Tue 2 Apr 2013
A TV Series Review by Michael Shonk: DANTE (1960-1961).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[14] Comments
DANTE. NBC, Monday 9:30-10pm, October 13, 1960 through April 10, 1961; 26 episodes. Four Star Productions. Created by Blake Edwards. Produced by Michael Meshekoff. Associate Producer: Harold Jack Bloom. Cast: Howard Duff as Willie Dante, Alan Mowbray as Stewart Styles, Tom D’Andrea as Biff. Recurring Cast: James Nolan as Inspector Loper.
The character Willie Dante began as a recurring character on the anthology TV series FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE (CBS). Dick Powell played the gambler Dante who owned the restaurant Dante’s Inferno with a hidden backroom for illegal gambling. With the help of his friend, ex-safe cracker and bartender Monte (Herb Vigran), and (in some episodes) a former British millionaire with a gambling habit and now waiter Jackson (Alan Mowbray), Dante would help someone and be rewarded with the cops, usually lead by Lt. Waldo (Regis Toomey), closing down the gambling backroom at the end of the episode.
I found Powell’s version disappointing, the writing stale, and the acting not strong enough for me to like any of the bad boy characters. Most if not all can be seen on youtube or available on cheap DVDs. Here is an episode with an unexpected cameo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbhKM6Kydhc
Four years after Powell’s last Dante, Four Star and NBC decided to air a weekly series featuring Howard Duff as William Dante. Currently various episodes are available from the collector’s market and youtube. While this is the second episode to air, it appears to be the pilot:
(Part One)
(Part Two)
Things were different. Willie Dante moved to San Francisco with hopes of a new start running a new Dante’s Inferno. This time there would be no backroom for gambling. Dante lived in the office that overlooked the inside of the popular nightclub. He had decided to go straight and was dragging two of his best friends with him.
Dante’s sidekicks, former thief and now reluctant bartender Biff, and Dante’s Inferno’s Maitre d’ and ex-conman Stewart Styles helped run the club while Dante was out dealing with that week’s threat to the club or him, and they were there for backup whenever Willie needed help.
Every week Willie would find himself caught in the middle of two or more opposing forces, usually the cops and bad guys. No one believed Willie was going straight, both the good guys and bad guys suspected him to be up to something.
When a fortuneteller tells a woman her husband will be killed by Willie Dante, Dante finds himself caught in the middle of a mess he didn’t create. For the cops it is a simple case, if anything happens to the husband or Dante they will arrest the survivor.
Women played an important role in Willie Dante’s life. It was the un-PC time of 1960 and women usually played one of two basic roles, the rich beautiful woman eager to be seduced by willing but business first Willie or ex-girlfriends turned femme fatale. There was an occasional variation such as a mobster’s girlfriend willing to do anything for Dante except reveal the name of her boyfriend who was after Willie. There was even one episode when a suspected bad girl turned into an undercover cop.
In the episode below, the role of the girlfriend of the week lacked the patience and forgiveness of most, and the female author of a best selling book about a gangster the public believes is Willie Dante gives Willie more problems than any femme fatale ever could.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGq1SGa35QY
The series mysteries surprisingly remain above average. One story featured an old friend from Dante’s past gunned down outside Dante’s Inferno by person and reason unknown, and the cops refuse to let anyone, even his fiancée, see the body. The episode may have been done over fifty years ago but it still entertains and surprises with its twists and solution.
Created by Blake Edwards, it is no surprise DANTE had a similar look and style of PETER GUNN and MR LUCKY. The dialog was clever and the banter quick and witty. The stories plots were creative and hold up well. In one episode, bank robbers frame Dante by breaking into the Dante’s Inferno safe and switching the stolen money for Dante’s legally gained cash. Plot devices often had a surprise twist such as a blackmailer using homing pigeons.
In the episode below, an enemy from the past wants Dante dead. Before he retires to the Orient he leaves Willie a $50,000 trust to begin the upcoming Monday. But should Willie not be alive on Monday the beneficiary of the trust would be a hitman desperate for money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbA0BUffifc
The main writer was Harold Jack Bloom (HEC RAMSEY). He and the other writers succeed where the writers (including Blake Edwards) of Powell’s version failed. The writing was fresh, clever, and the humor rose above the old vaudeville jokes about coffee that burdened the FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE episodes.
But it was Howard Duff who made Willie Dante the lovable rogue. Duff was perfect as Dante. Much as he did in radio’s ADVENTURES OF SAM SPADE, Duff was believable in all aspects of the character, his humor, the romance, and the hardboiled style.
The guest cast featured such talent as Joanna Barnes, Dick Foran, Ruta Lee, Joan Marshall, Charles McGraw, Pat Medina, Edward Platt, Marion Ross, William Schallert, Joan Tabor, Nita Talbot, and (to the left) Lori Nelson.
The series never had a chance as NBC placed it opposite of CBS’s ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW and ABC’s ADVENTURES IN PARADISE. The first episode got a 13.5 rating versus ANDY GRIFFITH 26.6 and ADVENTURES IN PARADISE 21.3. The NBC program before DANTE was BOB HOPE that for that first week had a 31.9 rating. Losing over half the audience of the show before it and finishing last in its time period made it obvious the odds were against DANTE from the beginning.
DANTE with Howard Duff was a superior half hour mystery that remains entertaining today. It is a shame more people didn’t watch it when it first aired and there is not an official DVD available for viewers to discover it today.
