frontrowkid2002

My mom always watched Carol Burnette when she was on Monday nights...I caught up with the Eunice/ Mama's family on Youtube.... The humor was sardonic but after a while, the bickering got to me. I realize it was supposed to be funny and maybe even taken from Carol Burnette's personal life, but it was like Archie Bunker..After a while, it got to you...I watched the Eunice movie through the three acts and then we came to the funeral...Of course. Even with their mother gone and buried, the two sisters were not able to reconcile their differences after so many years. Eunice even blames Philip for not doing enough to help her in her family situation. Then comes the scene where Eunice realizes that her mother is now gone and she has to go on living her own life. She breaks down in true agony and even Philip has to say "Your mother is gone now...she can no longer influence your life...You have to make it your own." Ken Barry's dramatic outburst even brings applause from the audience. But even then, you cant help feeling sorry for Eunice because she feels she has lost her dreams forever.... Carol Burnette shows her dramatic side in this episode, creating antipathy for the character. She also played the mother of a soldier killed in friendly fire who has to reconcile herself to the fact that he is gone and apparently no one is at fault. That last segment is so powerful that I cannot bear to watch it, and have often caught it off in mid scene.

Both of these women did the voice of Mrs. Bates in the movie, "Psycho". Both had considerable radio training. Ms. Gregg played "Kitty" on the radio version of Gunsmoke and also Miss Wong on the radio version of Have Gun Will Travel. Ms. Nolan played a witch several times in television and even did Lady Macbeth in the movie version of Macbeth. Her husband was John McIntyre who played the sheriff in the movie, Psycho, and his wife was played by Lureen Tuttle, who played Effie, Sam Spade's secretary on radio. McIntyre had the classic line of asking John Gavin (Sam Loomis) who claimed Mrs. Bates was still alive. McIntyre told him that Mrs. Bates had died years before and if someone had seen her in the upstairs window, "then who was that woman buried out in Greenwood cemetery." That is when people might start getting suspicious of the outcome.

When Columbia's schlockmeister producer Sam Katzman brought the radio character of Jack Armstrong to the screen in 1947. the radio serial had been on the air for 14 years. In the late Forties, it had to share airtime with Sky King in a complete half hour version three times a week. Gone were the cliffhanging episodes which kept the kiddies on the end of their seats until the next day's resolution. Katzman's serials were based on radio and comic book characters whose name appeal would hopefully bring in the Saturday afternoon juvenile audience. Commercial tie-ins through publicity both in newspapers and in comic books told the kids that their favorite comic book/radio heroes were now on the screen. While Charles Flynn played a teenage Jack Armstrong on radio, the listening audience did not realize that he was a young man who just finished military service. John Hart however played a mature leading man who hadnt seen the inside of Hudson High School (Jack Armstrong's alma mater) for years. Rosemary LaPlanche's fame as Miss America of 1941 got her the job of the role of Betty Fairfield, played as a young girl on radio, but on the screen could have been the love interest for John Hart. In this reviewer's opinion, Ms. LaPlanche resembled Republic western actress Helen Talbot facially and in her acting style. She would later appear in Republic's Federal Agents vs. the Underworld Inc. Joe Brown Jr. played her brother Billy, whose radio character was famous for starting his sentences with such phrases "Gee Willikers." Charles Middleton, known as Ming the Merciless, turns in a credible performance as the evil Dr Grood. Jack Armstrong was the first of three Columbia serials produced in 1947 with the other two being the Vigilante, taken from the comic books, and the Sea Hound featuring Buster Crabbe as Captain Silver, another radio adventure serial. Booked in second run theaters, they enjoyed a brief run before being deposited back in Columbia's vaults.