Fri 30 Jun 2017
A TV Mystery Review: 77 SUNSET STRIP “Legend of Crystal Dart.” (1960).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[33] Comments
77 SUNSET STRIP “Legend of Crystal Dart.” ABC, 15 April 1960 (Season 2, Episode 28.) Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Roger Smith, Marilyn Maxwell, William Schallert, Kurt Kreuger, Jacqueline Beer, Patricia Michon. Teleplay: Gloria Elmore. Director: Montgomery Pittman.
While the series has not yet officially released on DVD — and why not, I don’t know — scattered episodes of 77 Sunset Strip are being shown on a cable channel called MeTV, which is how I managed to see this one, the first episode I’ve seen since it was first on the air. (Complete seasons are available on the collectors’ market, but in absymal picture quality, even as advertised.)
Unfortunately, I had no choice as to which one came up first, and this one was it. It’s not representative, I don’t believe. Roger Smith, as Jeff Spencer, co-partner in the firm, shows up in the office only at the beginning and at the end. Kookie (Edd Byrnes) isn’t in this one at all. It’s up to Stu Bailey (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) to work this case completely on his own.
He’s hired by a former famous French entertainer named Crystal Dart (a very buxom Marilyn Maxwell) to serve an eviction notice to her soon-to-be ex-husband in their isolated mountain lodge up in the mountains. Trapped in a snowstorm with them (as it turns out) are the ghostwriter for her memoirs, his wife, and the nurse/girl friend of Miss Dart’s wheelchair-bound husband.
Sizzling resentments and vicious arguments quickly break out, some dealing with secrets from the past. Miss Dart has not a friend among them, or so it seems. Bailey is mostly content to sit back with his pipe and casual sweater wear, watching as he does in bemused fashion. It takes a while for a murder to occur, but surprisingly enough, it is not Miss Dart who is the victim.
Some mild detective work takes place, that plus Stu Bailey’s obvious growing attraction to Miss Dart. In spite of the classic setting, that of an isolated snowbound haven from the elements, the slow pace manages to eliminate all but the smallest hint of suspense. Not the best example to begin with, I suspect.
June 30th, 2017 at 11:03 am
First off, MeTV’s running of 77 Sunset Strip isn’t “scattered”; they’ve been running the episodes from the 1958 start, in original broadcast order.
Thus, I’ve been watching them from the start (on DVR, because MeTV has been showing them at 3 in the Blessed A.M.!).
As of today, June 29, they’re about two-thirds of the way through Season 4. I have no idea whether MeTV is going to continue through to Season 6, when Warners and Jack Webb scotched the format – wait and see.
As to “representative”:
The most interesting factor about 77SS is that there really isn’t any such thing as a “representative” episode.
Just about every episode is different from all the others.
There are tough PI shows, drawing-room whodunits, out-and-out comedies, “digest” versions of old WB features, custom vehicles for name guest stars, the occasional “ghost story” which turns out not to be, and any variation and sometimes combination of all of these.
The stars – Efrem Zimbalist, Roger Smith, Edd Byrnes, later Richard Long – sometimes worked solo, sometimes worked together, generally in alternation, often (but not always) abetted by Suzanne the switchboard mam’selle and Roscoe the horseplayer – as I said, something different every time.
Nearly every show has some surprise, in the form of a Warners contract player who was destined for Bigger Things: one such show has a young Adam West as the shady boyfriend of an even younger Mary Tyler Moore (one example to serve for many).
And Warners always had a complete supply of old familiar character faces to fill the screen.
I might also mention Byron Keith as the resident cop, Lt. Gilmore, years before he became Mayor of Gotham City.
Watching this detective olio each night (or the next day, or whenever I get around to clearing out the DVR), I get the sense that the cast and crew are having fun with what they’re doing.
I know I’ve having fun while I’m watching.
If you decide to make a project of 77SS, you might want to take note of the episodes written by Roger Smith, who liked to mix things up himself.
My favorite Smith-written show is “Once Upon A Caper” from Season 3, in which Rex Randolph (Richard Long) asks each of the partners how they came to be an agency; he gets differing accounts of the same case from Bailey, Spencer, and Kookie. It’s a wonderful send-up of as many PI tropes as Smith could cram into an hour show.
What I’m waiting/hoping for is MeTV to bring back the other Warner Eyes, like Hawaiian Eye, Bourbon Street Beat, Surfside 6, The Roaring 20’s – frankly, spotting the duplications of shows would be a major part of the fun!
