Fri 2 Jan 2015
A TV Series Review by Michael Shonk: GRAND JURY (1959-60).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[25] Comments
by Michael Shonk
GRAND JURY. Syndicated, 1959-60. Desilu Productions in association with National Telefilm Associates, Inc. / NTA Release. Cast: Lyle Bettger as Harry Driscoll, Harold J. Stone as John Kennedy, Douglas Dumbrille as Thomas Grant and Richard Travis as Bill Thompson. Created and produced by Mort Briskin.
With Grand Juries in the news I thought it might be interesting to check out the forgotten TV series Grand Jury. A full-page ad for the syndicated series in Broadcasting (November 9,1959), Grand Jury was described as “…the new, exciting television, half-hour series…†and “This big-budget show offers the added prestige of “Public Service†program identification…†(Yes, the entire ad was that badly written.)
The series featured two investigators for the Grand Jury. This allowed Harry Driscoll and John Kennedy to deal with all forms of crime. Other regulars featured the head of the Grand Jury, Thomas Grant and the Grand Jury lawyer, Bill Thompson. This was a typical syndicated crime drama of the era with simple plots, characters with little to no depth, humorless dialog, and stilted acting. While Desilu spent the money on sets and larger than usual guest cast, it never overcame the usual dull no surprises dramatic story problems of fifties TV half-hour crime dramas.
“Condemned.†(Title according to IMdb.) (1960) Written by Don Martin. Directed by Lee Sholem. Guest Cast: Wendell Holmes, Jack Orrison and Cindy Robbins. *** Investigators Driscoll and Kennedy hunt for the cause of a recent tenement fire that took twenty innocent lives.
The sets are impressive and more interesting than many of the characters or actors. Together our heroes, bland and interchangeable Driscoll and Kennedy use standard police procedures and the villain’s stupidity to uncover the truth so the Grand Jury could bring those responsible for the fire to justice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtkuuM466oY
The history of Grand Jury is not a simple one. According to Broadcasting (December 8, 1958) Desilu Productions had completed the pilot for Grand Jury six months before and it had nearly sold. But the buyer insisted on airing the series opposite of Desilu Theatre on CBS so Desilu turned the buyer down. The project was now back filming, but for only four episodes with hopes of selling it to a network as a January replacement series.
March 31, 1959 issue of Broadcasting reported Grand Jury theme written by Ray Ellis would be released by MGM as a recording. This indicates the series was on the air, so January 1959 is the series most likely premiere date. It is also likely there was no interest from the networks for Grand Jury, as the series ended up syndicated through National Telefilm Associates.
When Desilu announced its TV series lineup for the fall 1960-61 Season it included eighteen series one of which was Grand Jury (Broadcasting, May 23 1960). But soon Desilu would begin to have problems with NTA.
The February 13, 1961 issue of Broadcasting reported that SAG (Screen Actors Guild) was pressuring Desilu to do something about the late residual payments from NTA for six series, Grand Jury, U. S. Marshall, Sheriff of Cochise, This Is Alice, Walter Winchell File and Official Detective.
Broadcasting (May 1, 1961) reported the two companies had settled their differences. Distributor NTA agreed to buy the six Desilu produced series that had SAG residual problems. Grand Jury would end with 39 episodes completed and part of NTA syndication library.
Several episodes are on YouTube at the moment. Two warnings – many of the episodes show up under more than one title (the episode above can be found as both “Episode 10†and “Episode 22â€), and someone has copied the episodes and added them to its YouTube Channel. Those copies were done at the wrong speed so the voices are at a comically high pitch.
January 3rd, 2015 at 12:20 am
You don’t have to rely on YouTube to watch this series. The usual outlets have collector-to-collector copies of the most of the episodes on DVD. I believe I saw one seller offering 36 of the 39 of them.
They don’t come free, though, and I get the sense that only the dedicated collector of TV crime shows from the 1950s is going to be remotely interested.
PS. For some reason the check box that allows comments on this review by Michael wasn’t filled in until I caught it just a couple of minutes ago. If you tried to comment and couldn’t, everything should be OK now.
January 3rd, 2015 at 1:18 am
#1. Steve, thanks for mentioning the collector’s market. GRAND JURY is a great example of a series with a confusing ownership and not enough interest in it for anyone other than collectors to save it.
One of the reason’s I have gone YouTube happy is to avoid the high cost of the collector’s market. Here you can sample the series for free without having to spend money on something you will not like. Another is for my posts, I can’t link to my DVDs as I can YouTube.
