Mon 20 Jun 2011
A TV Series Review by Michael Shonk: CLIFFHANGERS! (1979).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[8] Comments
CLIFFHANGERS! NBC-TV. February 27, 1979 through May 1, 1979. Created by Kenneth Johnson. (I was unable to visually confirm other on-screen credits.)
THIS WEEK’S REVIEW:
STOP SUSAN WILLIAMS. 20 minute Chapters. Cast: Susan Anton as Susan Williams, Michael Swan as Jack Schoengarth, Ray Walston as Bob Richards, Albert Paulsen as Anthony Korf.
Could the old movie serials succeed on network television in 1979? Can you do three different series for one hour program on one budget? What about Cliffhangers’ other two serials? Will science fiction western The Secret Empire, and horror Curse of Dracula remain forgotten? And what truly evil deed was NBC responsible for that left millions searching for answers? For the answer to some of these questions and more, keep reading!
Stop Susan Williams was a “twelve” chapter serial, that started with Chapter Two (there was no Chapter One). Susan was a talented photographer for the New York “Dispatch”. Convinced her brother’s death was murder, she travels the globe in search of his killer. Susan stumbles across the evil conspiracy behind her brother’s death. It is up to Susan and her friends to save the world before May 15th.
The series recreated the old cliffhanger style and successfully captured the appeal of the old serials. Susan would weekly escape from such dangers as being pushed out a high-rise apartment window, a snake in the bath, trapped in a pit with a lion and piranhas nipping at her heels.
But the attempts to update the old movie serial to 1970s failed. The mercenary “hero” was more a weak Sam Spade than the popular true blue serial good guy with his strong yet simple moral code. The 1970s style dialog was cluttered with lame banter that was more irritating than fun.
Susan Anton did well as the likable heroine. The announcer (probably Paul Frees) was perfect. But the rest of the cast was trapped in one-dimensional characters and a plot more interested in the cliffhangers than the story. Just like the old movie serials.
It is no spoiler that Susan saves the world, but she failed to stop one evil villain’s plans. NBC scheduled Cliffhangers, with its nostalgic appeal, opposite ratings powerhouses with nostalgic appeal, Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley.
But evil NBC was not done. The network (boo! hiss!) canceled Cliffhangers and took Stop Susan Williams off the air before the final Chapter could air. NBC not only stopped Susan Williams, it ended the adventure with the good guys trapped in a mine, the villains celebrating, and the world facing certain doom!
But all was not lost! Stop Susan Williams, including the unseen final chapter, was edited into a TV-Movie titled The Girl Who Saved the World (1979). Finally the happy ending was revealed, leaving NBC foiled again.
For this review, I watched all of the chapters including the final chapter at YouTube. The picture quality is poor and the credits have been edited out, but if you enjoy the old movie serials, the YouTube copy is worth watching. Watch for a graphics blooper, when they lose count and number Chapter 6 as Chapter 7. The chapter titles follow:
Chapter 3 “Jungle Death Trap”
Chapter 4 “Thundering Doom”
Chapter 5 “Deadly Descent”
Chapter 6 “Watery Grave”
Chapter 7 “Cauldron of Fire”
Chapter 8 “River of Blood”
Chapter 9 “Wheels of Destruction”
Chapter 10 “Terror From the Sky”
Chapter 11 “The Villain Revealed”
Chapter 12 “Crypt of Disaster”
June 21st, 2011 at 1:07 pm
I definitely remember this one. I started looking forward to it as soon as I heard about, but it was a huge disappointment, right from the beginning, even with Susan Anton as the star of this segment.
I think anyone who checks out that YouTube link will see why. An good idea, with abysmal follow through. (And Michael, if you watched the whole series on YouTube, with the picture quality as bad as that, you are a better man than I.)
But it was good to read about it again. I hadn’t thought of this series in years. I’m not at all nostalgic about it, but I’d rather watch it again than I would HAPPY DAYS and LAVERNE AND SHIRLEY.
June 21st, 2011 at 3:16 pm
If memory serves, this came from the NBC reign of Fred Silverman (famed in song and story), who was more or less fresh from having made ABC the top network. NBC proved a different story; almost nothing Silverman tried worked – and if you look things up, he tried just about everything.
I watched the Cliffhangers premiere, and knew at once that it wouldn’t work. Starting stories from the middle never does.
The Universal production gloss was present, and the story ideas in each of the component series had possibilities, but the producers couldn’t decide whether they were doing serious homage or spoof. Consequently, they went back and forth, with the usual result: a show that was neither fish nor fowl.
