House of Cards (TV)

(1990)
Directed by Paul Seed
Written by Andrew Davies, Michael Dobbs
Starring Ian Richardson, Susannah Harker, David Lyon, Diane Fletcher
IMDB Entry.

The Netflix series House of Cards has been a major critical and popular success, so much so that its origin has been given short shrift.  But the original British series is at least as good and is, in may ways, better.

Note:  Here be spoilers for both series.  Proceed at your own risk.

Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson) is the Conservative Party whip in the UK.  After missing out on a cabinet appointment, Urquhart decides to oust the Prime Minister and take his place.  Encouraged by his wife Elizabeth (Diane Fletcher), he starts an affair with a political reporter Mattie Storin (Susannah Harker) and quietly undermines the prime minister and discredits all potential rivals.

If you’re watching the Netflix version, this sounds familiar.  But Urquhart is different from Netflix’s Frank Underwood.   The differences between the US and UK political system make a big difference in the story, since Urquhart is able to directly work his way up to prime minister without an election, while Underwood has to be more indirect.  The relationship between Urquhart and Mattie is more perverse and Elizabeth takes a smaller but more significant role in the affair (she suggests it to him).

The delight of the series is Ian Richardson.  He takes his cue from Shakespeare’s Richard III* and plays it more menacingly, while, at the same time, more charming.  He takes the audience into his confidence in a way that makes him seem appealing. While Spacey is a favorite actor of mine, Richardson plays the character with a little more depth and is far more unpredictable.

There’s also the matter of his catchphrase.  Urquhart often uses the line “You might very well think that.  I couldn’t possibly comment” as a way to lead the press the way he wants.  He gives the words different emphasis to make different points.

The series was successful enough to spawn two sequels:  To Play the King, where Prime Minister Urquhart goes up against the new king of England, and The Final Cut, where his administration finally falls.  It is exhilarating television.

__________________________________________
*A role he had played on stage.

Thirteen Days

(2000)
Directed by Roger Donaldson
Written by David Self, from a book by Ernest May and Phillip Zelikov
Starring Kevin Costner, Bruce Greenwood, Steven Culp, Dylan Baker, Bill Smitrovich, Ed Lauter, Kevin Conway
IMDB Entry

Sometimes history makes the best drama.  The Cuban Missile Crisis is a case in point, the closest we came to having the Cold War turn extra crispy.  Thirteen Days manages to distill the tension down into a single movie.

The move is history as John F. Kenney (Bruce Greenwood) tries to walk the tightrope of having the Soviets remove their nuclear missiles from Cuba without making the wrong move and starting a war.  The story is told through the eyes of JFK advisor Kenny O’Donnell* (Kevin Costner) as the administration tries to figure out the best way to deal with the situation, with advice coming from all directions.  Especially chilling is General Curtis Lemay (Kevin Conway) who would love to start dropping nukes on Moscow.

Despite everyone knowing the results, the movie ramps up the tension as Kennedy tries to figure out Soviet intentions, while avoiding an excuse for war.  The film used some documents that had been recently unclassified to shed light on what was involved.

Despite good reviews, the film flopped, not even coming close to earning its budget.  It was released late in the year, probably to get some Oscar buzz, but the buzz never materialized.  It’s still an gripping look into a frightening few days.

______________________________________________
*In real life, there is controversy as whether O’Donnell was involved in events. 

Gog

(1954)
Directed by Herbert L. Strock
Written by Tom Taggert (screenplay), Richard G. Taylor (additional dialog), and Ivan Tors (story)
Starring Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, William Schallert
IMDB Entry

Let’s face it:  modern science fiction films are stupid.  I don’t mean that they’re bad, or even poorly written, but there’s no attempt to portray intelligent scientists at work; it’s usually just action and monsters, devolving into alien invasion films that just are an excuse to spread alien and human blood all over the screen.* But in the 50s, even monster movies were given at least some scientific rationale behind matters.  Gog, while dumb in many ways, at least tries to avoid being stupid.

Producer Ivan Tors considered this part of his “Office of Scientific Investigation” trilogy, where the fictional agency looked into monsters and aliens threatening US security.  Tors went all out with this one, filming in color and in 3D.

Gog is set in a super-secret underground lab, where Dr. David Sheppard is summoned by director Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) in order to investigate some mysterious murders.  Sheppard is given a tour of the facility by his (top secret) girlfriend, Joanna Merritt (Constance Dowling) and begins to focus on the abrasive Dr. Zeitman, who is responsible for the facility’s computer, NOVAC, and who has developed two robots, Gog and Magog to perform work.

I wouldn’t say anything about the plot is a surprise, and much of it is silly,** but the movie is entertaining and there’s an attempt to show scientists at work and to make a scientific rationale for all that goes on.

The film was cheaply made despite the color and 3D, shot entirely in a studio and probably was successful due to its low budget. 

Tors moved from movie to TV, producing Science Fiction Theater, Sea Hunt, Ripcord, Flipper, and Daktari.

___________________________________________
*Critic Darrel B. Schweitzer remarked after seeing 12 Monkeys that it would be the last bit of intelligent science fiction Hollywood would make. The prediction is depressingly close to be accurate.

** Gog and Magog may have been sinister in 1954, but the look goofy today.

Bounce

(2000)
Directed by Don Roos
Written by Don Roos
Starring Ben Affleck, Gwyneth Paltrow, Natasha Henstridge, Tony Goldwyn
IMDB Entry
Bounce is based on an intriguing premise.  Buddy Amaral (Ben Affleck) is an adman, celebrating signing a big contract with an airline when the flight is delayed.  He runs into Greg Janello (Tony Goldwyn), a family man who is disappointed that he won’t get home in time to spend time with  his son.  Buddy decides to do a good deed:  he pull strings and switches tickets with Janello.
But the plane crashes.  Janello’s wife Abby (Gwyneth Paltrow) is devastated by the news.  Buddy feels guilty, especially after an ad campaign he designs glosses over the accident.  At the Clio Award ceremony, Buddy, drunk and guilty, acts out* and starts a fall into deep guilt.  He arranges to meet with Abby.  And slowly, they fall in love.
This is one of Ben Affleck’s best performances.  His Buddy is a flawed man, but one who wants to do the right thing, and has to tear his life apart before he’s finally able to do it.
Gwyneth Paltrow was at the top of her game here.  Her Abby also is filled with guilt, since she had wanted Greg to come home early, and her emotions when she’s waiting and hoping that Greg somehow survived are heartbreaking.
Director Don Roos had already scored with The Opposite of Sex. Bounce moved away from the comedy in that film into one of pure drama.  The film was a minor success, but not what it deserved to be.  Despite its heavy background, it’s really a romantic comedy without the comedy part, but which delves deeply into how a relationship can develop.
__________________________________________
* As bizarre as his actions are, they are nothing like the debacle of the 1991 Clio Awards, where the entire ceremony – starting late and with none of the organizers showing up – ended up as a drunken fiasco where people started just grabbing awards and taking them home.

