Taking a little Flack

In June of last year, Curt Ladnier—a member-in-good-standing of the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful—needed a few episodes of TV’s The Thin Man for his collection and proposed a swap: the first five installments of the Peter Lawford-Phyllis Kirk boob tube version for some rare episodes of The Lone Wolf, a syndicated 1954-55 TV series based on the literary sleuth created by Louis Joseph Vance.  (The character appeared in a slew of B-movie mysteries—many of them with legendary silver screen cad Warren William as L.W.—and a 1948-49 radio series with Gerald Mohr…who also tackled the role in a handful of the films.)  The TV Wolf starred Louis Hayward and since I hadn’t sampled it I was only too happy to help Br’er Curt out.  We have since that time swapped many e-mails; he’s currently working on a DVD project capturing those episodes of The Felony Squad that I had to give up when we reluctantly jettisoned getTV from our DISH programming.

Curt is the proprietor of In Search of Jack Boyle: On the Trail of Boston Blackie’s Forgotten Creator—the title is self-explanatory—and he also blogs at Maljardin: Musings From the Desmond Crypt, a site dedicated to the cult horror TV series Strange Paradise.  He asked me if I would be amenable to hosting a guest review of the DuMont sitcom Colonel Humphrey Flack, and I welcomed the idea with open arms; TDOY has featured many guest pieces here in the past, from resident guest movie reviewer Philip Schweier to cub reporter Tom Stillabower.  I know you’re going to enjoy Curt’s contribution as much as I did…so without further ado, I present…Mr. Ladnier.

COLONEL HUMPHREY FLACK:

THE DUMONT NETWORK’S FABULOUS FRAUD

Audiences love a light-hearted con story.  The enormous popularity of big screen productions like The Sting and Ocean’s Eleven paved the way for such recent television successes as Leverage, Hustle, and their like.  And these series had predecessors on the small screen, from ABC’s quintessential western sharpster Maverick to NBC’s criminally short-lived The Rogues.  But ushering these series onto television’s airwaves was the grand-daddy of all comedic con artist shows, the DuMont Network’s 1953 production Colonel Humphrey Flack.

Colonel Flack, a lovable scoundrel who inhabited DuMont’s Wednesday night line-up, was a genial fraud who lived by his wits.  Possessed of an air of quality and a taste for the finer things in life, he frequented the best clubs and hotels, typically with only a few cents to his name.  Flack never let the nuisance of poverty stand in the way of his comforts, much to the consternation of his less polished – but more practical – confederate, Uthas Garvey.  But in spite of his penchant for living beyond his means, Colonel Flack was more an opportunist than a criminal.  He was gifted with an unerring knack of turning any situation to his own advantage, and the insight to realize that there was money to be had whenever others were cheating the system.  He had a professed dislike of “beastly chiselers,” whom he took every opportunity to fleece in Robin Hood fashion (pocketing a modest percentage to cover expenses). 

Colonel Flack creator Everett Rhodes Castle

Despite television’s relative infancy in 1953, Flack and Garvey were old hands at the confidence game by the time they stole onto DuMont’s schedule.  The colonel was the brainchild of magazine writer Everett Rhodes Castle, who chronicled Flack’s exploits in a dozen issues of The Saturday Evening Post between 1936 and 1946.  Castle’s yarns proved popular, and as early as the spring of 1939 his creation had already leapt from the page to the airwaves – not on radio, but on the fledgling medium of television!   Weeks ahead of the National Broadcasting Company’s general demonstration of television at the New York World’s Fair, the Colonel had already been featured as the protagonist of NBC Television’s one-shot production A Spot of Philanthropy the evening of April 13, 1939.  Loosely based on Everett Rhodes Castle’s 1938 short story of the same name, the program starred George Taylor as Colonel Flack and Michael Drake as the long-suffering Garvey (1).  This early televised effort established Colonel Humphrey Flack as one of the first characters from popular contemporary fiction ever to be adapted for television.

Despite his early foray into television, it took some time for Colonel Flack to break into radio.  He finally took his place behind the microphone on a pair of episodes of the NBC Blue series The Listening Post.  February 20, 1945 saw his debut in a dramatization of the Saturday Evening Post story “It’s All Done with Credit” (2), and the June 22, 1945 episode saw his return in “Colonel Flack and the Tender Ethic” (3).  Flack fans must have been delighted, as these stories came to life over the airwaves within days of their original magazine publications.  Three years later, the Colonel finally snared a sustaining series on network radio when the Wilbur Stark / Jerry Layton company Program Productions sold NBC a twelve-episode run of Colonel Humphrey Flack.  Premiering at 8:00 PM EST on Thursday July 3, 1947, the series was a summer replacement for either The Aldrich Family or A Day in the Life of Dennis Day (announcements from the era disagree).  Directed by Ed King, the series starred Wendell Holmes as Flack and Frank Maxwell as Garvey, in scripts written by Tom Dougall and Sheldon Stark (4).  At the close of the summer season, NBC declined to contract for further episodes, and the series folded with its September 18, 1947 broadcast.

Wendell Holmes as Colonel Flack

Also in 1947, mystery luminary Ellery Queen chose Colonel Flack for inclusion in the hardcover anthology Rogues’ Gallery: The Great Criminals of Modern Fiction.  Published under the London imprint Faber and Faber, the collection Included Everett Rhodes Castle’s 1943 tale “The Colonel Gives a Party.”  The story’s publication in Queen’s anthology marks the colonel’s only appearance between the covers of a book.  As of this writing some 70 years later, the remainder of Colonel Flack’s literary escapades remain uncollected and unreprinted. 

Undeterred by the failure of their 1947 radio production to gain traction, Stark-Layton Productions redoubled their efforts to further develop the Flack franchise.  In 1953, they sold pilots for both a proposed television series and another radio adaptation to ABC.  The television production aired under the title “Colonel Humphrey J. Flack” as the May 31, 1953 installment of Plymouth Playhouse (a.k.a. ABC Album Playhouse).  This time around, British actor Alan Mowbray stepped into the role of the colonel and Frank McHugh played Garvey, in a story about the impoverished pair embarking on an ocean cruise courtesy of tickets won in a raffle (5).  The production was rebroadcast on the West Coast two weeks later, on June 16, 1953 (6).

