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With a title like this you know it has to be good. Irvin Kershner got his start directing on this small-scale tale of kids and crime. Jonathan Haze and Abby Dalton are standouts in the cast, while the uncredited executive producer who put up the cash is said to have been Roger Corman. It's a beautiful widescreen transfer -- the film was one of the first features shot by Haskell Wexler, who is also uncredited. Stakeout on Dope Street DVD-r The Warner Archive Collection 1958 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 83 min. / Street Date June 22, 2016 / available through the WBshop / 21.99 Starring Yale Wexler, Jonathon Haze, Morris Miller (Stever Marlo), Abby Dalton, Allen Kramer, Herman Rudin, Philip Mansour, Andrew J. Fenady, Herschel Bernardi, Coleman Francis. Cinematography Mark Jeffrey (Haskell Wexler) Film Editor Melvin Sloan Original Music Richard Markowitz Story and Screenplay by Andrew J. Fenady, Irvin Kershner, Irvin Schwartz Produced by Andrew J. Fenady Directed...

Do you like my choice of leading image?  'We're the Glory Guys! Eee-Yow!' What is surely the most generic cavalry western of all time is actually from a screenplay by Sam Peckinpah. Twilight Time's extras have a lot to say about that, and so does Savant. The Glory Guys Blu-ray Twilight Time 1965 / Color / 2:35 widescreen / 113 min. / Street Date September 6, 2016 / Available from the Twilight Time Movies Store / 29.95 Starring Tom Tryon, Harve Presnell, Senta Berger, James Caan, Andrew Duggan, Slim Pickens, Peter Breck, Jeanne Cooper, Michael Anderson Jr., Adam Williams, Wayne Rogers, Michael Forest, Paul Birch, Stephen Chase, Claudio Brook. Cinematography James Wong Howe Cinematography Ernst R. (Tom) Rolf, Melvin Shapiro Original Music Riz Ortolani Written by Sam Peckinpah from the novel by Hoffman Birney Produced by Arthur Gardner, Arnold Laven, Jules V. Levy Directed by Arnold Laven

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

The Glory Guys is as generic and standard-issue...

Producer-director behind a raft of 20th-century TV classics

It is no exaggeration to declare that the name of the film and television producer-director Arnold Laven, who has died aged 87, has been seen by millions of people all over the world, even if it might not have registered. Think of all those viewers of the TV series The Rifleman (1959-63) and The Big Valley (1965-69), made by Laven's company, Levy-Gardner-Laven Productions, many episodes of which he directed.

Laven was also credited as director on scores of episodes of such archetypal 1970s series as Marcus Welby MD, Gunsmoke, Mannix, Ironside, The Six Million Dollar Man, The Rockford Files and Fantasy Island. In the 1980s he directed, among others, several episodes of Hill Street Blues and The A-Team. In addition, Laven directed 11 feature films from 1952 to 1969, some for companies other than his own.

In the late 1930s, the Chicago-born Laven moved with his family to Los Angeles,...