Matt Clark: Railroad Detective

 

 

 

 

In 1954, television was still the new kid on the entertainment block, and radio and the movies were still king. Some regions of the country were yet to see their first broadcast station.

 

TV was making inroads, however.

 

RCA introduced their first color set that year – at the astounding price of $1000 – equivalent to about $8,000 in today’s dollars. A hefty price tag for a 15-inch screen, with a less than perfect picture.

Movie studios could see the writing on the wall, however, and they quickly began producing content for this new medium.

While Warner Brothers produced a long string of hit TV shows (Cheyenne, Maverick, 77 Sunset Strip, Lawman, etc.), it was Republic Studios that garnered the first TV Emmy Award for a `Western or Adventure Series’ in 1955.

The show was Stories of the Century, and it starred Jim Davis as railroad detective Matt Clark, and for most of the series run - Mary Castle as his undercover partner Frankie Adams.

 

Although it ran only 39 episodes, and failed to revive Republic Studio’s flagging finances, the series is well remembered today for its solid action sequences and early appearances by many soon-to-be famous actors.

 

Richard Jaeckel played Billy the Kid and spaghetti western legend Lee Van Cleef appeared as Jesse James. Richard Webb showed up to play John Wesley Hardin, Jack Elam portrayed Black Jack Ketchum, and Marie Windsor played Belle Starr.

 

 

The `high concept’ for this series was to dramatize the lives of famous western outlaws, using a fictitious railroad detective (Matt Clark) as being in on, or nearby their final fate. This despite the fact that these `stories’ spanned nearly 50 years of western history.

 

This contrivance aside, the opening narration to each episode read: "The official newspaper files of the early west record many stories of famous and notorious characters of that period . . .”

 

After which Jim Davis would identify the outlaw (or outlaws) that would be the subject of that night’s episode.  

While the series makes some attempt at historical accuracy (at least dates and places), the events shown don’t always agree with the historical record. 

 

This was, first and foremost, entertainment . . . not a documentary.

 

Republic studios – best known as producers of western movies – had ample footage from earlier productions that they could weave into this series.  Scenes where Quantrill raids Lawrence, Kansas in 1863 comes from Raoul Walsh's DARK COMMAND (1940), and the wagon chase scene from WAR OF THE WILDCATS (1943) shows up in the Black Jack Ketchum episode.

 

By matching up clothes and uniforms to the scenes lifted from older movies, the director managed to blend new footage with the old, giving the low-budget series a more expensive `feel’.

 

Add in some well-staged fisticuffs or gun play, at least one chase scene, and the comeuppance of the bad guy at the end, and you had a 30 minute episode.

 

Tall, rangy Jim Davis (who would gain greater fame as Jock Ewing in Dallas), was a veteran of Republic Oaters of the 1940s, and could be both likable, or tough as nails, when the scene required it.

 

Mary Castle as Frankie Adams added a bit of welcome estrogen to the mix, as Clark’s beautiful but very capable partner.  A role model that was – for TV at least – a bit ahead of its time.

 

The problem with the series was that with each outlaw captured or killed in one episode, in short order the more famous denizens of the west has been taken care of, and the writers had to find more and more obscure bad men (or women) to profile.

 

Hence we got episodes on little known rascals like Joaquin Murietta, Bill Longley , and Burt Alvord mixed in with tales of Geronimo, Billy The Kid, and the Doolin Gang.

 

After 39 episodes, they were running out of material.

The Internet Archive currently has 17 episodes of this series available to watch or download.  You can get a complete listing at this link.

Jim Davis would work steadily in TV until his death in 1981, while starring in the hit primetime soap Dallas.

Between 1958-1960 he co-starred with Lang Jefferies in RESCUE 8, about a Los Angeles Fire Rescue unit, which pre-dated the TV show EMERGENCY by more than a decade.

 

Mary Castle, who at one time was viewed as possible replacement for Rita Hayworth, fared less well.

