I would love to find a copy of this show on DVD or VHS. I think it is interesting that a drama series featuring a quality cast of Fonda, Janet Blair, Ron Howard and Charles McGraw would simply disappear without a trace. I have looked far and wide for this program and even collectors of vintage television programs don't have it. I agree with the previous comment about TVLand or another network bringing the 24 reruns back to television or DVD. Since this program was on the air before VHS and there never seemed to have been reruns, "The Smith Family" may be a forever,lost gem of episodic television. Perhaps the estate of the late Don Fedderson or ABC will locate some old film cans and reintroduce the public to a 'lost' television series that featured major stars and was a unique concept in its time.
Reviews
9 Reviews
The Yearling
(1946)
Jacqueline White originally cast in Jane Wyman role
22 June 2006
Jacqueline White was cast as the wife opposite Gregory Peck and went with the company on location to Florida. Shortly after arriving, Miss White received word that her father unexpectedly died and she immediately left for Los Angeles to be with her family. While at home and bereaved, she was heartlessly notified by M.G.M. that Jane Wyman was now available and was cast into the role opposite Peck. She was no longer needed in Florida. This unfortunate turn of events cost Jacqueline White, a fine and very underrated actress, what would have been a triumphant entry into "A" pictures while under contract to Metro.
This poignant story was related to me by Jacqueline White Anderson while in Palm Springs this year and is 100% true. Jackie White is remains visible in some of "The Yearling' footage i.e the long shots that show her working in the field by the house in Florida.
This poignant story was related to me by Jacqueline White Anderson while in Palm Springs this year and is 100% true. Jackie White is remains visible in some of "The Yearling' footage i.e the long shots that show her working in the field by the house in Florida.
Jagged Edge
(1985)
Dumb and Dumber
30 May 2006
I just watched this turkey on cable television. Contrived plot with some of the most hackneyed court room scenes this side of "Leave her to Heaven". The story is bad enough, but the script and acting are so absurd that by the time the killer is revealed at the end of the film I no longer cared. Totally unrealistic nonsense. Glenn Close as a lawyer whose well-being is based on her client's innocence on which she swings back and forth like a metronome during entire film. Peter Coyote plays the most incompetent D.A. on celluloid, and his horse's behind of an assistant who can only make dumb faces when things fall apart in court is just a terrible, terrible actor.
Just awful. Go watch a rerun of Perry Mason instead.
Just awful. Go watch a rerun of Perry Mason instead.
Secret Service Investigator
(1948)
Above-average noir programmer
26 May 2006
Warning: Spoilers
Lloyd Bridges plays a flying ace war hero who gets sucked into a counterfeiting scheme by opposing gangs of crooks. Bridges is used as a decoy by the Feds to play both gangs off against one another over a hunt for counterfeiting plates.
Fast paced programmer moves swiftly featuring pithy dialogue and about five different interior sets. "Secret Service Investigator" is at its best when flash-bulb eyed George Zucco is purring threats while Jack Overman and Jack Kellogg lay the muscle on Bridges. In fact, Bridges spends a majority of time getting pistol whipped, sapped or slapped until the crooks are wrapped up as they are in the midst of double-crossing one another and the real Feds tie them up
Weakest moment is an insipid sequence with Bridges trying to court Lynne Roberts by telling her son, Tommy Ivo, a thoroughly inane war story: the kid doesn't buy it and neither do we. Production values are equivalent to a luncheon car ride through the McDonald's drive-thru window, but who cares.
Fast paced programmer moves swiftly featuring pithy dialogue and about five different interior sets. "Secret Service Investigator" is at its best when flash-bulb eyed George Zucco is purring threats while Jack Overman and Jack Kellogg lay the muscle on Bridges. In fact, Bridges spends a majority of time getting pistol whipped, sapped or slapped until the crooks are wrapped up as they are in the midst of double-crossing one another and the real Feds tie them up
Weakest moment is an insipid sequence with Bridges trying to court Lynne Roberts by telling her son, Tommy Ivo, a thoroughly inane war story: the kid doesn't buy it and neither do we. Production values are equivalent to a luncheon car ride through the McDonald's drive-thru window, but who cares.
Hell on Devil's Island
(1957)
Reliable actors try to overcome dirt cheap budget
7 May 2006
"Listen, you poisoned a couple of wives and I cracked some Foreign Legion skulls, we belong here... or someplace like it." So says Devil's Island prisoner Rex Ingram to his buddy Lou Adler in a Cayenne saloon in "Hell on Devil's Island" This low budget effort has an interesting story about a crusading journalist (Helmut Dantine) who is trapped at the French penal colony and combines with an honest Governor (Robert Cornthwaite) to overcome a brutal forced labor racket. The heavies are led by a whip-wielding William Talman who snarls his way through his last feature appearance before making his mark as D.A. Hamilton Burger in the Perry Mason television show.
