Mon 22 Feb 2021
A TV Episode Review: GOODYEAR THEATER “The Victim†(1958).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV Drama[17] Comments
GOODYEAR THEATER. “The Victim.†06 Jan 1958 (Season 1, Episode 8). Jack Lemmon, Doe Avedon, Lana Wood, Ross Elliott, John Eldredge, John Gallaudet. Writer: Marc Brandel. Director: Robert Florey. Currently available on YouTube here.
A minor, moody semi-crime thriller. A man who has recently lost his wife is on the verge of losing his daughter as well, leaving her in the custody of his sister while struggling to find meaning in life once again. He keeps making promises to her but can’t follow though, and when she asks when she can come back home so they can live together, all he can summon up are the vaguest of promises.
But then he finds himself being followed by two men, no matter where he goes. He has no idea why, and there’s nothing to take to the police. The mystery does give him some purpose in living, though, and although the plot gets really creaky at the end, all ends well.
Jack Lemmon, one of my favorite actors, plays the “everyman†almost perfectly, as he did throughout his career. Lana Wood was only twelve at time this was filmed, and unfortunately has little to do – nothing to indicate that she had a long career on TV and the movies ahead of her. The rest of cast are old pros in the business, and it shows.
February 22nd, 2021 at 1:04 am
One thing I admire about Jack Lemmon was his firm, everlasting sense of self. Not unlike many of the other greats of his day. Mitchum, Peck, Glenn Ford; all of these guys seemed to enjoy a ferocious hold on who-they-were and what they-were-about. They survived –even thrived –in an oddball profession which is insidious in making men doubt themselves. All of them started out with bland ‘everyman’ roles which anyone could probably fill. But they banged ’em out, one-by-one, and moved on to the next; on up the ladder; without ever losing themselves in the rest of the other faces against whom they competed with for assignments. With perseverance and rigor …many of them wound up Oscar winners; enriching all of our lives.
February 22nd, 2021 at 1:32 am
I’ve been experiencing a serious disconnect right now because there’s a surge in people lately who –apparently –have never watched any black-and-white movies whatsoever. They can’t relate to anything which isn’t produced by the current media megalopolis which surrounds us. If it wasn’t created in the last two years, they return you a blank stare. That’s how rapid their flitting their attention-span is; that’s how overwhelming today’s marketing is.
Increasing numbers of our fellows don’t grasp the concept that a TV show they’ve just viewed, is merely a re-used plot, which has been done dozens of times before, on numerous other TV shows which came and went before they were even born. They fight like wildcats against this notion. As if: “nothing in black-and-white has any connection to anything today”.
As for me: it’s **mind-boggling** that I can be chatting with someone who does not know what I’m referring to, if I happen to mention “12 Angry Men” or ‘The Grapes of Wrath’. It’s bewildering to have to explain that these are not *current* HBO series. As if HBO is the only place that content ever emanates from.
More and more Americans simply cannot comprehend that current media products ever had any previous origin, presentation, or format. This is truly disturbing.
Why is this dangerous? Such narrow assumptions easily lead to political manipulation that Orwell envisioned.
February 22nd, 2021 at 10:56 am
Well said. You are, of course, preaching to the choir, I am sure, when it comes to readers of this blog, Lazy.
But I do have one confession to make. I cannot watch silent movies. I suppose intellectually I know I should, but whenever I think I might try again, I don’t.
February 22nd, 2021 at 8:12 am
March 1946 – January 1958. So Lana (born Svetlana Gurdin) Wood was actually 11 when this was done.
I guess I’d say Tom Hanks is closest to a Jack Lemmon figure today.
February 22nd, 2021 at 10:53 am
I can think of no one better, or even equivalent.
February 22nd, 2021 at 11:25 am
Steve — re Silent Films.
Try 3 Silent Classics from Josef Von Sternberg, a Criterion Collection with Underworld being if not the best, certainly most entertaining.
The Reginald Denny Collection, from Kino Lorber, when the star was an attractive young man reminiscent of Cary Grant.