 

She was married briefly three times, and her personal life derailed badly due to alcohol . After several arrests in the late 1950s for intoxication, her acting career eventually evaporated.

Her last acting credit is from an 1962 episode of Gunsmoke, and the character is just listed as `Saloon girl’.

 

Castle died in 1998 at the age of 67 of lung cancer.

 

Tales Of Frankenstein

 

 

Since it was first published in 1818, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus  has been a template for `science gone wrong’ horror genre.

 

Whether it is seeking to create a new human life from spare parts, or  develop a new source of nuclear energy, or perhaps a radical cure for some disease . . . the deep seated fear over man delving into areas where he should not has become a staple of modern science fiction and horror.

 

Given that Halloween is upon us, I’ve a brief tour of freely available (public domain) radio, TV, and movie versions of the Frankenstein legend that you can download and enjoy this weekend.

 

First stop, a 1938 radio production of the Frankenstein story in 13 parts (each about 13 minutes).   Faithful to the 1818 Mary Shelly book, you can find this collection on several free sites including:

 

http://www.botar.us/archives.html

http://www.otr.net/?p=frkn

 

We’ve a pair of TV adaptations of the story from the 1950s.   First, the infamous Tales of Tomorrow  Frankenstein episode, broadcast live in the early 1950s.

 

Over the years, the retelling of the story has embellished it a bit, but it is an example of how things didn't always go as planned during a live broadcast.

 

The legend is that Lon Chaney Jr., under the influence of alcohol, thought that they were doing a dress rehearsal, and not a live broadcast.  During his `rampage scene' in the first half of the show, instead of busting up props, he picked them up and then set them down carefully.

 

For whatever reason, Chaney does pick up, and set back down, a number of props - particularly in the first half of the show.

 

Tales of Tomorrow #16: Frankenstein (1952)

 

Six years later, up and coming Hammer Studios and Universal teamed to produce a pilot for a TV show to be called `Tales of Frankenstein’, which utilized stock footage from old Universal horror movies of the 1940s to reduce production costs.

 

While certainly a cut above the Tales of Tomorrow version, the pilot was never sold. 

 

Tales Of Frankenstein (The Face In The Tombstone Mirror) - Pilot

 

As an example of the cost cutting measures employed, the disembodied head that narrates the opening to this episode was lifted from an old Inner Sanctum movie, and so the lip movements don’t sync with the narration.

 

Some websites list a second `pilot’ for this series as `Jack the Ripper’, but that appears – instead – to be an episode from The Veil.

 

And lastly, a couple of suitably `cheesy’ Frankenstein movie sequels can be found on The Internet Archive.

 

Frankenstein's Daughter - 1958

Lady Frankenstein - 1971

 

Be warned: Neither of these two movies is likely to win any artistic awards, but then, there’s a reason they’ve fallen into the public domain.

Enjoy.

 

 

Have Yourself A Macabre Halloween

 

 

 

 

The early 1960s saw the demise of the golden age of radio, killed by the unstoppable juggernaut of television.  With few exceptions, radio was morphing into a medium mostly of music and talk.

 

Daytime soaps Our Gal Sunday, This is Nora Drake, Backstage Wife, and Road of Life all ended their runs in 1959.  Gunsmoke ended its stellar primetime radio run in 1961, and Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar was put to bed after 811 episodes in September of 1962. 

 

There were a few hangers on, particularly during the morning and afternoon time slots.  Shows like Arthur Godfrey Time, Garry Moore, and the Bing Crosby – Rosemary Clooney show continued into the mid-1960s, but even their fates were becoming obvious.

 

Although radio drama was on the decline stateside, because many of its listeners were in far-off places and unable to gather in front of a television set, the AFRS (Armed Forces Radio Service) continued to provide a wide variety of audio entertainment for the troops well into the 1960s.