Buenos Tardes, W. Hermanos!
(As you can see, I have a very low bar.)
So there, too.
June 30th, 2017 at 12:45 pm
Thanks, Mike.
You make me wish all the more for an official release of this series, and then as long as I’m wishing, all of the other Warners shows you mention, too. I don’t get MeTV back home in CT, or at least I don’t think I do. Is it possible they have different program schedules in different parts of the country? It’s only been since I’ve been visiting Jon in L.A. this time that I’ve discovered that they’re playing it here.
My memories of the show are what’s scattered, but that’s not surprising, since I’ve not seen an episode since it was on the air the first time, and how long ago was that?
In any case, you’ve filled in a lot of things I’d forgotten abut the series or didn’t even realize in the first place. Thanks again!
June 30th, 2017 at 2:12 pm
Mike, I am surprised to learn MeTV is showing all the episodes. The original syndicated package did not include every episode, a point Warner Archive streaming made when they showed those episodes. The series has appeared and disappeared at Warner Archive yet it never showed all the episodes either.
I dropped the Warner service as they reduced the number of TV series they carry (it is also the most overpriced streaming service in the business).
I did get to see HAWAIIAN EYE and SURFSIDE 6 there. I have watched BOURBON STREET BEAT at YouTube and maybe Warner Archive. ROARING 20S has one episode (last I look) on YouTube and I have bought some in the collector’s market.
I have no idea why Warner Brothers treats its library the way it does. Even if your series is made into a DVD it is way overpriced. Two major reasons a series does not make it to DVD are the soundtrack rights and confusion over who owns the copyright. I doubt either applies to these WB shows. I do know WB is one of the most protective of its library from YouTube appearances.
77 SUNSET STRIP (more than the others) was known for episodes that took chances. Roger Smith wrote and starred in one where there was virtually no dialog. Unlike Mike, I want to see the final season again. Jack Webb took over the series and turned it into a dark noir series unlike any TV had seen before. I liked the five-part episode FIVE and wish I could see the rest of the sixth season, especially the episode with Elizabeth Montgomery and the episodes written by Robert C. Dennis or Robert Leslie Bellem.
Steve, check Me-TV website for locations. Sadly, not all stations carry the entire line-up. Mine uses the classic TV to draw viewers to its religious programs.
June 30th, 2017 at 6:41 pm
Hello again, Michael:
Clarifying, I most certainly do want to see Season 6, “5” in particular; I especially want another look at the opening titles of “5”, with its alphabetical “curtain call” of all those guest stars (the only time, I think, that Leonid Kinskey was so billed).
For the record, all but the last one of Robert C. Dennis’s 77SS episodes were under the old administration; they’ll be turning up on MeTV in the next few weeks. Most of them seem to feature Roger Smith.
June 30th, 2017 at 8:19 pm
I happen to be a night owl, so I’ve been a pretty regular viewer of the series at 3 a.m. after I discovered it on MeTV several weeks ago. I missed out on the first two seasons and part of the third; hopefully MeTV will run those again. According to the channel’s website, the show’s 6th (half) season is also on the schedule.
Watching recent episodes reminded me of one quirk of shows from that era: when a regular cast member suddenly disappears from a series, but no mention is made that they were ever on the show in the first place. This happened when Richard Long as Rex Randolph vanishes when he’s replaced by Kookie as a member of the firm. Same thing happened on Fess Parker’s DANIEL BOONE when Veronica Cartwright as Boone’s daughter was dropped from the cast after the first couple of seasons. You’d think the producers would’ve insisted on giving the audience some explanation of what became of those characters…
June 30th, 2017 at 9:27 pm
There are music issues with 77 SUNSET STRIP holding up a full DVD release, meanwhile some of the best episodes are available in decent shape on YouTube.
A good place to begin is “Lovely Lady Pity Me,” loosely based on Huggins novel. It’s mostly about Bailey but Spenser comes in to help, and the plot is better than usual.
July 1st, 2017 at 12:25 am
I have looked at the list of cable channels available to me back in CT, and alas, MeTV is not among them.
And a quick search on YouTube brings up only short clips. I’ll look again later, but in general I don’t care to watch TV shows on my computer anyway. I’ll have to stock up on a few episodes here in L.A. for me to watch when I get back again.
