"Hey! I Know That Guy!" Episode #7

Hey! I Know that Guy! is an ongoing series I started in which I pick an actor or actress who had an early role in the TV series The Twilight Zone and pair it with a later big screen role after they got famous.

 

Hey! I know that guy!

Donald Pleasence had a career that lasted from 1952 until his death in 1995.  And that's just on film.  He really got started in 1939 doing some stage acting, with a brief stint in the Armed Forces during World War II causing a short break in his chosen career. He is probably primarily remembered by a majority of people for his recurring role in the Halloween movies as Michael Myers' psychiatrist, Dr. Sam Loomis. Some of you may even remember his role as Blythe "The Forger" in The Great Escape, and still others may remember him from his role as the James Bond nemesis Blofeld (specifically in You Only Live Twice. There were several people who filled that role over the span of the franchise.) And there may be even a smattering of you who remember him as the President of the United States (complete with his British accent!) in Escape from New York.

Whether he was playing the villain, or the hero, Pleasence was definitely one of the more memorable figures in whatever movie or TV show he appeared.  As stated above, he had a brief interlude during WWII, which he initially declined to join in the fray, citing being a conscientious objector.  But he eventually joined the RAF after Germany started bombing London.  He was shot down and became a P.O.W.  Thus when it came time to play a P.O.W. in The Great Escape, he had some experience to bring to the role. During his career he had some roles in movies as well as T.V. (He has the distinction of having played a murderer in both Columbo and Mrs. Columbo.  (Did you know there was a Mrs. Columbo TV series?  It only lasted 13 episodes, and was not very well received...)

Although he never really was a headliner, he did manage to get noticed and had plenty of work over his career.  Pleasence made an impact in his appearances, and even when he was what was essentially the "bad guy" you often couldn't help but feeling somewhat sympathetic for his character, mainly due to his demeanor in the role.

An early appearance for Pleasence was in a Twilight Zone episode, "The Changing of the Guard". A departure from the typical TZ fare, that of some malcontent getting his just desserts, or even of some unlucky Joe Schmo who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This episode was one of those rare sentimental ones that some viewers tend to like better than the typical darker episodes.

In this episode, Pleasence plays an aged professor at a prep school. (And the makeup for the actor is pretty decent.  Pleasence, who was only 42 at the time, is made up to look like he is somewhere over 70.) Pleasence is a professor at a Boy's School, one of those institutions that used to be more prevalent in bygone days. He is a genteel and well-liked teacher, although he is a bit dismissive of his current charges. But deep down, you know he loves them and his job.

 

Which makes it all the more devastating when he finds out that, as opposed to his thinking that he is going in for another contract to teach for another few years, he is being forced in to retirement. He begins to feel sorry for himself, and is convinced that he has had no long lasting effect on his students through the years. He comes to a decision that he is going to commit suicide rather than face that retirement.

But while he is at the marker for the founder of the school he hears the school bell ring. Curious, since it after hours, he investigates. Lo and behold, in his old classroom he finds the spirits of long dead students of his past terms. And each of them relates what a profound effect he had on them. Several of them, war casualties in former wars (WWI and WWII) cite the courage that inspired them to perform heroic deeds during their war service, and one, who died during an experiment with radioactivity, also cites the effect that his professor had on him.

Ultimately, he decides that he did indeed have a lasting effect on his charges and does not commit suicide after all. Rather than the usual "just desserts" type of moral story that was a part and parcel of The Twilight Zone, this episode has a homey feel good ending.

Of the films that Pleasence was a part of during his career, my favorite has to be when he appeared in the aforementioned The Great Escape. In this film, Pleasence plays Blythe, a roommate of James Garner's Hendley. Although he is not the only character we get to see developed during the course of the film, he had some memorable scenes. In this film he is a forger, the guy who is responsible for creating false documents for the escapees to use to pass as German citizens after the escape.

 

A couple of the scenes really stand out.  It turns out that myopia is causing Blythe to go blind. The head of the escape troop makes a decision that Blythe is therefore an unacceptable risk and is cut from the escapee list. The devastation that Blythe feels over this is chiefly seen in Pleasence's facial expressions after being told of this.  And the bright look of hope when his roommate Hendley insists that he will be responsible for helping Blythe.

One really hopes that Blythe and Hendley will be successful, and they are to some extent, although eventually Blythe is shot shortly after the plane he and Hendley are using to escape is shot down.  Pleasence really brings this character to life, and although as the viewer we hope they ALL succeed, I can imagine that many were disappointed when one of them wasn't Blythe.

Well, that ends this entry.  See you soon for the next entry in the Hey! I KNOW that Guy!

Quiggy

 

  

"Hey! I Know That Guy!" Episode #6

Hey! I Know that Guy! is an ongoing series I started in which I pick an actor or actress who had an early role in the TV series The Twilight Zone and pair it with a later big screen role after they got famous.

Hey! I know that guy!

It's time for another episode of Hey! I Know That Guy!

Once again, the theme of this series is one in which I pick a classic The Twilight Zone TV episode and highlight one of the actors in the episode and then delve into one of his or her major appearances in a Hollywood movie (Usually post TZ, but I'm leaving myself open in case a primo role occurred sometime before their appearance in the series.)

In the last installment I discussed the career of John Astin, an actor more well-known for his contributions in the realm of comedy.  This time I am going with a guy who was a great dramatic actor. Martin Landau had a fairly prolific career. He was a 3 time nominee for the coveted Oscar (one of which he actually won, that for playing the role of Bela Lugosi in the Tim Burton biopic of director Ed Wood.)

But that wasn't all.  He also received recognition as a cast member of the classic TV series Mission: Impossible. And among other TV roles he was the star of the highly underrated 70's TV series Space:1999, a British TV series that managed to make it's way across the pond to the States. (And was one of those way too often favorites of my childhood that didn't have enough staying power to continue past a second season...)

Up until about 1970 Landau was mostly a guest star on TV series episodes. Prior to his casting as Rollin Hand, the disguise master on Mission: Impossible, his credits numbered about 50 TV roles to only about 10 roles in film. His breakout role in film, in my opinion was as the co-star (and murder suspect) in the sequel to In the Heat of the Night, They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! 