Great Science Fiction Stories (book)

(1964)
Selected and Edited by Cordelia Titcomb Smith
In 1964, I went off to Camp Wawokiye on Nassau Point on Long Island.* We were only allowed to bring one book with us for the entire summer.  For someone who had turned into a voracious reader, that was an agonizing lack of material.  My choice was a new anthology of stories of the favorite type of reading, Great Science Fiction Stories.
The editor, Cordelia Titcomb Smith is something of a mystery.  Her biographical blurb indicates that she was a librarian at the Lucas County Library  in Maumee, Ohio, in a role that nowadays would be called a specialist in YA fiction.   She had never been connected with any other SF book.** 
The publisher, Dell Books, was a major paperback house in its day, but which rarely published science fiction.  This was part of their Laurel Leaf Library, which fits in the the YA feel.
But whatever the origins, the book took some of the best stories and authors from early SF and put them into paperback.  The table of contents reads:

• Introduction -- Cordelia Titcomb Smith
• Vital Factor -- Nelson S. Bond
• Pottage -- Zenna Henderson
• The Roads Must Roll -- Robert A. Heinlein
• The Stolen Bacillus -- H. G. Wells
• The Star -- H. G. Wells
• Nightfall -- Isaac Asimov
• History Lesson -- Arthur C. Clarke
• In Hiding -- Wilmar H. Shiras
• The Martian Crown Jewels -- Poul Anderson
• The Sands of Time -- P. Schuyler Miller
• Into Space (Excerpt from Round the Moon, the sequel to From the Earth to the Moon) -- Jules Verne

If you know anything about science fiction at all, you know half these writers:  Asimov, Heinlein, Wells, Clarke, Verne.  Poul Anderson is also a great one, though less know to the public at large.  Zenna Henderson made a reputation for her “People” stories (of which this is one) about aliens stranded on Earth.  Nelson Bond is successful but underrated.***  P. Schuyler Miller was book reviewer for Analog for years; this is the only example of his fiction I’ve come across.
And the stories!

• “Vital Factor” shows exactly what you need to actually go to the stars, with a clever twist ending.
• “The Roads Must Roll” is one of Heinlein’s best stories, about the use of immense conveyor belts for commuting traffic.  The engineering is fascinating, but it a slam-bang adventure, too.
• “History Lesson” is one of the great works of the genre, with a Twilight Zone ending years before The Twilight Zone.
• “The Star” by H.G. Wells is also a cynical look at disaster, completely different in tone from the famous Arthur C. Clarke story of the same name. 

And then there’s “Nightfall,” certainly one of the top ten stories of the Golden Age, and one that packs a punch even now.
I read these stories over and over that summer, in among the swimming and Nok Hockey games.  I was a fan of SF already, but the book made me a fan for life.
_________________________________________
*Located in the hamlet of Peconic.  Its most famous resident was Albert Einstein, who spend the summer of 1939 there.
**Other than the UK version of this one, entitled The Best Science Fiction Stories 3.  It also looks like she co-wrote something in 1947 called Paul Bunyan in Geauga County, which seemed to be self-published.
***As I write this, I’m reading Bud Webster’s Past Masters and other Bookish Natterings about forgotten SF writers (highly recommended).  He covers Bond and I couldn’t recall ever having read him until I started on this entry.

Jean Kerr (writer)

(1922-2003)
Wikipedia Entry

Erma Bombeck was America’s most popular newspaper humorist in the 60s and beyond, with a column of life as a suburban mom.  I grew up on Long Island and thus was familiar with her work from the beginning, since it appeared in Newsday in the mid-60s.  But I was never impressed by her because, you see, I had read Jean Kerr.*

Kerr was born Bridget Jean Collins in Scranton, PA and went on to get a master’s degree in Catholic University in Washington, DC, where she met and married a professor, Walter Kerr.  They moved to New Rochelle, NY, where Jean raised six children – and began to write about her experiences as Walter established himself as a drama critic.**

Kerr started out by writing plays, with a couple of Broadway flops in the 40s.  Her marriage to Kerr meant she would make the rounds of Broadway parties, where she gained a reputation for being one of the theater crowd’s funniest people. After contributing sketches to a couple of successful revues, her first full-length success came in 1954 with King of Hearts.  By this time, and she had begun writing humorous essays on life in the suburbs for various magazines.  In 1957, these were gathered together into a single book:  Please Don’t Eat the Daisies. 

The book made her a success outside of New York. It was an immediate best seller and spawned both a hit movie (with Doris Day and David Niven) and a successful TV series.

Kerr continued to write for Broadway.  Her musical, Goldilocks, was a small success, and she ventured into essay territory with The Snake Has All the Lines.***  While not as big a success as Daisies, it still showed she was an incredibly funny writer.

Kerr, though was more interested in Broadway and, in 1961, her play Mary, Mary opened to great success, running over three years and closing as the forth longest-running non-musical play on Broadway.

She had two more collections of essays, Penny Candy and How I Got to Be Perfect, and three more plays: Poor Richard, Finishing Touches, and Lunch Hour.  The last was about a couple whose spouses were having an affair, and who started one of their own to get back.  It starred Gilda Radner post-SNL.****

At that point, Kerr retired.  I don’t know why she choose not to write, but it was a loss to comedy and Broadway.  She died in 2003.

_____________________________________________
*This is, of course, massively unfair to Bombeck, but I was in my teens.  The two women were doing different things, and, most notably, Bombeck was writing a column three times a week, while Kerr was content to publish occasional essays, allowing her more time to polish them.  I do sometimes wonder how much influence Kerr had on Bombeck.

**Later to become the most powerful drama critic in New York as chief critic for the New York Times.

***The title comes from a story she told about her son, who was cast as Adam in the church play.  She was complimenting him on getting the part:  “That’s the lead.”  Her son looked glum.  “Yes, but the snake has all the lines.”

****Along with future TV stars Sam (Law and Order) Waterston, David (Sledge Hammer) Rasche, and Max (wasting his talent in ALF) Wright

Better Off Ted (TV)

(2009-10)
Created by Victor Fresco
Starring Jay Harrington, Portia de Rossi, Andrea Anders, Jonathan Slavin, Malcolm Barrett, Isabella Acres
IMDB Entry

There are some 21st century comedies that are smart and subtly hilarious.  Arrested Development.  Community. Both had trouble finding an audience, but were still renewed in the hope that they’d succeed (on video, if nothing else).  There’s a third show that should be added to that list:  Better Off Ted.