July 1st, 2017 at 2:12 am
For 4. Mike and all who love great theme songs…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3X7J8hzJq3Y
Steve, I think MeTV is a digital channel as well. A cheap digital antenna might work.
July 1st, 2017 at 2:19 am
Just found this clip of a Roy Huggins interview about the creation of 77 SUNSET STRIP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j5xQAzOg5I
July 2nd, 2017 at 11:10 pm
Thanks for the link, Michael. I finally had a chance to watch the clip. Writing for TV sure was a tough business to be in, back then. Doubt if it’s gotten a whole lot better, but I hope so.
July 3rd, 2017 at 9:25 am
“Crystal Dart” is one of the weaker 77 episodes, and indeed not a good one to start with; it’s essentially a vehicle for Marilyn Maxwell, and little else. I’m a huge fan of the show (have seen almost all of the episodes from the first five seasons; don’t care for the dark and dreary sixth season), and would particularly recommend:
“The Silent Caper” (written by Roger Smith–the famous episode with no dialogue)
“Once Upon a Caper”–the hilarious so-called Rashomon episode, with each detective giving a contradictory and self-serving flashback version of the founding of the firm.
“Reserved for Mr. Bailey”–written by the talented Montgomery Pittman, a Twilight Zone-ish episode in which Efrem Zimbalist Jr. is the only actor to appear on screen.
“Mr. Bailey’s Honeymoon”–written by Smith and Pittman, a great mix of mystery and humor with an appealing turn by an adorable West Virginian actress named Evans Evans (?) and a fun villainous performance by William Windom.
“Mr. Goldilocks”–Smith and Pittman again, a suspenseful (with well-placed doses of humor) chase saga set in the Death Valley area.
“The Man Who Wasn’t There”–an involving and solidly-plotted mystery by Robert C. Dennis.
“Your Fortune for a Penny”–Robert Vaughn as a slippery master criminal, Robert C. Dennis doing writing duties again.
“The Inverness Cape Caper”–Jay Novello in a dual role as a murder victim and a hammy Shakespearian actor hired to impersonate the victim, Elisha Cook Jr. as a highly superstitious killer.
“The Parallel Caper”–A very cleverly constructed episode, in which Roger Smith and Edd Byrnes take two seemingly independent different cases which ultimately lead them to the same place.
“Dress Rehearsal”–essentially a classical fair-play whodunit, with all the clues and motives laid out in front of the viewer as the episode progresses.
There are many, many others worth seeing as well; the show had great variety, as others here have noted, and was definitely the best of the Warners detective shows.
July 3rd, 2017 at 11:49 am
Daniel Neyer, I would add the Roy Huggins episodes to the list. STRIP was easily the best of the WB buddy detectives of its time. But then HAWAIIAN EYE, BOURBON STREET BEAT and SURFSIDE 6 were pale copies.
July 3rd, 2017 at 1:07 pm
Actually, Huggins had almost nothing to do with 77 Sunset Strip, the TV show, aside from writing the show’s two pilots, “Girl on the Run” (a feature film) and “Anything for Money” (an episode of the Warner Brothers anthology show “Climax.”) Aside from that, his only other connections to the show were (a) one of his books was used as the basis of the first episode, “Lovely Lady, Pity Me,” (b) one of his Maverick scripts was remade as the Strip episode “The Perfect Setup,” and (c) the character name of Stu Bailey came from his novels. It’s due to (c) that he’s usually credited as the auteur of the show, even though he once stated that it really wasn’t his creation at all. Huggins was definitely an excellent writer, but other producers, writers, and directors deserve the credit for Strip–chief among them Roger Smith, Montgomery Pittman, Robert C. Dennis, George Waggner, Fenton Earnshaw, and Robert Douglas.
July 3rd, 2017 at 1:15 pm
I forgot to add: both Huggins-scripted pilots had almost nothing to do with the actual show, in tone or characterization: his Stu Bailey was a much more cynical and mercenary character than the good-natured and gentlemanly Bailey of the TV series, and the show’s other characters were nowhere to be found in the pilots. Huggins once explained how Jack Warner used the Stu Bailey name in “Girl on the Run” mainly to avoid having to give Huggins a creator royalty on the TV show. “Girl on the Run” was based on a novel that had been purchased by Warner Brothers, and was thus a “studio property.” Warner could adapt studio properties into television series without having to pay creator royalties; thus, the use of Bailey as the protagonist of 77 Sunset Strip, instead of a brand-new character. Warner did the exact same thing with Maverick (he used a novel previously purchased by the studio as the show’s pilot episode, and then claimed the whole series was adapted from a studio property), Cheyenne (which simply stole the title, nothing more, of a Warner Brothers feature from the late 1940s), and Sugarfoot (which stole its name from a Randolph Scott WB feature and its lead character from another WB feature starring Will Rogers Jr., “The Boy from Oklahoma.”).