An ensemble of veteran performers tries hard and the script, despite a few off-center laughs, really isn't that bad. The picture is ultimately betrayed by a rock-bottom budget laden with cheap-looking television interiors and an excessive number of two-shot,close-ups of the actors. The exterior 'jungle' scenes strongly resemble the old Republic lot across the street from O'Brien's Bar and the 76 station on Ventura Blvd in Studio City or Topanga Canyon before the strip malls and tract houses completely took over. One sequence was filmed in the caves by Griffith Park.
Imagine a movie about Devil's Island that possesses the expansive cinematography of a Jack Webb helmed television episode and you have a pretty good overview of this picture.
Not too bad if you don't take it seriously.
An ensemble of veteran performers tries hard and the script, despite a few off-center laughs, really isn't that bad. The picture is ultimately betrayed by a rock-bottom budget laden with cheap-looking television interiors and an excessive number of two-shot,close-ups of the actors. The exterior 'jungle' scenes strongly resemble the old Republic lot across the street from O'Brien's Bar and the 76 station on Ventura Blvd in Studio City or Topanga Canyon before the strip malls and tract houses completely took over. One sequence was filmed in the caves by Griffith Park.
Imagine a movie about Devil's Island that possesses the expansive cinematography of a Jack Webb helmed television episode and you have a pretty good overview of this picture.
Not too bad if you don't take it seriously.
The Cruel Tower
(1956)
Riotiously campy soap opera adventure
13 March 2006
Warning: Spoilers
A group of steeplejacks led by Charlie McGraw bounce around in a trailer with statuesque Mari Blanchard and fight over women, booze and the danger of their profession.
This film is so over the top with corny dialogue and clichéd situations that you have to love it. Only McGraw at 5'10' could credibly play a character named 'Stretch'. Blanchard, whose character is aptly named, 'The Babe', evidently digs men risking their lives while hanging off of water towers and vying for her attentions. Add in a witches brew of jealousy, adultery, drunkenness and attempted murder along with Steve Brodie, Alan Hale Jr. and the usual suspects and you have one of the classic 1950's schlock dramas courtesy of that eminent low budget helmsman of "B" programmers and serials, Lew Landers. The producer, Lindsley Parsons Sr. spent his most of his long career at Monogram and then Allied Artists cranking out pictures of this quality and production value.
McGraw is at his best: double-crossing, mashing a cigarette out on his hand, drinking and fighting.
The musical score for "The Cruel Tower" has to be a classic of cornball overkill. The soundtrack trumpets the same, annoying signature theme every time an ominous water tower looms into the camera frame.
Lovers of 1950's films, Charlie McGraw and camp classics shouldn't miss this one.
This film is so over the top with corny dialogue and clichéd situations that you have to love it. Only McGraw at 5'10' could credibly play a character named 'Stretch'. Blanchard, whose character is aptly named, 'The Babe', evidently digs men risking their lives while hanging off of water towers and vying for her attentions. Add in a witches brew of jealousy, adultery, drunkenness and attempted murder along with Steve Brodie, Alan Hale Jr. and the usual suspects and you have one of the classic 1950's schlock dramas courtesy of that eminent low budget helmsman of "B" programmers and serials, Lew Landers. The producer, Lindsley Parsons Sr. spent his most of his long career at Monogram and then Allied Artists cranking out pictures of this quality and production value.
McGraw is at his best: double-crossing, mashing a cigarette out on his hand, drinking and fighting.
The musical score for "The Cruel Tower" has to be a classic of cornball overkill. The soundtrack trumpets the same, annoying signature theme every time an ominous water tower looms into the camera frame.
Lovers of 1950's films, Charlie McGraw and camp classics shouldn't miss this one.
The Boss
(1956)
Neatly based on 1930's Kansas City, Missouri
15 February 2006
Warning: Spoilers
While Dalton Trumbo's political and professional travails certainly affected his outlook, I believe he looked more to conventional history in scripting "The Boss".
Trumbo certainly used the corrupt Democratic political machine of Tom Pendergast as the template for his script. Small wonder. The Pendergast machine was one of the most enduring municipal fiefs of the mid-twentieth century.
The crook that Payne is forced to make deals with in "The Boss" appears to be based on the real-life overlord of Kansas City prohibition-era crime, Johnny Lazia. The gunfight sequence at the train station is directly drawn from the famous 'Kansas City Massacre' of 1933 when 'Pretty Boy' Floyd, Adam Richetti and Verne Miller mowed down several F.B.I. agents and also killed the crook they were trying to rescue, Frank 'Jelly' Nash.