The radio pilot brought the Mowbray/McHugh pairing before the microphones of ABC Playhouse for that series’ June 11, 1953 broadcast, also titled “Colonel Humphrey J. Flack.”  The episode related Flack and Garvey’s plan to aid a young medical student in recovering his life savings (7).  In selling ABC pilots for both radio and television, Stark-Layton Productions probably felt they had all bases covered for the launch of a new Flack series.  But in the end, the network declined to move forward with either.

Frank Jenks (as Garvey) and Alan Mowbray (as Flack)

However, the failure of the ABC television pilot had a silver lining.  Rather than throwing in the towel on the project, Stark-Layton switched gears and pitched it to the DuMont Television Network.  The gamble scored success and, under the sponsorship of the American Chicle Company, Colonel Humphrey Flack joined DuMont’s weekly line-up on Wednesday October 7, 1953.  Alan Mowbray returned in the role of Colonel Flack, but Frank McHugh did not make the transition from the pilot.  Instead, the part of Garvey was taken up ably by veteran character actor Frank Jenks (8).  The series was well-received, with Billboard praising its “smart scripting” and the “smooth teamwork” of its principal performers.  “Here’s one show that continues to provide us with welcome relief from mayhem, cops and robbers,” was the sentiment from the television critic of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (9).

Perhaps most pleased with Colonel Humphrey Flack was the star himself, Alan Mowbray.  Though he had portrayed a wide range of characters in hundreds of films, Mowbray feared he was best remembered for the handful of times he had played a butler.  Landing the lead in DuMont’s series changed that.  “Now I’m called ‘Colonel’ as much as I’m called Mowbray,” he confided to reporters in 1954 (10).  Even more satisfying was the remark from Flack creator Everett Rhodes Castle, who commented that he couldn’t tell where Alan Mowbray left off and Colonel Flack began (11).  “I always try to be the complete rogue,” Mowbray expounded upon his affinity for the character, “but always keep within the law.  The colonel never commits an overt act of any sort.  That’s important because so many children are watching” (12).

Children and adults alike tuned in to make Colonel Humphrey Flack a mainstay on DuMont.  The network chronicled Flack and Garvey’s escapades through 39 live weekly telecasts, eventually drawing the season to a close on July 2, 1954.  With the Colonel’s departure from the airwaves during the summer months, newspapers reported that the series was likely to move to CBS (13).  In the end, however, autumn was not to see Colonel Flack’s return to any network.  DuMont had some limited success in syndicating their kinescopes of the original 39 broadcasts to regional markets, but no further episodes of the series were put into production.  Alan Mowbray later attributed the unexpected cancellation of the show to the rise in popularity of westerns.  “We were crowded off by cowboys,” was his glib assessment (14).

With his prolonged absence from network schedules, things looked bleak for Colonel Flack’s television career.  But you can’t keep a good rogue down, and in 1958 Flack was back, when CBS Films approached Stark-Layton Productions about a revival to be marketed in first run syndication.  Sporting the almost imperceptibly tweaked title of Colonel Humphrey J. Flack, the new series went into production in the autumn of 1958, bringing Alan Mowbray and Frank Jenks back in the principal roles.  Mowbray was heartened by the fact that this revival would be shot on film, unlike the series’ earlier live incarnation on DuMont.  “Every time I went in front of those live cameras I wished I wasn’t there,” he remarked to The Detroit Free Press. “Why I didn’t collapse at the end of the season I don’t know.”  He was happy for the chance to portray Flack in a more polished filmed production -- and the prospect of residuals for subsequent reruns was also enticing.

Colonel Humphrey J. Flack hit the airwaves at the close of 1958, and was sold to major markets across the U.S.  Attracting sponsors ranging from Standard Oil to Budweiser, the 39-episode package garnered praise from Variety as “the only fresh comedy series in syndication.”  However, critical acclaim did not prevent some misconceptions from arising about the new series’ content.  Few of the filmed episodes were remakes of installments from DuMont’s earlier live production, but returning fans who tuned in to episodes such as “Saddle Sore” or “Back to the Coal Mines” may have gotten the mistaken impression that the revival series was simply an attempt to re-shoot the original 39 scripts. 

Certainly, multiple sources over the years have cited this as fact, but the idea doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.  A comparison of the titles between both series reveals very few similarities, and Alan Mowbray himself drove the final nail in this misconception’s coffin.  In a 1959 interview, he reflected on Flack’s filmed exploits in relation to the earlier live telecasts.  “We used … new stories this season, so we [still have the] old ones to dip into if our … writers can’t come up with anything.  They are our insurance policy” (15).  So Mowbray believed the DuMont scripts could be used as the basis of a subsequent season for 1959–60.

Unfortunately, even having a few dozen scripts in reserve couldn’t ensure a second season for Colonel Humphrey J. Flack, and CBS Films commissioned no further episodes after their run wrapped production in the spring of 1959.  Given that low ratings were the primary factor behind the series’ demise, fan response to the cancellation was surprisingly vocal.  When Michigan broadcaster WWJ-TV removed the show from its schedule in December 1959, a local civic group published a protest on the front page of The Detroit News and organized a letter-writing campaign to CBS Films (16).  In the end, Flack fans could take comfort in the fact that the filmed series remained available in syndication for years, but no new episodes would be produced. 

Today Colonel Flack persists primarily as a footnote in entertainment history.  His radio adventures are lost, and his print appearances languish in the yellowed pages of vintage periodicals.  A handful of kinescopes of his DuMont exploits are held by the UCLA Film Archive in California and the Paley Center for Media in New York, while his syndicated television series is now a part of the Viacom film library.  Aside from one or two isolated broadcasts, he has been absent from the airwaves for decades.  Yet despite being all but forgotten today, he blazed a trail for series ranging from It Takes a Thief to Tenspeed and Brownshoe.  And for that, God bless Colonel Humphrey Flack!