By the way be careful buying this. The episode problem with doubles is because they were presented as separate episodes (the doubles are different copies with different running times). I once bought seven discs of BOLD VENTURE episodes that had more reruns than originals. It is a way to increase the number of episodes the seller claimed to have.
While many make money from the ads on YouTube others are collectors who follow the teachings of MST3K and “share the tapes.” I rather check it out on YouTube than enrich people who don’t own the copyrights.
I have bought many official DVDs or downloads of series from the studio that I never would have if not for sampling a episode or a few on YouTube.
I also continue to shop the collector’s market. I just bought an episode of DELPHI BUREAU, PETE KELLY’S BLUES, INVESTIGATORS (CBS 1961) and a couple of others from a collector. But since it is easy to dub off YouTube my purchases of official DVD have remained the same but my collector market visits have decreased.
Of course, many have problems with YouTube and the collector’s market and they have a point. I always am amused when some collector whines about someone else copying their copies of shows they don’t own. Many on YouTube have started to add their own “channel id” to the picture.
The collector’s market is nothing new. I do believe in the first use rule that allowed us to use our VCR. I am not a seller but someone who collect for my personal use and here as an aid in my looks at old TV series. I also plan to pass my growing collection to UCLA Film and TV library or the Paley Center when I am gone unless there are DV-Rs in Heaven.
You will be seeing me continue to use YouTube when possible. It is possible for readers here after reading a book review to actually buy and experience the book for themselves. As a TV reviewer I am often faced with touting a great lost TV without MysteryFile readers able to enjoy the show. This always seemed rude to me. YouTube has solved that problem (for only as long as the show remains on YouTube).
January 3rd, 2015 at 3:48 pm
Lyle Bettger on TV? Well, well. The infamous Lyle Bettger. The man fans love to hate!
January 3rd, 2015 at 4:41 pm
Bettger was on TV aplenty, but almost always as a guest star. I hadn’t heard of this series until Michael sent me this review, but he (Bettger) was in another series I do remember, that being THE COURT OF LAST RESORT (1957-58).
I guess being cast so often as a villain kept him from recurring roles in a TV western series, say, but I think he could have been a very good western good guy too.
January 3rd, 2015 at 7:25 pm
The series focused on making “the system” the hero so Bettger’s character was more a piece in the system than an actual good guy. The end of the episode above shows this well as the villain taunts everyone as our two investigators react without emotion or any concern knowing the Grand Jury will bring justice for the victims and that its not their (investigators) problem.
January 3rd, 2015 at 7:33 pm
Bettger, Stone, and Dumbrille were the heroes? That must have confused viewers.
I was on a grand jury, the most exciting thing that happened was a paper cut. I know they are investigators, but still it isn’t PERRY MASON or MR. DISTRICT ATTORNEY. Grand juries are pretty cut and dried, just enough evidence to decide to true or no bill and no defense. Towards the end we really would have indicted a ham sandwich as the cliché goes just to get out of there.
It’s a bit frustrating since the true point of a true bill is to persuade people to take a plea bargain rather than go to court.
For a better take on grand juries find that expose episode they did on ROCKFORD FILES with William Daniels as a politicized prosecutor abusing the system. It at least had something to say.
Lyle Bettger and Harold J. Stone though? Fine actors, but I would have been waiting for one of them to murder someone every episode.
January 3rd, 2015 at 7:49 pm
6. David, the most surprising part of this series was how little the DA was involved. It was the head of the grand jury that made every decision and the Bill Thompson character was a minor background character (I can’t remember him ever called a DA, just Bill).
This was a series about the greatness and perfection of the American Justice System told with the serious “America is perfect” propaganda style that 50s TV did so well.
January 3rd, 2015 at 9:22 pm
The verdict is still out on this series.
Sorry: but someone had to say it 🙂
Thank you for an informative article.
January 3rd, 2015 at 9:36 pm
America was perfect, Michael, but no more. The problems were personal not systemic. Three cheers for the Eisenhower era.
January 3rd, 2015 at 10:37 pm
8. Thanks Mike. And who am I to judge your joke?
January 3rd, 2015 at 10:45 pm
9. Barry, I was born in 1954 in a small college town in Pittsburg Kansas. I had a happy childhood in a white upper middle class loving family straight out of Walt Disney and Leave It To Beaver.
For so many of us it was a wonderful time…just not for all of us.