July 3rd, 2017 at 2:39 pm
A few very meaty comments, Daniel. Thanks very much! Let me go back to #11, where you weighed in on this episode in particular. I was happy to read your assessment that it was one of the weaker ones, as that was my sense of it, too. As a showcase for Marilyn Maxwell, you’re right. It works a whole lot better.
July 3rd, 2017 at 3:57 pm
As long as we’re in credit-where-it’s-due mode, how about a bow for Howie Horwitz, who was 77 Sunset Strip‘s showrunner for the first five seasons?
(The term wasn’t in use then, but you know what I mean.)
Horwitz’s best-known credit was for producing Batman a few years later; compare the behind-the-camera credits on the two shows and you’ll find many of the same names.
Horwitz was also likely the one who made 77SS‘s longtime cop Byron Keith Mayor of Gotham City.
In my original comment, I mentioned that 77SS did a lot of custom jobs for guest stars.
My favorite (?) of these was “Publicity Brat”, written for the most obnoxious child actress of the time, Evelyn Rudie.
The erstwhile “Eloise” was paired off with Billie Burke (demobbed from Oz) in a brutal send-up of the kid-star process; nasty/funny all around.
77SS did a few Hollywood send-ups, usually for laughs; in one of them Louis Quinn’s Roscoe got a love interest in the person of his real-life wife, Christine Nelson.
Note to MeTV:
Put 77 Sunset Strip on in prime time ASAP.
Boy, do we need it now …
July 3rd, 2017 at 5:55 pm
Daniel, thanks for all the information. I especially look forward to using your list of recommendations.
I did know Huggins had no connection to the series other than be ripped off by WB. But I do still like the three episodes based on Huggins work – Girl on the Run, Lovely Lady Pity Me and Perfect Set Up.
I need to pull out my YouTube dubs and get back to watching. WB Archive occasionally would include some episodes but I don’t remember any impressed me. But when you are doing 34 or more episodes a year there will be great episodes and the not so great.
One of my favorite TV writers is Robert C. Dennis but surprisingly I have yet to watch any of his episodes. I need to fix that soon.
July 3rd, 2017 at 6:05 pm
In what way was Huggins ripped off? He sold a property, but did not create the subsequent series. Seems good to me.
July 3rd, 2017 at 6:29 pm
Mike Doran,
I’d also like to see MeTV run 77 SUNSET STRIP in prime time. Actually, I wouldn’t mind a prime time schedule with more variety; classic detective and Western series along with the sitcoms that now predominate. Of course, most of those classic shows are in b&w, which programmers are afraid will turn off viewers, so the shows are generally relegated to morning, afternoon, or late-late time slots.
July 3rd, 2017 at 6:53 pm
Yes, I should have mentioned Howie Horwitz as another one of the people behind Strip’s success; interestingly, he was spoofed in one of the episodes, “The Canine Caper,” which features a TV producer character named Harry Orwitt. Horwitz sadly met a premature and bizarre end in real life, stepping off a cliff in a national park while backing up to take a picture of his girlfriend.
As for Huggins, he tells the full story (I misremembered it slightly) of how Jack Warner successfully maneuvered to avoid giving him creator’s royalties on Strip; whether you call it a rip-off on WB’s part or not, here’s his story (from a Television Chronicle article on 77 Sunset Strip). The quote picks up after Huggins has been talking about how “Anything for Money” ran on “Conflict:”
“So I said, ‘Let’s do a one-hour private eye series, 77 Sunset Strip, and they said, ‘Great. Let’s come up with a pilot. I came up with Girl on the Run…The first move that indicated to me that something was afoot was a memo from Bill Orr [WB’s head television producer] saying, ‘Can you lengthen this screenplay so that it can be made into a 90-minute movie? Because if we don’t sell it, we may want to release it as a movie…Then…they started no longer referring to it as 77 Sunset Strip. It suddenly began to be referred to as Girl on the Run…a movie. Then they called and said ‘Change the hero’s name to Stuart Bailey.’ And then I knew something was really afoot. Because the name of the hero in Anything for Money was Stuart Bailey…The reason for all the problems about getting the credit for creating something was because J.L. Warner simply looked at Bill Orr and said, ‘Bill, don’t ever get yourself into a situation where we have to pay one of those writers a royalty’…Now, they didn’t owe me a royalty because I had written a movie, which they owned, and now they had the right to make a television show out of it.”
