“Broken Arrow? This is why we can’t have nice things!”

This morning, whilst I dubbed onto a blank disc a copy of Passport to Suez (1943) for my pal Andrew “Grover” Leal, I decided to supplement Suez’s short running time (72 minutes) with a pair of episodes from the 1956-58 TV Western Broken Arrow, which we recently acquired when DISH Network added station WGTA to its lineup.  I mentioned in Saturday’s post that this was a most welcomed surprise in the House of Yesteryear, because a similar channel (in the same spot as WGTA is now on DISH, channel 32) that offered up the occasional tasty classic TV run had been yanked about the time we signed on as DISH subscribers (in July of 2015).  What I did not know—or rather, would have known had I did a little more research—was that this was the same channel.  Hereby hangs a tale.

WGTA (“Greenville to Atlanta”) was originally WNEG, a Toccoa, GA station that had been in operation since 1984, primarily serving four Georgian counties that comprise the Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville market.  (Athens, Gainesville and Braselton comprise the station’s secondary market.)  In 2008, the station was sold to the University of Georgia, who had planned to use WNEG as a training facility for UGA’s journalism and broadcasting majors, and the station became WUGA in May of 2011.  But the UGA experiment came to an end when the station was sold to Marquee Broadcasting in March 2015, and it adopted its WGTA call letters in July (just as we were subscribing to DISH).  If you’re like me, and you do a lot of channel hopping just to see if there are any non-home shopping channels on DISH, you would have come across a disclaimer on channel 32 stating that the channel was no longer available but that you (the viewer) should keep an eye out for replacement programming.

So DISH graciously gave us Heroes & Icons on WGTA’s 32.1; the 32.2 portion of WGTA features programming from Decades! and 32.3 is a Movies! affiliate.  I was genuinely surprised that the ‘rents have clutched WGTA to their bosom—they amused themselves Saturday mornings with reruns of the 1966-68 Tarzan series (my father wanted to know why the ape man spoke perfect English and I had to explain to him that it was Johnny Weissmuller who attended The Tonto School of Speech…not Ron Ely) and Dad put on a pair of Wanted: Dead or Alive episodes this morning while he engaged in his morning paper ritual.  As for myself, I took a stroll down Memory Lane last night with back-to-back reruns of Hill Street Blues.

But leave us return to the matter of Broken Arrow.  The TV series premiered six years after the release of the 1950 movie version (adapted from Elliott Arnold’s novel Blood Brother) that starred James Stewart and Jeff Chandler, with a May 1, 1956 pilot that originally aired on CBS’ The 20th Century-Fox Hour.  In that pilot, actor John Lupton played Stewart’s role of Tom Jeffords and future Fantasy Island mogul Ricardo Montalban as Cochise.  By the time Broken Arrow was greenlighted as a regular series in the fall of 1956, Michael Ansara took over as Cochise—he made for a very convincing Native American chief despite his Syrian-Egyptian origins.

Ansara wasn’t particularly jazzed about his gig on Broken Arrow.  “Cochise could do one of two things—stand with his arms folded, looking noble; or stand with arms at his sides, looking noble,” he explained to a TV Guide interviewer in 1960.  But I have to be honest; Mike is the main reason the show works, in addition to the fact that it was one of the few small screen oaters at that time to portray Native Americans in a positive light.  The first installment I watched was “Indian Agent” (10/09/56), in which Jeffords falls for and marries Sonseeahray, the maiden who later draws her rations (Debra Paget played her in the 1950 movie—here it’s Sue England in the role) as a result of a fight between Cochise’s men and a bunch of “the-only-good-Injun-is-a-dead-Injun” yahoos.  It’s a well-done episode that features Tom Fadden (a series regular as “Mitt Duffield”), Robert Warwick, James Griffith, Michael Pate, Kenneth MacDonald, and Anthony George.  Ansara sure gets his nobility workout here, as he tries to counsel the hot-headed Jeffords not to fly off the handle in the face of revenge.

The tables are turned in “The Captive” (10/23/56); here Jeffords advises Cochise to keep calm and carry on when an Apache brave (Ray Stricklyn) is kidnapped from the tribe.  The boy is a white man raised by Apaches; his grandmother (Kathryn Card) tries to persuade him to return to his birthright…and when he refuses, a skeevy lawyer (who else but Trevor Bardette) arranges for the young man to be snatched, inviting the ire of the Apaches.  Lane Bradford is in this one (appropriately as a henchman), and I chuckled to see Dick Wessel tending bar.