January 3rd, 2015 at 10:48 pm
I offered no disagreement re the lack of perfection, just observed the root.
January 3rd, 2015 at 11:18 pm
Barry, I understood you were not being overly serious. But what makes that era so different (and every era is different) is Walt Disney and Jim Thompson could portray the real world of the time and get so different results.
The characters of GRAND JURY were real to those of us who grew up in small town America. Those living in Los Angeles making these idealistic TV shows probably saw the series differently.
January 3rd, 2015 at 11:18 pm
I had the ideal fifties childhood too, but it wasn’t hard for a white protestant in the middle class to. But I think the problem was mostly people who misused the system, the same problem as the grand jury system itself.
As with most problems its at the human level where things start to frazzle.
January 4th, 2015 at 12:44 am
I was an expert witness for a Grand Jury once. What I remember most was how hot the babes who work in justice departments are, behind-the-scenes, preparing a case. All the stenographers and legal assistants. The Assistant DA herself, was as stunning as if she just stepped out of a TV show.
January 4th, 2015 at 12:52 am
p.s. Was that Pete Kelly reference above, referring to the radio show or…? I love the radio version of Pete Kelly. Totally raw. Fantastically doomed and depressing; I don’t think any of the episodes has a happy ending whatsoever. Just an astounding series. There’s one episode where a ‘pretty boy in a bar’ gets taken out back by a rogue cop…and after he beats the bejesus out of him, (which we listen to) he simply has him shot with a machine gun. Left for dead. Jack Webb was simply awesome. I’d never have guessed the scope of his talents just from his TV and movie work. The other series from him, ‘Pat Novak for Hire’–where he goes back-and-forth trading barbs with a rabid, frothing, almost insane-sounding Raymond Burr..also good, just not quite as good as ‘Kelly’.
January 4th, 2015 at 1:35 am
I don’t know about the television version of PETE KELLY’S BLUES, but it was a damn good movie and maybe Webb’s best screen performance other than Robert Mitchum’s dead pan funny sidekick in ARCHIE.
I recall the radio series as pretty downbeat too.
I’ve been an expert witness (when I was a Pinkerton) too, but sitting on one, especially a Federal Grand Jury can get mind numbing (the other end too) no matter how much you want to fulfill your public duties. And, as you seem to have done, you become unfairly prejudiced for the people you are working with so you are too involved to be objective after a long period (Federal Grand Juries sit forever, its like a family).
I can’t see where you could do much of anything in a half hour format that would even qualify as a public service about the grand jury system, I’m not sure anyone outside of law school fully understands how it actually works.
January 4th, 2015 at 2:00 am
Feliks, if TV ever rebooted this series the cast would look more like those babes you met rather than Bettger and Stone.
And yes, the PETE KELLY’S BLUES dub is an episode from the forgotten TV series produced by Webb but starring William Reynolds. I enjoyed the radio series and film as well.
DRAGNET 67-70 TV series turned me off on Jack Webb until I heard his radio work. My favorites were the radio series JOHNNY MODERO PIER 23, JEFF REGAN and PAT NOVAK. The man understood how to write great stylish dialog.
January 4th, 2015 at 2:03 am
David, even this series spent as little time as possible in the courtroom. It usually focused on the crime.
January 6th, 2015 at 12:34 pm
I admire Webb for his professionalism and for his ability to re-invent himself so frequently. Started off as a disc jockey, then in radio plays usually portraying a helpless guy just trying to survive a world of hard-boiled heavies and treacherous dames; then a string of film appearances where he usually appeared rather squirrely/weaselly (often a chiseler, henchman, or thug) then still later he comes back as the terse, conservative police Sergeant-who-lives-at-home-with-his-mother, Joe Friday. Somewhere in his early radio work, Webb (and Breen, his co-writer) became obsessed with the style of slang found in detective pulps and film noir; then for the next twenty years he stars as Sgt Friday, the epitome of laconic. But going back to his one-liners, some of the metaphors flung around in ‘Pat Novak’ are just outlandish..real head-scratchers. Things like, “You couldn’t track down a live bear in a telephone booth.” I’ve got a list of em I’ll contribute to post #21, next. Just for laughs. Some of them are great, some of them strange..
January 6th, 2015 at 12:35 pm
“She sauntered in, moving slowly from side to side like 118 pounds of warm smoke.”
“She turned and walked out of there. It was the kind of the walk that makes you flip the calendar and find out how far away Spring is.”