Returning to 77 Sunset Strip, other highly recommended episodes include:
“The Common Denominator”–a suspenseful serial-killer mystery cowritten by Roger Smith and Montgomery Pittman.
“Man in the Crowd”–Roger Smith is hunted by a mysterious would-be assassin, in another Smith and Pittman episode that owes something to Geoffrey Household’s novel “Watcher in the Shadows.”
“The Rice Estate,” a nicely turned haunted-house mystery and a good little romance rolled into one; Efrem Zimbalist Jr. has one of his most interesting love interests in the person of Peggy McCay’s eccentric, reclusive widow, the owner of the titular estate.
“The 6 out of 8 Caper”–a mild-mannered computer programmer seemingly has created a system for picking winning horses, and multiple people are after his secret; this episode is an especially good showcase for Louis Quinn’s Roscoe.
“Ghost of a Memory”–a terrific spooky episode that anticipates the whole “Elvis sightings” craze: a dead pop star apparently returns from the grave, haunting his late wife and inspiring his teenage fans to create a sort of quasi-cult.
“Terror in Silence”–a deaf librarian stumbles onto a clever heist planned by a crafty accountant (Strother Martin); features a nicely scary and suspenseful final chase through the library.
“The Baker Street Caper”–Efrem Zimbalist Jr. matches wits with a genuine, Edgar-Wallace-style Master Criminal (Andrew Duggan) in London.
“Switchburg”–Efrem Zimbalist Jr. investigates strange goings-on in a near-ghost-town in another sharp Montgomery Pittman script.
“The Office Caper”–yet another Pittman episode, and a memorably offbeat one, with the action taking place entirely from the point of view of a quarter of professional killers (Bruce “Frank Nitti” Gordon, Robert McQueeney, Richard Jaeckel, and Pittman’s steppdaughter Sherry Jackson) who have been hired to eliminate Efrem Zimbalist Jr.’s character.
“The Double Death of Benny Markham”–Roger Smith helps an English burglar track down the spies who are responsible for subjecting the burglar to a lethal dose of radiation; Walter Burke is great as the doomed client.
July 3rd, 2017 at 9:22 pm
18. Barry, the clip of Huggins explaining his problem with WB is up in my post at #9.
It was more than just 77 SUNSET STRIP. It includes Warners behavior after Huggins created COLT 45 and MAVERICK.
This was a period when the major studios such as Warner Brothers saw TV as beneath them. When Disney started to make a fortune from TV, not only from advertisers but as a way to promote product such as Disneyland the studios held their nose and jumped in. As Huggins said, Warner had declared he would never pay a creator any royalty. It took awhile before some studios would even have a credit for created by.
It must also be said Huggins was not the most liked person in Hollywood. He was one who named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee. He had a reputation of a credit grabber such as with THE ROCKFORD FILES. James Garner hated Huggins.
But it was common for writers and actors to get screwed by creative accounting that Hollywood is famous for. In the sixties, Universal refused to pay the series producer for a script he had wrote saying it was part of what they pay the producer. Some like Larry Cohen of BLUE LIGHT would give the writing credit to friends so they could get the money and the valuable Writers union points to get into the Union.
Huggins created another writer named John Thomas James. Both Huggins and his alter-ego John Thomas James had their own union card. I think there is only a handful of episodes of ALIAS SMITH AND JONES that the story is not credited to John Thomas James.
The long-winded point I am trying to make is – like Huggins says in the clip – it was all a game. The studios in the process of losing its power and the talent fighting for whatever they could get.
July 6th, 2017 at 10:16 am
Maybe this is the wind-up:
I’ve just spent several days trying (without success) to find my copies of Television Chronicles (they’re here somewhere, I just know it).
One of the late issues has an extended piece on 77 Sunset Strip, along with an interview with Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
It’s an eminently quotable interview; I wish I had it at hand right now.