SOURCES

1.           Terrace, Vincent.  Television Specials: 5336 Entertainment Programs, 1936 – 2012 (2nd edition).  McFarland Press, 2013
2.           The Abilene Reporter-News: Abilene, Texas (February 20, 1945)

3.           The Findlay Republican Courier: Findlay, Ohio (June 22, 1945)

4.           Billboard Magazine: “Colonel Humphrey Flack” (July 19, 1947)

5.           The Cleveland Plain Dealer: Cleveland, Ohio (May 31, 1953)

6.           The San Bernardino Sun: San Bernardino, California (June 16, 1953)

7.           The Abilene Reporter: Abilene, Texas (June 7, 1953)

8.           Billboard Magazine: “Colonel Humphrey Flack (TV)” (October 17, 1953)

9.           The Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Brooklyn, New York (November 25, 1953)

10.         The Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati, Ohio (June 29, 1954)

11.         The Chicago Daily Tribune: Chicago, Illinois (January 24, 1959)

12.         The Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati, Ohio (June 29, 1954)

13.         The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (June 18, 1954)

14.         The Chicago Daily Tribune: Chicago, Illinois (January 24, 1959)

15.         The Detroit Free Press: Detroit, Michigan (May 31, 1959)

16.         Broadcasting: “Flack for ‘Flack’” (December 21, 1959)

NOTES & EPHEMERA

1.           An item in the September 21, 1939 edition of The Los Angeles Times refers to NBC’s April production of A Spot of Philanthropy as part of “a series of television plays dramatizing the popular Colonel Flack stories.”  This seems spurious, as no evidence exists of further productions on NBC.
2.           The broadcasting trade publication Ross Reports on Television states that the Colonel Humphrey Flack episode aired by the DuMont Network on May 1, 1954 was titled “The Cruncher.”  However, multiple newspapers report that the episode broadcast on that date was “King Hakmir Khan.”  Ross Reports does not provide an episode title for the May 7, 1954 broadcast, so this is the probable air date for “The Cruncher.”

3.           While the show’s basic formula remained substantially the same between the DuMont series and its later syndicated incarnation, there was one significant change.  A laugh track was added to the filmed series, giving the revival a more pronounced “sitcom” feeling.
4.           Some sources state that the 1958 – 59 CBS Films series was later marketed under the alternate title The Adventures of Colonel Flack. To date, no advertisements or documentation confirming this variant title have surfaced.  However, newspaper listings do confirm that the series was aired in the New York and New Jersey areas under the title The Fabulous Fraud circa 1960, and as The Imposter in 1961.

5.           Two large archives of scripts from the DuMont Network’s Colonel Humphrey Flack are known to exist.  One is included in the Edward Jurist Papers, 1940-79 held in the UCLA library’s special collections and the other resides with the Steven H. Scheurer Collection of Television Program Scripts at the Yale University Library.

The Colonel Flack stories in THE SATURDAY EVENING POST

1.           Introducing Col. Humphrey Flack (April 25, 1936)

2.           Col. Humphrey Flack Makes Three Thousand Per Cent Net (November 21, 1936)

3.           Colonel Humphrey Flack and the Barking Overcoat (January 23, 1937)

4.           Colonel Flack and the Affair of the Countess Radeska (May 15, 1937)

5.           Clean-Up (July 24, 1937)

6.           The Colonel Builds a Backfire (November 6, 1937)

7.           The Great Christmas Sweepstakes (December 25, 1937)

8.           A Drop of Elephant Blood (March 5, 1938)

9.           A Spot of Philanthropy (November 12, 1938)

10.         The Colonel Gives a Party (May 8, 1943)
11.         It's All Done With Credit (February 17, 1945)

12.         Colonel Flack and the Tender Ethic (June 23, 1945)

13.         Colonel Flack and the Common Man (April 20, 1946)

COLONEL HUMPHREY FLACK (1953–54) episode list

1.           Art is Fleeting (October 7, 1953)

2.           Saddle Sore (October 14, 1953)

3.           The Eight-Ball and the Side Pocket [a.k.a. The Pool Table] (October 21, 1953)

4.           The Rumboldt Affair [a.k.a. The Horse Race] (October 28, 1953)

5.           title unknown (November 4, 1953)

6.           The Bucket Shop (November 11, 1953)

7.           The Missing Heir (November 18, 1953)

8.           title unknown (November 25, 1953)

9.           The Movie Racket (December 2, 1953)

10.         The Syndicate (December 9, 1953)

11.         The Inventor (December 16, 1953)

12.         African Expedition (December 23, 1953)

13.         The Flack Match (January 2, 1954)

14.         The Wildfire Fund (January 9, 1954)

15.         Prince Fahz of Baklava (January 16, 1954)

16.         The Mansion (January 23, 1954)

17.         The Department Story (January 30, 1954)

18.         The Knave of Diamonds (February 6, 1954)

19.         The Monaco Stradivarius (February 13, 1954)

20.         Do You Call This a Life? (February 20, 1954)

21.         The Flower Girl (February 27, 1954)

22.         The Latin Major (March 6, 1954)

23.         The Columnist (March 13, 1954)

24.         The Pomeranian Society (March 20, 1954)

25.         Vacation (March 27, 1954)

26.         The Swami (April 3, 1954)

27.         The Wild West (April 10, 1954)

28.         Poor Little Rich Boy (April 17, 1954)

29.         Gambling Fever (April 24, 1954)

30.         King Hakmir Khan (May 1, 1954)

31.         title unknown (May 7, 1954)