From there he went on to roles in a variety of genres, but two that stuck out for me (being a person that likes those kinds of movies) are Alone in the Dark and The Being. Alone in the Dark stands out because in that one he plays a truly psychotic evangelist who loves fire (an arsonist preacher).  

Landau, in the Twilight Zone universe, had two memorable roles. In the season 5 episode. The Jeopardy Room, Landau played the lead character, a Major Kuchenko from, ostensibly, Russia, who is attempting to defect. He is the victim of an insidious Commissar Valenko, who has trapped him in a hotel room and is egging him on with threats of various kinds.

But Landau first appeared in The Twilight Zone, an episode that was the third one of the first season, was one called "Mr. Denton on Doomsday".

In "Mr. Denton on Doomsday" Dan Duryea is a former gunfighter who has fallen on hard times.  He used to be a big guy, fastest draw in the west, and all that. Everybody who thought of himself as a big shot gunfighter would seek him out, and all failed to defeat him.  But when he killed a young fighter his conscience got the better of him and he took to drink.

He became the town drunk instead of the town gunfighter and thus the source of ridicule, especially with one unrelenting bully, Hotaling (Martin Landau). Hotaling taunts Denton into embarrassing himself with a rendition of "How Dry I Am"  in order to get his next drink.

But since this takes place in the Twilight Zone, on the scene comes Henry Fate (Malcolm Atterbury), who gives Denton some new life. Denton manages to humiliate Hotaling, but the downside is, now he will become a target once again for every wannabe big shot gunslinger.

The ultimate end of this story is that Denton indeed does end up having to go gun to gun with the next wannabe hot shot (played by Doug McClure, who just barely escaped being this episode's Hey! I Know That Guy!). Fate gives Denton a potion that is supposed to give him 5 seconds of super speed and super accuracy in shooting.  But it turns out that Fate has been playing both sides of the coin and gave the newcomer the same potion.

Landau, playing one of the less likeable characters here, always seemed to me to have that face that made him perfect, in my opinion, for playing bad guys.  And of course, over the course of his career, he did have his share.  But he also had some sympathetic characters. 

He won an Oscar for playing such a sympathetic character.  Your heart will break to see how far Bela Lugosi fell from earlier stardom to the drug addict that Ed Wood found (and probably took too much advantage of) in the biopic Ed Wood. Landau got Best Supporting Actor from the Academy for that role.

Hey, I loved that portrayal.  Mainly because I have always liked Lugosi movies (and, ok, I'm a huge fan of the real Ed Wood and his low budget schlock.) But I have to admit when he was a bad guy Landau  could exude deviousness like no one else.  But there was one movie where he played a guy who could seem good on the exterior but harbored some bad characteristics that would surprise you. That movie was They Call me Mr. Tibbs!, and the character he played was someone whom, at the outset, might come off as sympathetic.

In They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! Landau plays Logan Sharpe, a firebrand preacher and political firebrand as well. He is a prime suspect in the murder of a hooker.  In the beginning he is approached by Lt. Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier), who is a friend and apparently the pastor of the church Tibbs and his family attend.

 

 

 

(Side note: This movie was a sequel to In the Heat of the Night.)

In an early scene in the movie Sharpe admits he had more than a preacher relationship with the victim. But since Sharpe is supposed to be a man of God, he doesn't want that to come out (obviously).  The investigation delves into the potential suspects, because, after all, Tibbs can't quite accept the fact that his pastor might be doing some rather un-pastor-like things. (I mean besides having a sexual relations with a hooker.  But if Jimmy Swaggart could get away with it, why couldn't Sharpe?

Ultimately the trail keeps leading back to the same people, one of whom is the landlord of the apartment of the hooker, played by Anthony Zerbe. (And there's another guy who plays slimy characters real well.) It turns out that the landlord has some drug dealing outside of the prostitution ring he is running in his apartment building, but he is not guilty of the murder.  He ends up dead, just the same, but not before Tibbs uncovers enough evidence to point to the real culprit.

You guessed it.  Sharpe. Even when he is found out it's still hard to really dislike Landau's character.  He puts enough  pathos into the portrayal that you might almost hope he gets away with it.  But Tibbs, if nothing else, is a dedicated fighter of crime, even when a good friend is the culprit. They Call Me Mr. Tibbs! is nowhere near on the same level as In the Heat of the Night, and without Landau's presence, it might be forgettable. Even Poitier seems to be just going through the motions.

Hope you are enjoying this series. Drive safely.

Quiggy

 

 

"Hey! I Know That Guy!" Episode #5

 

Hey! I know that guy!

Once again, we delve into the Hey! I Know That Guy! series.

This one has been a long time coming.  There are a few reasons for the delay of this entry. One being that most of my favorite movies that the featured actor has been in have already been covered elsewhere on The Midnite Drive-In.  

But in browsing the movies I have covered over the years, I found one film that I have been remiss in covering, even though I really liked it.  So without further ado, I present to you the featured actor for this entry in the series...

Robert Redford!

Robert Redford has become an icon in cinema over the past 65 years.  From simple beginnings as a bit player in several Tv episodes, he has carved a legacy in Hollywood.  Getting his start in the early 60's on such TV shows as Maverick and Perry Mason he burst onto the big screen inroles that would cement him as a powerful actor. 

His first real role in cinema was as a guy who has an affair with the titular character in Inside Daisy Clover and from there was the star of Barefoot in the Park. Just two years later he paired up with Paul Newman as the Sundance Kid in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and from there he never had to look back. Once he had made The Sting, once again with Paul Newman, he had a string of great roles, including The Way We Were, The Great Gatsby, Out of Africa and Sneakers (and there's a movie I highly recommend...)

The amazing thing about his career is that, despite having numerous great acting performances, he has been nominated in the Best Actor category for an Oscar only once (for his role in The Sting), and he didn't even win.  His one Oscar came as a director, that for Ordinary People. He did win a Golden Globe award for his role in Inside Daisy Clover and garnered a couple of other noms in other awards ceremonies over the years. But it seems a shame that he, like John Wayne, has had such a storied career onscreen but failed to get the accolades I think he deserves.

One of his first roles on TV was in an episode of The Twilight Zone, where he was not just a "blink and you'll miss him" character.  He played a policeman named Harold Belden, who appears in the episode "Nothing in the Dark". 