Since I don’t, what follows is an approximation of a very wise observation made by Mr. Zimbalist:
… If a series does ten really good episodes in a season, and the rest mediocre to poor, that series will succeed.
Somebody ought to put that in a needlepoint sampler and post it at the top …
In re 77SS, the batting average is obviously a high one; a full-series release will bear this out.
Elsewhere in the same interview, Zimbalist names Monty Pittman (I’m quoting his familiarity with his good friend) as the genius of 77 Sunset Strip, which most of us will sign off on.
Now it’s my turn to sign off (and go looking for those oedipusrexing magazines …).
September 18th, 2017 at 1:01 am
9/18/17, after midnight:
MeTV has gotten around to the infamous sixth season of 77 Sunset Strip.
This past Friday/early Saturday, MeTV ran “White Lie”, the second aired episode, with Elizabeth Montgomery. They did this so they could devote this calendar week to “5”, the all-star kickoff to 77SS 2.0.
Of course I’ll be DVRing the whole thing, saving it up for a weekend binge down the line; I especially want to see that opening billboard with all the guest stars doing a pre-curtain call at each episode’s start, which will doubtless be an upgrade over my crappy VHS bootleg that I’ve had all these years.
Now to see how many of you check back on past postings …
September 18th, 2017 at 8:44 am
Thanks for the warning Mike and thanks for this blog’s RSS feed for comments.
September 18th, 2017 at 11:33 am
Hello RSS!
… and welcome to Beating It To Death!:
Last week I got to see the final episode of Season 5, “Never To Have Loved” – which, as it happens, was apparently the first 77SS to be EPed by Jack Webb and PDed by Bill Conrad.
The show was somewhat more serious than some recent 77SSs had been: Kookie and Roscoe were present, but I noticed that the infamous nickname seemed to be in the process of being phased out.
All academic, of course: Season 6 jumped right in to the New Order, with no explanation for the sudden change in Stu Bailey’s station.
“White Lie” was (my opinion) a pretty good little show – I hadn’t seen it in first run (my family gave up on 77SS one segment into “5”).
Looking back, I think I have an idea what happened:
77SS2.0 should not have aired at 7:30/6:30 Central time; better at a later hour, like the one the old show had had the previous season, 9:30/8:30 Central.
That later spot was given to The Fight Of The Week, which had to be moved from its old Saturday spot to make room for Jerry Lewis’s two-hour disaster.
So, you see, the whole thing was Jerry’s fault!
Mystery Solved!
IMDb has almost no info about the season 6 Strips, so their content will come as a total surprise to me – and to anyone else who watches, comes to that.
Think of it – a brand-new series, fifty-three years after the fact!
Television- it’s Fun!
It’s History!
It’s America!
September 18th, 2017 at 12:24 pm
Alas I am back in CT where MeTV is only a rumor. When we were first discussing the show I looked for an outlet selling collector copies, and yes, I found one. I passed on them at the time, but I bookmarked the page. I hope they’re still there!
September 21st, 2017 at 4:23 am
Shortly after I mentioned my RSS on the comments here Apple did an update and wiped the RSS off my Mac. No doubt it will someday return but until then I am deaf to old comments (except here).
As for 5. I really enjoy the theme but hated everything else. Every character is one- dimensional cliche from the fat man villain of Maltese Falcon to the blonde the hero falls for. The writing is terrible with a wandering plot and a padded story that has no flow to hook us. There is no reason – be it the mystery or the characters – to make us care or even interested. The story likes its surprise twist at the end of the episodes but nothing that is not predictable for anyone who has watched mysteries since 1920s. The writer Harry Essex shoves in emotional and social issues with the subtilty of a sledge hammer. The production values are embarrassing especially the laughable street scenes. Everyone tries too hard to be stylish. William Conrad’s direction avoids the invention of editing to the point of some strange shots of the back of the head of characters in the foreground. The soundtrack at times has been added by someone who has watched WEST SIDE STORY too many times.
Top it off ME-TV is worse than You-Tube. Sound keeps vanishing and with it lines of dialog. Scenes seemed clipped and the endless promo breaks make this even harder to watch.
October 15th, 2017 at 2:58 pm
This just might be the end:
As of last week, MeTV completed the 6th season of 77 Sunset Strip, which means it is no longer “lost”.
I suppose someone will be writing up the whole season for you, someone far more knowledgeable than I.
That said, I’d like to talk about “The Target”, which was third from last to run on ABC (the rerun season went back to the Version Originale).
