RIP: Lalo Schifrin

There aren't many composers working in film today whose credits date back to the 1960s - and now there's one fewer. Argentinian composer Lalo Schifrin passed away last week, aged 93.

Lalo Schifrin composed the scores for a number of Steve McQueen's movies - including the phenomenal music in Bullitt (1968). But the whole reason I know his name - and I'm sure the same is true for many - is that he composed the original television score for Mission: Impossible.

He composed a few other television scores like Mannix, but that supremely cool Mission: Impossible theme tune was something special and it's proven resilient thanks to the feature films, ensuring Schirfin has a legacy; he will be remembered.

Rest in peace, Mr. Schifrin.

Radio Recap: Night Watch

Night Watch was a true-life crime series heard on CBS from April 5, 1954 to April 21, 1955. Night Watch was perhaps the obvious culmination of the 1950s interest in greater realism in police/crime programming that Dragnet helped usher in. Rather than trying to find a new angle on police drama (such as 21st Precinct, the Line-Up) Night Watch went for documentary-style realism.

Night Watch was hosted by police reporter Donn Reed. Each episode was a carefully-edited compilation of events that happened while Reed rode alongside detective Ron Perkins of the Culver City, California police. Each episode would conclude with a summation from W. H. Hildebrand, the chief of police. Reed would provide narration during the program to describe things that weren't apparent in his recording or to bridge from one scenario to the next.

Dragnet had proved there was so much interest in learning about authentic police work that even the mundane details could find an audience. Night Watch was a little sensationalistic (the first episode concerns a nude prowler!) but a lot of it is run-of-the-mill. My own brother has gone on many ride alongs with his local police and I was reminded of his stories when listening to Night Watch - such as when Perkins arrives at a bar in answer to a complaint only to find the situation resolved by the time he arrives.

There are plenty of domestic disputes, such as parents quarrelling with their teenaged children or wives and husbands arguing. Perkins seemed to see himself as a calm, rational man who could reason with people's better natures. Certainly while being recorded on Night Watch you can hear him trying to de-escalate arguments, even when abuse was being hurled at him by one of the parties. He does come across as dangerously naive in some cases, as when he took a husband's side after the wife complained of abuse. It reminded me of a joke Christopher Titus told about the LAPD, that they would tell quarrelling couples to figure out between themselves because "we don't want to have to come back here; only, then they would have to come back because the couple had figured it out, and now one of them was dead."

Reed himself can be a bit annoying; his narrations try too hard to tell you, the listener, how you should think or feel about what he'd recorded, such as when he chuckles loudly overtop of a recording of a drunken man.

Despite this qualms, Night Watch is probably one of the most interesting radio shows of its time; it was a show that could only have come into existence when the technology was ready for it. Although it's heavily-edited (notably to remove profanity, which you can hear in the show's outtakes) it's an opportunity to hear what normal people in the 1950s sounded like - albeit, normal people who were in the midst of stressful and dangerous situations. Night Watch is probably not everyone's cup of tea but I find it so unusual that I have to recommend it to OTR fans.

Here's a collection of Night Watch episodes on the Internet Archive.

Mark Gruenwald's birthday at the Marvel Appendix!

My friends at the Marvel Appendix are celebrating Mark Gruenwald's birthday today; he was the writer whose efforts behind projects such as the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe were the single greatest inspiration on what we fans have enjoyed writing on Marvel characters (and, of course, inspired my career as Marvel Comics freelancer from 2004-2012).

To celebrate, I've written up a few profiles on characters from DP7, my personal favourite work of Gruenwald's; the profiles are: Receptor, Naslund and Thrust.

All all new profiles celebrating Gruenwald's birthday can be seen at the top of the update page right here!

Radio Recap: The Line-Up

"We take you now behind the scenes of a police headquarters in a great American city. Where under the cold glaring lights will pass before us the innocent; the vagrant; the thief; the murderer. This is... the Line-Up!"

The Line-Up was a CBS police procedural drama that aired from July 6, 1950 to February 18, 1953. Having unwisely passed on Jack Webb's Dragnet, you can see the Line-Up as CBS' attempt to get on the bandwagon. The series was produced and directed by Elliott Lewis (who had himself acted on a few early episodes of Dragnet) and starred Bill Johnstone as Lt. Ben Guthrie; Wally Maher portrayed Sgt. Matt Grebb. After Maher passed away in 1951 the character of Sgt. Pete Karger was introduced and portrayed by various actors. The supporting cast was a treasure trove of terrific old-time radio talent, everyone from Joseph Kearns to William Conrad - even Dragnet's Raymond Burr, who played Pete Karger among other characters (in fact, it looks like Burr started appearing on the Line-Up a month after his last episode of Dragnet).