In that episode, a woman named Wanda (Gladys Cooper) lives alone in a condemned building.  She has stayed inside, away from everybody and everything, fearing that if she goes out she will encounter "Mr. Death". She is an old woman, but is afraid of dying, and thus she refuses to step out into the world beyond her door.

But when Belden is shot while performing his duties she reluctantly brings him inside her home. She is wary at first, but comes to believe that Belden can't possibly be "Mr. Death" because she touched him, and is sure that if he were Death she would have died.  Only one other person appears in this episode, a contractor (R. G. Armstrong) who was sent to try to coax her out so that he can demolish the building.

She thinks maybe the contractor is Mr. Death, but it eventually turns out that he can't see Belden, and she eventually realizes that her rescuee is actually "Mr. Death".

This episode of The Twilight Zone is that rare one that is a heartfelt and sentimental episode. Redford, as Belden, is a sympathetic character and you end up thinking that when Death actually comes for you, he will be a lot like Belden.

So, in searching for a film to pair with this episode, I tried to find a character that was like someone I could find at least somewhat sympathetic. While Bob Woodward might be just a tad on the obsessive side, especially in his determination to get to the bottom of the story, and his initial desire to work alone rather than with the partner that is forced on him, Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman). I could easily sit down with the Woodward and have a rapport with him.

The basic story is that Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) is a reporter with the Washington Post.  As one of his duties early on, he is a police reporter sent to cover a break-in of the Watergate Hotel and the arraignment of the 5 men involved in the break-in.  It turns out there is something screwy in the whole set up, however. It seems that the burglars have arranged for their own defense, rather than relying on court appointed defense lawyers.  This in itself is a new twist.

In his investigation behind the scenes, Woodward gradually finds out there is a connection between the burglars and some higher-ups in the Nixon White House.  Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) is working on a different angle, but both of their stories seem to be meshed together.

Initial interaction with each other gets off to a rocky start when Bernstein tries to edit Woodward's article, but immediately after this brief kerfuffle they are both assigned to the same story.  And thus begins an investigation of "who knew what, and when, and where". The investigation uncovers some serious money switching hands and bugging of enemies of the Nixon administration, and well, you know all the rest if you have even the remotest knowledge of the history.

The movie is an intense thriller. The film ends with the inauguration of Richard Nixon in his second term in the Oval Office. The ultimate end of the historical story is reduced to a brief montage of newspaper teletypes to detail the aftermath, ultimately that Nixon resigned.

Redford shows some intensity here, sometimes struggling with the bosses at the Post over his stories and worry that some other news outlet may scoop him and get the information first.  The initial confrontation between Woodward and Bernstein gets better, especially after both of them become certain they are on the right track.

The movie garnered 8 nominations for Oscars (although neither Redford no co-star Hoffman were nominated). It won four, and was probably a close second in 2, for Best Picture and Best Director (both of which were lost to Rocky.)  All the President's Men was not the apotheosis of Redford's career, I don't think, but it is one of the highlights.

Well, that's it for this time.

Quiggy

 

"Hey! I Know That Guy" Episode #4

 

 

Hey! I know that guy!

 

Here we go with another installment of the ongoing series.  To refresh your memory, the plan is to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone and highlight one of the actors or actresses appearing in the episode and talk about their career before and after their role in the episode.  Usually I will be taking a secondary character as my focus, not one of the stars.

In the last two installments I went with major characters in the episode.  But this time I found a treat. 

A Hundred Yards Over the Rim was a second  season episode, and once again, a bit of time travel was a major part of the story.  Except, as opposed to the previous episode (Hey! I Know That Guy Episode #3), the time travel is in the reverse, with a guy from the 1840's who stumbles into modern day and fortuitously changes his future.

On a trip across the desert dividing Chris Horn (Cliff Robertson) and a group of settlers from Ohio to the promised fabled land of California things are looking rather bleak.  They are almost out of water and there is a bit of dissension  among the travelers.  Some are considering going back, but Chris insists they will be dead before they reach Ohio if they do that.

Among those advocating for a return to the safety of home is Charlie, played by our focal actor for this episode, John Astin. 

Astin (2nd from right) w/ Cliff Robertson et. al.

 

Astin, who is probably more well remembered for his comedic roles, played a fairly sedate and serious character in his albeit short screen time here. But as most of you will remember, he is much more well-known for such roles as Gomez Addams in the classic The Addams Family TV series, as well as later in life as the father (and part-time mental patient) Buddy Stone to Judge Harry Stone (Harry Anderson).  And, in case you didn't know, he took over the role of The Riddler in season 2 of the 60's camp superhero series Batman.

What you may not know, and it's one of my fondest memories of childhood, he played the lead role in a comedy western TV movie, Evil Roy Slade.  This was a comedic take on the Old West theme, one which followed a notorious bad guy as he struggled to become a good guy to win the love of a goody goody schoolmarm who had just moved to town.

Astin, who is still with us as of this writing (95 years young), has had a phenomenal career, He got is start as a secondary character in a film version of one of Ed McBain's 87th Precinct detectives along side the star Robert Lansing. Much of his subsequent output was in TV, sometimes as a guest character on such shows as Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip. But between 1962 and 1966 he was the headliner for two of his own TV shows. The first was I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, which failed to find an audience and lasted only one season. (Have never even seen one episode, but it might be the role that really got him into primarily comedic roles afterwards).

The second, of course, was The Addams Family. As lead character Gomez Addams, he garnered a cache of recognition, even though the show lasted only two seasons. It was one of two attempts to connect with an emerging fan base of people who were discovering (or re-discovering) the classic Universal Monsters from the 30's and 40's, which had just started airing for free on TV at the time/ (The other was CBS's The Munsters, both of which aired in a brief period from 1964-66).

In the second season of The Twilight Zone a group of people, in the late 1800's,  are journeying across the desert heading to a new life in California. But hard times are pressing on them. They are out of water, not much luck in finding food, and to top it off, the leader, Chris' (Cliff Robertson) son is sick. Most of the band, including Charlie (John Astin) is pressuring Chris to give up and go back to civilization. But Chris is still hopeful.  He finally agrees to turn back, but he is going to try one lass ditch effort bay going across a nearby rim to see if there is any hope on the other side.