32.         Achilles Heel (May 14, 1954)

33.         The Perfume Story (May 21, 1954)

34.         Good Old Bob (May 28, 1954)

35.         Back in the Salt Mine (June 4, 1954)

36.         By the Beautiful Sea (June 11, 1954)

37.         Atlantic Crossing (June 18, 1954)

38.         Happy Birthday (June 25, 1954)

39.         The Bradley Diamond (July 2, 1954)

COLONEL HUMPHREY J. FLACK (syndicated) episode list

1.           Lady Bluebeard                                                                                                                   

2.           Colonel Flack Gets Kilt

3.           The Formula

4.           The Bank Teller

5.           Something for the Birds

6.           The Real Estate Caper

7.           Saddle Sore

8.           Colonel Flack’s Big Deal

9.           The Big Wheels

10.         The Diamond Ring

11.         Colonel Flack to the Rescue

12.         The Blackmailer

13.         The Star Maker

14.         The Treasure Hunt

15.         The Emperor’s Snuff-Box 

16.         In Flack We Trust

17.         Flack and the Maharajah

18.         Colonel Cupid

19.         Back to the Coal Mines

20.         The Hypnotist

21.         The Producer

22.         The Happy Medium

23.         The Friendship Club

24.         Colonel Flack and the Gangster

25.         Horse of Another Color

26.         Follow the Bouncing Meatball

27.         West of the Weirdos

28.         Colonel Flack and the Little Leaguers

29.         Colonel Flack’s New Muffler

30.         Garviola, the Matador

31.         Surplus

32.         The Missing Moolah

33.         Colonel Flack and the Dragon

34.         Pearls of Wisdom

35.         Spaceship Ahoy

36.         Up from the Apes

37.         The Tycoon

38.         Colonel Flack and the Counterfeiter

39.         Lo, the Etruscans

The Return of the Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™!

Thanks to loyal member of the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful Barry, who was gracious enough to alert me to DISH Network’s new Flex Channel package, Tee Cee Em has made a triumphant return to The House of Yesteryear.  There are not enough words to adequately express my joy at this turn of events.

The way the Flex package works, you start with a basic tier of fifty channels—one of which is my beloved Turner Classic Movies.  You can then add additional packages according to your whims…or the whims of your family, as the case may be.  (If it were solely my decision, I’d be Encore Channeling and Movie Plexing all up in this bitch.)  “This is the closest thing to à la carte so far,” Barry explained in a follow-up comment.  “I could cut my bill by more than half: just add the News Pack (FBN and Bloomberg for wife), Encore (westerns for me), and dump the locals (I have an antenna and Windows Media Center).  I only wish AMC were in an extra package so I could have the satisfaction of dumping them too!”  The way this deal worked out for Rancho Yesteryear almost makes me regret the terrible things I’ve said about DISH in the past.  (Almost, that is.)

I had to add the Locals package to ensure we’d still receive our local channel lineup (my father has somehow convinced himself that if he watches WSB-TV’s newscasts at noon, four, and six o’clock there will be a tremendous change in the content), and the News package (also for Dear Old Dad) because he needs the newsreaders at MSDNC—or to use the longer nomenclature, the Hillary Clinton Pantsuit Politburo—to continually convince him HRC is not a terrible candidate.  Finally, as a nod toward mi madre, I added the Regional Action Network package—which carries both the SEC and Fox Sports South channels—so that she never goes hungry again (as God as her witness) missing out on her beloved Braves, Hawks, and Georgia Bulldog games.  (When I presented this proposal to Mumsy, she picked up her cellphone and threw it at me—yelling “Call them!  Now!” A day after we initially whittled down the package, Mom had more regrets than a Brexit voter.)

The package isn’t perfect.  I’m still out GetTV, and I lost RT America, the channel that carries my favorite satirical political comedy show, Redacted Tonight.  (This last one is no biggie; I can watch the episodes online via YouTube.)  When I sat down in Count Comfy von Chair to explain the new setup to the Laird and Master, my Mom started waving me off like I was trying to steal home.  I waited until Father had to answer the call of nature, and then I asked her: “Why don’t you want me to tell him about this?”

“He’ll figure it out sooner or later,” she replied.  I then pointed out that he’ll certainly notice it when we get the cable-internet bill but she was way ahead of me: “He’s not going to see it,” she assured me as she tented her fingers while a white cat leapt into her lap.  Twisted and evil!

Will the return of TCM affect the new direction of the blog?  I’m determined that it will not.  Thanks again to Barry for having my back, and I hope all you cartooners have a wonderful weekend.

Where no Marine has gone before…

One of the devastating side effects of the satellite austerity program that’s been put in place here at Rancho Yesteryear is that I lost access to getTV, the digital OTA (off the air) network that started out as home for movies (mostly from the Sony library) but has since made more and more room for television reruns from series old and new.  I wrote about getTV’s revamped schedule here, and even though they run these little gems alongside beaucoups and beaucoups of commercials for catheters and reverse mortgages, they’re conscientious enough to allow for the extra ad time (for example, a half-hour program like The Tall Man is run in a forty-minute time slot). They also appear to be rotating the inventory a bit; new (old) additions include Ensign O’Toole and Tombstone Territory.

A month or two before mi padre rung down the curtain on getTV, they added a Saturday morning “crime” block that spotlighted rarely-seen classics like Johnny Staccato and The Felony Squad.  (Missing out on getting a better set of Felony Squad episodes—the prints they’ve airing are first-rate—is really the unkindest cut of all.)  The channel has also thrown The Lieutenant into the mix, after previewing the show on Wednesday nights in April.  (I’m not entirely certain how Lieutenant qualifies as a “crime” series…but then again, I don’t work in TV programming.)  Star Trek fans are well versed in the trivia that after toiling for many years as a small screen scribe on shows like Highway Patrol and Have Gun – Will Travel, ST auteur Gene Roddenberry saw the first series he created (that would be Lieutenant, not Trek) earn a berth on NBC’s schedule for the 1963-64 season.

I can't decide on what amuses me more: Gary Lockwood's goofy sitcom grin to the camera during the show's opening credits, or the unconventional theme music, in which a military band transforms itself into a jazz combo the moment no one is looking.