The show portrays the work life of Ted Crisp (Jay Harrington), an middle level executive in research and development of Viridian Dynamics, a corporation for whom the adjective “soulless” was coined. Ted knows the ropes and the disappointments of the company, and comes up against Linda Zwordling (Andrea Anders), who is a bit naïve about the cutthroat corporate politics.  The devil on his shoulder is his boss Veronica Palmer (Portia Di Rossi), who is as slick as she is self-centered, willing to do anything to get her way and look good for upper management.  Drs. Phil Myman (Jonathan Slavin) and Lem Hewitt (Malcolm Barrett) are lab scientists who work under Ted, finding new products and -- sometime inadvertently, sometimes by corporate design -- act a guinea pigs.  Finally, Rose Crisp (Isabel Acres) is Ted’s preteen daughter, which causes him to have to juggle his personal and professional life.

Ted acted as the narrator of each show, turning to the audience to set the scene, which usually involved some satire of corporate bureaucracy.   Some favorite episodes were:

• Racial Sensitivity, where a new state-of-the-art sensor system had a minor flaw:  it didn’t detect black people.  Lem finds the lights going out when he was alone in a room, the elevators and automatic drinking fountains don’t work, and doors would not slide open.  The company managed to fix the water fountain – by supplying a separate but equal fountain for Blacks.
• Jabberwocky.  Ted makes up a fake project for Linda, which soon takes on a life of its own, as others want to get in on the whole thing.  The episode ends with Ted and Veronica doing a presentation on the project, filled with flashy graphics that say absolutely nothing.
• The Impertence of Communicationizing. A mistyped email tells the employees they “must now use offensive or insulting language in the workplace.”  Though Ted says they obviously meant “must not use…,” people don’t want to ignore the company directive and end up spewing some very funny insults at each other.*

Lem and Phil were a wonderful couple,** two smart but terrified guys who ended up getting dumped on by the company.  Portia di Rossi was typically good; Veronica was a corporate shark, but she made the character work. 

One of the delights were the fake ads for Viridian Dynamics.***  They had pleasant music and a female voiceover that was calm as soothing, as they talked about the wonderful things the company was doing, while the actual words and images indicated otherwise.

Despite weak ratings, ABC renewed the show for a second season.  But it didn’t help.  It always seems to be a struggle to keep smart comedy on the air.   But Better Off Ted should take its place as one of the best comedies of the 21st century.

______________________________________________
*Outtakes indicate that they used some hilariously nasty stuff that wasn’t in the script.

**Len was married, though his wife was never seen.  Make what you will of that.

***I just realized the initials of the company were VD.  That can’t be by accident.

Thief

(1981)
Directed by Michael Mann
Written by Michael Mann, from a novel by Frank Hohimer
Starring James Caan, Tuesday Weld, Willie Nelson, Jim Belushi, Robert Prosky, Dennis Farina
IMDB Entry

James Caan is an underrated actor. For the casual moviegoer, he’s only remembered for playing Sonny Coreleone in The Godfather, the role that brought him to prominence.  But he has a long history of excellent performances, and Thief is a case in point.

Caan plays Frank, a professional jewel thief who is looking to settle down a bit with a romance with Jessie (Tuesday Weld).  But when Frank’s fence is murdered, he goes to Leo (Robert Prosky) who wants Frank to work with him.  Frank is reluctant, but his relationship with Jessie gets serious, so he decided to take it up so they can have a good start.

Of course, things don’t work out that way.

Caan is excellent throughout, playing a man who has long kept his emotions bottled up and is tentatively opening up when things go wrong. It’s really his movie, and he hits all the notes perfectly. 

The rest of the cast also was perfect.  Robert Prosky was a great villain and Dennis Farina (in his first film role) was menacing as one of his thugs.  Even Jim Belushi* puts in a strong performance.

The other star of the movie is the score.  Tangerine Dream, a German electronic music group, was chosen to do the score.  It was controversial at the time, but the music is integral for setting the mood and creating excitement.  Here’s the opening sequence:

The success led to the group being used in quite a few successful films of the 80s.  Note, too, how well Caan plays a professional, tossing away jewels that don’t meet his standards.

The film was the first from director Michael Mann.  It’s a surprising achievement and it’s clear from the start he would be a major talent.  He’s primarily worked as a producer since then, but he certainly has been a major film success.**

 In memory of Dennis Farina.

____________________________________________
*Who was detestable in According to Jim.

**The film’s producer, Jerry Bruchheimer was also fairly successful, and quite a few of the others in the cast became well known to viewers.

Soapdish

1991
Directed by Michael Hoffman
Written by Robert Harling (story & screenplay) and Andrew Bergman (screenplay)
Starring Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Robert Downey, Jr., Cathy Moriarty, Elisabeth Shue, Whoopi Goldberg, Carrie Fisher, Garry Marshall, Teri Hatcher, Kathy Najimy
IMDB Entry

There’s a thin line between soap opera and farce.  The daytime drama is an easy target for humor and satire, with its reputation for overwrought emotions and weird plot twists.  Soapdish was an attempt to play it all for laughs, and the result was one of the better comedies of the 90s.

The movie takes place on the set of the long running soap opera, The Sun Also Sets, whose star, Celeste Talbert (Sally Field) has a reputation as being “America’s Sweetheart.”  But co-star Montana Moorehead (Cathy Moriarty) wants to take her place, even seducing the producer David Barnes (Robert Downey, Jr.) to make it happen.  Barnes gets head writer Rose Schwartz (Whoopi Goldberg) to rewrite the script to bring back actor Jeffrey Anderson (Kevin Kline), who was kicked off the show by Celeste many years ago.  Part of that involves the introduction of a new character, played by Lori Craven (Elisabeth Shue), who adds more tension to the set.

The movie is a soap opera played for laughs; the off-stage antics of the actors parallels the outrageous plotting of the show within a show.  Secrets and relationships are revealed, all with a great amount of delicious overacting.  Much like in 20th Century, the actors soap opera play the roles they think they’re cast in.

Everyone is having a delicious time.  Kevin Kline was always great in farce, and this rivals his role in A Fish Called Wanda.  Sally Field shows that she can handle broad comedy, and Cathy Moriarty is always fun to watch.

The movie did adequately on the box office, but was not a breakout hit. Still, if you appreciate a silly farce on the tropes of soap opera, Soapdish is a treat.

The Tonette (Music)

(1938-??)
Wikipedia Entry

Music may be the food of love, and most kids love music from very early on.  And one of the big thrills is being able to make your own.  If you were growing up in the 50s, if you learned music in elementary school, you probably learned by playing the tonette.*

The tonette was invented in 1938 by Zienger Swanson of the Chicago Musical Instrument Company** in 1938 and quickly caught on in schools and in other places where a simple musical instrument was in demand.