What happens is Chris crosses the rim and into the future (or present day).  Seeing many odd things, like a huge behemoth of a monster (a semi) and a way station (a gas station), Chris is as confused as the modern day people,  He gradually comes to realize he is in the future and tries to escape back to his own time, and ostensibly a saner world.  When he finally gets back to the wagon train he is told he has only been gone a few minutes (even though at least a half a day passed while he was in the future. With medicine (penicillin) he brings back with him he is able to cure his son (and proceeds on to California, where we now know his son will become a famous doctor).

Astin's role here is brief, but it's interesting to see what he has the potential to become,

In only a few more years (after his stint as Gomez Addams), Astin starts to really become a presence in the industry.  He gets one of his first film star roles on 1972 in a made-for TV western comedy called Evil Roy Slade. Both my sister and I fondly remembered seeing this when it aired (we were just barely 10, so memory of that is impressive, at least it is for me,)

Roy is a kid whose family was attacked by Indians, leaving him the only survivor.  As the narrator (played by Pat Buttram) tells us "nobody wanted this child". He is rejected not only by the Indians, but even by the wild animals, so he grows up on his own. Even learning how to change his own diapers. (Did I mention this was a comedy?)

Un the present day, Roy and his gang survive by robbing banks. Especially the ones owned by Nelson Stool (Mickey Rooney). Stool makes several attempts to lure a famous lawmen named Bing Bell {was that the doorbell?}  (Comedy... remember?) 

Roy meets up with the new local schoolmarm, Betsy (Pamela Austin) and falls head over heels in love.  And because he is in love, and she is dead set against him continuing in his life of lawlessness, he decides to go straight.  

But after a lifetime of just plain orneriness, he has a tough time of it.  But you gotta give him credit for trying.  You have to see him trying to be a respectable salesman.  (Threatening people to make them buy the product is probably not the best bet...)

With guest appearances by the likes of Milton Berle, Henry Gibson, Dom DeLuise, Penny Marshall and John Ritter, the film has a wealth of talent to compete with Astin, but I think, as well he should, that Astin takes home the prize for the best portrayal.

This is a cheesy TV comedy (and a comedy from the early 70's to boot), so some of it comes off a little dated by today's standards, but it will warm your heart. And who wouldn't want Pamela Austin for an enamorata...?

Well, until next time, safe journeys.

Quiggy   

Life After Life

 

 

 

 This is my entry in the Favorite TV Episode hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts

 

What happens after we die? 

 Every religion in the world (and most cultures) has some idea,  and they are as varied as a Wheel of Fortune game.  Some religions are more people friendly than others, to be sure.  Ken Jennings (the guy who wowed the world by winning Jeopardy for 70+ times in a row) published a book titled 100 Places to See After You Die, while, maybe not comprehensive, is a pretty interesting look at how cultures view what happens after we leave our mortal coil.

The standard view of the Grim Reaper is one that will come to mind to most people who are reading this blog entry.  The Grim Reaper has been characterized as a skeletal figure with a hooded robe and a scythe, and, except for a few times in movies (such as Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey), is a pretty scary apparition.

 

But what if Death didn't look like that?  What if he was a well-mannered, clean-cut guy in a tailored suit and smoked Oasis cigarettes?

 

Rod Serling, the host of The Twilight Zone, took viewers into often surreal realms, and the afterlife was no stranger to the series.  (Although he wasn't Death in the series episodes. Usually he was just a guy who let us into those private worlds.) In at least a dozen or so episodes, the ultimate destination of a man (or woman) was addressed.  Sometimes the ultimate end was not so sweet, and occasionally, the end turned out to be not so fearful as it was imagined to be.  In all cases, the essential theme of the show came through, however.

The essence of The Twilight Zone was usually categorized into one of two different themes.  In some, a not too likeable character got his just desserts, while in others a hapless victim found himself in a situation that, while maybe unwarranted, gave the victim a new perspective (although not always for the benefit of the victim...)

Spoiler Alert!  In most of these encapsulations I reveal the gotcha! denouement that ended the episode, so if you want to watch them first, don't read anything but the title of the episode, go watch it, then come back.

In the first set of stories we are dealing with people who have a less than respectable past and are in their own kind of punishment for their misdeeds.

 Judgement Night:  The afterlife for Karl Lasner (Nehemiah Persoff) is nightmarish, to say the least.  He is trapped on a British boat, during the height of WWII, with no idea how he got there.  The one thing he is sure of is there is some impending doom coming.  In essence, he is sure there is a German U-Boat stalking the ship, and he knows, I mean KNOWS, that the ship will be sunk.  It becomes apparent that that indeed is what will happen, and the reason he knows is because he has been condemned to an eternity of reliving the event because he was the heartless U-Boat commander that sunk said ship.

A Nice Place to Visit: In this episode a small time hood/thief is shot and killed in a gun battle.  Rocky (Larry Blyden) finds himself as a guest to his guardian "angel", Pip (Sebastian Cabot) who administers to his every need.  And he has everything he could possibly want in this afterlife.  He can't lose at gambling, he gets every woman without any effort etc.  But it gets boring and he finally tells Pip that he is tired of this Heaven and wants to be sent to "that other place". Whereupon Pip informs him that THIS IS "that other place".

 

The two episodes above fall into that category of someone getting their "just desserts".  Karl is at the end of his first encounter an entirely unfeeling and sadistic (typically) German sailor, who even ridicules one of his subordinates for even having a hint of sympathy for their victims.  And although the episode is played for laughs, Rocky is not a very likable fellow himself at the beginning.  You MIGHT feel some sympathy for him later in the episode, but then you have to remember, not only was he a crook, but he even attempts to shoot the police as he is being chased.

In the case of people who are likable and just having a rough time of it, I present a set of episodes.

Nothing in the Dark:

An elderly woman (Gladys Cooper) lives in what is determined to be a condemned building.  She keeps the door locked because she is afraid that the next person who enters it will be Mr. Death, come to take her away.  She doesn't want to die, she is afraid of the other side.  But a policeman (Robert Redford) is shot outside her door and, against her better wishes she brings him inside. When he finds out she is afraid he does his best to calm her fears.  A man claiming to be from the company sent to demolish the building tries to entice her outside to safety, but she is sure HE is really Mr. Death.  Only, as it turns out, the "policeman" she admitted is the real Mr. Death..  But by this time he has convinced her that the next life is nothing to be afraid of.

