Tue 10 Apr 2012
Movie Review: THE LAWBREAKERS (1961).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews , TV mysteries[18] Comments
THE LAWBREAKERS. MGM, 1961. Jack Warden, Vera Miles, Ken Lynch, Arch Johnson, Robert H. Harris, Robert Douglas, Jay Adler, Robert Bailey. Theme & background music: Duke Ellington. Screenwriters: Paul Monash & W.R. Burnett. Director: Joseph M. Newman.
Among several other sources, IMDB says that this film was cobbled together from two episodes of The Asphalt Jungle, a tough, hardboiled crime series shown on ABC in 1961 as a summer fill-in. Combing through the list of episodes and their descriptions, however, the only matchup that fits is that of a single episode, “The Lady and the Lawyer,†the second in the series (9 April 1961).
Some material may have come from the previous episode, to help establish the characters, but there’s only one real story line, that of a big name attorney who works for the local syndicate on the side. He also has money problems. Trying to support a wife and family as well as a mistress (Vera Miles) extends his resources too far – the lady has expensive tastes – and when desperation sets in, well, that’s where the story begins.
Jack Warden plays the guy on the other side, a cop, and an honest one. Promoted to Commissioner when his predecessor can’t stand the heat, he proves to be formidable force against crime. He succeeds easily enough in this film, but I’ll have to come up with the rest of the series on DVD before I can tell you how he fares from here on out.
As a femme fatale, Vera Miles is beautiful and alluring enough, but (to my mind) rather too icy cold to compare with the more sultry ladies who often appeared in the noir films of the 50s and 60s – more of a Grace Kelly type than an Audrey Totter or Marie Windsor. Not that she’s a pushover, by any means, not at all. You have to keep a close eye on women like this.
There are several killings in the movie, served well by the black-and-white camera work, with one of the dead men being that of Bob Bailey’s character, the latter being one of the better players of Johnny Dollar on Old-Time Radio – he had one of the toughest voices to ever come from a man so slim. His part in The Lawbreakers may have been his longest roles in the movies, even though (sad to say) his character’s part ends so quickly.
Overall, then, even though concocted somehow from a TV series, the film works well as a film, especially if you like your movies hardboiled and tough, which this movie is, except when Jack Warden breaks down a delivers a sort of sappy soliloquy to the press in a plea for some cooperation. He meant well, but I wish he hadn’t done it.
Note: For more about The Lawbreakers, check out Mike Grost’s website, and the usual detailed analysis he does of all the movies he covers.
April 10th, 2012 at 11:18 am
Considering ASPHALT JUNGLE was an hour show and the TV movie was 79 minutes (according to the less than perfect IMDB), I think you are right and this is one episode with a subplot or character bits from another episode added.
The series was from MGM and lasted 13 episodes. It ran on Sunday from 9:30pm-10:30pm on ABC from April through September. It had been scheduled to continue in the fall at Sunday at 10pm but was dropped and replaced by LAS VEGAS (Warner Brothers).
The star was Jack Warden with Arch Johnson and William Smith as co-stars.
According to “Broadcasting” magazine, it was produced by Arthur Lewis (BRENNER, 601 PARK AVENUE). Directors included Herman Hoffman and Gerald Mayer, with story editor Earl Booth. Broadway writer Steven Gethers signed to write two episodes.
April 10th, 2012 at 11:43 am
The subplot that goes into Jack Warden’s moving up into the Commissioner’s job could easily have come from the first episode.
It seems like the kind of thing that a first show would get into — but perhaps not. A series that goes into a police officer’s home life (definitely unlike Dragnet) might have put that off to the second to show growth in the character.
Here’s another possibility. If you look at the bottom of the lowermost poster, you will see the words “Not Suitable for Children.” I’d posted this review around 2 am this morning. When I woke up today and read through it again, it came to me. When I took a good look at the poster, I realized that I’d forgotten something. I don’t know how, but I had.
There is a scene that takes place in a low level nightclub. A strippers’ bar, in other words, and of course there is a time when two of the characters meet there and while there, of course they watch the performance going on.
The stripper ends up topless except for pasties over her nipples that look like two small mounds of whipped cream. I’d had to watch the movie over two nights, and by the time I wrote up my comments it had slipped my mind how risque the scene was, especially for 1961 — maybe too risque for network TV even now, considering the Super Bowl incident.