The tonette was a plastic flute.  You blew in one end, which had a mouthpiece like a whistle. There were seven holes on the top (for your fingers***) and one on the bottom (for your thumb), so you could play a bit more than an octave.  Fingering was simple: the scale was played by lifting one finger at a time to get to the next note.  Thus Middle C require you cover all the holes, D would be all but the lowest, E would have the two lowest holes open, and so forth. 

The music was simple, but most kids loved being able to play “Three Blind Mice.” It has occasionally shown up in professional contexts; it can be heard in the background in Cream’s “Pressed Rat and Warthog,” played by Felix Pappalardi.

The instrument faded in popularity in the 60s.  Supposedly, it’s still being used now, but I can’t find any indication online that anyone is selling them, other than an occasional one on eBay.

__________________________________________
*Or the Flutophone.  Our school switched at some point: I used the Tonette, but my brothers used the Flutophone.  Tonettes were black; Flutophones white with red trim, and tonettes didn’t have a bell (though they eventually added one; in both cases, the bell was for show and had nothing to do with the sound).

**Manufacturer of Gibson guitars for many years.

***The left pinky was placed in a ridged circle to hole the instrument.  The right thumb had the same sort of arrangement.

Smile

(1975)
Directed by Michael Ritchie
Written by Jerry Belson
Starring Bruce Dern, Barbara Feldon, Michael Kidd, Annette O’Toole
IMDB Entry

Satire was never an easy thing to pull off in film, but even when your target is as easy to hit as it is in Smile, it takes a lot to hit the mark.

The movie is a look into the maneuvering behind the scenes of a beauty pageant.  Brenda DiCarlo (Barbara Feldon) is the director of California’s “Young American Miss” pageant, which is coming to Santa Rosa. 

The movies is a series of vignettes, where Brenda has to keep the whole thing going, while dealing with the sexist* and crass Big Bill Freelander (Bruce Dern).  Brenda, being a former Young American Miss, is gung ho on the entire project, while most others are far more cynical.  Especially good is Annette O’Toole as one of the contestants** who’s been around pageants for years and knows the ropes.

The script is by Jerry Belson, who started out writing for TV, including The Dick Van Dyke Show and Hey, Landlord

At the time of the film, director Michael Ritchie was considered hot for his direction of Downhill Racer and The Candidate.  His next film, The Bad News Bears was probably his biggest success,  but his career after that was spotty.

This is a funny but forgotten film that deserved to be better know.

____________________________________________
*Even by 1975 standards.

**Melanie Griffith is another.

The Comedian Harmonists (music)

(1928-1934)
Harry Frommermann (tenor buffo), Ari Leschnikoff (first tenor), Erich Collins (second tenor), Roman Cycowski (baritone), Robert Biberti (bass), Erwin Bootz (piano)
Allmusic.com Entry

I’ve slowly been going through Spotify, listening to every artist listed in 1001 Recordings to Hear Before You Die. Some of the albums, of course, I’ve heard.  Others, I’ve heard about.  But there are many who I’ve never heard before.  All are pretty good, and occasionally, there’s one that blows me away.  That was my reaction to the Comedian Harmonists.

The group was formed in 1927, by Harry Frommermann, a German who wanted to create a jazz/pop vocal group like those he had heard from American bands.  Frommermann held auditions and soon got together five others to start performing.

The group quickly became a success.  It has an unusual and pleasing sound, as the melody switched off among the men, as they sang with terrific close harmonies.  Here’s an exampe:  Wochenend Und Sonnenschein (“Weekend and Sunshine,” though the tune might be familiar to you).

 

“Happy Days are Here Again”

But as the 1930s rolled on, the Comedian Harmonists ran into a problem:  The Nazis came to power.  Three of the members were Jewish, and the pianist was married to a Jewish wife.  Something had to give, and it was the Comedian Harmonists.  They were forbidden to perform in public.  Fromerman, Cycowski, and Collin fled Germany and tried to establish themselves as a new group, but the politics of the time made it impossible.  Those that remained behind also took on new members and continued to perform for a time, but when the war broke up, the group was forgotten.

Luckily, though, some remembered.  A documentary on German TV in 1977 by Eberhard Fletcher revived interest and CD have gathered together their songs.  They still have the power to delight after all these years.

Condorman

(1981)
Directed by Charles Jarrott
Written by Marc Stirdivat, from a novel by Robert Sheckley
Starring Michael Crawford, Oliver Reed, Barbara Carrera, James Hampton
IMDB Entry

Back in the mid-80s, I was at a science fiction convention where Roger Elwood* was a guest.  He was working for Disney at the time, and was promoting things with a trivia contest.  I gave him a question about Condorman.

He had never heard of it.  Nor had most of the audience.

Condorman was  based (very roughly) on a novel by science fiction author Robert Sheckley.  Though primarily thought of a a writer of humorous SF, Sheckley wrote in various genres.**  The Game of X was his entry in the spy spoof genre.  It tells the story of a man who gets involved in a minor spy operation but who is mistaken for X, the world’s greatest spy and is forced to become what he is mistaken to be.***

Disney made some major changes.  In the film, Woody Wilkins (Michael Crawford) is a comic book creator who even designs a suit for his hero, Condorman.  His friend Harry (James Hampton) asks him to bring some papers when Woody is traveling to Istanbul.  He meets up with Natalia (Barbara Carrera), a KGB agent who wants the papers, Woody telling her he’s a spy with the code name “Condorman.”  Later, Natalia decides to defect – but will only do it if Condorman helps her.

The movie is definitely light entertainment, and ultimately very silly.  It was barely released into theaters; I saw it as a sneak preview with The Fox and the Hound, but I never noticed it being advertised after that.

This was the last movie in which Michael Crawford appeared.  Usually when I write that, it means it’s a sad comment.  However, those who follow the stage know that Crawford became a theater legend, playing the Phantom of the Opera in London and on Broadway.  Barbara Carrera continued her spy career in Never Say Never Again.

The movie isn’t a great one, but is an interesting curiosity.

______________________________________________
*Known primarily as a packager of anthologies; he did dozens of them, of varying quality and is often cited for killing the interest for paperback short story anthologies by flooding the market with time.

**At the time Condorman was released, he was near the top of 20th century sf authors who had their works adapted for film.  This was partly because adaptations of sf novels were rarely made (a situation that continues today).

***The situation is similar to North by Northwest and by The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe, though less serious than the first and less funny than the latter.

****Other than one animated film.

A Thousand Clowns

(1965)
Directed by Fred Coe
Written by Herb Gardner
Starring Jason Robards, Barry Gordon, Barbara Harris, Martin Balsam, William Daniels
IMDB Entry

Jason Robards has always been regarded as one of our best actors, both on stage* and in film and A Thousand Clowns is one of his most memorable film roles.