A Passage of Trumpet:

In New York City, a wannabe jazz trumpeter struggles with coping with the down side of life.  Joey (Jack Klugman) used to be a top dog on the jazz circuit, even having once played with Tommy James, but now he is an alcoholic and misses the limelight.  He even has to sell his cherished trumpet just to get money to drink, and ultimately steps in front of a truck.  He finds himself in limbo, neither alive nor really dead.  A visit from someone who eventually turns out to be the angel Gabriel (John Anderson), convinces him to give life a second chance.

 One for the Angels:

In this episode, Lew Bookman (Ed Wynn) is a likable guy who makes his living as a street peddler.  Everyone in his neighborhood likes him, especially the kids.  When Mr. Death (Murray Hamilton) shows up and announces that he has come for lew, Lew tries to get out of it.  He negotiates a deal that he gets one last "pitch", one he calls "one for the angels" before he goes.  But wily Lew has an ace up his sleeve.  He states that he will not even try for his pitch.  But Mr. Death will not be outsmarted so easily.  He tells Lew he still has to take someone, and that someone is going to be one of the children. Ultimately Lew makes his pitch to none other than Mr. Death and accompanies him into the afterlife.

In all three cases, the afterlife is not so nearly as devastating as it's made out to be.  In the first, the woman gets to go on to a better life on the other side, while in the second, Joey gets a new outlook on life and continues on with his life, but the afterlife waiting for him farther down the road is at least a little more optimistic.

Then, of course, as was sometimes the case, we get the sentimental stories.  In these, the main character passes on to the next life, and finds that the new life is not so bad.

The Hunt:

Written by Earl Hamner, Jr (the writer of what eventually became the TV series "The Waltons"), this is the story of a backwoods man (Arthur Hunnicutt, Jr. who goes out hunting with his dog.  An unfortunate accident results in the death of the two, but they find they really don't know what has happened until later.  Once he determines that he is indeed dead, he continues down the road.  He first comes to a gate that he thinks is Heaven, but the gatekeeper refuses to let his dog come with him.  He decides that eternity without his best friend is unacceptable and continues down the road.  At the next gate he discovers that the first gate was actually the entrance to Hell, and the gatekeeper refused to let the dog in because the dog would have known instantly something was amiss. 

A Stop in Willoughby:

An ad exec (James Daly) who is pressured by his boss and his rather unsympathetic wife dozes off on his commuter train.  While asleep he dreams he is on a much older tain which makes a stop in an unfamiliar town called Willoughby.  From the window he notices that it a peaceful and rath Elysian town where things are far more laid back than his hectic day to day life.  He dreams of getting back there, so the next day, when he dreams of this halcyon heaven he steps off the train.  But, since he is only seeing it in his dreams, when he actually steps off the train, the real train is still moving.  He makes it to Willoughby, only it is in an afterlife, but it is a step up from the horrible life he has to endue. 

One particular episode stands out because it addresses what happens during times of intense strife, and what we might see at the end of that strife.

In The Passerby a Confederate soldier (James Gregory) pauses on the way back home after the Civil War to have a chat with a woman (Joanne Linville). During the episode many soldiers pass by on the road and it gradually becomes apparent that the road is not filled with those going home after the end of the war, but are actually ones who died during the war and are going on to their new home in eternity.

There are several other episodes in the original pantheon that sometimes deal with an afterlife, albeit peripherally.  For instance, in Elegy three astronauts have to crash land on an asteroid which turns out to be a glorified cemetery where the caretaker manufactures a scene of the dead persons biggest wish and then eternally ensconces them in this scene. And in The Hitchhiker a woman is forever being haunted (hunted?) by a hitchhiker who turns out to be Death come to collect her soul after she had died in a car wreck earlier in her cross-country trip. 

But by far one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes is A Game of Pool in which our returning actor, Jack Klugman comes on the scene as a wannabe pool star who is forever dealing with being called second rate compared to a legend (Jonathan Winters) who is no longer among the living.  He wishes more than anything to be given the chance to prove himself against this star player, and is given the chance when the star returns from the afterlife to play him a one-on-one game. Ultimately he wins, but the curse he gets as a result is he takes the place of the star after he dies and has to answer the call whenever another would-be hustler wants the chance to prove himself.

 

The thing to remember in all of this is your next life (or afterlife) is always going to be based on how you conduct yourself in this present life.  So be good and remember that no matter where you go you will be affecting that future state.  Assuming, of course, there actually is one.  In The Twilight Zone there always was, but then, I won't state for a fact that there actually is.  Have a good journey, however, just in case...

Note: A word of thanks to Ken Jennings, who inspired this post, since he had a chapter dedicated to The Twilight Zone in his book mentioned above.

Quiggy

 

 

"Hey, I Know That Guy!" Episode #3

 

 

 

Hey! I know that guy!

 

 

Here we go with another installment of the ongoing series.  To refresh your memory, the plan is to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone and highlight one of the actors or actresses appearing in the episode and talk about their career before and after their role in the episode.  Usually I will be taking a secondary character as my focus, not one of the stars.

As per my wont, that rule is not set in stone.  If you remember, last episode  (Hey I Know That Guy #2)  involved an episode of The Twilight Zone which only had two actors on screen. So, occasionally I will be focusing on someone who has more than a fleeting moment in The Twilight Zone episode.  Such is the case this time.

In the 5th season of the series, The Zone had reverted from what some people consider a bad decision in the 4th season.  The first 3 seasons the episodes had a 30 minute running time, but in the 4th season they tried their hand at an hour long length.  Not that many of those episodes weren't good, but I think it was a bad decision.  Many of those 60 minute episodes could easily have been condensed to a 30 minute running time and not lost any of the impact.

Anyway, in the 5th season, the producers went back to the 30 minute running time, and many of the 5th season episodes are among my favorites.  In particular is The 7th is Made Up of Phantoms.  Of course, one of my abiding interests in the science fiction realm is the concept of time travel.  Thus, in my list of the top ten episodes of the series, at least three of them involve some aspect of that theme. And one of those is this one.