Broken Arrow ran only two seasons on ABC (a total of 72 episodes—seventy-three if you include the pilot) but bounced around on its daytime and evening schedules in reruns until 1960.  I can see why this one hasn’t been given the nod for a DVD release: the prints are not particularly sparkly (I think Facebook chum Hal Erickson pointed this out to me before I watched the show) and of course, they’ve whittled down the running time in order to squeeze in an extra commercial or two (I clocked both episodes at 23 minutes).  But I’ll certainly continue to DVR the shows because I think the series is entertaining; springing from a time when it was possible to do dramatic stories in the short span of a half-hour.

(Anti) Social media update: You may have noticed (then again, maybe not) that I recently deactivated my Twitter account—a proposition that I had been considering for some time…yet refrained from doing so for a number of reasons.  Long story short, I pulled the plug on Twitter this weekend…but I want to reassure people that it’s not for anything you did; I’ve just become frustrated with the whole 140-character “social media” experience.  I’m still on Facebook (I have argued all along that while the FB content can sometimes get poisonous, it’s still preferable to Twitter any day of the week) so I’m able to share pictures of my niece and nephew with their “Nana” and “Pop” from time to time.  Go in peace, my children.

My Heroes have always been Icons

Yesterday, for unknown whys and wherefores, my father decided to strike up a conversation with me about the old Steve McQueen TV western Wanted: Dead or Alive.  You may remember from a previous post that I capitalized on a Starz/Encore freeview several months back by building an episode collection of the entire series (I obtained 92 out of 94), but I worked on this out of the watchful eye of Dear Ol’ Dad, who doesn’t often comprehend how these things work.  (Which is to be expected of the man whose favorite function on the remote is the “mute” button.)  So I was curious as to how he would have access to the series.

As it turns out, he watched it the other morning (while Mumsy and I collected groceries) on WGTA-TV Atlanta—a new channel acquisition appearing on our DISH Network system.  Digital subchannels like MeTV and Antenna TV are a rarity on DISH; for unexplained reasons, they won’t carry them—the only such station that DISH carries (as of this post) is GetTV, and I don’t need to rehash why this is a wonderful way to stoke my classic television obsession.  (Well, I suppose I could also include Laff; DISH replaced Blue Highways TV in March with this subchannel devoted to recent comedy movies and sitcoms.)  So seeing WGTA in the lineup made my little heart go pitter pat: they’re a Heroes & Icons affiliate, and H&I has sprinkled its ho-hum rerun schedule (Hunter, 21 Jump Street) with delectable classic goodies including 12 O’Clock High, Combat!, Wagon Train, and Broken Arrow.

I’ve seen the 1950 James Stewart film that inspired the TV version of Broken Arrow, but I’ve never actually seen an episode of the small screen version.  (My mother announced that she has, and she was kind of smug about it.)  I’m just pleased that DISH added the station (they removed the Toccoa, GA station that had a fairly impressive rerun library many months back), and perhaps there will come a day when I will be able to rejoin my MeTV brethren and sistren.  Apologies for the dearth of posts this month, by the way; I've been distracted by various shiny objects but I hope to have a more robust posting schedule in May.

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

“Count me out tonight, angel…I’m too busy being a winner…”

I’d like to extend a laurel and hearty handshake (see what I did there?) to the two winners in Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s recent giveaway of Radio Spirits’ “Shakedown”: an eight-CD set of sixteen vintage broadcasts from radio’s The Adventures of the Falcon.  The Random.org gods smiled down upon Scott L. of Watertown, Wisconsin and Richard R. of Glendale, Arizona by making them the lucky winners; as always—I wish I had enough of these sets to hand out to everyone who entered, but alas…I cannot.  (Besides, I’m sure it would not go over too well with the RS folks: “You need how many Johnny Dollar sets?”)