USMC Second Lieutenant William T(iberius) Rice (Gary Lockwood) is a recent graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy, and has been stationed at Camp Pendleton.  Rice is the CO and training instructor of a rifle platoon…but the only war currently being conducted is the Cold War, so most of the battle action on The Lieutenant is in the form of war games.  Instead, the series focused on personal conflicts with the Corps: maintaining discipline within the platoon, establishing positive P.R. with civilians, and romantic difficulties involving Rice and other soldiers (I should stress that none of this involves DADT).  (My fellow classic television connoisseur Rick Brooks has joked that this last issue shows up a bit too much in the show’s plots; we opined that perhaps a better title for the series would be The Marriage Counselor.)

The most interesting aspect of The Lieutenant to me was that its main character often struggled with the difficulties involving proper military procedure; as a green, idealistic officer, he’s untested and frequently plagued with doubt as to whether or not he’s making the right decision.  Captain Raymond Rambridge (Robert Vaughn), Rice’s company commander, functions as his mentor in many of the episodes (Vaughn’s character isn’t in every installment)—as an officer who obtained his bars “through the ranks,” Rambridge is able to use his considerable knowledge to set Rice straight.  I’m not trying to take anything away from the future The Man from U.N.C.L.E., but Bob’s gig on this series seems to have been an effortless one (he averages 2-3 scenes per show)—even though he was pulling down the same money as the star.  That having been said, I kind of wish they had leaned on him a little more because he’s damn good as Rambridge.  One of my favorite sequences between Vaughn and Lockwood in The Lieutenant is in “Alert!”; the two men are preparing the platoon for an exercise and Rambridge, in an unguarded moment, calls Rice by his first name.  Lockwood’s Rice smiles at that, suggesting that despite Rambridge’s tendency to ride him there is a solid bond of respect between the two of them.

I’ve read a few reviews of this series (the show was released in two half-season sets by the Warner Archive in August 2012), and a lot of them aren’t particularly kind to star Gary Lockwood.  I’ll admit the guy is no acting powerhouse, but as Rice he’s endearing—I think the fact that he was only twenty-six at the time he did the series works to his advantage because it emphasizes his inexperience and youthful idealism.  A protégé of stage/film director Joshua Logan (who came up with the former John Gary Yurosek’s new professional name), Lockwood had impressive turns in films like Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Wild in the Country (also 1961); in addition, he was a cast member on the short-lived ABC-TV series Follow the Sun (1961-62).  (Roddenberry must have been a fan, since he cast Gary as star in the second pilot installment for Star Trek, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”)

Other recurring actors on Lieutenant include Don Penny as Rice’s loyal pal Lt. Stanley Harris; Carmen Phillips as Lily, proprietress of the local watering hole; and John Milford as Sgt. Ben Kagey.  I’ve seen stalwarts like Richard Anderson, Henry Beckman, Larry Thor, Harold Gould, and Christopher Connelly (pre-Peyton Place) turn up in many installments and Steve Franken appears in a couple as well (still channeling his inner Chatsworth by referring to Lockwood as “Rice baby” and “Bill baby”).  The show also brought out some big guns in terms of high-wattage celebrity guest stars: Rip Torn, Robert Duvall, Paul Burke, Eddie Albert, Charles McGraw, and Dennis Hopper—just to start the tip of the iceberg.

Star Trek regulars on The Lieutenant, clockwise from left: Leonard Nimoy ("In the Highest Tradition"), Majel Barrett (also in "Tradition"), Nichelle Nichols ("To Set it Right"), Walter Koenig ("Mother Enemy")

I have to confess that I approached The Lieutenant with a little trepidation.  It’s not that I dislike military-themed shows—I’ve watched a few in my lengthy couch potato career, like Combat! and 12 O’Clock High.  But if I tell you that my favorite series about “the service” is The Phil Silvers Show, that might give you an indication of what my personal preferences are like.  However, a few folks on Facebook (chiefly Martin Grams, Jr.) gave the program glowing recommendations so I was curious to have a go.

Some of my favorites include “The Proud and the Angry”—the episode featuring Rip Torn.  Torn plays a D.I. who’s been accused of brutality by a soldier in the platoon, prompting Rice to go undercover as a private to investigate.  “The Two Star Giant” spotlights a nice performance by TDOY fave Neville Brand as a formidable general who takes Rice on as his temporary aide.  “In the Highest Tradition” has Rice serving as a technical advisor on a motion picture that will be a biographical sketch on an ex-WW2 lieutenant (Andrew Duggan) whose heroics will come into question (this one also features future Star Trek players Leonard Nimoy as a demanding producer and Majel Barrett as his sarcastic assistant), and “Lament for a Dead Goldbrick” spotlights a dandy acting turn from Robert Duvall (with hair, even) as a reporter with a penetrating interest in an investigation involving the death of a soldier who accidentally drowned during a training exercise.

I’m also impressed with “To Set It Right”—the most controversial episode of The Lieutenant, so much so that it never aired in the series’ original run (though it eventually turned up in its syndicated reruns).  It focuses on the conflict between a black soldier (Don Marshall) and a white soldier (Dennis Hopper), who are “reunited” in the platoon (Hopper gave Marshall quite a bit of grief when the two men attended the same high school).  Nichelle Nichols plays Marshall’s fiancée, and Woody Strode is the D.I. who calmly explains to Marshall that he is simply not prepared to take any sh*t from any soldier, black or white.  The racial issues in this one caused NBC to approach it with all of the enthusiasm of picking up someone’s used Kleenex, and to add insult to injury the network never compensated MGM Television for the episode—MGM wound up swallowing the costs.  (Purportedly, this episode convinced creator Roddenberry that such topics would be better tackled in allegory form—like in outer space, for example.)

Last night, I finished up watching the remaining Lieutenant episodes I had been able to capture with the DVR: “Mother Enemy” is a real Cold War curio, focusing on a sergeant (Walter “Chekhov” Koenig) whose promotion to OCS is jeopardized by his mother (Neva Patterson), an avowed Communist.  While I admire how The Lieutenant didn’t always take the easy out when it came to its stories the denouement on this one was a bit unsatisfying; Koenig’s character is turned down for promotion but both Rice and Rambridge swear it’s not a “guilt by association” thing.  (I’m convinced it was…but then again, I was never in the military so my opinion might not count for much.)  The series wraps up its run with “To Kill a Man,” in which Rice is on a top secret mission to an Asian country when his helicopter is shot down and he’s forced to find safe shelter with an aide (James Shigeta).