“The Target” was about an ex-reporter (Keith Andes), just out of prison on a bum rap, who gets shot at just as he arrives home.
It seems that Andes has been writing The Book that will blow the lid off some racketeers old and older; these make up Stu Bailey’s suspect pool.
On a hunch, I held off watching this one until the end, after seeing all the others – the majority of which, in my view, could have easily been done on the old show in the old style.
I’m talking about the plots; the main difference between old-style and new-style was amputating Efrem Zimbalist’s manners; the suave, well-spoken Bailey of old-style became a snarling wiseacre who was grubbing for a buck, insulting everybody along the way.
This approach didn’t last long; as season 6 progressed, Bailey became less gratuitously nasty (He’d suddenly developed a ferocious hatred for police, which would have definitely shocked Lt. Roy Gilmore; this was the first characteristic of nuBailey to go).
About midway through the cycle, Bailey’s unseen stenographer Hannah suddenly became seen, in the person of the above-average-looking Joan Staley; her presence turned Old Stu into a major flirt (and don’t think that certain recent headlines about a Major Hollywood Figure didn’t occur to me while I was watching).
I might also mention that the 77SS opening titles were changed about the same time; Zimbalist’s mournful ascent within the Bradbury Building gave way to a long tracking shot of Old Stu walking the Mean Streets at night.
I digress; back to “The Target”.
I mentioned above that I saved watching this to last.
Beforehand, I learned something about it that led me to believe that “The Target” was intended to be the Final Episode of 77.
It was the casting of three of the to-be-exposed mob types:
Bill Conrad (Producer) as a semi-crooked fight promoter.
Lawrence Dobkin (Director) as a publisher who started out in nudie books.
Tony Barrett (Writer) as a retired procurer.
… And as a Bonus for the dweebs in the crowd:
James Lydon (Associate Producer) as a convict who starts Stu Bailey out in his investigation.
About this last:
During this time, one of our local Chicago stations was running a well-known series of comedy features from the ’40s, which my family watched faithfully every Saturday afternoon.
We’d stopped watching 77 by this point, but now I wish we hadn’t.
Thinking back, my brother, sisters, and I migt have gotten a charge out of our Dad telling us all:
“Look at that, guys – Henry Aldrich is in the clink!”
Anyhow, this sort-of group appearance by the 77 Sunset Strip front office seems to be to be a grand gesture of a kind from Old Hollywood Pros who knew the end was near and decided to have a little fun on the way out.
* … unless, of course, I’m wrong …*
July 13th, 2018 at 12:51 am
One More Last Gasp:
BearManor has just published a biography of William Conrad, wherein you will learn much of this gentleman’s storied careers in all media.
The reorganization of 77 Sunset Strip occupies part of one chapter covering the ’60s, when Conrad was staying behind the cameras.
As noted above, Conrad directed the Season 5 finale, which MeTV ran a couple of weeks ago.
It was a Hollywood story; Conrad gave himself a cameo as an AD with clapperboard, setting up a scene-within-a-scene.
When Jack Webb and Conrad took over full-time for Season 6, their first decision was to scrap the 77SS format in toto and start from scratch.
And Conrad’s own first decision was to fire Edd Byrnes – personally.
Quote from Conrad:
I had the pleasure of firing the little prick … He annoyed me no end.
(Some details in the book.)
… and I guess this is really the end of the 77 Sunset Saga.
( … unless somebody else has something …)
July 13th, 2018 at 6:58 pm
More inside details. I love it! Thanks, Mike.
July 14th, 2018 at 11:40 am
Belatedly, it occurs to me that my plug was incomplete:
WILLIAM CONRAD: A Life And Career
by Charles Tranberg
BearManor Media (2018), available from the publisher or on Amazon.
… and now, maybe this is The End …
September 1st, 2020 at 2:23 am
What happens when I’m up late at night with nothing to do:
I’m looking over the lists of old 77 Sunset Strip shows …
… and I notice “Terror In Silence” about the deaf-mute girl who gets trapped in the library by Strother Martin …
Did you notice that the library set was the one that Warner Bros. built for The Music Man a year or so before?
The Warner Brothers certainly never let anything go to waste …
May 10th, 2022 at 10:40 pm
Optimuum dropped MeTV+ in favor of another channel. MeTV+ was running 77 Sunset Strip and 5 other Warner Bros TV shows.