I’m going to take a short break from the bestowing of swag…but rest assured, I have two upcoming doozies to hand out for next time; two recent RS sets of which I am most proud, liner note-wise.  I also have a couple of items that will be posted to the blog this week (I know, I’m trapped in “slack” mode again) so I humbly beg for your indulgence and suggest you keep an eye peeled for more sweet giveaways.  Remember: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

“Believe me, I agree, you'll never get bored with winning…”

Well, the number of entries for Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s “Cry Uncle” giveaway wasn’t quite as robust as those for the previous “Mysterious Matters” contest…truth be told, I wasn’t really too surprised because simply on an anecdotal basis, I know there are far more Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar fans than those who are stoked by an episode of Let George Do It.  (I will say this: we had more entries than the “Merry Mix-ups” giveaway.  I promise I will give these away soon.)  As always, I enjoy having people enter these contests of swag and wish I could bestow a set upon everyone who e-mailed me.  But the Random.org gods have decreed that the three winners are Kathleen G., Roger S…and longtime TDOY reader/commenter Mike “Mr. Television” Galbreath.  (I didn’t protect Mr. TV’s identity because he loves when I mention him on the blog.)

What else do I have available from the “Lake of Largesse”?  Well, let’s continue with our private eye theme: I have two copies of Radio Spirits’ recent The Adventures of the Falcon release, Shakedown, to hand out to two random members of the TDOY faithful.  You’ll no doubt read all about this in the liner notes (well, if you’re lucky enough to win a copy) but I need to stress that while the success of the George Sanders-Tom Conway feature films inspired a radio version…the “Falcon” on radio was a different detective, answering to “Michael Waring.”  “Always ready with a hand for oppressed men, and an eye for repressed women” as the opening to the program informed us, a series that enjoyed a good healthy radio run over various networks from 1943 to 1954.  A number of actors played The Falcon during that span of time, including Berry Kroeger and Les Tremayne…but The Falcon on the broadcasts featured on Shakedown (an 8-CD set originally priced at $31.95) is none other than Les Damon (whom you might also know as one of the thesps who played Nick Charles on radio’s The Adventures of the Thin Man), with character great Ken Lynch assisting as Sergeant Corbett (Charles Webster is also heard as Corbett).

So it pretty much works the same as it did last time: any U.S. resident is welcome to enter for a chance to win one of these sets (keep in mind that I ask politely if you’ve won anything in the last thirty days to please beg off and allow others to have an opportunity to win free stuff); just drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Shakedown” in the subject header (now I’ll have that terrible Bob Seger song in my head for the rest of the day).  The deadline is next Sunday night (April 3) at 11:59pm EDT, whereupon I will once again summon the Random.org gods and pick two lucky winners.  Once again, heartiest congratulations to the “Cry Uncle” winners and remember…Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

I got plenty of Sutton

When future Academy Award-winning director George Stevens arrived at Universal Pictures in 1932, he was already a seasoned motion picture veteran—having worked for many years at the “Lot of Fun,” the Hal Roach Studios, where he served as a writer, cinematographer and director on many of Roach’s classic two-reel comedies.  Stevens left Roach for bigger opportunities…but at Universal, he pretty much did what he did at his former studio, direct two-reel comedies featuring the likes of Frank Albertson, Henry Armetta and James “Is zat so?” Gleason.  (Though Universal is where George held the reins on his feature film debut, The Cohens and Kellys in Trouble.)

Stevens’ stint with Universal lasted only a year before he gravitated to R-K-O, which afforded him many more opportunities in the feature film department: he directed two of Wheeler & Woolsey’s finest comedies, Kentucky Kernels (1934) and The Nitwits (1935), and later made his mark with such classics as Alice Adams (1935), A Damsel in Distress (1937), and Gunga Din (1939).  But before he could do that…it was back to the world of two-reelers.  George receives directorial credit on several of Edgar Kennedy’s “Average Man” comedies (Quiet Please, Grin and Bear It) …not to mention a pair of Tom Kennedy (no relation to Edgar) shorts.  Stevens also instituted a short-lived series that was quite reminiscent of some of the comedies he helmed in the Roach “Boy Friends” franchise (High Gear, Air Tight, Mama Loves Papa) that was known as “The Blondes and the Redheads.”

The series is also referred to in reference books as “The Blonde and the Redhead”—which makes a bit more sense, as there were only two women starring in the shorts.  The platinum blonde was baby-voiced Carol Tevis, while the gal with the crimson tresses (the common sense dame) was played by June Brewster…who left the series after the first five shorts and was replaced by Dorothy Granger, a Boy Friends alumnus.  Stevens also used another Boy Friends player in the Blondes and Redheads comedies, Grady “Alabam” Sutton, who in most of the shorts was the unlikely object of affection of the two women.