By the way, that announcer-narrator was Brad Crandall, the long-time voice of Sunn Classic Pictures. When NBC picked up Grizzly Adams as a series, Crandall was part of the deal; Silverman liked his voice so much that he offered Crandall network promo work, and most likely set up the Cliffhangers gig as well.
June 21st, 2011 at 5:51 pm
Mike, thanks for the information about Brad Crandall.
Ah, the good old days of SUPERTRAIN. CLIFFHANGERS was one of the series tossed on the air when NBC cancelled a large number of shows at midseason and needed anything they could find to fill the holes.
This series never had a chance. The charm and appeal of the movie serial was, in a great part, due to the more innocent era. Globe trotting was more “exciting” in 1940s than in 1970s. And even in the 1940s, the movie serial was a very minor reason to go to the movies.
While I remain curious about THE SECRET EMPIRE (it has to be better than THE PHANTOM EMPIRE), I am thankfully reaction here seems to make it unnecessary for me to review the other two.
June 21st, 2011 at 9:46 pm
I have no recollection of the other two CLIFFHANGER segments at all. I’ll bet I hung around only for Susan Anton and went off to do something else.
Here’s a video of Brad Crandall at work:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJ9PMd5OEt0
— Steve
June 21st, 2011 at 10:16 pm
I remember this series also. Around this time I bought a Betamax vcr and I was very interested in the serials from the 1930’s and 1940’s, especially the Republic Studio chapter plays. Nostalgia Merchant soon started to release two video tape sets of the Republic serials for $89 each plus postage. I loved these serials so much that I spent a couple thousand dollars on the Beta tape versions.
Now, they are available on dvd for very low prices.
June 21st, 2011 at 10:45 pm
Oh, the terrible things, even when they had a germ of worth to them (as this did), that Fred Silverman’s NBC (even more than his ABC) foisted on the viewing public.
June 22nd, 2011 at 4:12 pm
A couple of quick notes:
– My favorite Brad Crandall “performance” is his narration of The Lincoln Conspiracy, A Sunn Classics ‘classic’.
It’s a version of Lincoln’s assassination that maintains that John Wilkes Booth, contrary to history, got away with killing Lincoln.
It seems that the Radical Republicans (as they were then known) didn’t want the South to be reconciled with the Union – at least not in the way Lincoln wanted.
So the RadReps hatched a plot to kidnap Lincoln and blame the Confederacy (or what was left of it), thereby prolonging/restarting the war.
Booth was one of a number of Rebel sympathizers approached by the RadReps, but he didn’t think they went far enough: he wanted to kill Lincoln and as much of his administration as he could.
The RadReps, led by War Secretary Edwin Stanton, backed away from Booth and his friends and rolled ahead with their kidnap plot, while Booth and his friends proceedeed with their murder plot.
Both conspiracies – entirely by coincidence – went into action on Good Friday at Ford’s Theater; Booth got there first, and so Lincoln died – whereupon the RadReps took charge of the investigation and staged the Great American Cover-Up – or so the movie says.
It’s not really a good movie. Bradford Dillman hams it up without mercy as Booth; John Anderson is a standard-issue Noble Lincoln; the RadReps are played by Robert Middleton (Stanton), Whit Bissell (there’s a surprise), and John Dehner (as the head of the National Detective Police, the period equivalent of the Secret Service); and the conspirators include at least two future members of Congress (guess which ones and win a No-Prize).
Brad Crandall’s narration is heard nonstop throughout. Indeed, Crandall recieved onscreen credit for his work, although he was never seen on camera. The narration is actually the best thing in the movie, largely because Crandall delivers it with such conviction.
If any of you get the chance, see The Lincoln Conspiracy at least once.
– Mr Shonk:
The Secret Empire is the best of all the Cliffhangers shows – mainly by default, but it’s a lot of fun and worth the effort to track down. (My opinion of course.)
I’d go into detail, but it’s been a while since I’ve actually seen any of it, but as I recall this one maintained the best balance between thrills and camp – the actors seemed to be buying it as they were doing it, anyway.
– By that same token, don’t bother with Curse Of Dracula. Trust me – just don’t.
June 3rd, 2017 at 12:35 pm
Kids talked about this show at lunch the next day. The original ‘watercooler’ show? LOL.
I just did a podcast on it; as well as Supertrain, the other big NBC fail from early 1979.
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-hgkzi-6b7c5c