The movie follows the life of Murray Burns (Robards) who one day quits his job writing for a children's TV show to do what  he pleases.  Murray is the guardian of his nephew Nick** (Barry Gordon) as he gets away from the rat race and lives life fully.

But there are complications, in the form of two investigators from the Child Welfare Board, Sandra Markowitz (Barbara Harris) and Albert Amundson (William Daniels), who threaten to remove Nick from the Murray if he can't show he is capable of being a guardian.

The movie was a Broadway hit brought to film, with much of the original cast reprising their roles.  Thus the acting is smart an assured.  Robards is funny, very charming, mercurial, and a character you can't keep your eyes off, while Barry Gordon managed to be portray a smart kid in a way that's not too cute and not too artificial. It's something to watch him work with Robards; the two have a special rapport gained from doing the show on stage.

Barbara Harris, in her first film, is a charming love interest, while William Daniels portrays the strait-laced character that he's always known for.  Both are great, but Martin Balsam, as Murray's brother Arnold, who tries to talk sense into him, won a supporting Oscar for the role.  It could easily have gone to anyone else in the cast and, indeed, the film was nominated for Best Picture that year.

The movie did OK in the box office, and most of the cast made a real mark in films and Broadway.  Even Gene Saks, who played Murray's former boss, was a big success, though as a director.  And Herb Gardner, who wrote the play and screenplay, had several other Broadway successes, most notable, I'm Not Rappaport.**** Barry Gordon, while never a star, is still working pretty steadily, a major accomplishment for a child actor.  Oddly, Fred Coe only directed one more file, though he did work in TV.

The play is revived from time to time, but the movie seems to become obscure.  That's too bad, since it's an entertaining and funny film.

_____________________________________________
*Where he's considered one of the greatest interpreters of Eugene O'Neill.

**His name during the movie.  Nick is allowed to choose his own name and has in the past used Wilbur Malcome Burns, Theodore Burns,  Raphael Sabatini, Dr. Morris Fishbein, Woodrow Burns, Chevrolet Burns, Big Sam Burns , and Lefty Burns

***It was first a Broadway hit, with many of the original cast making it to the movie.

****Gardner's name appeared regularly in the New York Magazine competition, where readers were asked to submit small, funny bits on a particular theme.  Gardner's entries seemed to show up just about every week, and someone once even used his name as one of the jokes.

Lillian Roxon’s Rock Encyclopedia (book)

(1969)
by Lillian Roxon

Rock music was always slightly disreputable, which is a major part of its popularity and charm.  And because of this, few critics took it seriously. One of the first was Lillian Roxon, and her Rock Encyclopedia was a critical landmark:  the first attempt to list the groups that made the genre.

Roxon was born Lillian Ropschitz in Italy.  He family, fleeing fascism in Europe,* migrated to Australia in 1937 and changed their name to Roxon.  Lillian became a journalist and moved to New York city in 1939 as an overseas correspondent.  By the mid-60s, she turned her attention to rock music.  She became part of the rock scene by being willing to take it seriously and she had a good eye for what groups might make it big.

By 1968, she had developed enough of a reputation to put together the major project:  the world’s first encyclopedia of rock.   The book covered all the major acts, of course, but also many minor ones, and included what she saw as interesting new groups.** 

But what made the book special was Roxon’s writing.  This wasn’t a dry listing of groups and their history, but an entertaining and lively personal journey through the music.  Some of the entries were unforgettable, as this description of how B.B. King was introduced to rock fans at a concert where he was billed beneath Elvin Bishop and Eric Clapton:

“Well, for a start, old B. doesn’t even stand up. He doesn’t have to. He just sits back in his chair, still relaxin’, smilin’ a little and smokin’ his Tiparillo, and suddenly he lets go a little pure and ever-so-simple soul.  Like he’s been doin’ this for a long time.  No fancy playing now, just a couple of strokes, and – well, the whole room is wiped out.”

She could have a wonderfully dry sense of humor as in this entry about the Royal Guardsmen:

“Their song depicting Snoopy (the Peanuts dog) fighting the Red Baron became a million seller in three weeks. One month later, they did a sequel to it.  And one year later, `Snoopy’s Christmas.’  Some people question the Royal Guardsmen’s imagination.”

After the book, Roxon continued to write on rock and on feminist issues, but her health started failing as she developed asthma.  She died in 1973.

The Rock Encyclopedia is her legacy.  There was an attempt to revise in in 1978 with Ed Naha brought in to update the book, but Naha*** was not in Roxon’s league as a stylist, and the book was rewritten to eliminate some of the more obscure entries and adding new groups from the previous decade.  It was considered inferior to the original.

The book is a bit dated, and some of the groups have been forgotten.**** But the book was and still is the perfect snapshot of where rock was in 1969.

_______________________________________
*She was Jewish.

**The Rock Encyclopedia, for instance, had an article on Soft White Underbelly, a group from Stony Brook, Long Island that had not even put out an album yet.  You’ve probably never heard of them, but you have heard of the name they finally settled on:  Blue Oyster Cult.

***Whose most famous work was his screenplay for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.

**** Acts such as the Brotherhood, the Candymen, Even Dozen Jug Band, Penny Whistlers, and Stone Country, and Jeremy Steig and the Satyrs, who had two entries in the Encyclopedia, under “Jeremy” and “Steig”.

Cotton Comes to Harlem

(1970)
Directed by Ossie Davis
Written by Ossie Davis and Arnold Perl, from the novel by Chester Himes.
Starring  Godfrey Cambridge, Raymond St. Jacques, Calvin Lockhart, Redd Foxx.
IMDB Entry

Ossie Davis (along with this wife Ruby Dee) was a cultural icon, known for breaking into acting in 50s and 60s in roles in which he insisted on playing with dignity and gravity, in contrast to the way that Blacks were often portrayed in films.  But Davis wanted to do more and managed to turn in mind to writing and directing.  The result, Cotton Comes to Harlem, was instrumental in creating an entire movie genre.

The movie is based upon a novel by Chester Himes, a series of mysteries featuring his “Harlem Detectives”:  Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, two NYC cops who use hard-nosed tactics to go after dangerous criminals. 

In the movie, Johnson (Raymond St. Jacques) and Jones (Godfrey Cambridge) are brought in after a scamming preacher (Calvin Lockhart) is robbed of his money, which may be inside a bale of cotton.  Half of Harlem is out to track it down.

This is a film about character.  Johnson and Jones are cold blooded when it comes to solving a case, but also have a mordant sense of humor about life.  Indeed, the movie is as much a comedy as it is a detective film:  it never stops for laughs, but they come through wisecracks and a skewed view of life.