The Lost World from Flicker Alley on both Blu ray and DVD. I have the two editions, and the blu looks great, but the DVD has been edited, to its storytelling advantage. I love them, but I am also an Eddie Malone fan.
Timothy’s Quest, same source as above, directed by Sidney Olcott from 1922. Just grand.
Many more, but anyone of these should get you started.
February 22nd, 2021 at 11:35 am
Good suggestions, Barry, especially THE LOST WORLD. Thanks!
February 22nd, 2021 at 2:12 pm
I once met Lana Wood. A few years ago she was one of the guests at the Nostalgia Convention organized by Martin Grams. I was walking by her table where she was signing things and she complimented my T-shirt which showed a cover of Jungle Stories. “What a great t-shirt!”, she exclaimed. My one second of fame…
Concerning Steve and silent films. It’s hopeless. I’ve been telling him for decades that there is such a thing as a good silent film but he is still holding the line and saying he can’t watch them.
February 22nd, 2021 at 2:25 pm
I never say never, Walker.
PS. I always knew you were famous, and we’ve known each other for a long time, but I never knew for what. Now I know.
February 22nd, 2021 at 4:42 pm
I’m a little surprised to see Lemmon doing television this late, he must have liked the script or had some tie to someone involved.
February 22nd, 2021 at 5:14 pm
Yes, you are right. I meant to check on that, but I forgot. He had already done MISTER ROBERTS in 1955, for example, so a thirty minute TV anthology show in 1958 is kind of surprising.
February 22nd, 2021 at 8:20 pm
Just watched this show.
It was really creepy. But had its moments.
It reminded me of avant-garde playwright Harold Pinter.
With meaningless menace oozing in from all sides.
I’ve loved silent movies since I was sixteen.
But have NO idea on how to interest other people in them.
You can see what I like in my year-by-year film list.
Everything up through 1928 is mainly silent.
http://mikegrost.com/zten.htm
February 22nd, 2021 at 8:34 pm
I think that either you love old silent movies, or you don’t. Not many people are in between.
February 22nd, 2021 at 8:22 pm
History Time:
In the ’57-’58 TV season, David Niven and Four Star sold NBC a revised version of its old anthology, to be called Alcoa/Goodyear Theater, to go in on Monday nights, after Iwenty-One.
It was a star wheel, rotating Niven (9 shows), Robert Ryan (9), Jack Lemmon (8), Jane Powell (7), Charles Boyer (3), with Barbara Stanwyck, Franchot Tone, and Lew Ayres filling in once each, to bring the season total to 39 shows.
The main promo push was for Ryan, Powell, and Lemmon; much of the buildup was for their episodes – dramas with Ryan, comedies with Lemmon, romances with Powell.
As noted above, this wasn’t strictly adhered to; each star got at least one or two shows out of their respective wheelhouses (as with Jack Lemmon’s show here).
Alcoa/Goodyear Theater, which carried the subtitle A Turn Of Fate (which was for a possible syndication afterlife that didn’t happen), only ran one season with the wheel format; the sponsors balked at the budget, and the next season the show was retooled into a standard (and less expensive) anthology – and so it went.
Anyway, that’s what Jack Lemmon was doing on a TV show in 1958 – and the overall experience was probably why he steered clear of the medium for many years thereafter.
February 22nd, 2021 at 8:35 pm
Mike
I always enjoy History Time. Now it all makes sense. Thanks!!
February 22nd, 2021 at 11:29 pm
Mike Doran —
Excellent and I had forgotten all about it. Just to confirm why and how these people appeared by Four Star, Louis Hayard did a guest spot on
Burke’s Law episode that happened to serve as the pilot for Honey West. He had been turning things, series and plays, not movies, down, so a few years later, when I came a along, I asked him why he did this thing. His reply:
‘Everyone was.’
February 23rd, 2021 at 4:39 am
You’d like the opinion – if not the films – of Aleksei German, who said what was wrong with films was that sound was invented a hundred years too soon and colour two hundred years too soo, Lazy Georgenby.