My theory now is that they filmed a longer version of this episode then trimmed it down to fit the network time slot.
We’d have to see the first two episodes as aired to know for sure, but the circulating DVDs of the series I’ve seen advertised so far include this film as part of the package rather than those couple of shows.
So at the moment, this is a working hypothesis only, but I think it’s a good one.
April 10th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Just checked Brooks-Marsh:
Asphalt Jungle‘s replacement on Sunday nights in the fall of ’61 was Adventures In Paradise, for what would be that show’s third and last season.
Paradise was a 20th Century Fox production.
I can’t call to mind any Warner Bros series that was set in Las Vegas during this time (correction welcomed).
MGM wasn’t doing very much TV during this period, making it likely that someone had the idea to shoot a too-hot-for-TV scene so they could sell it as a movie overseas. That “Not Suitable For Children” sign marks this as a British advert (as they’re called over there).
April 10th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
Steve,
Thank you for the link!
I’ve never seen any of the Asphalt Jungle episodes, and have no clear idea about how it relates to “The Lawbreakers”.
My sister loves Johnny Dollar. I didn’t recognize Bob Bailey at all in this, or know he was in the film. Thank you for the heads up. Will look for him.
Coincidentally, have been writing a lot about director Joseph M. Newman recently. Quite a lot of his films are now coming out on DVD, such as the private eye thriller “Twenty Plus Two” (written by Frank Gruber) and the fun musical biopic The George Raft Story.
April 10th, 2012 at 9:21 pm
#3. Mike, you are right about ADVENTURES IN PARADISE taking over ASPHALT JUNGLE spot. Nice to know someone has my back when I am too dumb to triple check my research.
LAS VEGAS (Warner Bros) 26 episodes bought by ABC. William Orr in charge of production. Produced by Jules Schermer (ROARING TWENTIES, LAWMAN).
As late as April 1961, the network’s planned schedule had LAS VEGAS on the schedule. It even had sponsors. But ABC was still moving stuff around (something I should have noticed when doing my research), and for some reason the series never made it to air.
The series was to shoot on location and be based on the files of the Clark County Sheriff and the Las Vegas police. No cast was reported.
Source: “Broadcasting” magazine (12/26/60, 2/20/61 and 4/3/61)
April 10th, 2012 at 9:26 pm
Mike Grost (Comment #4)
Thanks for the heads-up on TWENTY PLUS TWO. It’s a movie someone told me about a while ago but I’ve never seen. I see from IMDB that Newman directed quite a few movies in the 1950s, including my favorite sci-fi film of that era, THIS ISLAND EARTH. I’ve seen it any number of times and always enjoyed it.
Bob Bailey’s voice is very distinctive. If you’ve heard it before, you’ll match him up in this movie right away. He plays Sam Henry, the go-between the two main bad guys. He didn’t make many movies, but I’ve seen a couple of them. As I said in my review, this may have been the longest part he had on film.
By the way, Bailey also played PI George Valentine in the radio program LET GEORGE DO IT. If your sister likes JOHNNY DOLLAR, I think she may like that one too. The show ran quite a long time, and there are lots of individual episodes available.
April 10th, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Mike (Doran) and Michael
Good detective work on both your parts. I wonder what kind of stories they had in mind for that phantom LAS VEGAS series. It might have turned out well — or it might have laid a great big brick. I guess we’ll never know?
— Steve
April 10th, 2012 at 9:46 pm
#4. Mike Grost. My sister also shares a love for YOURS TRULY, JOHNNY DOLLAR. I recently found there was a JOHNNY DOLLAR TV pilot with William Bryant as star, Blake Edwards as executive producer, and Henry Mancini doing the theme and music.
Maybe I should ask over at the Bernard Herrmann post, but has anyone ever heard the Mancini JOHNNY DOLLAR TV theme music?
April 10th, 2012 at 10:15 pm
Forget the theme music (sort of), let’s go one better. Has anyone ever seen the JOHNNY DOLLAR TV pilot? Was it ever made? Some sources say it was actually aired. Is it possible?
There’s an excellent biography of Bob Bailey here: http://www.mwotrc.com/rr2011_10/dollar.htm
It includes a good reason why his movie career was as short as it was: “Bob was only 5’ 9†and weighed in around 150-pounds.”
Never mind that. On radio he was 6’2″ and weighed 200 pounds.
PS. Only kidding about the Mancini theme!
April 11th, 2012 at 9:52 am
So Las Vegas was a series that was sold but didn’t go.
The timeline puts it at the tail end of Warner Bros TV’s longtime sweetheart deal with ABC. Since LV is apparently another detective series, this would mean that they got out the old 77 Sunset Strip mold in order to stamp out yet another copy.
Your casting breaks like this:
40-something leading man
30-something leading man (alternating)
20-something beefcake boy (backup)
Pretty girl/singer
Comedian
If you remember any or all of the 77 clones from this period, you’ll be able to fill in the names easily.
As for the stories, also remember that these were the days of “W. Hermanos”, the miracle scriptwriter who could convert any story (even a Western) into each and every available show – and frequently did.
So why didn’t Las Vegas make ABC’s final cut?
ABC’s program boss at the time, Oliver Treyz, was the guy who kept ordering “same-only-different” detective shows from Warners; I’m guessing here that the network higher-ups were getting a bit bored with it all, and LV was just one trip too many to the same well.
Looking at ABC’s 1961 fall schedule, and recalling that Adventures in Paradise was a renewal, I’d say that the new show that actually knocked Las Vegas out of the box was probably Bus Stop from 20th Century Fox, most likely because it wasn’t just another cookie-cutter detective show.
Of course, Bus Stop became notorious in its own right just a year later –
– but that, as Mr. Kipling said, is another story …
April 11th, 2012 at 11:44 am
I remember that BUS STOP episode. The only one I do remember. “A Lion Walks Among Us” which starred Fabian as a young man who kills for virtually no reason.
April 11th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
As it happens, I’ve got that Bus Stop episode in my VHS-DVD wall at home.
It’s a c2c, poor pictorial quality, but at least the story is watchable.
By 1962 standards, it was pretty wild: cold-blooded murder, seduction of a married woman, fights, crooked trial, unhappy ending …
Sen. John Pastore (D-RI) famously said after watching the show, “I still have the stench in my nose.”
The aftershock: Oliver Treyz, the ABC programming boss I mentioned last time, found himself out of a job not long thereafter.
Fabian’s budding acting career took a hit as well; he may
have been too convincing as a young psycho for his own good.
Curiously unaffected by the contoversy were the author of the novel that the episode was based on – Tom Wicker (who hadn’t yet become the New York Times‘s star columnist).
The episode’s director also got away comparatively unscathed – Robert Altman.
As for Bus Stop, it was off the schedule as soon as they ran out of episodes; they didn’t even get summer reruns – and I’m fairly sure that they didn’t get much if anything in the way of syndication sales either.
ABC went with theatrical movies in Sunday primetime a little sooner than they’d planned; that situation remained for decades afterward.
“… and now you know … the Rest Of The Story …“
April 11th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Found another article about the ABC Fall schedule for 1961-1962. “Broadcasting” (3/20/61) reported Liggett & Myers Tobacco pulled its major advertising account from THE UNTOUCHABLES due to the Italian American boycott. They blamed ABC shifting the program from its 9:30pm slot to the 10-11 slot. ABC did this with all their other shows as well.
“…ASPHALT JUNGLE (replaces ISLANDERS April 2 and continues next fall) which backs up from 9:30-10 to 10-11 on Sunday. ADVENTURES IN PARADISE similarly moves back on Monday, and REBEL (the latter show actually goes out of its 9-9:30 Sunday period and is pushed up to 7pm to make way for the new BUS STOP in the 9-10pm period on Sunday.”
The 9-10pm was the prime spot for viewers then. L&M was not happy to see a competitor Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co. BUS STOP get the 9-10 Sunday spot and their REBEL moved to 7pm. L&M then pulled all accounts on other ABC shows.
So the boycott of THE UNTOUCHABLES started all of this.
Perhaps ASPHALT JUNGLE and LAS VEGAS were too violent for ABC, all ready faced with boycotts and loss of advertisers of THE UNTOUCHABLES?
April 11th, 2012 at 5:24 pm
Went back to Brooks-Marsh to reconfirm my own memories:
It seems that the loss of sponsor support led to The Rebel being dropped altogether in the fall of ’61, along with Asphalt Jungle.
That early Sunday timeslot (which would be 6 PM Central time) went to Maverick, which was far less violent than The Rebel.
As I recall, Bus Stop was being sold as a “serious, dramatic” series somewhat like the play/movie that gave it its name (I believe that William Inge, the playwright, was at somepoint directly involved in the production – correction welcomed).