In his book Selected Short Subjects (a.k.a. The Great Movie Shorts), Leonard Maltin has effusive praise for the inaugural Blondes and Redheads effort, Flirting in the Park (1933)—which I have not had the pleasure of seeing but is available (along with three other B&R shorts) from Encore Home Video as part of their “R-K-O Comedy Classics” collection.  I’m sure Encore puts out a nice product…but the tariff on these shorts is a bit out of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear’s price range (I know you think blogging is the glamorous life…but it’s anything but, I assure you).  So I had to go with a collection in keeping with the TDOY budget: a set of four B&R shorts from Alpha Video at Oldies.com (it costs me a five-spot) culled from the collection of “The Movie Man,” John Carpenter.  (Full disclosure: Mr. Carpenter is a Facebook friend.)

Buying product from Alpha is always a hit-or-miss affair (I’ve heard some unpleasant stories about how they operate…but now is not the time or place) so I was pleasantly surprised with the content on this DVD, which kicks off with the third short in the B&R series, The Undie-World (1934).  This one is a lot of fun: Grady plays a violinist hired by mobster Guinn “Big Boy” Williams (who also worked quite a bit at the Roach studios, notably in the 1936 feature Kelly the Second) to ply his trade while Williams attempts to fool June and Carol (who live in an apartment across the way) that he’s the virtuoso.  Complications set in when June and Grady have an encounter in the hallway (upon seeing her, he’s a smitten kitten), and she’s convinced he’s the gangster—not “Big Boy” (who answers to “Bugsy McHugh” in the short).

Bugsy and Grady “double-date” with June and Carol, taking them to a “tea room” (where they encounter Roach Studio stalwarts Charlie Hall and Tiny Sandford—not to mention serials/B-Western veteran Ernie Adams)—with Bugsy a little ticked at Grady for becoming a serious rival for June’s affections (Grady also accidentally shot Bugsy in the foot, which doesn’t help his disposition any).  He asks several of his fellow gangsters seated at a nearby table to keep an eye on Grady…and then tells Grady that he paid one of the men to take a sock on the jaw from Grady in order to impress June.  You can probably guess where this is going: the mobsters take a powder and another gang, led by Palermo (Dewey Robinson), makes itself at home.  The twist is that when Grady slugs Palermo, Palermo congratulates the creampuff for his Moxie…and he asks Grady (after seeing his violin case) to help “put one of his boys to sleep.”

The Undie-World has some first-rate farcical situations and slapstick gags—not to mention some snappy comic dialogue (courtesy of Jack Townley and Jean Yarborough):

GRADY: Excuse me…I was detained by a misadventure in the hall…

BUGSY: Miss who?

GRADY: I was delayed by a mishap…

BUGSY: Never mind the dames…let’s get down to business…

As enjoyable as Undie-World is, the second short on this DVD (the fourth in the series) is even better: Rough Necking (1934) casts June and Carol as sisters, and June is gaga for Grady despite her father’s (Spencer Charters) objections.  Father orders June confined to quarters, and hires a formidable female detective (who else but Hope Emerson?) to keep watch over her.  Carol, on the other hand, convinces Grady to help her put Madame Bodyguard out of commission…and then Grady will take her place.

Despite Grady’s nancy boy persona in movies (a character in one of the shorts refers to him as “Lollypop”), you wouldn’t think he could pull off the female masquerade…but he does, even to the point where June and Carol’s pop starts to flirt with him.  The fun begins when an old friend of Father’s (Roach veteran Fred Kelsey) and his idiot son (George Chandler) stop by for a visit…and discussion soon gets around to a “merger” between June and the Idiot (apparently she was betrothed when the two were kids).  So Carol gets Father out of the way, and Grady now impersonates June…and again, because myopia ran rampant in those old days of the flickers, Junior falls for Grady’s charms.  There’s some exceptional slapstick in Rough Necking (both Charters and Sutton execute funny slides down the stair bannister) but for me the laugh-out-loud moment finds Charters offering Grady-in-drag a swig of some of “the good stuff” and Grady, breaking female character for a few seconds, declares “I need it!”  Townley also co-wrote the story for this one, with an assist from yet another Hal Roach veteran, Fred Guiol.

