along its bottom pages and a photo of the “twinage” of Danny and Liberace was included.  Now I can say I’ve seen the sketch.  (Closure!)

…and Vikki, Danny and Lee do a jaunty version of Style.  In addition, the George Burns show is worth the price of admission to hear George and Danny swap some show business stories (including some hilarious Jack Benny anecdotes) and George sing in his one-of-a-kind fashion (including Red Rose Rag and Ain’t Misbehavin’) with Danny and the show’s Earl Brown Singers.

The Hillcrest Golf Club story Danny tells about Jack Benny is gold, Jerry.

Jeff was also nice to enough to send me—to be honest, he passed along a metric ton of swag…so you’ll probably be reading reviews within this next month—the earlier MVD Visual release of The Best of The Danny Kaye Show (released in October of 2014).  As with Legends, Best of also features six telecasts with guest stars like Harry Belafonte (09/15/65) and Ella Fitzgerald (10/05/66), not to mention Kaye’s premiere telecast from September 25, 1963 (with guests Jackie Cooper and Lovelady Powell)—which opens with a hilarious gag in which the star’s entrance is heralded by trumpets, dancing girls, soldiers, and Egyptian slaves carrying a litter which, when the curtain is pulled back, reveals…

“Wouldn’t this have been a wonderful opening for Danny Kaye?” Jack, the true master of timing, marvels after the perfect pause to milk the laughter.  As the procession moves on, we see that the guy bringing up the rear…

…is Mr. Kaye himself.  To be honest, anything that followed that would be hard to top.

Second banana Harvey Korman and Kaye play astronauts in a "teaser" sketch.

Fortunately, there is plenty of great comedy featured in the black-and-white shows on The Best of Danny Kaye; the shows from the early seasons featured material penned by Your Show of Shows scribe Mel Tolkin and old-time radio veteran Larry Gelbart, while the writing chores were taken up in later years by the likes of Pat McCormick, (future director) Paul Mazursky and Larry Tucker.  The Jackie Cooper telecast has a gut-buster of a sketch in which nervous first-flier Danny is terrorized by his obnoxious seatmate (Coop), and a January 22, 1964 outing finds Art Carney clowning with the host (Art plays an obnoxious fix-it man who’s part Ed Norton and part Rudy the Repairman, one of his pal Jackie Gleason’s creations).  Danny, Art and Harvey also appear in a Twilight Zone parody that also sends up Lost Horizon and makes use of a cameo by this guy:

The Belafonte and Fitzgerald telecasts feature sensational musical numbers: I loved Danny and Harry’s rendition of Belafonte’s Calypso hit Mama Look a Boo (Harry can’t keep a straight face when Kaye comes out dressed in Belafonte-like Calypso garb) and Ella, Danny and guest Buddy Greco go to town on It Don’t Mean a Thing (If It Ain’t Got That Swing).  The sixth telecast on this disc, with guest Liza Minnelli (January 5, 1966; Liza with a “Z” sings For Every Man There’s a Woman and Maybe This Time), also features a fun trio of Kaye, John Gary and Alan Young on Just an Honest Mistake.  (Alan and Danny also do a hilarious race car sketch with regular Joyce Van Patten on this last one as well.)

Like Carol Burnett—who inherited Harvey Korman when her CBS show premiered in the fall of 1967—Danny Kaye started out with a series of specials on “The Stars’ Address” before being offered a weekly variety hour in 1963 (though I need to emphasize Carol benefitted from a clause in her CBS contract).  Originally, Kaye’s program was going to air right after the network’s powerhouse Ed Sullivan Show at 9pm Sunday…but the showman said “Pasadena” (heh…Dena) to what was widely considered a “graveyard slot”—NBC’s Bonanza was on the same time, and would finish ranked at #2 by the end of the season before spending the next three seasons at the number-one series in the Nielsens.  (Judy Garland’s show was slotted against Bonanza instead…and though her hour had more than its share of problems, having to go up against the Cartwrights certainly didn’t do her series any favors.)

In its first season, The Danny Kaye Show finished at #30 among all TV programs…and it would go on to win three Emmy Awards that season, including Outstanding Program Achievement in the Field of Variety and Outstanding Performance in a Variety or Musical Program or Series (for Mr. David Daniel Kaminsky).  The show also snagged a George Foster Peabody honor as one of the best entertainment programs that year.   But stiff competition soon began to gnaw at Danny’s ratings: first, from NBC’s Wednesday Night at the Movies the following season…and the same network’s I Spy after that.  When you stop to consider that much of the Danny Kaye fan base was composed of younger viewers who enjoyed him in such films as Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and Merry Andrew (1958), you have to wonder why CBS didn’t consider finding an earlier time slot to beef up Kaye’s standing in the Nielsens.  Low ratings and diffident critical support ultimately brought The Danny Kaye Show a cancellation after four seasons.  It was a different situation on the other side of the pond; the United Kingdom has enjoyed a long love affair with Danny Kaye (Bob Hope once memorably cracked: “Danny has been practically adopted by the British…I used his dressing room when I was over there…it was a modest affair—just two mirrors and a throne”), and The Danny Kaye Show was imported in time to appear on BBC-2 when that channel began transmissions and was a hit for three seasons.

I’m not as enthusiastic a Danny Kaye fan as some of my classic movie brethren and sistren; I enjoy a lot of his movies—I think The Court Jester is a movie comedy masterpiece, and I’m also partial to The Inspector General, Knock on Wood and On the Double—but sometimes a little Kaye goes a long way (I think the best adjective to describe his radio show is “precious”).  Watching these telecasts has brought me a new appreciation for Danny, and I hope MVD Visual and Kaye’s estate continues to make these accessible for home video collectors.  For you see—I cannot deny the ferocity of the man’s talent; he was a master entertainer in addition to being a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, an accomplished chef, a licensed pilot, a baseball enthusiast (he was at one time a part-owner of the Seattle Mariners and possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of America’s greatest pastime) and a honorary member of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Pediatrics.  “Life is a great big canvas,” he would remark in later years, “throw all the paint you can at it.”  With that in mind, I cannot recommend highly enough acquiring the DVD sets Legends: Danny Kaye and The Best of the Danny Kaye Show for your own personal art gallery.