To encapsulate, in the present day a patrol of 3 men are scouting a ridge for the U.S. Army in performing a series of war games.  The crew consists of Sgt, William Connors (Ron Foster), Pvt. Michael McCluskey (Randy Boone) and our focus actor of this post, Warren Oates as Cpl. Richard Langsford.  It seems that the three have stumbled across a genuine Native American teepee.  Which, since both McCluskey and Connors are avid history buffs, they know that's exactly what happened 80 some odd years earlier in the preamble to the event most historians know as The Battle of Little Big Horn.

Langsford it appears is the voice of reason of the three because both Connors and McCluskey are convinced something odd is going on.  Like maybe they crossed some boundary and are really back in the past, just prior to that epic battle.

Their superiors, including a captain, tell them to get their heads in the right place and continue on with the maneuvers of the war games.  Which is what they should do, of course.  But on the second day they find a deserted village of teepees, just like had happened in the earlier history. And, after going up to scout out this deserted village,  McCluskey comes back telling the other two that if it is a mirage, it's a doozy, because he now sports an arrow in his back. And just around the bend they come upon the de facto proof they have crossed into unknown territory when they witness the battle.  And, being gung ho soldiers, they join in the fray.  Note: At no point do we see the battle our present day soldiers see, we only hear it, giving credence that it may or may not be just their imagination... But...

Meanwhile back in the present, the current army finds the deserted tank, but no soldiers, and, as per Twilight Zone gotcha moment, the three present day soldiers names are among those listed as having died in the battle 80 years earlier.

In the course of his career as an actor Warren Oates had some memorable roles. Beginning in 1956 he was a frequent guest star in TV shows, like many actors.  But he also had some notable film roles.  Many of you will remember him as Officer Sam Wood in the movie version of In the Heat of the Night.  He was also memorable as one of The Wild Bunch playing Lyle Gorch in that epic.  He won the role of the title character of John Dillinger in the 1973 film Dillinger (and there's a film just waiting to make it's appearance at the Drive-In). One of my favorite appearances of him is when he was paired with Peter Fonda as a group of people being chased by renegade Satanists in Race with the Devil.

But probably more people will be familiar with him due to what was one of his final roles, that of the put-upon Sgt. Hulka, who had to put up with as well as mold into some kind of reasonable facsimile of soldiers the recruits in Stripes.

In Stripes, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis play a couple of malcontents who join the Army on a whim, figuring it to be a free ride.  Additionally in the platoon are more would-be losers, played with varying degrees of ineptitude by John Candy, Judge Reinhold, John Diehl and Conrad Dunn.

Throughout the boot camp scenes, Sgt. Hulka does his best to instill a semblance of pride in his recruits.  Whether or not he is successful is your call, because at one point he ends up in the infirmary as a result of a mishap on the training course. And Murray and cohorts end up completing their training (if you can call it that) without him. And manage to fool the brass that they are a crack outfit and desrve the plum job of guarding a Winnebago converted to a tank.

Bad idea, as Murray and Ramis end up in Soviet Russia with valuable (and needless to say "secret")  U.S. Army equipment.  Leaving Hulka and the rest of the malcontents to get them (or at least the equipment) back into U.S. control.

Oates is never a caricature, even when he plays what is essentially a caricature.  You watch this movie for Murray and Candy, of course, but Oates as Hulka is a real treat.  And you get the idea that Hulka would just as soon take on the whole Russian Red Army single-handed than to rely on the nitwits he has to help him.

Oates passed away in 1982 after a bout with influenza which may have brought on the actual heart attack that took his life.  Celebrate his legacy  by watching one of the movies mentioned here (or any of his others).

Quiggy

"Hey! I Know That Guy!" Episode #2

"Hey! I know that guy!"

 

Well, it's time for another installment of the ongoing series.  To refresh your memory, the plan is to discuss an episode of The Twilight Zone and highlight one of the actors or actresses appearing in the episode and talk about their career before and after their role in the episode.  Usually I will be taking a secondary character as my focus, not one of the stars.

For instance, in the first installment I went with James Gregory who appeared briefly at the end of the premiere episode of The Twilight Zone.  But as I stated in that post, there are at least two (that I can think of off the top of my head), that only have two characters, so in those episodes neither of the actors or actresses could be considered secondary.

And thus, this time I am going with what is one of my all-time favorite episodes of The Twilight Zone, "A Game of Pool". In this episode, a wanna be pool star is frustrated because, although he considers himself to be top notch, he is always being compared to a champion pool stud who is no longer living. The episode starred Jack Klugman as the would be star and Jonathan Winters (in a rare dramatic performance) as the former stud come back to life to play a one-on-one game with the wannabe.

In choosing which of the two stars to focus on, it would have been my natural tendency to go with Winters.  He was a great comic actor.  But then, Klugman had a good career on film, too.  I picked Klugman in the end  because, not only can I talk about a fairly extensive career, I also can review a long neglected film, Twelve Angry Men.

Jack Klugman's career spanned 60 years, beginning in 1950 as a bit player. But by the time of his first role on the Zone he already had a good resume, including one of the lead roles in a TV soap opera called The Greatest Gift  (1954-55). And, of course, after the stint on The Zone, everyone knows he went on to greater heights.  He is well remembered for playing Oscar Madison, foil to co-star Tony Randall's Felix Unger on the comedy The Odd Couple. (And by the way, he got his feet warm for that role by subbing for Walter Matthau in the stage production of the original play on Broadway.)

And when his term as Oscar ended, he also found dramatic success as the titular character of the mystery series Quincy, M.D.. Like the previous installment's Gregory,  Klugman  made his biggest impact on the small screen, but as we will see, he did have some rather memorable impact in the theater as well.

If you are a child of the 70's, you may also remember him appearing from time to time with his (then)  wife, Bret Somers on TV shows like Tattletales. And Bret also mentioned him from time to time during her stint as a regular on The Match Game. 

So on to the TV stint on The Twilight Zone. Klugman had 4 turns at starring on the show.  His first was as a downtrodden has been trumpet player who eventually finds a new lease on life in "A Passage for Trumpet". Besides his second role as the pool player in today's episode, he also appeared in two other episodes "Death Ship" and "In Praise of Pip". All four rank in the upper half of most full series episode rankings, and I'm happy to say, most people agree with me that "A Game of Pool" was his best.

