Mon 6 Jul 2009
There are certain posts for which the comments that follow take on a life of their own. Take for example a short piece called “An Early Example of NERO WOLFE on TV?” There are 15 comments following, which is rather high but not unusually so. But if you take into consideration that this piece was a continuation of one of Mike Nevins’ columns, to which 18 comments were added, you will realize that the subject matter — that of which actor played what well-known mystery character, or should have, struck a nerve of one kind or another.
All of which means little, in the more practical side of things, except the final (or most recent) comment on the second post was from Mike Doran, who mentioned something I’d never known about before. Which is certainly not news in that regard, but perhaps if you missed it, you’d like to know about it, too.
Mike said, and I quote:
“They began this past Sunday with a 1963 show called ‘Shadow Of A Man.’ I taped it, intending to watch it sometime in the indeterminate future. Lap dissolve to last night, and I’m looking through some of my old TV Guide‘s from this period, and lo and behold, there’s the listing for this episode — which, it seems, is Revue’s attempt to turn Double Indemnity into a TV series.
“Honest — Jack Kelly plays Walter Neff and Broderick Crawford plays Barton Keyes, and those are the names of the characters. Both the TV Guide Close-Up listing and the NBC ad play up the connection, although I don’t recall seeing James M. Cain’s name in either place — or for that matter in the credits of the show (which I still haven’t watched all the way through).
“Every time I go through these old magazines I seem to stumble on something unexpected like this, and I’ve had them a long time now. This is where I get most of the nickel knowledge I put in these posts, and I’m eternally grateful for having a place like this to put it.”
And not too long ago, Mike emailed me to say, after I pleaded him unmercifully for some follow-up information:
“Back to the show itself: Nothing really special here; I’m guessing that the series would have been cases investigated by Neff the smartass ladies’ man and solved by the older, crustier Keyes — and if this sounds like a whole bunch of other shows we’ve been discussing here lately — well, if coincidences didn’t happen, we wouldn’t need a word for them, would we?
“James M. Cain’s name appeared nowhere, nor did those of Raymond Chandler or Billy Wilder.
“One other oddity: although based on a Paramount picture, this was an MCA-Universal show. I believe this has something to do with MCA’s purchase of Paramount’s film library for TV release in the ’50s; apparently there were riders to the deal, such as remake or adaptation rights.
“I remember that that ‘Going My Way’ was done on TV a couple of years before, with Gene Kelly and Leo G. Carroll in the Crosby and Fitzgerald roles. Paramount movie, MCA series. Someone with a bigger library and a better memory than mine might be able to come up with a longer list of these.”
All I can say is that I wish I lived in the Chicago area. There’s no station around here that plays anything nearly as interesting as reruns of Kraft Mystery/Suspense Theater.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I can’t help but think James M. Cain might have choked on the idea of turning Walter Neff and Keyes into some bizarre version of Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe, though the casting sounds good even if the result wasn’t effective.
I would love to see some of the old Kraft Mystery/Suspense Theater episodes again, as well as the old Dick Powell and Four Star Theater. A shame the Encore Mystery Channel couldn’t be persuaded to show some of these instead of the endless reruns of the same old thing they tend to show.
Still, some unlikely movies made television series over the years from Shane to Friday the 13th, so I guess we shouldn’t be too surprised at Double Indemnity. After all they made a cop show out of Asphalt Jungle. All they really needed was a familiar name to hang a premise on.
July 6th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
HERE WE GO;
Here in Chicago there’s a station, WCIU-TV, on channel 26. It’s owned by Weigel Broadcasting, which also had a couple of low-power stations on channels 23 and 48. These channels became MEtv and MEtoo, respectively. When the digital switchover came along, WCIU consolidated their stations on digital ch26 in this wise:
26.1: The “U” (regular syndicated programming)
26.2: MEtv “Memorable Entertainment TV”(vintage stuff from all eras)
26.3: MEtoo (same as above)
26.4: THiS (mainly movies of varying vintage and origin)
26.6: WFBT: foreign-language programming, mainly Spanish and Asian
Neal Sabin, who runs WCIU, is the subject of a profile on CHICAGO magazine’s website (which I would link to if I had any idea how), in which he tells how he came to be the Retro-TV king of the midwest, with over 100 vintage series in his inventory, adding more all the time. Soon he’ll be adding another station, 26.5, which he’s heralding thus: What’s Up With THAT?