Godfey Cambridge is one of my favorite actors of the time, always willing to take chances or give a wisecrack, and his Gravedigger has a sly sense of humor throughout.  Raymond St. Jacques is also good as Johnson, and Redd Foxx is memorable as a junk dealer* who is instrumental in finding the cotton.  Also in the cast are Cleavon Little, Judi Pace, Eugene Roche,** and Lou Jacobi.

The movie was made for a moderately low budget for the time, and I suspect it was released to modest expectations.  But the film became a hit.  Black audiences wanted to go to a film where black characters made up most of the cast, and white audiences were attracted to the humor and action sequences.  With Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Shaft – both released the next year – a genre was born:  Blaxploitation films. 

While the genre may seem dated today, Cotton Comes to Harlem isn’t.  Davis, who always acted with dignity, directed a film with a dignified heart beneath the action, which makes it still hold up pretty well.

_____________________________________________
*A couple of years before Sandford and Son; reports are that he got the TV role for his  performance here.

**Another actor who I love.

The Thief of Bagdad

(1940)
Directed by Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell, Tim Whelan, and (uncredited) Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, and William Cameron Menzies
Screenplay by  Miles Malleson from a scenario by Lajos Biro
Starring Sabu, Conrad Veidt, John Justin, June Duprez, Rex Ingram
IMDB Entry

Hollywood was the place of dreams and fantasy, yet, up until relatively recently, fantasy films were rare, and usually with a mundane setting.  The idea of a completely realized fantasy world is a very recent one, probably due to the Just Imagine! effect.*  So it took UK producer Alexander Korda to make the greatest high fantasy until Lord of the Rings with The Thief of Baghdad.

It was a remake of a silent film by that name, but done in Technicolor and advanced effects for the time.  And it’s an Arabian Nights fantasy, using that setting to frame a magical tale.

The evil Grand Vizier Jaffar (Conrad Veidt) conspires to throw the king Ahmad (John Justin) into a dungeon and usurp his throne.  With the aid of the young thief Abu (Sabu), he escapes and leaves the city, only to fall in love with a princess (June Duprez).  But the Vizier also has designs on the princess and uses his magic ability to get his way.  All seems lost, until Abu discovers a magic lamp with a giant genie (Rex Ingram) who agrees to grant him three wishes.

The movie is filled with imaginative fantasy ideas, and the film was a major technical advance, the first to be done in a modern bluescreen process.  The characters were also memorable.  Sabu, who had come to notice in the film Elephant Boy three years before, is clever and a cheerleader for the King’s efforts to win the princess; it’s a charming role.  Conrad Veidt was a larger than life villain, even worse than the one in his most famous role of Major Strasser from Casablanca.

The production was troubled.  Producer Korda kept firing directors, and, since it was filmed during the Blitz, the Luftwaffe was dropping bombs around it.  It was finally moved to Hollywood to be completed, and many of Sabu’s scenes had to be reshot due to the delay (he was only 16 when the film was being made).

But the film was worth the effort, being both a critical and financial success.  It became the blueprint for Arabian Nights films for years to come.**

Alas, Sabu*** wasn’t quite as successful, suffering the fate of many non-western actors who went to Hollywood in the 40s.  He could only be cast in ethnic parts.  The Jungle Book was the obvious next step for him, and succeeded, but there are only a limited amount of roles for a teenager from India back then.  He became a US citizen and served as a turret gunner in World War II, earning a Distinguished Flying Cross.  But once he returned, good parts were hard to come by, and he died of a heart attack at age 39.

____________________________________________
*Just Imagine! was a science fiction musical comedy released in 1930 that was a notorious flop. The movie was terrible, and Hollywood decided not to do that sort of thing again.

**Note that the Vizier has the same name in Disney’s Aladdin, and the monkey in that film is Abu, both nods to the 40s version.

***Real name, Sabu Dastagir.

MilkShake (candy)

The Hollywood Candy Company was a minor but successful national candy chain for much of the 20th century.  Named after their home base in Hollywood, MN, they successfully introduced the first fluffy nougat bar, MilkShake.  It was so successful that the Mars Candy Company put out their own version:  Milky Way.*

I first discovered MilkShake in the late 50s.  By this time, Milky Way was one of the most  popular candy bars in the US, and MilkShake looked like a cheap knockoff.  I didn’t like it as much:  it didn’t have as good a flavor or texture.  But in the summer, MilkShake was more than just a candy bar:  it was a frozen treat.

Just about every place that sold ice cream novelties also sold frozen MilkShakes.  This was not like today, when a novelty is created from ice cream that tastes vaguely like its namesake.  No, they would put a bunch of MilkShake bars in the freezer and sell them (for a premium) as a treat in hot weather.

A frozen MilkShake came out of the freezer too hard to bite into.  But, with a little work and patience and, of course, thawing, it would slowly begin to warm up just enough to be eaten.  The combination of the chill and the candy rush made it a treat.

Around the mid-60s, the treat vanished.  Maybe the MilkShake was taken off the market,** but I remember asking for one and they had no idea what I was talking about.  Milky Way was a poor substitute, mostly because it was denser.  And while that made it better eaten straight, it meant it was ever harder to bite into.  The practice of freezing candy bars faded away.

Hollywood Candy remained around, but the company was bought by a series of different candy companies starting in 1967, about the time MilkShake vanished.  Their two most successful brands – Zero and Payday -- are still around and now owned by Hershey.

The MilkShake was not a great candy until frozen.  Then, they were at the top of my list.

_______________________________________________
*Candy recipes are not patented, so if you can figure out how your competitor made theirs, you can easily make a knockoff.

**The history of trademark foods, especially forgotten brands, is not easy to piece together.  No one really keeps track or pays much attention.

Out of the Silent Planet (book)

(1938)
By C. S. Lewis
Wikipedia Entry

C. S. Lewis today is known for his epic fantasy Chronicles of Narnia, but before he started with the series, he tried his hand at science fiction, with spectacular success.  Out of the Silent Planet is one of the forgotten classics of the genre.

The first book in his “Space Trilogy,” the story features Elwin Ransom, a philologist who while on a walking tour of the UK, falls in with a mad scientist and is taken to the planet Malacandra – known to humans as Mars.  Thinking he’s to be sacrificed to the scary-looking humanoids, the Sorns, he runs off and falls in with a different race of Malacandrans, the Hrossa.  The Hrossa bring to mind otters and slowly integrate Ransom into their tribe.  But he eventually had to face meeting Oyarsa, the ruler of the world.

