FORGOTTEN TV SERIES FOUND ON YOUTUBE: GRAND JURY
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 22”), 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.