NIGHT OF TERROR

By Bruce Dettman

You still remember them, what's left of them anyway. The majority are in pretty bad shape, crumbling reminders of an older, nearly forgotten America when gas and hamburgers were cheap. They can often be glimpsed in the distance from modern highways, many long closed, others biding their time until they are torn down to make way for Walmarts or 7-11s. They went by different names, auto courts, travel courts and cabins. When you traveled across America -- as my family did by car from Illinois to California in early 1950s -- there were few good motels, mainly only in the bigger cities, so you often stayed in such places. They were usually ok, for the most part clean and well run. The big attraction in those days was TV in the rooms, some actually coin operated.

Outside of this, for kids anyway, they were pretty boring. If you were lucky there might be a swing set on the front lawn near the office so you could swing away for hours while drinking Dr. Pepper or Hires Root Beer from the outdoor soda machine. In Night of Terror Lois Lane, portrayed by TV's first Lois, Phyllis Coates, stops for the night at the Restwell Tourist Cabins not far from the Canadian border. Lois is on vacation and you have to wonder where's she heading. Lois worked too hard and I like to think she's going to have a clandestine rendezvous with some guy in Montreal. Anyway, she's unlucky enough to wander smack dab into a dangerous situation. Hoodlums have been using the place to hide out fellow criminals who are then smuggled out of the country. When the husband and wife owners find uncover the scheme the man is murdered by two thugs. Lois and the woman are next in line. The woman is Ann Doran who had a long track record in films and TV. You can spot her in a Three Stooges short and later she was James Dean's mother in Rebel Without a Cause. TAOS fans might be interested to know she played Dabbs Greer's wife in the science-fiction film It The Terror From Beyond Space. Lois, never the most even-tempered of heroines as portrayed by Ms. Coates, doesn't help matters by taking a swing at one of the criminals who reacts in kind. Phyllis was off her mark as the scene was staged and the actor, Frank Richards, actually knocked her out. I talked to Ms. Coats a few years back and she admitted it was all her fault. In any case, the other hit men are John Kellogg and Richard Benedict, both TAOS alumni. None of these guys are in the least squeamish about beating up women or killing them for that matter. This is a tough and mean episode. Remove Superman - and this is the case in many of the first year shows - and you still have a tidy little thriller. Meanwhile Clark is racing around the Daily Planet trying to figure out where Lois is. We meet Miss Backerack, the testy receptionist with her hair in a tight bun, and Oscar the janitor, and learn that Clark's office is on the 28th floor and that he has a drawing of what looks like the Golden Gate Bridge over his desk. Steve Carr, director Tommy's brother, makes one of his numerous appearances in the first year of the show, this time as a travel agent. Jimmy gets to the cabins first which means that Clark and he will have to cancel the White Sox game they had made plans to see that night. Jimmy tries his best to defend the two women but it takes Superman ---and a very obvious stuntman - to save the day. Problem is "Mr Big", referenced by the crooks as ordering the executions, is never caught. I guess even Superman has to occasionally settle for three out of four.

May 2005

THE RUNAWAY ROBOT

By Bruce Dettman

Robots have come a long way since Czech novelist and playwright Karel Capek wrote R.U.R., the theatrical vehicle that introduced the species to the general public way back in 1920. As a kid, very little that was intended to frighten me up on the big (or little) screen succeeded, not vampires or werewolves, not mummies or even the big guy with the bolts and ultimate flat top, but for some reason, perhaps it was their complete lack of humanity, robots invariably got under my skin. Of course, we who came along in the pre-George Lucas era, weren't overly demanding of our robots. I have to admit with some embarrassment that the famous "Walking Water Heater" made notorious in Republic serials, actually sent a few shivers up my adolescent spine when I first encountered him tangling with my boyhood hero the Copperhead in The Mysterious Dr. Satan, as did the scowling metallic menace in The Phantom Creeps with Bela Lugosi. To be honest, I didn't even totally trust Tobor or even Robbie, although they were supposedly benevolent creations.

The one robot, however, who never bothered me in the least was Hero from The Runaway Robot, part of the first year's episodes of TAOS. It is, I think, a testimonial to the acting skills of Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane that she managed to register legitimate terror and fear at the sight of a creature that can best be described as an ungainly composite of the Tin Woodsman from The Wizard of Oz and Mr. Potato Head. Not only did Ms. Coates cower and emote with admirable believability given the silly appearance of her attacker, but she also managed several dynamite multi-octave screams as only she could (I rate her right up there with the late Fay Wray in the lung department). But that was the way it was in those days.