The portion with the hrossa is the book’s biggest strength.  There is no universal translator, so the book is one of the few that concentrates on the progress Ransom makes in learning the language, which Lewis did a conscientious job of constructing.  There are three races on Malacandra, the Hrossa, the humanoid Seroni (Sorns), and the Pfifltriggi (I seem to recall they are froglike).  It’s very unusual even today to populate a planet with more than one alien, and Lewis was also one of the first to show a well-thought-out alien society. I also love the fact that he keeps the Pfifltriggi offstage – because there’s no reason to show much of them.*

Lewis does use the novel to introduce Christian theology, of course, but it never cloys.  On the surface, it’s a great SF adventure novel, just like the Narnia books are great fantasy adventures.

Lewis followed his friend J. R. R. Tolkien by making this the basis for a trilogy.  The sequel, Perelandra, was set on Venus as a water world.  The plot, however, is a retelling of Eve being tempted in the Garden of Eden.  Even Lewis thought the plot was secondary to his description of the world and the book is a drop down from the first.  The final book in the trilogy, That Hideous Strength, I found unreadable. 

In any case, the weaknesses of the other two books is one reason why Out of the Silent Planet** is not as well known as it should be.  The books are still available, but they are footnotes compared to the success of Narnia, and very few people alive today are introduced to him through his space trilogy.

____________________________________________
*At the end, Ransom talks about being able to describe life among them, but that since he never went there in the course of his adventures.

**The title refers to Earth, known on Malacandra as Thulcandra, which means “The Silent Planet.”

Harry Warren & Al Dubin (music)

(1893-1981)
Wikipedia Entry for Harry Warren
Wikipedia Entry for Al Dubin
Harry Warren Tribute Page

In 1980, 42nd Street hit Broadway, using the same songs and story as the 1930s movie.  It was a major hit* and ran on Broadway for years, and is still popular with touring shows and local musical theater.  Yet, unusually for any Broadway show, there was never any mention in the advertising and posters of the songwriter involved.

That’s typical of Harry Warren.  Only those who pay attention to musical theater and especially movie musicals of the 30s, know their names.  Yet Warren’s list of songs is filled with tunes everyone knows.  “That’s Amore.”  “I Only Have Eyes for You” “42nd Street.”    “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”  “You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby.”  “We’re In the Money.”  “Lullaby of  Broadway.” “Jeepers Creepers.” For some reason, Warren always took the back seat.

Warren was born Salvatore Antonio Guaragna in 1893 in Brooklyn, NY, though his father changed their family name to Warren when he was a boy.  He dropped out of school at 16 to play in a band and by 1915 he was working as a staff pianist at Vitagraph pictures.  By 1918, he was writing his own music and had his first hit in 1922 with “Rose of the Rio Grande.”

With a handful of popular hits under his belt, he moved to Hollywood with the advent of sound, and started working for Warner Brothers in 1932, where he was teamed with Al Dubin. 

Dubin was born in Switzerland and moved to the US when he was two.  After a tumultuous academic career where he was kicked out of a couple of schools for his hard drinking and partying ways, he became a staff writer for Whitmark Music Publishing.   He had his first hit with “Twas Only an Irishman’s Dream” in 1916, and started to slowly build a career.  By the late 1920s, he had a string of hits, including “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” 

Warren and Dubin started hitting it big writing the songs for Busby Berkeley musicals.**  These films is probably the second most common way people discover him.

The most common?  Well, since they were staff writers for Warner Brothers, their songs could be used in other productions without additional payment, which meant that Warner Brothers’ cartoon unit – Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies – could use them all they wanted.  Many of the 30s cartoons used Warren/Dubin songs, either straight (“Shuffle Off to Buffalo”) or with parody lyrics.***

Dubin died in 1945, a victim of his own excesses.  He was a serious drinker and partier, using drugs and weighing over 300 pounds.  The high living caught up with him.

Warren continued to write hits with lyricists like Johnny Mercer, Leo Robin, Ira Gershwin, Alan Freed, and Alan Freed.  As TV shows came into existence, he even wrote a few theme songs, most notably “Legend of Wyatt Earp.”

Warren won three Oscars**** and was nominated for eight more.  He had 21 #1 hits from 1931-1945, and many more on the hit parade.  His songs are part of the Great American Songbook, and I would put him up with with the greatest songwriters of his era.

Yet somehow, he always seemed to be overshadowed by others, and forgotten by the general public (though not by musicians).  It may be that he never had a big Broadway show until 42nd Street, so when his hit parade days were over, he faded from memory.  In any case, he’s slowly gaining back recognition and he and Dubin are in the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame

___________________________________________
*With the added pathos of having its director die the same day it opened.

**As is typical for Warren, the best CD release of those songs mention Berkeley but not him.

***I can’t recall the cartoon, but it had a song based upon Warren’t “The Latin Quarter” with the lyrics “What is Your Order?”

****For “Lullaby of Broadway” with Dubin, “You’ll Never Know” and “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”

All-Star Baseball (game)

(1941-1989)
Invented by Ethan Allen
Wikipedia Page
More Detailed History
If you love baseball, winter is hard, so the idea of a game based upon baseball to fill the time between games probably goes back to the 19th century.  Most early games used dice to come up with the play, but those who longed for greater realism were out of luck.  That is, until All-Star Baseball was introduced.
The game was the brain child of Ethan Allen,* a moderately successful major league player of the 20s and 30s.  After he retired, he became head baseball coach at Yale, and it is here where he developed the game and sold it to Cadaco, who made it for years.
Instead of using dice, All-Star Baseball used cards.  Only they weren’t standard baseball cards:  they were circular, with a big hole in the center.  You’d put the card on a spinner on the game board (there was a raised area that matched the hole) and spun the pointer.  The number showing when the spinner stopped determined the results: for example, if you spun a “1,” it was a home run (as everyone who ever played the game remembers).
But the perimeter of the cards were not uniform.  Each section containing a number was a different size.  The size of each option were designed to match the performance of the player.  Thus the home run area (1) for Mickey Mantle was considerably larger than that for Nellie Fox. Although crude, the setup did have the players hitting like they did in real life.  There was a second spinner for the defense, which had limited options (things like holding a runner to one base instead of two on a single), and was probably not bothered with.
The game was far from perfect.  In addition to the lack of defensive options,** there was no consideration for the pitching,*** so a batter would hit just the same no matter who was on the mound.  The design of the cards meant that there was a trick to put them on the spinner, and the game consisted of placing the card, spinning the pointer, then putting down a new card.  Your finger could get pretty sore with all the spinning, too.
On the plus side, the game used the names of real players, both active and historical.  The players were honored to be part of it and granted their permission for next to nothing.  The game also could easily be played in a solitaire version.
As time went by, things changed.  They started adding player photos to the cards, and eliminated the large hole in the center. 
Around 1993, though, they stopped making the game.  One factor was that the Players Association started asking for more money for using the players’ names, but the drawbacks of the game conspired against it.  There were more accurate simulations by that point, and spinning the spinner was hopelessly low tech.  New versions come out sporadically for the nostalgia market
There are still many who look fondly back on the game, but computer games have moved far beyond what you could do with cardboard.  It’s too bad – I actually liked sports games where realism was thrown out the window.
____________________________________________
*No, not the Revolutionary War hero.
**I don’t think many people bothered with it, and it seems to have been added to the game to give the defensive team something to do.
***Pitchers did have cards, but only for batting.  Pitcher cards rarely had a “1” on them.