The Dancing Millionaire (1934) is the only short on this DVD not directed by George Stevens—Sam White, brother of Columbia shorts department head Jules White, sits in the director’s chair and does a nice job with a story by Guiol, Townley and Leslie Goodwins (the future director of R-K-O’s “Mexican Spitfire” series).  Grady is the titular character (“Ronnie Graff”), who meets up with Carol and series newcomer Dorothy Granger at a dance studio after a run-in with a wrestler named Crusher McGee (Tom Kennedy).  Graff has McGee arrested and placed in the pokey…but McGee and his manager (Harry Bowen) get out and head for the same nightclub where Graff and his chauffeur (Jack Mulhall) have taken the girls.  This necessitates that Dorothy and Carol switch back-and-forth between two tables (“Pardon us while we powder our nose,” Dorothy says when they excuse themselves) so as not to alert Crusher to Ronnie’s presence—supplemented with a subplot in which Dorothy drops an engagement ring into a soup tureen.  Having Kennedy in this one amps up the enjoyment (what can I say—I’m a fan of Tom), but comedy veterans like Jack Duffy, Billy Franey and Spec O’Donnell also make appearances…as does Jack Rice as the dance studio manager (Rice would soon find steady employment in the Edgar Kennedy shorts as Edgar’s obnoxious brother-in-law).

The fourth and final two-reeler on the Blondes and Redheads DVD is Ocean Swells (1934)—the penultimate short in the series directed by Stevens and the first to feature Granger.  It’s probably the weakest of the bunch from the DVD, though it does have its moments; in this simple story of Dorothy, Carol and their “Auntie” (Zeffie Tilbury, the “Grandma” in the Our Gang comedy Second Childhood) vacationing at Catalina (before having to return to their dreary jobs in a laundry), the girls meet “wealthy” Bunny De Puyster III (Grady) and Hopping B. Hoppy Jr (Cully Richards).  The gentlemen are actually swabbies on a yacht; while the ladies are mistaken for the mother and daughters of the boat’s captain (Edgar Dearing).  The girls decide to throw a party on board…and then the captain comes back unexpectedly (the interaction between him and his “mother” is hysterical).  The problem with Swells is that it’s a little disjointed, plot-wise, (I’m not sure if it’s the print or the way it was actually written) but there’s still plenty of funny business—the highlight is a spill captain’s assistant Landers Stevens takes on deck after stepping on a bar of soap.  (The wrap-up on this one is kind of sweet, too.)

Stevens’ final B&R short was Hunger Pains (1935; another one I’d like to see), which also gets a nice write-up by Maltin in Selected Short Subjects—then it was off to feature films for him fulltime (and Oscars for A Place in the Sun [1951] and Giant [1956]).  After two more entries, Wig-Wag (1935; Sam White) and Pickled Peppers (1935; Ben Holmes), R-K-O decided to end the series…which was a curious thing, since the Blondes and Redheads comedies offered a nice contrast to the Edgar Kennedy and Leon Errol two-reelers (both of which had a tendency to work the marital comedy formula to death).  Still, I was genuinely surprised by the hefty laugh quotient on these short subjects, and I’d highly recommend them for fans of two-reel comedies.

Now that’s more like it!

There’s no getting around it—the latest Thrilling Days of Yesteryear giveaway for two “Mysterious Matters” collections of Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar broadcasts (courtesy of Radio Spirits) generated the largest response (nearly forty) in entries in the eleven years (and counting) since the ol’ blog has been in existence.  I kind of figured “the man with the action packed expense account” would rack up a large number of entrants, seeing as the previous record holder at TDOY was another Johnny Dollar collection, Confidential.

As always, I would love to be able to give out copies to everyone who entered…but as the saying goes, there can be only one two.  The random number generator at Random.org has made its decision, and the winners are jtonner and longtime TDOY reader-commenter Dan (of the Missouri Dans).  I am currently in e-mail communication with our lucky prize recipients to lock in their snail mail information, and I hope to have these out to them sometime next week (I had originally set my sights on Monday, but Father Shreve has informed me that he plans to have the family truckster maintenanced on that same day.  Le sigh.)  Also, too; I had a number of people lament losing out on The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-ups promotion…so I’ve decided to hang onto those sets and give them out a little later down the road.