The police procedural shows who followed Dragnet's wake attempted to sound like that program and tended to emphasize certain elements of Dragnet - the naturalistic dialogue, the mundane details that go into police work. There was a real effort to transcend the likes of Calling All Cars and Gang Busters, which had previously set the standard for police programs. Of course, dialogue and details weren't enough to stand out - you also needed a gimmick, rather than imitate Dragnet whole cloth. For the Line-Up that gimmick was... the line-up.

Rather than the Calling All Cars-type of program where a crime would occur at the opening of the show, then depict the pursuit of the criminal by the law, the Line-Up would open after the crime had already occurred. The show would always begin in the police station as Sgt. Grebb introduced the line-up, usually closing with these words:

"These suspects are merely to get a natural tone of voice, so do not pay too much attention to their answers as they often lie; bring on the line."

A witness would then single out a member of the line-up and Lt. Guthrie would begin his investigation. From there, the show was a very typical old-time radio police procedural (usually the episodes would end with Grebb announcing another line-up for a different case). The line-up sequence gave the show a unique audio sound; it also helped that, like Dragnet, the investigations would unfold with the police and the listening audience at more-or-less the same level, following the trail of evidence to uncover the crime. As in Dragnet, the investigations would hit blank walls, suspects would prove to be innocent, unforseen complications would arise. In some episodes, even the line-up itself is fruitless and the detectives have to work harder to get a lead on a suspect. By the final season, the line-up became merely perfunctory; each episode would open with one but it became more typical for the line-up to be interrupted with Lt. Guthrie being called away and told to investigate another case.

Of course, with all the comparisons I've made to Dragnet you might well ask... why not listen to Dragnet instead? I'll admit Dragnet is the superior program but it's not a contest; if you've heard a lot of Dragnet and you like that show but want to hear something similar, I don't think I'm steering you wrong by suggesting the Line-Up. Bill Johnstone was one of radio's finest talents (he was, of course, the man who followed Orson Welles as the Shadow) and his voice is quite pleasant as the protagonist. I didn't hear any episodes of the Line-Up that really stood apart from the rest, but neither were there any episodes that I considered terrible radio. There's simply too much talent on display in the Line-Up for me to dismiss it, it's good radio drama.

The show's production values changed around 1952 and I'm not certain why; suddenly, the organ became the chief musical instrument and it started sounding a lot like Escape, even though the Line-Up acquired a sponsor in 1952 (Wrigley's chewing gum). The earlier years of the show have more varied musical cues than the final seasons.

The Old Time Radio Researchers have a YouTube playlist of 79 episodes from the Line-Up:

Radio Recap: The Eddie Bracken Show

The Eddie Bracken Show (also announced as the Eddie Bracken Story) was a situation comedy starring Eddie Bracken. It had a brief run on NBC from January-May of 1945, then another brief turn at CBS from September 1946-March 1947. Only six episodes are known to exist.

I'm a big fan of the work of writer-director Preston Sturges and he certainly gave Eddie Bracken his two best-remembered roles in the comedy films the Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943) and Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). Bracken's performances in both films as a nebbish, good-natured shmoe with a knack for nervous stuttering made for good comedy and radio was certainly a good place for anyone with a funny vocal mannerism. In fact, the Eddie Bracken Show brought along some other familiar voices from Sturges' films, with William Demarest and Alan Bridge present. Sturges himself was not involved, more's the pity.

The show featured Eddie Bracken as... Eddie Bracken. Once again he portrayed a nebbish shmoe, a good-natured guy who would get walked over by every other character in the drama; he was hopelessly in love with Connie, who would manipulate him to get whatever she needed; this would inevitably put him into conflict with Connie's father, Mr. Monahan; and Eddie was typically unaware that Barbara was really the right girl for him.

Appearing with Bracken were William Demarest as Mr. Monahan, Janet Waldo as Barbara, Ann Rutherford as Connie Monahan. Lots of popular radio voices were heard, including Cathy Lewis, Wally Maher and Tommy Cook. The series was written by Robert Riley Crutcher, produced by Mann Holmer and directed by Nat Wolff.

What went wrong with this show? Perhaps the situation comedy wasn't as easy to sell in 1946 as it would be a few years later; although the Life of Riley and the Aldrich Family (among others) showed the situation comedy was a popular form of entertainment, it wasn't yet codified as the staple it would eventually become on television.

Bracken went on to more radio comedy work, notably co-starring on the Sealtest Variety Theatre with Dorothy Lamour in 1949. He continued to perform 'til late in life but remains best-known for those two Preston Sturges films, where he's remembered at all.