Did I mention that I love living in Chicago?
July 6th, 2009 at 8:37 pm
This is the nuttiest pilot I’ve ever heard of!
Suggestions: Make Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde into a series sleuth. Dr. J could do forensics; Mr H. could go undercover among mobsters. Motto: No one fools with Mr. H!
Among Billy Wilder movies, SUNSET BOULEVARD also comes to mind as series fodder. Gloria Swanson could be the stay at home, armchair detective mastermind, William Holden could be her leg man. Erich Von Stroheim could do color commentary…
July 7th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
Well, why not? They made a TV show called THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, didn’t they?
July 7th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Hmm. Sunset Boulevard the series? Gloria stays home and solves murders she commits instead of bothering people and nosily solving other peoples crimes like Jessica Fletcher.
That could work.
The British have done Jeckyl as a series, though not as interesting as Mike’s version.
Though to be fair I’m not really sure we can top some of the actual films made into series, though in the movies have returned the favor making some pretty absurd movies based on television series. Luckily we were spared the John Travolta movie updating Have Gun Will Travel to the 20th Century. So far anyway.
How about Murder on the Orient Express the series? Every week Hercule Poirot accuses another passenger on the train of murder … oh, sorry, Agatha Christie already did that one.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
Since we’re now raiding the Billy Wilder catalog for TV series ideas, how’s this: ACE IN THE HOLE – The Series!
To bring it up to date, we have Jack Tatum (the Kirk Douglas character) become the terror of cable news. Each week, Tatum grandstands his way into a big story, endangering everybody he deals with, antagonizing his bosses (or trying to, since basically they’re on the same page), interfering with the authorities, and generally making an imperial nuisance of himself – right up to the last minute, when (more through mischance than anything else) he comes up with the solution to the case/problem/situation/whatever, saving the day in spite of himself.
You know, I meant this as a joke, but in proofreading it, I’m starting to think it might work, especially in the current journalistic times. Maybe Jack Tatum was just ahead of his time.
April 18th, 2021 at 9:16 pm
“Good news is no news. Bad news sells best”.
It’s not just a great line of dialogue, a beautiful line of dialogue. There’s genius in the delivery. Incorporating this supremely pithy utterance into the by-play of an entertaining film story, is not easy to do. Not at all.
Dropping great quotes into dialogue is something writers strive to emulate these days (cough cough copycats) but Wilder *pioneered* it in a way that only a few of his peers could match. Lubitsch, Welles, Ford.
I feel that many of Wilder’s films *would* still ‘function’ as stories in today’s world; actually I think many of today’s series ape Wilder without acknowledging him. There are plenty of ‘hit series’ with techno-journalism as the basis for the storytelling.
But they largely miss the point; because they blithely accept all of the current status quo without questioning it. Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole” questioned the whole basis for American journalism whereas today’s series simply take it all as a fait accompli.
The underlying problem is: disintegration of American society. There is no one mirror anymore which anyone can hold up to our face and reflect us, challenge us, recriminate us. No one in the American ‘audience’ today tacitly admits to being a part of any community, any audience, or even any country –we experience everything as individuals. We have 100% individualized media. ‘You don’t see what I see, and I don’t see what you see.’ ‘You have your opinion and I have my opinion.’
Journalism: I have friends and contacts in that sphere (I’m sure we all do, in today’s connected’, barrier-less world) and they’ve admitted to me that the industry has been killed. The victim is dead, even if the cadaver hangs around fouling the air.
Is Chuck Tatum still culturally relevant? He would be, if journalism was still relevant. Unfortunately American journalism has been shattered into a trillion tiny pieces. There is no ‘one face’ of journalism anymore, in the same way that many other of our institutions have lost their authority. There is no ‘one face’ of the country anymore.
What’s going on lately (in my opinion) is a greater implosion than even Watergate was; not mere loss-of-faith in one institution (government) but a loss-of-faith in all communal institutions. It’s the ‘me generation’ …”on steroids” (I hate that phrase). But truly, anything which is not ‘personalized’ has become ‘suspicious’.
Chuck Tatum is one of fiction’s great characters. He’s a cynic’s hero. To me, the question is: are there any cynics anymore? Or is everyone happy surrounded by their own, isolated, DMZ?