 

Created in 1942, shortly after the onset of WWII, AFRS provided radio broadcasts and V-Discs (78 & 33 rpm records) to troops around the world. Often the shows beamed to the troops were the same shows heard stateside, but sometimes they were created specifically for AFRS.

 

One such home-brewed show was Macabre – which ran for only 8 episodes during 1961-1962, and was produced by FEN (the FAR EAST NETWORK) of AFRS. Despite this short run, it is well remembered for its excellent production values and spooky subject matter.

 

The Internet Archive has all eight episodes available for listening or download.  Being only 50 years old, the audio quality is better than you’ll find on many of the older recordings.

 

The episodes, all appropriate for the week leading up to Halloween, are:

Macabre 611113 - [1] Final Resting Place

Macabre 611120 - [2] Weekend

Macabre 611127 - [3] The Man in the Mirror

Macabre 611204 - [4] The House in the Garden

Macabre 611211 - [5] The Midnight Horseman

Macabre 611218 - [6] The Avenger

Macabre 620101 - [7] The Crystalline Man

Macabre 620108 - [8] The Edge of Evil

The link to download them is Macabre

I’ll have more Halloween Horror from the golden age of radio, TV, and movies later in the week.

The First James Bond

 

 

In 1953 Ian Fleming published the first of 12 James Bond novels, Casino Royale, and launched what is arguably the most successful entertainment franchise of the 20th century. More than 100 million copies of his novels have been sold, and the series has spawned more than 2 dozen films.

 

Casino Royale sold very well in the UK, but a year later in 1954, Commander James Bond was still relatively unknown in the United States.

 

The earliest attempt at a filmed version of James Bond came in October of 1954, when an American anthology  TV series called  CLIMAX! produced a live broadcast of Casino Royale.

 

Fleming was reportedly paid $1,000 for the rights to the story, and Barry Nelson played an `Americanized’  Jimmy Bond of `combined intelligence’.

 

Bond aficionados will immediately notice a few `discrepancies’ in this production, including the changing of American CIA Agent Felix Leiter  into a British agent named  Clarence Leiter.

 

Linda Christian becomes the first `Bond girl’, in a character that was an amalgam of the Royale characters Vesper Lynd and Rene Mathis.

 

Peter Lorre is appropriately menacing as the first Bond Villain, playing Le Chiffre, whom `Jimmy Bond’ must bust playing Baccarat.

 

Admittedly stage bound, and lacking the sort of sexual conquests, fast cars, jazzy music, and gadgets that Bond movies are famous for, this still makes for an interesting hour of early TV.

 

A copy of this early TV production has just showed up on the Internet Archive, and you can either watch it online, or download it for your collection.

 

 

Climax!: Casino Royale

 

Interestingly, the only time the words `Casino Royale’ are uttered during this production is during the intro by series host William Lundigan. 

 

For more live productions from the golden age of TV, you may wish to check out:

Seeking A Satisfying Climax!

 

Although CBS briefly toyed with the idea of a James Bond TV series in the the late 1950s, it would be another 8 years before Bond would return to the screen (Dr. No). 

Casino Royale has been remade twice since this Climax version, with the 1967 James Bond spoof called starring David Niven, and most recently in 2006 with Daniel Craig playing a darker, earthier Bond sans many of the gadgets that had defined earlier screen portrayals.

Ramar Of The Jungle

 

 

 

 

 

Juvenile adventure television series were a staple of 1950s television, with shows like Sergeant Preston, Sky King, and Tom Corbett taking their audiences from the Yukon territory, to the cockpit of a soaring Cessna T-50 `Bamboo Bomber’, to the far reaches of the asteroid belt.

 

For 30 minutes (minus commercials) these shows would transport kids of all ages to exotic locales, where adventure awaited and despite any adversity, the good guys always won.

 

One of the best remembered shows of my childhood was a syndicated adventure series staring Jon Hall, called Ramar of the Jungle.