Another interesting parallel between the film and actual history is that Harry S. Truman was sponsored by Tom Pendergast and managed to keep himself personally clean and advance his political career while remaining loyal to the Machine. Truman is portrayed down to his glasses in "The Boss" by Joe Flynn, subsequently known to many as "Captain Binghamton in "McHale's Navy".
One little known historical fact that was left out is that Truman's first official act upon becoming President after F.D.R. died in 1945 was to fire the U.S. Attorney for Missouri who successfully prosecuted Tom Pendergast for tax evasion and sent him to prison in 1939.
Truman was loyal to Pendergast to the very end.
Trumbo certainly used the corrupt Democratic political machine of Tom Pendergast as the template for his script. Small wonder. The Pendergast machine was one of the most enduring municipal fiefs of the mid-twentieth century.
The crook that Payne is forced to make deals with in "The Boss" appears to be based on the real-life overlord of Kansas City prohibition-era crime, Johnny Lazia. The gunfight sequence at the train station is directly drawn from the famous 'Kansas City Massacre' of 1933 when 'Pretty Boy' Floyd, Adam Richetti and Verne Miller mowed down several F.B.I. agents and also killed the crook they were trying to rescue, Frank 'Jelly' Nash.
Another interesting parallel between the film and actual history is that Harry S. Truman was sponsored by Tom Pendergast and managed to keep himself personally clean and advance his political career while remaining loyal to the Machine. Truman is portrayed down to his glasses in "The Boss" by Joe Flynn, subsequently known to many as "Captain Binghamton in "McHale's Navy".
One little known historical fact that was left out is that Truman's first official act upon becoming President after F.D.R. died in 1945 was to fire the U.S. Attorney for Missouri who successfully prosecuted Tom Pendergast for tax evasion and sent him to prison in 1939.
Truman was loyal to Pendergast to the very end.
Double Crossbones
(1951)
A rarely seen, oddball, 'Pirate' musical comedy
3 February 2006
A very strange movie featuring Donald O'Connor as a pirate-by-mistake who sings, dances and farces his way out of trouble to win the hand of comely Helena Carter. Notable for an outstanding supporting cast of players including Charles McGraw, Hope Emerson- a fearsomely funny Amazonian female pirate- Will Geer, a young Jim Arness and many other familiar faces in glorious Technicolor.
I am intensely curious who came up with the idea for this film and successfully got it funded and made by Universal-International. Whoever contrived and made the pitch could have sold the Brooklyn Bridge several times over.
An odd attempt that doesn't work due to an over talky, gimmicky script that simply isn't very funny. Director Charles Barton had better luck with Abbott and Costello. Handsome production design and earnest performances just don't click, but how can one resist Charlie McGraw and Hope Emerson in pirate mufti toasting their collective health and prosperity?!
I am intensely curious who came up with the idea for this film and successfully got it funded and made by Universal-International. Whoever contrived and made the pitch could have sold the Brooklyn Bridge several times over.
An odd attempt that doesn't work due to an over talky, gimmicky script that simply isn't very funny. Director Charles Barton had better luck with Abbott and Costello. Handsome production design and earnest performances just don't click, but how can one resist Charlie McGraw and Hope Emerson in pirate mufti toasting their collective health and prosperity?!
The Threat
(1949)
Effective "B" film that established Charles McGraw
3 January 2006
"The Threat" is an effective "B" film noir that is kind of a junior league "White Heat" with Charles McGraw starring as an escaped killer seeking vengeance on those who sent him up. The storyline is relatively clever and the threadbare production values are easily overlooked due to the earnest acting and fast pace.
McGraw was so evilly convincing as the heavy that RKO subsequently signed him to a seven-year contract and starred him in "Armored Car Robbery", "Roadblock" and "The Narrow Margin". When you consider that this picture was shot in under three weeks with a total budget of $221,000, it is quite an achievement for director Felix Feist.
One doesn't have to be 8 years old to appreciate economical film making that rises above the typical RKO "B" film sausage grinding of the time.
McGraw was so evilly convincing as the heavy that RKO subsequently signed him to a seven-year contract and starred him in "Armored Car Robbery", "Roadblock" and "The Narrow Margin". When you consider that this picture was shot in under three weeks with a total budget of $221,000, it is quite an achievement for director Felix Feist.
One doesn't have to be 8 years old to appreciate economical film making that rises above the typical RKO "B" film sausage grinding of the time.
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