No matter what the premise, how cheap the special effects, how questionable the plot line the actors gave it their all, never had tongue in cheek or appeared to look down at the material. That's what makes all these old shows so memorable and fun to look back at. They were always played straight. Nonetheless, Runaway Robot is certainly less serious in theme and execution than most of Robert Maxwell's first year efforts. For one thing, despite their willingness to have Hero do away with both Lois and its scatterbrained inventor Horatio Hinkle (Lucien Littlefield), the trio of bad guys which includes Russell Johnson (years away from his role as the Professor on Gilligans's Island), Dan Seymour (who would also show up on The Mind Machine and The Stolen Costume) and one of screendom's greatest weasels John Harmon, are hard to take seriously and more closely resemble some of the series' later miscreants than other first year bad guys who are rarely a laughing matter. Ironically, despite the lighter tone of the episode, it seems as though the entire cast is a bit on the testy and volatile side. Everyone seems to have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed for this one - Clark ("Superman's not psychic, Jimmy!"), Perry, Lois - the whole gang just seem off their game. Perhaps the next Daily Planet payday was too far off. Who knows? Fortunately, they finally get to blow off a little steam at Inspector Henderson's expense when the torch appliance from Hero's dismantled carcass singes the detective's behind (in Clark's apartment at the Standish Arms). It's a fun episode but not one of the first year's best. Still I think an Emmy should have gone to Ms. Coates for that one scene alone.

June 2005

GHOST WOLF

By Bruce Dettman

I will never forget one late afternoon in the 1950s when my mother, never known for her humor or sarcasm, stood outside my locked bedroom door and bellowed with great conviction "No turning into a werewolf until your homework is done." I knew what she meant, of course. The whole house, which included my father, brother and three-legged dog, all knew. Simply put, I loved werewolves. I liked vampires and the Frankenstein monster and old Kharis the Mummy too (to be honest, I could take or leave the Invisible Man), but I reserved a special place in my heart for werewolves, specifically the Wolfman portrayed in five Universal horror films by Lon Chaney Jr. Anywhere, anytime I was in the mood I would find a mirror and focus on my adolescent mug while I scrunched my features, barred my canines, messed with my hair and began to growl. Aiding me in these transformations was my father's Xmas gift of a portable tape recorder that I used to tape my favorite horror pictures. Now in these days of videos and DVDs (and who knows what else is around the corner) the idea of taping only the audio part of a movie might sound odd if not downright idiotic, but in those prehistoric days it offered up magical possibilities. I knew these films so well that I could sit in the dark and listen to the dialog and the great music by studio composers like Hans Salter, Charles Previn and Frank Skinner and let my imagination do the rest.

Even better, I could crank up Salter's very evocative transformation music that created the perfect mood when -- with the help of makeup wizard Jack Pierce and special effects magician John P. Fulton -- Chaney turned into his furry alter ego and pretend to be experiencing the same agonies of metamorphosis (thank goodness there was no shrink in the neighborhood). In any case, my poor mother finally got wise to the sounds of me gnashing my teeth and fighting my dog when she should have been hearing me struggling with fractions or diagramming sentences. What all of this is leading up to is that The Ghost Wolf from the first season of TAOS was a bit of a letdown. There was no real werewolf in the story (as opposed to a Jimmy Olsen comic book I recall where the cub reporter actually grew whiskers and teeth and threatened Lois' sister Lucy - No. 44, April 1960).  From what I could see it wasn't even a wolf, just a German shepherd with a bad dye job and a lousy disposition.

Still, once my initial disappointment was over it became a favorite episode. In the first place, it's always interesting to see the Daily Planet gang away from Metropolis for a change. Perry orders Clark, Lois and Jimmy out to see what's going on at the Planet-owned Lone Pine Timber Company, run by Sam Garvin (played by Stanley Andrews best known for his later role as the Old Ranger, narrator on Death Valley Days for many, many years before Ronald Reagan took over and whose voice is inexplicably dubbed during his phone chats with Perry). Lois and Jimmy dress down for the occasion (Jimmy wearing what is possibly the ugliest mixing of plaid shirts and pants ever recorded on camera), but Clark decides to go into the woods with the same old suit.