But here’s good news: I have more swag to bestow!  And by the merest of coinky-dinks, it’s related to YTJD in a way.  Before he took on the role of “America’s favorite freelance investigator,” actor Bob Bailey was the star of an underrated Mutual detective drama entitled Let George Do It.  Listening to Bailey’s portrayal of private shamus George Valentine, you can detect the underpinnings of the lightheartedly wry style he would bring to Dollar, and because I contributed the notes to Radio Spirits’ latest George release, Cry Uncle, I have not one…not two…but three of these sets to hand out to lucky members of the TDOY faithful.

Also starring Frances Robinson (as George’s gal Friday Claire “Brooksie” Brooks—and yes, I know that’s not Frances in the photo upper right; that’s from when Virginia Gregg played “Brooksie”) and Wally Maher (as Lieutenant Riley), these Let George Do It broadcasts—sixteen in total—comprise an 8-CD set (which retails for $31.95) that provide cracking good crime drama entertainment for any old-time radio fan.  To enter the contest, just drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Cry Uncle” in the subject header, and I’ll generate three winners with Random.org when the giveaway ends.  The deadline for entries is 11:59 EDT Saturday, March 26…and it’s restricted to U.S. residents only.  (Sorry, folks—I’m no longer the man with the action-packed shipping funds to spend.)  If you’ve already won something on the blog, I ask that you wait thirty days before trying your luck again to be democratic and give everyone else a crack at the freebies.

Remember: when you enter this contest, write full details.  (A little Let George Do It joke for those in the audience.)  Get started on those entries, because Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

Is this mike on?

Well, this would be the time on the blog where I announce the winners in the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear Merry Mix-Ups giveaway: two sets containing 1958 and 1959 broadcasts of the radio sitcom The Couple Next Door, courtesy of Radio Spirits.  Unfortunately, there were no winners…because there were no entrants.  This, by the way, isn’t the first time this has happened at TDOY.  Back in January 2011, the good people at Columbia Home Video were generous enough to provide me with a DVD/Blu-ray combo of The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), which I offered as a fabulous prize to some lucky member of the TDOY faithful.  The response?  Nothin’, as Yukon Cornelius might say.  (I don’t even know what happened to the prize; I probably hawked it on eBay if past performance is any indication.)

I’ve been letting a number of theories swirl around in my cranium (where there’s plenty of room) as to the non-response to the giveaway.  First, no one likes The Couple Next Door.  (This is why I tried to give it a nice build-up…and seriously, you’re missing out on a wonderful program.)  Or, it could be that with the dearth of posting around TDOY of late, nobody’s been back lately to see if there has been any activity.  (Which is the theory I’m leaning toward.)  But, hey—there’s no use crying over spilled leche.  We’ll simply move on to our next giveaway.

Last month at the Radio Spirits blog, we celebrated the 67th anniversary of the premiere of radio’s Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar…and to do something a little different from the previous essay I wrote on the show for Dollar’s 65th (“The Happy Anniversary Matter”), editor Karen Lerner allowed me to flex my creative muscles and concoct a little short story entitled “The Older-and-No-Wiser Matter.”  (I used to write a good deal of fiction back in the day, so I had a lot of fun with it.)  Two of the Johnny Dollar collections for which I contributed liner notes were mentioned in the post: Confidential and RS’ newest release, Mysterious Matters—which features broadcasts by six actors who played “America’s favorite fabulous freelance investigator”: Charles Russell, Edmond O’Brien, John Lund, Bob Bailey, Bob Readick, and Mandel Kramer.

So you can see where this is going.  I have two sets of Mysterious Matters to give away (a 10-CD set valued at $39.98) to two lucky blog readers living in the U.S.A…and if you want to be considered for the contest, just e-mail me at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Mysterious Matters” in the subject header.  The entry period will run until Friday, March 18 at 11:59 EDT…and after choosing the winners via Random.org, I will announce who the lucky people are on Saturday (March 19) and get their prizes out to them posthaste.

I need to issue a caveat here.  When Radio Spirits sent me this big honkin’ box of giveaway swag, they mailed it to my old Rancho Yesteryear address…which necessitated forwarding to the new digs here at Castle Yesteryear.  I don’t think the post office was particularly happy about this, because the box arrived in rather questionable condition (hey—it was heavy, so I kind of can’t blame them for kicking it around and then disguising their fun with duct tape).  As I was pulling sets out of the box, a number of them rattled…so I believe there may have been a jostling of the contents during their journey to Pixley Winterville.  (I am hoping this will not impact any of the recordings in a major way.)