The Temperance Seven (music)

(Founded 1955)
Members included Paul McDowell , Philip Harrison and Brian Innes (founders) and Clifford Bevan,  Colin Bowles, Alan Swainston Cooper,  John R.T. Davies, Martin Fry, John Gieves-Watson,  Cephas Howard, "Whispering" Paul McDowell, Mac White, Ray Whittam Ian Howarthm, Graham Collicott and a cast of thousands.
Wikipedia Page
Temperance Seven Home Page

I’ve talked about my love for the Bonzo Dog Band.  I’m also a fan of music from the 1930s, so when I discovered the Temperance Seven, it was clearly something I’d want to include here, since they included elements of both.

The Temperance Seven was part of the “trad jazz” musical movement in postwar Britain, where bands started playing dixieland and other songs that their grandfathers listened to.  It remained popular into the sixties (though not often on the singles charts).  But as the movement matured, some musicians began to treat the music in a more ironic mode.  The Temperance Seven was founded at the end of 1955 in order to play that music and to have a lot of fun with it.

Though not a “comedy” music group like the Bonzos, the Seven* did not take their music too seriously.  They wore period costumes when the played and gave themselves bizarre stage names as part of the show.  They revived old tunes like “Tea for Two,” “Charleston,” “Ukelele Lady,” and many other of the era, with a sense of fun and real regard fro the genre.

The group was very influential in the UK, getting a #1 hit with “You’re Driving Me Crazy” in 1961.**  But the trad jazz movement was exclusively a British phenomenon; they didn’t make any impact on the US charts.***

Despite this, the Temperance Seven continued on.  They still seem active today, playing music that is more and more old fashioned but just as delightful as ever.

_______________________________________________
*The name of the band; there weren’t necessarily seven members at any given time; most album covers I can see show eight.

**The Bonzo Dog Band were influenced by them.

***About the only trad jazz that made an impact on the US was Mr. Acker Bilk, The New Vaudeville Band, and the Village Stompers and Al Hirt from the US.

Special Event: Futuredaze

As I mention to the left, I’m a science fiction writer.  And tomorrow, March 12, there will be a special, online chat to promote Futuredaze, a new YA anthology containing my story “Spirk Station.”  It also has fiction by authors like Gregory Frost, William John Watkins, Jack McDevitt, Gregory Frost, and many others.

The chat is being held by Bitten by Books  starting at noon, Central time, and will run 24 hours.  If you take part, you earn points; the the two people with the most win $20 Amazon gift certificates. RSVP in advance and get extra points toward them.  Follow this link to the chat:  http://bittenbybooks.com/?p=62201

Sugarfoot (TV)

(1957-61)
Based on a story by Michael Fessler and a screenplay by Frank Davis and Winston Miller.  Original TV screenplay by Devery Freeman
Starring Will Hutchens
IMDB Entry
Wikipedia Entry

In the late 50s, the major movie studios start to think that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em and made the jump into TV production.  Disney was first with Disneyland on ABC, but that was an aberration.* But Warner Brothers realized that there was money to be made in TV production and made a deal with ABC with a rotating group of three shows:  Cheyenne, King’s Row, and Casablanca. Cheyenne became a hit, so they spun it off and added two more westerns, Bronco and the subject of today’s lecture, Sugarfoot.

Tom Brewster (Will Hutchens) was a young would-be lawyer in the TV west, traveling from one job to another and, of course, always running into trouble.  What made him different from other TV cowboys was his deliberate lack of machismo.  He drank sarsaparilla, spoke softly, and didn’t usually carry a gun (though he was a crack shot when necessary).  Because of this, he was called “Sugarfoot” – one step below “Tenderfoot.”

It was a somewhat different sensibility from the other westerns of the time.**  Brewster was awkward and polite to everyone, and preferred to out think and out reason his foes rather than meet them in a showdown.  Occasionally, he’d meet up with his outlaw cousin, the Canary Kid (Hutchins again), and there’d be mistaken identity galore. The show had a light touch to it, playing off Brewster’s seeming naivety. As far as I know, he never got his law degree.

The show ran for four seasons. Afterwards, Hutchens moved on to the sitcom Hey Landlord and as a guest star. 

______________________________________________
*Disney actually wasn’t a major studio at the time.  Walt made the deal because he needed the money to build his theme park.

**Though similar in many ways to the later movie Support Your Local Sheriff, which costarred Jack Elam, who had a recurring role in Sugarfoot.  Small world.

Arthur Upfield (author)

(1890-1964)
Wikipedia Page

Mystery stories are about gimmicks:  the gimmick that makes the murder stand out, the one that leads the detective to the solution.  And, of course, the detective him- or herself.  And its these gimmicks that create great detectives.  Arthur Upfield used an off-beat detective and a talent for creating great mysteries to create a long career that is underappreciated in the US.

Upfield was English, but moved to Australia as a boy, where he spent most of his life.  After WWI, he worked on various stations in the outback and started writing.  His first novel, The House of Cain, was successful enough, but his second, The Barrakee Mystery, introduced his signature character:  Inspector Napoleon “Bony” Bonaparte.

Bony* had an Aboriginal mother and white father (something that was extremely daring when the book came out in 1929), and leaned heavily on this Aboriginal background.  It wasn’t mystical mumbo jumbo, though, but rather the application of both keen observation and a knowledge of the natural world of the Australian bush.  Bony was sure of his own abilities and proud of never having let a case go unsolved.

The mysteries themselves were also clever and well constructed.  Upfield was always on the lookout for new twists (usually one that related to Australia). 

In one occasion, The Sands of Windee, he even did it too well,  The “Murchison Murders” were committed by an acquaintance of Upfield who used it to dispose of bodies of people he killed.  He didn’t follow the method perfectly, though, and Upfield testified against him at the trial.**

Upfield also wrote some other mysteries,*** but it was Bony who made his reputation.  He completed 29 novels with the character until his death in 1964.  His work is still well known in Australia, of course, and in the UK, but most American mystery fans have never heard of him.  His Bony books can be found, though, and are worth the effort to dig up.

In memory of the Wombat: jan howard finder (March 2, 1939 – February 26, 2013).

____________________________________________
*He insisted everyone use that name.

**He later wrote a nonfiction book about the case.

***The Beach of Atonement, which was next to impossible to find, was recently reprinted.  I designed the cover.