While The Lieutenant was never a blockbuster performer in the Nielsens, it was holding its own against its formidable competition in CBS’ Jackie Gleason and His American Screen Magazine.  Poor ratings didn’t do in The Lieutenant; it was the prospect of having to address the rapidly expanding war in Vietnam that made the show persona au gratin at NBC.  (I guess television networks prefer their Marines to be comic ones, if the success of Gomer Pyle, USMC the following season is any indication.)

The nice thing about my experiences watching The Lieutenant is that I still have less than half of the show’s run to gander since I only saw a total of sixteen episodes (there are twenty-nine in all).  I might have to get my hands on the Warner Archive releases…but if you receive getTV in your viewing area, you can check it out on Saturday mornings at 10:45 EDT.

The state of the blog (with fabulous prizes!)

It seems like every time I return to the blog after an extended absence I always find myself profusely apologizing for that absence.  So I won’t ignore tradition, and I’ll get the act of contrition out of the way: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

The disappearance of posts for over two months can be attributed to a number of factors…but chiefly among them is that I have been sidelined with a lack of motivation.  A few years back, I made a casual observation that with the onslaught of the social media phenomenon, the art of blogging was in danger of being threatened; platforms like Facebook and Twitter allow individuals to accomplish pretty much the same as a blog post without having to expend a great deal of energy.  (And for someone like me—who has raised inactivity and laziness to an art form—it’s a siren song that’s mighty hard to resist.)

I don’t want to sell myself short, however: I’ve kept in the game with both blogging for Radio Spirits and my “Where’s That Been?” column at ClassicFlix…so don’t pour salt on this slug just yet.  But both of these (plus the lucrative liner note projects for RS) do keep me occupied—here’s an example: I had wanted to contribute to the Classic Film and TV Café’s “National Classic Movie Day” blogathon in May…but that event coincided with my wrapping up some liner notes for a Green Hornet set (which you should check out—it contains a number of uncirculated episodes), and when I completed that I was just too wiped to work on anything else.  (So a “mea culpa” to friend Rick for bailing on that.)

As such, until I can get back into the swing of blogging again, this post will be a “catch-up” on the comings and goings here at Rancho Yesteryear.  As the cliché goes—there’s good news and bad news.  The jubilant bulletin is that my sister Kat and her family have relocated to North Carolina (after spending the past three years in the Pacific Northwest); stemming from the fact that her partner has obtained gainful employment in the Piedmont.  To say that my mother did cartwheels (and with her recent back surgery, this was a revelation) at these developments would be an understatement, since she has missed her grandson so.

To a dee-luxe apartment in the sky.

Speaking of my nephew, he has just returned from a two-week engagement at summer camp…where it appears that every photo of him taken during that experience found him participating in some sort of water activity.  (I joked to his moms that they might want to check between his fingers and toes for webbing.)  He talked non-stop for two hours on the drive home to the new Double K Ranch, then crashed hard in the last hour.  Davis has also apparently developed a taste for Cheerwine, the bubbly cherry soda concoction that has been a regional favorite since 1917 (though it can also be purchased in other sections of the U.S. of A.)

Sister Kat hasn’t made the complete transition to NC yet; she will finish up her camp director duties for the summer and then…quien sabe?  Seriously—Mom asked her what her plans were and Kat replied: “I don’t know…but at least my hair will be perfect.”  (This is a reference to the fact that during her sojourn in the PNW, she searched high and low for a decent haircut; she missed the stylist in Athens who maintained her perfect coif, and now will have the opportunity to continue her patronage since the salon is a little closer to her new address.)

Sadly, into every life a little rain must fall.  (This is the “bad news” portion of the post, so if you want to skip the next seven paragraphs to get to the swag giveaway I won’t think any less of you.)  Los Parentes Yesteryear and I just recently celebrated our first year anniversary of moving to Pixley Winterville, and the latest bill from DISH confirmed what we had been dreading for some time: they are raising the rate on our service.  (Gigantically, as character veteran Don Barclay might say.)  Since the ‘rents and I are all subsisting on what is often referred to as “fixed incomes,” there just wasn’t going to be any way of reconciling such an increase in the family budget.  (I have railed about this in the past, as you may well be aware, but it bears repeating: both the cable TV and satellite companies are staffed with human-weasel hybrids.)

I only wish mi padre had let me conduct the negotiations with DISH, which occurred this past Saturday; I had previously done some first-rate horse trading with AT&T U-Verse when they wanted to spike our TV bill (though for reasons that I to this day can’t figure out they kept our monthly service the same once we agreed to put in an extra phone line…that we never, ever used).  But unfortunately, once my father gets on the phone, he’s transformed into one of those unpleasant old men constantly yelling at kids to stay off his lawn.  (No offense, Bill.)  He wound up cutting our TV package to the bare bone, and the two most important casualties were getTV and The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™.

I’m not going to lie to you.  I was a little pouty at this news.  (Okay, more like a lot pouty.)  I realize that “living high on the hog,” TV wise, is not a viable option for the Yesteryear Trio, but as I explained to Mom once I had finished a few stiff belts: we don’t have too many entertainment options here in B.F.E.  The only other service available to us (we’re too far out for cable, and U-verse doesn’t service our area either) is DirecTV, and they’re an even bigger band of pirates.  At the time I signed us up, I took special pains to explain to her that DISH was probably going to gouge us once the year was out.  She told me—“What else can we do?  We have to have an Internet connection, and we have to have cable.”  (A lot can happen in a year, I guess.)

My Facebook pal Kingo Gondo suggested sometime back that I look into the option of getting an outside antenna so that I could receive those substations DISH refuses to carry (MeTV, Antenna TV, etc.).  I looked into this seconds after I found out about Dad’s DISH dealings.  Helpfully, the website at which I was pricing the antenna directed me to another website that would let me know what stations we would receive.  They ask you: “Will this antenna be installed 30 feet above ground level?”