 

For this all-American youth of the 1950s a scientist-doctor who lived and worked in the jungle, carried a rifle, and always saved the day . . . well, that was a hard combination to beat.

 

The series consisted of 4 13-episode blocks. With the 1st, 3rd, and 4th blocks taking place in `Africa’ and the 2nd series in `India’.

In reality, they were really shot on the back lot in Hollywood, with cheap sets, dubious looking `natives’, and stock jungle footage liberally spliced into each episode. The same jungle scenes had a habit of showing up repeatedly week after week, but then, it wasn’t supposed to be a documentary.

 

Each of the 4 season’s had a 3-part story arc, that allowed the producers to repackage these episodes into four separate feature films.  Another seven `TV movies’ were stitched together for syndication as well, long after the series ended.

 

The show starred Jon Hall – an actor who first appeared in movies in 1935, but didn’t really gain attention until the 1937 movie The Hurricane, with Dorothy Lamour.

 

He worked steadily throughout the 1940s playing the lead in lightweight escapist adventures like Arabian Nights (1942), White Savage (1943), Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944), Cobra Woman (1944), and Prince of Thieves (1949).

Hall was married for 20 years to the beautiful and talented songstress Frances Langford, who played opposite Don Ameche in The Bickersons.  They divorced in 1955, but remained friends until Hall’s death in 1979.

 

While able to find work in B movies, Hall – like many of the B-list stars of the time – moved to television in the 1950s.  He played Dr. Tom 'Ramar' Reynolds in 52 episodes of Ramar of the Jungle between 1952 and 1954.

 

Hall’s career languished post-Ramar, with few roles offered, and ended with the ultra-low budget horror film The Beach Girls and the Monster in 1965.

 

It is a testament to just how long Ramar ran in syndication that I remember it vividly playing on Saturday afternoon television as much as a decade after filming ended.

 

Hall’s co-star was Ray Montgomery, a contract player with Warner Bros. in the 1940s who appeared in mostly minor roles.  Handsome, and a capable enough actor, there wasn’t anything that set him apart from the crowd.

 

Unlike Hall, however, Montgomery managed to stay active in show business throughout the 1960s and into the 70’s and 80’s, playing guest roles in shows like 77 Sunset Strip, Hawaiian Eye, The Virginian, and  Lassie.

 

The third member of the cast was Nick Stewart, who played a native guide named Willy-WIlly.

 

Despite third billing, Stewart actually had a longer (and better) resume than either of his two co-stars. He’d started out as a dancer at the Cotton Club, moved to Broadway in the 1930s, and appeared in the movies (bit roles) as early as 1932.

 

Most famously, he’d played Lightnin' (as Nick O'Demus) on the the TV version of the Amos & Andy Show.

Stewart and his wife Edna Stewart founded the Los Angeles' Ebony Showcase Theatre, which worked to give black actors roles beyond the traditional maid and porter stereotypes.

We’ve 5 episodes of Ramar for you to sample from the Internet Archive.   

Ramar of the Jungle - Evil Trek
Ramar of the Jungle - Season 1, Episode 1

Ramar of the Jungle - White Savages
Ramar of the Jungle - Season 1, Episode 2

Ramar of the Jungle - Drums of Africa
Ramar of the Jungle | Season 1, Episode 3

Ramar of the Jungle - The Doomed Safari
Ramar of the Jungle | Season 1, Episode 4

 

Ramar of the Jungle - Tribal Feud
Ramar of the Jungle | Season 1, Episode 5

 

Jon Hall died at his own hands in 1979 while in the final stages of terminal cancer. Upon retirement from show business, Ray Montgomery successfully transitioned into California Real Estate.

Nick Stewart passed away in 2000, but along the way his Ebony Showcase Theatre helped launch many careers,including those of such noted performers as Nichelle Nichols, John Amos, and Isabel Sanford.

 

Not a bad legacy. Not bad at all.