Also, too; if I’m feeling generous, I just might smuggle in these sets of The Couple Next Door that I couldn’t give away…so bevare!  Take care!  And remember: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

“Peg…it will come back to you…”

First off…many thanks to those of you who sent my mother best wishes on her recuperating from her recent experience with the surgeon’s scalpel.  I would like to honestly say she was overwhelmed by your kind thoughts…but her reaction was more along the lines of “Stop writing about me on your blog, damn it!”

One of the fabulous perks I receive as a result of my liner note contributions to Radio Spirits old-time radio collections—besides a little jingle in my pocket so that I might keep creditors at bay, of course—is that RS usually sends me a few gratis copies of the sets on which I’ve worked.  I usually keep one for myself, and then either hook up a friend with one or give them out as fabulous prizes to reward those people patient when the blog fields at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear fall fallow.

The last giveaway I did here on the blog was for a Don Rickles DVD back in October…so what do you say to a chance to win a copy of the Radio Spirits release The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-Ups?  For those of you not familiar with the program…here’s a little background:

Actress-writer Margaret Frances “Peg” Lynch—who, sadly, was summoned to the Great Audition Room back in July of 2015 at the age of 98—was one of the most amazing individuals employed during Radio’s Golden Age.  Her website rightfully boasts that she was “the lady who invented sitcom”—that sitcom being The Private Lives of Ethel and Albert, which premiered over NBC Blue on May 29, 1944 (an earlier version had appeared previously in three-minute installments over several local stations at which she was employed).  It was a simple, character-based sitcom: Peg played Ethel Arbuckle (Lynch stepped in when the network brass didn’t think any of the actresses who auditioned were suitable), a typical housewife married to a typical husband in the form of Albert Arbuckle.  Albert was played initially by Richard Widmark, who eventually moved on to a stage and film careet, and he was replaced by Alan Bunce…whose chemistry with Peg was quite convincing.

Ethel and Albert spent most of its run on radio as a five-day-a-week quarter hour—it was expanded to a half-hour in its final season before it was cancelled on August 28, 1950.  After that, it became one of the boob tube’s early successes—first as a fifteen-minute segment on Kate Smith’s variety show, and then as a half-hour series that aired on all three of the majors (ABC, CBS and NBC) from 1953 to 1956.  Lynch went on record as not being overly fond of the TV Ethel and Albert (“…I always felt it spoiled my timing…I would have to hold up for the laugh…”) so when she got an opportunity to revive her creation for CBS Radio beginning in December of 1957 she leapt at the chance.  The only snag was that because she had signed away the rights to “Ethel and Albert” sometime ago, she would have to rename the new series The Couple Next Door.

The Couple Next Door is a quirky little situation comedy in the mold of Vic & Sade (without the engaging eccentricity) and Lum ‘n’ Abner (without the bucolic wackiness).  I only had a passing familiarity with the series before I was asked to contribute liner notes, but in listening to the shows it wasn’t long before Couple Next Door worked its magic on me.  What I enjoy so thoroughly about Peg Lynch’s writing is that it doesn’t come off as writing; the dialogue sounds perfectly natural to the ear—it’s as if you caught yourself eavesdropping on a neighbor couple’s conversation by accident.  Several of the broadcasts in the Merry Mix-Ups collection are Yuletide-themed; one of the funniest is an outing that finds Mr. Piper (Bunce) having to drop off a parcel at the post office and being stymied by the nitpicky regulations that the clerk insists must be followed to the letter before it can be sent on its way.  (You have no idea how much I identified with his situation.)

I have two copies of The Couple Next Door: Merry Mix-Ups to give to two lucky members of the TDOY faithful.  It’s a six-CD set containing twenty-four broadcasts from 1958 and 1959 (retail value: $24.95), and if you’re interested in winning one all you have to do is drop me an e-mail at igsjrotr(at)gmail(dot)com with “Merry Mix-Ups” in the subject header (you can add something witty if you like…though I should warn you that the winners of this giveaway will be determined by the old random number generator at Random.org).  The contest will end next Thursday, March 10 at 11:59pm EST, and once the winners have been chosen they will be notified of just how very fortunate they are.  (Oh, and I will get their prizes out as soon as possible.)