Also in the cast is the very attractive Jane Adams as the Ghost Wolf's owner Barbette. Adams was a solid and likable B actress in many programmers and serials. She was Vicki Vale in the 1949 cliffhanger Batman and Robin, acted opposite Rondo Hatton in The Brute Man and is probably best known for playing the doomed hunchback lab assistant in House of Dracula.

Veteran bad guy Lou Krugman (also featured in The Human Bomb but who I will always remember most vividly from Andy's Gang where he played the Maharaja) fills out the cast.

This is one of the few episodes where Clark actually says "Great Scott" which was a trade line in the comics. There's lots of fill with stock footage, most of lumberjacks and falling trees, but like most of the early episodes it's pretty much action, action, action with director Lee Sholem quickly getting the audience into the thick of things. This was reportedly the show where George Reeves took a bad fall during a flying sequence, probably in the shot where Superman takes off to seed a cloud with electricity. Lois gets to scream twice and along with Jimmy almost gets par-boiled by a forest fire but the two are insulated from the heat by Superman's cape (odd none of the trees are seen to be burnt).

By the way, according to this episode if you ever wish to phone the Daily Planet it's Metropolis 60500.
July 2005

CZAR OF THE UNDERWORLD

By Bruce Dettman

When I was growing up in the 1950s my father regularly took our family to Los Angeles. At the time he worked for a major aluminum company that sponsored several TV shows (Maverick, for one) and it was often necessary for him to travel from our home in the Bay Area to Hollywood to provide technical expertise for the commercials. Once at a Warner Brothers' studio luncheon he not only met the show's star James Garner, but both Cheyenne's Clint Walker and Bronco's Ty Hardin yet somehow failed to get me any autographs, an unpardonable oversight that, to say the very least, cost him dearly for weeks to come. On these trips my parents would often disappear for sightseeing excursions (my mother undoubtedly canvassing the town for any sign of Lucille Ball, my father for Ava Gardner) leaving my poor older brother--who I'm sure would have rather been on his own looking for Sandra Dee or Tuesday Weld or someone--rather than watching over me. Even back then the smog was ruinous and I recall my eyes burning terribly as he took me on afternoon walks down to Grauman's Chinese Theatre (where I examined Roy Rogers' boot marks in the cement) and Hollywood and Vine to hunt for celebrities. Occasionally during our wanderings we would get off the beaten track and roam various back streets. One time, as we crossed elevated train tracks, we saw below us a film crew staging what appeared to be a gun battle near some stationary freight cars. Naturally I thought it must be an episode of Dragnet--the only crime show I had been exposed to up to that point-- that they were shooting, but my brother was not so sure. To this day we have no idea what we were watching, but I still romantically cling to the notion that it was Jack Webb and Ben Alexander getting the upper hand on some nasty crooks.

Anyway, I was recently thinking back to all of this--in black and white images which is how I tend to recall certain aspects of my youth--as I watched Clark and Inspector Henderson heading out to Hollywood to get the goods on oily gang leader Luigi Dinelli in TAOS first season's Czar of the Underworld.

I must say for a so-called "mild-mannered reporter" Kent is pretty brazen when still in Metropolis he warns the gangster by phone how he and Henderson are going expose his criminal activities. This is certainly not the milquetoast reporter of the early comics but this fact has never bothered me. Since the Reeves' characterization of Kent is the first I was ever acquainted with I've always accepted it with no problem or questions asked. Besides, I've always felt Christopher Reeve's performance as Kent was over the top and a bit silly. I could never quite buy the idea of a big city reporter covering tough urban stories and being such an obvious wimp.

Kent and Henderson act as technical advisers as the film Czar of the Underworld is being shot. They are also around as the star is murdered while filming a scene (Steve Carr, brother of real-life director Tommy Carr, plays his sibling in the process of setting up the camera shot).This puts Kent and Henderson in direct conflict with Dinelli and, given his inflated reputation as a big mobster, his rather meager number of henchmen.