Since I wanted to avoid those hassles (I had planned on getting an indoor one) I didn’t check that box…and when I pressed the “send” button, I learned that we would only be able to receive one channel.  Okay, says I, I’ll try it again—maybe I can con someone into installing the antenna outside.  “Send.”  The answer remained…one channel.  That station is WGTA, our Heroes & Icons affiliate…which we get on DISH already.

I probably would have taken this news a little better—oh, who am I kidding; I’m a TCM junkie, and I remember the days when we didn’t have it…they were dark ones indeed—were it not for the fact that most of the crap my father watches (local news, History Channel, MSDNC) remained intact in the whittled-down package.  What a coinky-dink!  (The ‘rents did lose their beloved Braves games…though an occasional contest will show up on ESPN and “Big Fox” every now and then.  To say that my mother was pissed doesn’t even begin to cover it, though.  (Earlier today, my father switched over to TVLand—as is his habit—to watch Gunsmoke reruns and then remembered we said hasta la vista to that channel as well.)

Because I had a little time this weekend to reflect on these developments, I came away with the take that while I’m not jumping for joy at how all this turned out (particularly since I was helping out a few cable/satellite-deprived folks by grabbing and burning to disc programs/movies that had attracted their interest) perhaps there is a silver lining on all this.  After all, it’s not like I’m starved for entertainment around here.  I already socked away a lot of Tee Cee Em/getTV programming on the DVR (I think the gauge was at 49 percent), so there’s that to get through…and I have what scientists have measured as a metric “buttload” of material in the dusty Thrilling Days of Yesteryear archives.  I’m not humblebragging, you understand—it’s just that a lot of these DVDs have yet to be liberated from their shrink wrap; that’s how terrible my habit is.  I’ve been meaning to get the blog up and running again, so this might provide a much needed kick-in-the-pants.

So to celebrate the return of the blog (okay—everybody back to the post!) how about I give out some Radio Spirits freebies?  Back in August of last year, I was tapped to do the liner notes for Suspense at Work—a 10-CD collection of broadcasts from “radio’s outstanding theatre of thrills.”  The shows in this set all have a common theme: they’re set against a background of the workplace, where ambitious individuals resort to murderous mayhem to get ahead in the company…or the mundane monotony of punching a time clock is interrupted by robberies, embezzlement, etc.  You can always count on Suspense for first-rate radio drama, and some of the stars gracing these broadcasts include Bonita Granville, Edmund O’Brien, Ann Blyth, Van Heflin, Ronald Colman, and Richard Widmark.  (I’m partial to “To None a Deadly Drug,” a nail-biter from October 25, 1955 that features OTR veterans like Harry Bartell, Jack kruschen, Barbara Eiler, and Eve McVeagh.)

It’s been 2-3 months since I did a giveaway here at TDOY…so the usual “thirty-day rule” won’t apply here.  What will apply is that if you’d like an opportunity to win one of these sets (I have two to hand out) just drop me an e-mail with “Suspense at Work” in the subject header (that way I know your intentions are honorable, suh, and you’re not some bit of spam from the wrong side of the tracks) at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com.  The deadline for this contest will be 11:59pm EDT next Monday, July 18; I will select two winners via the all-powerful numbers generator at Random.org and inform them of their good fortune so that they can provide me with snail-mail details (so that I might send their swag on its way).  Remember, faithful readers—Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

After The Thin Man

Back in May of 2009, I wrote an essay for Thrilling Days of Yesteryear that was to act as a companion piece to the first contribution I did for Edward Copeland’s Tangents—a post commemorating the 75th anniversary of the release of The Thin Man (1934).  I tackled the small screen version for TDOY; the classic William Powell-Myrna Loy mystery comedy was the inspiration for a TV show that featured Peter Lawford and Phyllis Kirk in the Powell and Loy roles of Nick and Nora Charles.  (Asta played “himself” in the series.)  The Thin Man’s television cousin ran two seasons over NBC from 1957 to 1959, and then made the rerun rounds on the network’s daytime lineup from 1959 to 1960.

I was a little pressed for time when I wrote the original 2009 blog post—an essay that I later expanded for a piece that was included in the e-book Thoughts on The Thin Man, edited by my Classic Movie Blog Association colleague Danny Reid—so I didn’t get to sample as many of the shows as I had hoped.  I thought of Danny when I learned that GetTV was planning on running reruns of The Thin Man TV series on Wednesday nights in March, and since I had planned to DVR all twenty-five episodes (from the first season), I told him I’d see what I could do for him (he confessed to me he’d never seen the boob tube version).  In my efforts to dub the recordings to DVD, I decided to edit out the channel’s generous commercial content…which means I pretty much watched all of the episodes.

Of the twenty-five, I had seen three episodes previously: “The Dollar Doodle” (the premiere installment), “The Duke of Sing Sing,” and “Double Jeopardy.”  I’ve stated on the blog in the past that many times a person’s enjoyment of a movie or TV show will be improved by the quality of the print, and I think The Thin Man is a good example of this.  The previous Thin Man episodes in my collection were purchased a good while back through my longtime professional association with Rodney Bowcock (though Martin Grams also had a hand in it—so it would be more fitting to call it “Gramcock”), and the source of many of those episodes were reruns from KXLI-TV Channel 41 (St. Cloud, MN)/KXLT-TV Channel 47 (Rockford, MN).  The GetTV prints are far superior (there are a few strong rumors that The Thin Man is being readied for a future DVD release), and are nice and sparkly.

While “Dollar Doodle” isn’t a particular standout, I’ll give it a high mark for casting an uncredited Joe Flynn as a jewelry store clerk (he kind of steals the scene with a bit of understated sarcasm).  “Sing Sing” has a nice contribution from character great/professional sneerer Robert J. Wilke.  But I overlooked an important guest appearance (aside from TDOY fave Edward Binns) in “Double Jeopardy”:

Yes, it’s the incomparable Olan Soulé, making a brief appearance as a bookseller.  The character actor content in these reruns compensates for the fact that for a wealthy couple, Nick and Nora Charles function in rather tatty surroundings (for an M-G-M production, these sets look kind of cheap).  (A Facebook chum of mine joked: “I've seen better-dressed sets in Racket Squad!”)