I need to issue a couple of caveats: 1) this promotion is limited to U.S. residents only.  You know I love the people from the Great White North (sheesh—I sound like Donald J. Drumpf: “I have a great relationship with the Canadians”) but unfortunately when I send packages that way I have to jump through a great many postal hoops like being fingerprinted and submitting some skin from the back of my neck.  (The last time I mailed something to Canada there was a strip search involved…though I can’t swear that had anything to do with the parcel’s destination.)

Secondly, all I ask is that you’ve won something off the blog within the past thirty days that you wait and let some other people have a chance to benefit from this sweet, sweet largesse.  This rule can’t really be applied for this particular giveaway because it’s been about four months since I handed out free swag…so if you’re of U.S. origin, take a chance!  Remember: Thrilling Days of Yesteryear is the phrase that pays!

We’re back, baby!

Here I stand (hat in hand) begging the Thrilling Days of Yesteryear faithful for forgiveness because I’ve been away from the blog for so long.  I mentioned that content for the blog in January would be a bit skimpy due to the hustle-and-bustle expected after mi madre’s back operation…but surely, I said to myself, things would pick up again in February.  Alas, this was not to be.

Sister Kat posted this picture to Facebook, commenting "Mom prepares to go to the gym. I never thought I'd be typing 'Mom' and 'gym' in the same sentence."

First, the particulars: Mom’s operation(s) went without a hitch—the only real storm cloud on the horizon was that a week after the work was done, she was transferred to a facility to undergo rehab of a physical and occupational therapy nature…and she did not like that one little bit.  No sir.  She did not like it.  She started to see her facility time as some sort of punishment, which was certainly not our intention—we just wanted her to get on the mend as quickly as possible, and not endanger all the nice work done by the surgeons.  This is purely speculation on my part, but I think she might have stared into the abyss and thought This is what it’s going to be like when those rotten children of mine put me in a home.  It got so bad that she began wheedling for an early release date, and though I promised Dad I would hold firm I pretty much caved after one of the night nurses told me of an incident in which she had to calm Mom down after a panic attack.  I just couldn’t sign on to keeping her there any further even if it was best for her in the long run.

So with the return of Mom to our modest digs at Rancho Yesteryear, we had to make a few changes; one was to rent a hospital bed from an outfit here in town…and that lasted all of three or four days before Mom said “f**k this noise” and elected to sleep in the guest room.  With each day, she gets adventurous to do little tasks like fold laundry and make preparations for lunch and/or dinner; I do most of the heavy lifting like get the clothes into and out of the washer and dryer, and serve up the grub for meals when it’s ready.  Unfortunately, I’m still on Grocery Duty (gad, do I hate shopping) but I’m getting more acclimated to it.  The last time I was in Publix, one of the cashiers who knows Mom pretty well started pumping me for information…and it took all of my self-discipline not to fall to the floor in helpless laughter when she said, “You know, I’ve known your mom for quite a while…and she strikes me as a stubborn person.”  (Had this been someone I knew better, my response would have started with “no” and ended with “Sherlock.”)

As you might have inferred from some of the photos accompanying this essay, the Double K’s (sister Kat and sister-in-law Katie) visited for a couple of days and brought my favorite nephew with them—which was a wonderful gift for Mom, since she doesn’t get to see him as often as she should.  Because I am a part-time idiot in real life, I made the mistake of telling Davis that while I had seen the first Toy Story movie I had not seen Toy Story 2 or 3—so he preceded to give me an exhaustive rundown of the content in each film.  At every lull in the conversation. During the visit, the landline phone started ringing in my back bedroom and the only way I would be able to answer it was to run and get it before the fifth ring…so when I took off down the hall I heard Davis cry out “I’ve never seen Uncle Ivan run before!”  (I was not angry about this, because it is true—I rarely run unless I’m chased.  Mom and Dad, on the other hand, were dissolved in hysterics…with Mom commenting that she nearly wet her pants.)

So, with things settling back down to some semblance of normalcy, I’m going to try and get some reviews up on the blog soon.  I’ve been very naughty and purchased more movies (many of which you probably won’t be seeing on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ any time in the near future) in addition to receiving one or two gratis screeners outside of my ClassicFlix work.  (My recent contributions to CF, reviews of The Captive City and Everybody Does It, are up for your perusal if you’re interested.)  I’ll also have some nice Radio Spirits swag to give away—the first of several giveaways will begin on Thursday.  Tomorrow, I’ll resume with Overlooked Films on Thursday with an entry that aired on Tee Cee Em recently…so once again, mea culpa for making you wait so long.