Big Town

As an 8-year-old child living in Cleveland, Ohio, I owned a copy of this TV series' board game, about reporting for a big-city newspaper. I enjoyed playing it for several years in the late 1950s, and watched the half-hour show along with other series of the day like "Sea Hunt", "Highway Patrol", "Yancy Derringer", "Dotto" and especially "My Little Margie".

The enjoyment of these simple pleasures apparently had unexpected effects on my life, not obvious at the time, but reflecting on this well-made, simple drama show nearly 70 years later, I was surprised at the impact.

For one, I became a fan of Mark Stevens, and often over the years have considered him near the top of Film Noir heroes, hardly a popular opinion (what with Bogie, Mitchum and so many other icons granted that status). It must have been those formative years' exposure to his work that set me in motion.

But more surprisingly, 25 years after watching this relatively obscure show, yet reinforced by its board game play, I wrote a fan letter to the owner of Variety Newspaper, was invited to meet him in New York City, and was hired as a film reporter -changing my career at the time, where I had been the Internal Auditor of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. I relocated to NYC and the rest is, as we say, history.

I had contributed to a local underground newspaper back home but had no professional experience as a reporter -my avocation as a movie buff (attending 300 to 500 films a year) was what appealed to my new boss, Syd Silverman. I worked there from 1980 through 1993 as reporter, film critic and editor of the motion picture department.

So belatedly, thank you "BIg Town" for planting a seed in my subconsciousness, the power of television.