Of the episodes I had not seen…there were some very pleasant surprises.  “The Acrostic Murders” (11/01/57) is an offbeat entry involving a little old lady (Mary Young) who’s on a murder spree (Charles Lane and serials henchman Anthony Warde are the cops investigating this one with Nick).  Percy Helton’s presence in “The Fatal Cliché” (11/15/57) makes it more interesting than it should be, and “Robot Client” (02/28/58) is a silly but fun story about Nick’s investigation into a murder involving Robby the Robot.  (“Client,” as my kemosabe and guest reviewer Philip Schweier pointed out in the comments accompanying the last essay, is also available on DVD—it’s an extra on the release of Forbidden Planet.  But it also gets props for casting George “Cyrus Tankersley“ Cisar as the cop investigating the case, and Robert Cornthwaite—a.k.a. “Dr. Carrington” from 1951’s The Thing from Another World—as a similar mad scientist.)  One episode I did not have in my collection is “Murder is Where You Find It” (02/14/58), in which Whit Bissell plays a blind news seller who’s witnessed a murder (M Squad’s Paul Newlan is one of the suspects, as a man nicknamed “The Ice Pick.”)  (I have a total of 64 episodes…I need eight to complete my collection.)

I really enjoyed “The Dead Giveaway” (12/13/57), which finds Nick on a TV quiz show (“We Have a Mystery”) investigating the murder of a man played by longtime The Guiding Light actor William “Henry Chamberlain” Roerick (“Oh Nola Nola Nola…”).  At the risk of spoiling it for you, the chief suspect is Nick’s fellow quiz show adversary…played by OTR veteran Les Tremayne, which means you have an actor who played Nick Charles on radio squaring off against the TV Nick:

“Unlucky Lucky Number” (01/24/58) is another delight because it lards the guest star quotient with Howard McNear (as an apartment manager), Herb Vigran (as a picture snatcher), Sid “Charley Halper” Melton (as a bookie), John Doucette (as a butcher) and the thinnest I’ve ever seen Simon Oakland (as a barber).  Still another character actor-packed entry is “The Pre-Incan Caper” (02/07/58); Werner Klemperer is the main guest star (as one of Nick’s adversaries, who bets him he can steal an antique right from under Mr. Charles’ nose), but you also have on hand Stanley Adams, Henry Kulky (fittingly, his character is an ex-wrestler), and Mayberry’s resident snob and witch Hope “Clara Edwards” Summers:

Singer Vic Damone plays himself in the appropriately-titled “The Damone Dilemma” (01/17/58); he has difficulty extricating himself from a lovesick woman (Yvonne Lime) whose gangster brother insists they tie the knot despite Vic already being married.  (The hood is played by TDOY fave Stacy Harris, so I cut this one a little slack despite not being a fan of Damone’s.)  As for “The Scene Stealer” (01/10/58), the show takes advantage of its MGM-TV status to shoot on many of its backlots, and include cameos from both George Murphy (in the commissary scene) and this guy:

And if you’re curious about the origins of Nick and Nora, “Asta Day” (01/03/58) relates how the couple got together.  It’s not a particularly exciting story (there’s no murder involved—Nick is merely looking into the matter of a man [William Hudson] who’s run out on his fiancée) but seeing “little” Asta is worth the price of admission:

Plus Sandra Gould, Gene Roth, and Frank Jenks are on hand.  Seriously, The Thin Man is most enjoyable if you’ve a fixation with character actors like myself.  Phyllis Kirk is delightful as Nora, and while Peter Lawford isn’t terrible as Nick I still maintain the guy doesn’t seem like an ex-gumshoe but rather someone who’s just finished a few sets on the tennis courts.  There are a few sly references to the couple’s past imbibing days: they get a bit tipsy in “The Angel Biz” (10/04/57), and then there’s this hilarious exchange with McNear’s character in “Unlucky Lucky Number”:

DINGLE: …and coincidentally, it’s just the color of your eyes…baby blue…

NORA: Oh, well, Mr. Dingle…how observant of you…

NICK: It’s too bad they’re not the color of my eyes…I’ve never seen bloodshot walls…

William Powell would have had a field day with that one.  I didn’t mean to give the impression that I don’t like The Thin Man TV series—I think it’s very entertaining, provided you don’t make too many comparisons to the movies.  Its brief stint on GetTV was part of the channel’s commitment to running classic television programs that may have flown under the radar; Wednesday nights in April they’re running reruns of the Gene Roddenberry-created The Lieutenant, supplementing their Saturday afternoon Westerns lineup (The Tall Man, Laredo) and their variety show schedule on Monday nights (The Judy Garland Show, The Merv Griffin Show).  But I received an e-mail from getTV’s Cindy Ronzoni this morning announcing that beginning May 2, The Thin Man will become a regular part of the channel’s weekday lineup…along with Nanny and the Professor, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and many other “retro” favorites.  Here’s the skinny:

Comedy Block

7:00 a.m. ET—THE THIN MAN

7:35 a.m. ET—THE JIMMY STEWART SHOW

8:15 a.m. ET—NANNY AND THE PROFESSOR

8:50 a.m. ET—THE GHOST & MRS. MUIR

Westerns Block

9:30 a.m. ET—A MAN CALLED SHENANDOAH

10:05 a.m. ET—THE RESTLESS GUN

10:45 a.m. ET—LAREDO

Action/Crime Block

12:00 p.m. ET—TOUR OF DUTY

1:00 p.m. ET – S.W.A.T.

2:00 p.m. ET—AIRWOLF

3:00 p.m. ET—RIPTIDE

4:00 p.m. ET—HARDCASTLE AND MCCORMICK

5:00 p.m. ET—THE EQUALIZER

6:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. ET—IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT