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Russell Johnson thought he was going to be Dr. Ben Casey.

The TV veteran was about to make the leap from frequent guest star on westerns to the lead role in an ongoing series. Ben Casey’s producer liked his audition but went with Vince Edwards instead, Johnson wrote in his memoir, Here on Gilligan’s Isle. That freed him up to audition for other series.

The show he didn’t want to land was Gilligan’s Island. As Ben Casey, Russell would have been the star of a hit medical drama. As a comedy castaway, he would have been one of an ensemble of seven. That’s why he kept refusing to try out for the sitcom’s producer, Sherwood Schwartz.

Eventually, Johnson relented, showing up on a soundstage to read a five-minute scene with Alan “The Skipper” Hale. The audition went well enough, and Johnson needed the money.

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As the theme song of "Gilligan's Island" reminds us before every episode, five passengers set sail on a charter boat from Hawaii for what should have been a three-hour tour. Of course, that three-hour tour eventually turned into three seasons of Gilligan, his captain, and the passengers being stranded on an "uncharted desert isle," where their boat, the S.S. Minnow, ran aground.

The ship seen stranded on the sands of the South Pacific island in the opening credits was actually a real boat, which was destroyed especially for "Gilligan's Island," mystifying a local man in the process. But Sherwood Schwartz's sitcom actually used several different models for the S.S. Minnow, which was revisited throughout the CBS series as the castaways attempted to fix it on various occasions. Alas, the small vessel was never fully restored, even after...

When Sherwood Schwartz was still brainstorming ideas for "Gilligan's Island," he came up with the character dynamic before he invented the premise. More than anything, Schwartz liked the idea of seven disparate characters, hailing from all walks of life, forced to live together in an enclosed environment. Initially, he thought that a workplace would be a good location to explore that dynamic, but quickly rejected that idea, figuring that employees in an office would all have that office in common. He eventually thought that comedy could be mined from seven people stranded on a remote tropical island together, and the creative train was rolling. 

Fans of "Gilligan's Island" likely know that the series needed a lot of fine-tuning, and might even know that the executives at CBS didn't like the concept. Indeed, there were stories that the head of CBS' programming, a man named Hunt Stromberg, was hoping Schwartz would mess up somehow,...

Back in 1961, Newt Minow, then the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, gave an infamous speech about the state of modern television. Minow, who had just been appointed to his position, noted that nothing is better than good TV, "But when television is bad," he said, "nothing is worse." He invited his listeners to sit and watch any random 24 hours of TV and assured them that "what you will observe is a vast wasteland."

"You will see," he continued, "a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, Western bad men, Western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending." More than anything, he said, you will find boredom. Minow believed that there was a disconnect between what TV stations were providing and what an intelligent viewing public wanted to see.

Some...

MGM in 1940 was just the movie factory to turn out a smart, compact version of the Jane Austen novel, with Greer Garson in fine form and Laurence Olivier possibly slumming but also contributing a flawless performance. Robert Z. Leonard’s direction is invisible but does no harm; adaptors Aldous Huxley and Jane Murfin telescope events and concoct an even happier ending, all with great skill. Sorry, despite persistent rumors, the story hasn’t a single zombie.

Pride and Prejudice

Blu-ray

Warner Archive Collection

1940 / B&w / 1:37 Academy / 118 min. / Street Date July 14, 2020 / available through the WBshop / 21.99

Starring: Greer Garson, Laurence Olivier, Mary Boland, Edna May Oliver, Maureen O’Sullivan, Ann Rutherford, Frieda Inescort, Edmund Gwenn, Heather Angel, Marsha Hunt.

Cinematography: Karl Freund

Film Editor: Robert Kern

Original Music: Herbert Stothart

Written by Aldous Huxley, Jane Murfin from the book by Jane Austen

Produced by Hunt Stromberg

Directed by Robert Z. Leonard

I...

Noir if I can help it! Sultry Lizabeth Scott out-'fatals' every femme we know in this wickedly ruthless tale of unadulterated female venality. Rough creep Dan Duryea meets his match, as do other unfortunate males that get between Liz and a plump bag of blackmail loot. The Film Noir Foundation's restoration is a valiant rescue job, for a worthy 'annihilating melodrama.' Too Late for Tears Blu-ray + DVD Flicker Alley / FIlm Noir Foundation 1949 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 102 min. / Street Date May 17, 2016 / 39.95 Starring Lizabeth Scott, Don DeFore, Dan Duryea, Arthur Kennedy, Kristine Miller, Barry Kelley Cinematography William Mellor Art Direction James Sullivan Film Editor Harry Keller Original Music Dale Butts Written by Roy Huggins from his story Produced by Hunt Stromberg Directed by Byron Haskin

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Who's doing good work for film preservation? The Film Noir Foundation has racked up some impressive rescues and restorations in the last fifteen years or so,...

Review by Sam Moffitt

Being the first is not always a good thing. Many ground breaking artists who introduce something new into the cultural mix do not always fare well after they have changed the rules and the game. Take, just as one example, Orson Welles who changed forever how movies were made as well as radio drama and stage productions. Although Welles made out better than Maila Nurmi, also known as Vampira, the subject of the incredible and unforgettable documentary Vampira and Me.

H Greene first got to know Maila Nurmi when he interviewed her for a documentary called Schlock! The Secret History of Hollywood, (a good documentary in its own right.) Nurmi had grown distrustful of just about everyone, and with good reason. Yet for reasons Greene doesn’t even speculate on she trusted Greene and gave him almost two hours of interview time and discussed every last moment of her bizarre,...

Guest in the House

Written by Hunt Stromberg

Directed by John Brahm

USA, 1944

The family unit is, or should be, the strongest in one’s life, the one from which a solid emotional backbone is based from, the unshakable bond that brings its members together through thick and thin. For that reason, a troubled familial relationship, any sort of considerable rift between two or more of the members, may be the worst variety of schism afflicting previously close loved ones. Said troubles may not necessarily originate from within the unit, but from outside, such as when a new member is admitted through marriage. John Brahm’s 1944 melodrama noir Guest in the House concerns itself with this very matter (minus marriage), demonstrating the terrible deconstruction of a previously tightly knit family tearing apart at the seams.

The Proctors await the return of one of their own, Dr. Dan Proctor (Scott McKay...