Would Las Vegas have been “too violent”?
Doubtful – the 77 Sunset Strip clones were probably the least violent shows of that type on TV; they always played most of the time like comedies with crimes attached (not always, of course; still all those series had regular comic characters).
Finally, boycott threats or not, The Untouchables was still one of ABC’s more popular programs, which is why it was kept on at a later time. The next season,’62-63, The Untouchables was moved to Tuesdays at 9:30, which was apparently safe again (Fabian’s Bus Stop stint must have absorbed the shock).
April 11th, 2012 at 5:48 pm
#14. Mike Doran
I agreed except I don’t think LAS VEGAS was going to be a typical WB PI show. It sounded more DRAGNET with a police drama based on the real files of the Las Vegas police and Clark County Sheriff departments.
I have been having fun traveling back in time and reading about what the behind the scenes or long forgotten circumstances effect on what we were watching.
April 12th, 2012 at 10:01 am
For a long time people have asked where do we find these TV shows and we have been limited to answering “the collector to collector” market. I buy from various collectors and a few have websites. I asked one of my favorites if I could give a link to his site He has agreed.
THE ASPHALT JUNGLE, ADVENTURES IN PARADISE, and BUS STOP can be found at Thomas Film Classics website.
http://shop.THOMASFILMCLASSICS.com
This comment will be a surprise to Steve, so this is not an endorsement from him or this site.
I do not know Mr. (Dennis) Thomas, but I find him reliable and a pleasure to do business with.
This is a collector to collector business. We all just want to watch the programs.
April 12th, 2012 at 10:38 am
Last night when I got home, I went to my TV Guidecollection to try to sort out what was what about all this stuff we’ve been gassing over.
– Actually, there were two Las Vegas-set wannabe series in the works in 1961:
– The Warners show for ABC, which came to be called Las Vegas File, and would have starred Peter Breck, Merry Anders, and Mike Road.
– Then there was Las Vegas Beat, for NBC from Goodson-Todman, which starred Peter Graves, Richard Bakalyan, and a young Jamie Farr.
I don’t know if the ABC-Warners show ever got to the point of making a pilot, so I’ll take Michael Shonk’s word on its potential content.
But as it happens, I have the NBC-Goodson&Todman pilot film in my DVD wall, and so I took the time last night to give it a once-over-lightly.
In Las Vegas Beat, Peter Graves plays a PR man who doubles as a private eye, helping out all who come his way. In the pilot, his client is played by Maggie Mahoney (aka Margaret Field, the Flying Nun’s mother).
His aides are a crusty newspaperman (William Bryant) and a errand runner called Gopher (that’s Jamie Farr, who was just starting to age into his features). Dick Bakalyan is the Las Vegas cop who settles everybody’s hash in the end.
The DVD includes a sales pitch from Graves and the cast, indicating that they were having problems finding a deep-pocketed sponsor to share the costs with NBC.
– The finish to the story:
A brief new item in TV Guide‘s Teletype stating that both of these shows were scuttled because the Las Vegas city government suddenly withdrew their support from the productions; they didn’t want their fair city to be represented on TV by violent shows. (And yes, I’m aware that this was the period when many if not most of the big casino-hotels were owned and operated by what we in Chicago call “The Outfit”.)
Boy howdy, do we go far afield in these parts!
All part of the fun, though …
April 12th, 2012 at 3:18 pm
Mike Doran, “Broadcasting” did a article about the two pilots with Las Vegas in their names (2/27/61 page 66). It did not help the two at times when LAS VEGAS FILES dropped the “Files” and called itself LAS VEGAS.
Because you have nothing else to do in life with this much meaning, here is another source for old TV shows information to go along with your TV GUIDES…
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Broadcasting_Individual_Issues_Guide.htm
Coverage on LAS VEGAS BEAT (NBC) can be found at April 4, 1960 (Page 113), January 30, 1961 (Page 44), February 20, 1961 (Page 10 – NBC, page 124 – list of pilots).
Coverage on LAS VEGAS (FILES) (ABC) December 26 1960 (Page 42 and 44 series premise (page 24 has ratings for the time), February 20, 1961 (Page 126 – list of pilots/ partially covered, Page 136 Warner Brothers Announce Top Echelon TV Changes – Jules Schermer to produce), April 3, 1961 )Page 40 (Planned fall sked).