In "A Game of Pool", Jesse Cardiff (Klugman) plays alone in a poolroom, showing off to everyone (and no one) how good he is.  But he laments that everyone else claims that he is not the equal of Fats Brown, a legend who has been dead for 15 years, Jesse wishes he could play Fats just one game and prove his mettle.  But making a wish in the Twilight Zone can bring about things you never expected.  Such as Fats Brown (Winters) appearing and answering the challenge.

Ultimately it comes down to Jesse playing for his life against Fats.  "You win; you live. You lose; you die." says Fats.  Which Jesse reluctantly accepts as the stakes seeing as to how he wants to win the prestige of being called the best so badly.  And when it comes down to the final ball, take it whichever way you want, Fats ends up losing (By choice or by misstep, you decide.  But I tend to think he flubbed on purpose.)  And Jesse ends up being the best.  But after he dies (sometime in the future, mind you, not right away) he finds that he has taken on the mantle that Fats vacated and has to show up whenever anyone wishes they could have played one game against the great Jesse Cardiff.

Klugman is the outstanding of the two here.  Not that there is anything to fault Winters by for his portrayal, but if an Emmy were going for one or the other I would have given it to Jack.  This is one of those episodes I end up watching about once every other month, just because I can get into it.  And not just because I wish I could play pool half as good as either of the two characters (although that does factor in to it). 

I'm given to understand both actors actually pulled off most of the shots in the episode. (The same seems to be true for the shots made by Newman and Gleason in The Hustler, and Laura (Mary Tyler Moore) did the stunt shot at the end of the "Hustling the Hustler" episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. Yes, I do love me some pool.  I even watch pool tournaments on TV. )

 

 

Klugman had very few roles in which he was the star on the big screen.  But even as a co-star, he managed to hold his own.  In particular was his presence in the Henry Fonda led film 12 Angry Men. Klugman was just one of 11, and admittedly he didn't garner the attraction that Fonda or co-star Lee J. Cobb. But when his turn to come on screen arrived, you knew he was there.  

I read the screenplay for 12 Angry Men in high school.  It was years before I finally got to watch it on video.  (I may have seen it on network TV before then,  but I don't remember).  

Even longer years later I had the opportunity to serve on a jury myself.  Not a murder trial.  It was a simple case of possession with intent to sell illegal drugs.  And I remember we initially had a hung jury.  The jury room didn't turn out acrimonious as it did here, but we did have some discussions.  And I remember we had one hold out until the very end.  Also I remembered the scene from this movie where one juror admonished another juror for changing his vote just so they could go home. So the situation was on my mind at that time.

If you know anything about the film you know that the 12 men are jurors deciding the outcome of a murder trial. Initially the vote is 11-1 "guilty". with one hold out, that being Henry Fonda's character.  Gradually over the course of the film, however, Fonda , and eventually some others are able to instill some doubts about the "guilty" verdict they initially cast until it comes down to one adamant hold out.  Klugman (credited as Juror #5; none of them actually have names they are all identified by their numbers in the jury seating) is one of the early jurors to change his vote.  And he becomes an advocate for others who change their votes to the hostile holdouts.

!2 Angry Men is a great character study, even though a couple of them sometimes come across as a little caricaturistic. (I speak here mainly of the immigrant character (Juror #11), played by George Voskovec, who himself was an immigrant, so maybe it wasn't intentional. Klugman's presence in the jury room is sometimes sedate, but that is in fitting with the character. Juror #5 is a city slum kid like the defendant and has much more sympathy for him as a result.

AS a film, this is one well worth seeing.  Despite the studio reluctance to a film with no actual action or sets to enhance the story, the film managed to get recognition, It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay (all of which it lost to Bridge on the River Kwai). I don't think it's too big a surprise there were no nominations for Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor for this film because, after all, how could you choose any one over the others as prominently lead actor?

For the best that Klugman had to offer, I would still go with watching him as Oscar Madison, but if you want to see his dramatic chops, you can't go wrong with !2 Angry Men.

 

Thanks for your time.

Quiggy

"Hey! I Know That Guy" Episode #1 ( of a Hopeful Series)

 Presenting Episode #1 of a series of posts I'm titling:

HEY! I know that guy!

OK, so you may not have noticed I do this frequently.  Get some inspirational idea and try to run with it.  So this may be an ongoing series (and then again it may die on the operating table) But  I am going to give it a shot.

Premise:  One of my favorite TV shows is the old 50's/60's TV show, The Twilight Zone.  The old anthology series had a strange story each week, and, since it was an anthology series, as opposed to a weekly drama, there were no recurring characters, or for that matter, recurring actors.  Admittedly, there were a smattering of actors who came back time and again for the series, but the only mainstay was the show's host, Rod Serling.

The man himself

 

Now, the headliner in these episodes was almost always a star in his or her own right. The first season alone had such luminaries as Ida Lupino,  Ed Wynn, Rod Taylor, Anne Francis and Howard Duff, just to name a few.  But each episode also had a supporting cast, some of which had not quite hit the heights they would later claim.   Many of the minor characters in these vignettes were just riding on the verge of discovery.

Of course, at least two of those  episodes had only two people on screen the entire time of the episode, and in those cases both actors were fairly well established by then: I am speaking, of course of  the third season episodes of "Two" and "A Game of Pool".  "Two" featured on Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery, and "A Game of Pool" featured only Jack Klugman and Jonathan Winters. So if this series goes on long enough and I choose to focus on one or both of those episodes, my choices will be limited.

 

Chuck and Liz

 

Jonny and Jack

 

So, anyway, back to the inspiration. One day, several years ago, I came home from being out carousing and turned on my TV to see what was on.  I started watching what turned out to be the Robert Redford movie Brubaker. In one scene, Redford is conversing with a character who is one of the prison trustees.  And I said "Hey! I know that guy!" But I couldn't figure out where I knew him.  Fortunately I had access to the internet by then and zipped over to my computer.  With a little effort, I found out the actor  was Matt Clark.  Still wasn't sure even with that, but a glance at IMDb told me Clark played Packy Harrison in the film In The Heat of the Night, and I immediately recalled his brief scene.

Thus, we have the inspiration for this series.  I'm going to pick one of the secondary characters from an episode of The Twilight Zone. In each post I will encapsulate the plot of the episode, as well as point out the actor and where he or she appears in the episode.  Then I will give some brief background on said actor, and highlight one (or more) of his or her memorable performances.