You can hear the Old Time Radio Researchers' collection of 6 Eddie Bracken Show episodes at this link to their website.

Radio Recap: Richard Diamond, Private Detective

Richard Diamond, Private Detective was a terrific detective program starring Dick Powell as the titular detective. This series followed soon after Powell's turn as Richard Rogue in Rogue's Gallery. Richard Diamond was very much like Richard Rogue but even more so, he was much more like Powell himself; Powell sometimes indulged in song on Rogue's Gallery but in Richard Diamond, Private Detective it was more or less standard that Powell would sing at least one ditty at the close of his program.

It was heard on each of the big networks, principally NBC (1949-1950), then ABC (1951-1952) and finally CBS (1953); the CBS season seems to be mostly comprised of new versions of previously-used scripts. Although there are big gaps of missing episode in collections today, happily we have large numbers of episodes from each of the three network versions (especially rare to have so many of an ABC program). So, today we have a pretty good idea of what Richard Diamond, Private Detective was like throughout its history. Rexall was the show's longest-running sponsor, but it was also sponsored by Camels cigarettes while on ABC. It was also a TV show from 1957-1960, which Dick Powell served as producer for (but didn't star in).

Unlike Rogue's Gallery, there was a large supporting cast; there was Diamond's girlfriend Helen Asher (Virginia Gregg), a wealthy socialite who mostly exited on the fringes of her boyfriend's adventures, frequently telephoning him at the beginning of an episode and then romancing with him at the climax, where he'd serenade her; there was Helen's butler Francis (Wilms Herbert), whose role was to enter the room when Richard and Helen were kissing and become embarrassed; there was Captain Walt Levinson (Ed Begley, Arthur Q. Bryan and a few others), the friendly police official who was on good terms with Richard but was frequently exasperated by the situtions Rick got into; and finally there was Sgt. Otis (also Wilms Herbert), the dim-witted desk sergeant who tried unsuccessfully to outsmart Diamond.

Some episodes were written by John Michael Hayes, who was also writing for the Adventures of Sam Spade, a similarly light-hearted detective program. The series was also written and produced by Blake Edwards, who at that time was best-known for the game show Truth or Consequences. This was the start of a long career of writing and producing for Edwards that would eventually lead to the Pink Panther movies.

Despite the show's generally easy-going and humorous nature, there are quite a few episodes that play out as fairly serious noir and they're very good too. For example, there's the serial killer episode "The Man Who Hated Woman" (July 16, 1949), Diamond racing the clock while searching for the kidnapped Levinson in "the Kidnapped Policeman" (October 18, 1950) and the very clever "Cover-Up Murders" in which a madman announces his crimes to the police in advance (November 22, 1950).

Perhaps the best humorous episode is the one titled "the Singing Critic" (November 5, 1949) in which the long-running gag of Helen's neighbour complaining about Diamond's singing at the end of the episode (a gag that pointedly appeared at the end of the previous 2 week's show) leads to the neighbour hiring another private detective to ruin Diamond's voice; the rival detective is named "Pat Cossack," not only a spoof of Pat Novak, for Hire, but the actor portraying Pat does a very funny Jack Webb imitation!

Another interesting spoof of the private eye genre is the episode "The Ruby Idol Case" (December 3, 1949), which plays out like a typical private detective adventure for most of it's length; then Diamond reads a pulp magazine and suddenly the episode lurches into an increasingly over-the-top story (Diamond quips, "even the dialogue is bad!" at one point) until he finally wakes up to discover the 2nd half of the show was a dream brought on by reading a pulp!

Other good humourous episodes include the ghost story spoof "The House of Mystery Case" (December 10, 1949), a fourth-wall breaking episode where Dick Powell's wife June Allyson hires Diamond in "Mrs. X Can't Find Her Husband" (June 21, 1950), an attempt by Diamond and Levinson to solve a mystery while on vacation in "the Chapel Hill Case" (July 19, 1953) and a health club murder case in "the Wheat Germ Case" (August 9, 1953).

If the show has a drawback, it's that for a show with "private detective" in the title, it's a bit poor as a mystery drama. The emphasis on comedy is so strong and the characters so eccentric that I find it difficult to get drawn into any of the show's mysteries- I often feel very detached from the mystery, instead considering each scene as merely a set-up to some witty banter, not furthering the plot. And indeed, you can often listen to Richard Diamond, Private Detective as a comedy show; only those few great hard-boiled episodes I mentioned above really put plot ahead of comedy.

The Old Time Radio Researchers have a YouTube playlist of Richard Diamond, Private Detective.