April 3rd, 2013 at 9:11 am
That you didn’t care for Dick Powell’s Dante is an opinion, but you cannot label it as failure. That it succeeded is the exact reason for the second take with Howard Duff, which by the way, did fail. Not much audience. As for Powell, he is and was synonymous with Four Star. For the sake of reference, success and failure is measured in financial terms not whether journalists or media critics found value or lack of same in anything.
April 3rd, 2013 at 9:52 am
Barry, I never wrote that Powell’s FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE version of DANTE was a failure. My use of the word failure was comparing what the DANTE writers did versus what the FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE did not. And of course it is an opinion, except for historical facts, opinions are all any critic has.
And your opinion in comment one is welcomed and valued, but the two shows existed in two very different times where success was achieved in different ways. FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE existed as long as the sponsor paid the bills, DANTE was in the beginning of network controlled schedule and ratings mattered.
As for Powell, I admire the man, singer, director, and producer so forgive me if I can’t stand his acting.
April 3rd, 2013 at 9:54 pm
Michael —
You use the word failure re the writing and despise the leading actor. A search for synonyms, not required. The meaning is clear.
On a personal note: I have a fair idea of how these shows were sold.
April 3rd, 2013 at 10:37 pm
Barry, one of the interesting things I came across in my research was the number of articles in Broadcasting discussing how the system changed from 1959-60 season to the fall 0f 1960. I didn’t mean to insult you personally. The only reason DANTE lasted 26 episodes was ABC had yet to invent the midseason.
Dropping the comparison between the two, what did you think of DANTE with Howard Duff?
April 3rd, 2013 at 10:45 pm
Michael–I liked Howard Duff as Dante and the show generally. But, I did the same with Powell in the various Four Star Playhouse presentations. Sometimes, especially looking back, success and failure seem inexplicable. Here is what I mean. Audiences in big numbers always related to Powell, from his days as singing emcee, then through his various film & tv self reinventions. Howard Duff, with the exception of Sam Spade, somehow never connected that way. He did with me. I knew people who knew Howard. They were all fond of him off-screen I mean, but there was I think an angry undercurrent. He was described to me as a guy looking for a fight.
April 3rd, 2013 at 11:36 pm
Barry, I agree about Duff and the problem I have most with Powell is I can’t shake the singer out of Powell for me to buy the hardboiled stuff.
I am a writer first. It forms all of my opinions and how I examine fiction. From a writer’s POV, I think DANTE belongs with PETER GUNN, RICHARD DIAMOND, MR LUCKY and T.H.E. CAT when it comes to naming the great TV of the late 50s early 60s.
I just wish people were as aware of DANTE as they are of FOUR STAR PLAYHOUSE.
April 4th, 2013 at 9:25 am
Interesting debate you two guys are having. For whatever it’s worth, here’s where I stand: I actually have always liked both versions of Dante, but to me there’s no comparison between Powell and Duff, in that Powell is by far the more dynamic of the two performers and a master of the wisecrack/quip (which he also demonstrates to great, great effect in Murder, My Sweet; I LOVE Powell’s interpretation of Marlowe). Duff strikes me as a much more generic actor, without any of Powell’s charisma. Personally I think Duff’s best role was as a supporting character — the villainous Frank Niles in The Naked City.
And yes, this is all personal opinion.
Michael, T.H.E. Cat premiered in 1966, so I would consider it more of a mid-sixties show, and thus outside the parameters of the circle of shows you refer to immediately above. I think the mid-sixties was a different era of TV programming. I would, however, add Johnny Staccato (1959-1960) to your list of great TV shows of the late 50s-early 60s.
April 4th, 2013 at 9:29 am
And while on the subject of great TV from the late 50s-early 60s, specifically with respect to this genre, I would consider Naked City (in its second, hourlong iteration, so without the “The”) as the greatest of them all.
April 4th, 2013 at 10:44 am
#7. I realized T.H.E. CAT was late sixties just before I posted but it had a similar style to those of 59-60 PI era and I will use any excuse to mention the unjustly neglected series.
Amazingly, I have yet to watch my DVD of JOHNNY STACCATO or read the book waiting on my Kindle.
The late 50s was when TV creators started to understand the medium and it resulted in some great TV besides the few I mentioned.
DANTE hits all my buttons except theme song. It has that late era’s cool mixed with humor, women, and action. Of all the 59-60 TV I have seen DANTE is my favorite.
I am a Howard Duff fan but realize he has a very limited range. He is brilliant as Spade or Dante, other roles he is not. I really am hoping to find DETECTIVE IN THE HOUSE sitcom with Duff, Judd Hirsch, and another of my favorites Jack Elam.
April 5th, 2013 at 11:43 pm
Good point about The Naked City.
July 4th, 2018 at 3:13 pm
On a five-year delay (but what the heck):
Noting that the topmost imbed is now disabled, but the bottom one (OK, two, but you know what I mean) is still available.
Did anyone who watched it stick around to look at the closing credits?
You know, just out of curiosity?
Reading the comments, I couldn’t help but notice that no one mentioned the director …
July 11th, 2018 at 12:16 am
Duff probably got her the job…Actually she was a busy TV director and actress during that time. She did eight HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL.
And then she was connected to the production studio Four Star.
Did you notice who wrote the script? A future icon TV producer in the 70s.
July 11th, 2018 at 10:16 am
I haven’t watched the episode Mike and Michael are talking about, so I had to go to IMDb to decipher the hints.
And for the benefit of anyone else who happens to stop by, the director was Ida Lupino, the writer, Aaron Spelling.
April 1st, 2020 at 11:04 pm
[…] a mention of this particular episode, see Michael Shonk’s in depth overview o the show posted here much earlier on this […]