I hope this is enjoyable.  Don't know yet how it will all flesh out.  And I'm probably not going to stick to any predetermined sequence.  But I have decided to start at the beginning anyway.  The very first episode had only one character in it for 90% of the story.  The main character was played by Earl Holliman, a somewhat star in his own right by this time, though mostly as a supporting cast member.  For instance he was one of the astronaut crew accompanying Leslie Nielsen in the classic sci-fi movie Forbidden Planet.

 But at the very end, after the denouement, several more characters make their presence known and one these is played by James Gregory. 

 

So who is James Gregory, you might ask?Gregory was one of those actors who, even if you don't know his name, is definitely a familiar face (and voice).  Some of you may remember him best from the TV series from the late 70's - early 80's, Barney Miller.  Gregory had a recurring role as Inspector Luger.  And, although he was hidden by makeup, his voice was recognizable from Beneath the Planet of the Apes as General Ursus, one of the gorillas who sought to capture the main character in the film.

 

Interestingly, Gregory got his start in 1941 in a religious film called Journey to Jerusalem, but his acting career got put on hold (sort of) with the outbreak of WWII. Not sure what his actual duties involved during his service work, but he apparently got involved in helping make propaganda films, since he made at least one during that time. (There is a clip of him and a couple of other soldiers confronting a Communist street speaker in the film The Atomic Cafe. But try as I might I have been unable to find a title for the original film they gleaned for the clip).

After his return to civilian life, he started doing more acting work, including being the lead actor on a TV series from the 50's called The Lawless Years.  Gregory would go on to some more prominent work during this time, although he never really became a headliner.  One of the more prominent roles I remember is he was Senator Iselin, the prime target for the assassination attempt in the 60's thriller The Manchurian Candidate.

But his mainstay during his career was really with TV.  Notably he played the victim in one Columbo episode ("Short Fuse", featuring Roddy McDowall as the killer) and as a subsidiary character, the coach of a football team being run by another killer (Robert Culp) in "The Most Crucial Game", thus making him one of a handful of actors who appeared more than once on that iconic mystery series.

And, back to The Twilight Zone, he also had a meatier part as a Confederate soldier who stops to talk to a woman on her porch as the road filled with soldiers trudges by on the nearby road.  (The Passerby) 

In the first Twilight Zone episode, however,  the main focus is on a character, played by Earl Holliman, who finds himself in a town where there is no one else, although it appears at times they may have just left within the past hour or so.  Holliman's character desperately tries to figure out what is going on, as well as try to remember who he is and and how he got there in the first place.  It turns out that Holliman had been going though isolation and sensory deprivation exercises to see how they might affect potential astronauts on deep space travel.  At the end of the episode it is revealed that he has been watched by several Armed Forces  bigwigs, one of whom was a General played by Gregory.

In this episode, Gregory serves as the grounding in reality, the connection to the poor schmo who had to spend some 484 hours (that comes out to about 20 days, to give you perspective)  in this box as a guinea pig to see how long term isolation would affect his mind. The General may come off a bit uncaring, since it was his experiment, but he does show some compassion at the end.  

As mentioned earlier, Gregory's biggest bulk of acting roles occurred on the small screen.  He was really an important cast member in Barney Miller during that series' run.  He was introduced in the first season, but only had a few limited guest shots in the first couple of seasons.  He became a frequent star as the series went on , and in season 4 he was included as one of the stars of the show as the opening credits rolled.

Over the course of it's six seasons, there would be some characters that would come and go.  Notably Gregory Sierra, who many probably remember as Julio on Sanford and Son, stayed only through two seasons.  Abe Vigoda likewise left the series after a few years.  Jack Soo unfortunately passed away during the series run.  And there were a few additions that came on to compliment the cast, like Steve Landesburg, and surprisingly enough to me,  since he was such a strong presence later in the series, Ron Carey. 

The Season 4 Cast

 

With such an ensemble cast, there were often two or three stories going on in any episode, and thus not much dominant screen time for any one character.  But a highlight, for the episodes where he did appear,   was when Gregory walked into the squad room as Inspector Luger. He always came unannounced, just seemingly "happened to be in the neighborhood" kind of visit.  Of course, with Inspector Luger you never knew .  Ofttimes he was just showing up because he was a lonely man that craved attention and recognition,  Luger was guy you could get annoyed with because he was insensitive and oblivious to any one who might take offense, because he was just being genuine.  And then he could drop a bomb on you and make you feel sympathetic for his predicament. because, after all, he was a 50 something year old lifelong bachelor who almost never seemed to be able to settle down in a relationship, which might have mellowed him.

Oh sure, there was that one season when he had a fiance named Agnes (or maybe "Ag-a-nes", since that's how he pronounced it), but as wedding bells advanced he became more and more worried about the loss of independence.

By far, one of the more entertaining episodes of the series was the two-part "Quarantine" episode.  In this episode we got to see how the individual members of the squad were able to cope with being cooped up together, by force.  A prisoner was brought in who was sick and later determined to have either chicken pox or small pox.  As a result a doctor quarantines the entire precinct, and especially the squad room.  Not especially good even in the best of circumstances, but included in the mix are a gay couple who had just come to see Barney about helping them get a reprieve from one of them who was on probation.  And the unfortunate Luger who just happened to decide to visit the squad room at the wrong time.

Most of the rest of the squad room are somewhat upset, obviously, but Luger, being Luger, tries to manipulate the procedure.  And he is also not quite so accommodating to the fact that there is a gay couple in the quarantine.  

This being the 70's, the gay couple do receive some of the humorous remarks,and the gay viewing audience were not always receptive to the portrayal, but the writers did their best to be sympathetic and not condescending when presenting the characters.  There is an interesting video out there on youtube about the trials and tribulations behind the scenes.

Eventually the whole squad room finally settles down to crash on cots put up for the quarantine and Luger has to concede the couch in Barney's office to the only woman who has been quarantined with them (showing one of the rare moments when he is willing to think of others well being. 

Over the years that Gregory was in the acting business, he managed to accumulate over 200 appearances in TV and movies.  Pretty impressive by any standard.  He passed away in 2002 at the age of 90. 

Well, folks, thus ends our first entry in this venture. I had fun, so maybe it won't be the last entry...

 

Quiggy