“It was pretty dark, so when I bumped into her, all I got was a vague outline. . . She had a good-looking vague outline.”
“I began to think about the .32 caliber pistol. It’s a woman’s weapon–well, that doesn’t prove anything. So’s a bread knife if she’s in a bad mood.”
“She was wearing black lounging pajamas, tied tight around her slim waist. She looked like a wasp with a nice sting.”
“Hellmann, you ought to rent an idiot. The heavy thinking’s too much for you.”
“You couldn’t smell a rat in a basement full of cheese.”
“You couldn’t track down a live bear in a telephone booth.”
“You couldn’t hear a rifle shot in a boxcar.”
“Hellmann stood there a moment and smiled–like a guy who’s just killed a landlord.”
“I looked up the only honest guy I know, an ex-doctor and a boozer by the name of Jocko Madigan–a good guy, but to him a hangover is the price of being sober.”
“I looked up Jocko Madigan. He’s a good guy, and he used to be a smart one, except he didn’t like the San Francisco fog and worked out one of his own.”
“Sooner or later you get burned, and it doesn’t make any difference whether you’re a man or a mouse. Because down on the waterfront, in San Francisco, they build the traps both ways. Down here, if you reach out to help a panhandler, the guy’ll take your arm and hand you back the dime. I rent boats and deal any place that’ll give a good trade-in on a second-hand soul.”
January 6th, 2015 at 1:30 pm
The story of Jack Webb’s path to DRAGNET is an interesting one that began with his first hit radio show PAT NOVAK, FOR HIRE.
PAT NOVAK began in 1946 as a regional series for ABC West and produced in San Francisco. Written by Richard Breen and starred Webb, it was a hit. The two men left the series to move to Los Angeles. NOVAK continued with Ben Morris as Pat and Gil Doud as writer, it flopped.
In L.A., Mutual network hired Breen and Webb to do a series. PAT NOVAK was not available so they did a near identical series called JOHNNY MODERO, PIER 23 (Pat live at Pier 19). It was a hit nationally and Webb was on his way.
Webb returned to PAT NOVAK for ABC national network in 1949. Raymond Burr played the cop Hellman for that series.
In between was JEFF REGAN, INVESTIGATOR (CBS 1948) and (CBS West, 1949-50). Regan was a hard boiled PI who worked for an agency. The show lacked PAT NOVAK humor, but Webb would leave this show for DRAGNET.
Finally, a quote from PAT NOVAK, “…because around here a set of morals won’t cause any more stir than Mother’s Day in an orphanage.â€
January 6th, 2015 at 2:18 pm
Feliks
Thanks for all of those PAT NOVAK quotes. I think that that show was the best Old Time Radio program ever, even better that the truly superb SAM SPADE show, the one with Howard Duff, and that’s saying something.
Michael
An excellent recap of Jack Webb on the radio. Too bad he never had the chance to do Pat Novak or Johnny Modero on TV, but he did all right for himself with DRAGNET. And maybe there was no way to do Pat Novak on TV and have it come out right.
January 6th, 2015 at 4:09 pm
I’ll again put in a gush for Pete Kelly. To think that Webb ‘banged this out as a side-project while he was inbetween other obligations’…whew! The ‘June Gould’ episode is just sensational..never heard anything like it..its got trumpet tunes, wiseguys, beatdowns, tearful confessions, wisecracks, crapgames, hoods, bootleggers, sneers..Kelly driving back and forth over the Missouri river in the dead of night..
p.s. Steve, I received your note, thanks for the courtesy–you can definitely do whatever you wish to any of my posts, I will never be miffed. No ego here, not easily perturbed.
January 18th, 2015 at 1:15 am
I used to have this theory that Hollywood invariably cast blonde and redhead men (like ole Lyle) as henchmen, heavies, and villains. Of course, they also cast swarthy Latino-looking actors in those ‘scurvy’ parts too; but Latinos at the same time could also be found in leading roles. But blondes/redheads went for years without being about to break out of their typecasting. They weren’t tall dark and handsome, and they suffered from it. Comedians (like Danny Kaye) could be redheads, but you’d almost never find a character in a crime or western flick, who was blonde, and also a ‘steady, reliable type’ of ‘regular’ guy. They were usually ‘wolves’ or cowards or backstabbers of some-or-other-ilk. Remember the blonde actor who played ‘Steve’ (Shelley Winters’ companion) in “Winchester ’73”? Classic case.