One of these is Paul Fix who a few years later would have a steady role as Micah Torrence, the reformed drunk and ex-marshal who would redeem himself on The Rifleman. Fix was a long time actor (To Kill A Mockingbird, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, The Bad Seed) and playwright who often worked with John Wayne (and even tutored him on occasion) Meanwhile the kingpin is played by Anthony Caruso who despite his equally long career which ranged from classics like The Asphalt Jungle to hundreds of TV shows and even an appearance with Laurel and Hardy I will always recall best getting his cheek carved up by Lex Barker in Tarzan and the Slave Girl. Meanwhile while Henderson enjoys all the perks of a studio budget and seems to be having a good old time despite all the death and mayhem going on around him, Clark's out investigating the case and as the Man of Steel confronting Dinelli in his apartment. I particularly like this scene because of how obvious it is that Superman is getting as much as enjoyment beating the stuffing out of Dinelli and his men as Henderson is with his free steak dinners (one is supposed to be for Clark).

I'm sure Lois and Jimmy, nowhere to be seen in this episode, weren't too happy being excluded from this trip to Tinseltown (particularly Lois who would finally have had a chance to buy a new outfit), but Perry White shows up just long enough to verbally take Henderson's head off over the telephone. Nonetheless, the Inspector continues to thoroughly enjoy himself. Seems the California sunshine and free meals really agree with him. In any case, it's nice to see Bob Shayne get a bit more time in front of the camera and have something more to do than clean up things after Superman saves the day.

I have to say that while I miss Lois and Jimmy, I rather like Clark and Henderson teaming up together. They make a good team and there is obviously some nice chemistry between the actors. I wish it would have happened more often.

September 2005

NO HOLDS BARRED

By Bruce Dettman

I used to believe professional wrestling was on the up and up. By age ten, however, I began to realize that the chances of a two hundred and fifty pound guy dropping on someone else's neck with minimal damage were highly unlikely. This didn't stop a bunch of my pals and me from once attending a local series of matches at a TV station in Oakland. All our favorites were on hand: Ray "The Crippler" Stevens, Pepper Gomez, "Flying" Red Bastein, the Sheik and Ray "Thunder" Stern. In person, the moves, throws and punches even looked more suspect than on TV, but we didn't care and screamed our lungs out. The card girl was a luscious and curvy local girl in a one-piece bathing suit and high heels. We liked her too. In those days, of course, wrestling was a regional business, not the over-inflated cable monolith it grew to be under slime ball Vince McMahon. Every area had a champion and key players. Like a lot of things in the past, life was easier and less complicated then, even for wrestlers. I remember once when I was in high school a bunch of us went out for a bite after a night basketball game. Halfway through our meal we noticed that Ray Stevens was sitting nearby at a table chowing down on some fried chicken and potato salad and taking gulps of beer from a mug approximately the size of Montana. For a joke we began to throw some "pencil neck" references in his direction (his favorite on-air description of both his opponents and the fans) until he finally looked up through weary eyes and told us to "knock it off." Ray was fat and past his prime by then but we decided to do what he said anyway. Still, on our way out he shook all of our hands and called us pencil necks for good measure.

In No Holds Barred the wrestling game is portrayed as crooked as well but from a different angle. Mortimer Murray's (the great Herb Vigran) stable of wrestlers is being tutored by an Indian swami named Ra (Tito Renaldo) who is teaching them lethal - and often crippling - moves to use on their opponents (the worst being something called "The Paralizer"). Ra has no idea that he is being exploited, only believing (rather naively, I must say) that Murray is protecting him from the federal police for some unstated violation and that his knowledge of the human body is never used for evil purposes by the unscrupulous promoter's stable of muscle-headed grapplers including "Bad Luck" Brannigan (Richard Reeves) and the "Crusher" (Henry Kulky, later a regular on The Life of Riley and Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea). Perry White, apparently a big wrestling fan, is incensed by this athletic skullduggery ("I'm going to put a stop to it if it's the last thing I do!") and hires college wrestler Wayne Winchester (Malcolm Mealy, a former real-life college football star also of The Deserted Village) to investigate and see what he can learn. Wayne takes Lois (Phyllis Coates) to watch a bout but when Brannigan wins with the "Paralizer" the impulsive Wayne jumps into the ring and challenges Brannigan to a match. While Lois and Perry think this a stupid and dangerous idea, Clark Kent backs Wayne with the opinion that he believes the young grappler can emerge the victor.

Lois is pretty upset about this ("Clark, I never want to see you again as long as I live.") not realizing that Clark/Superman already suspects Murray's mat goons of employing pressure points to beat and injure their opponents. Secretly visiting the gymnasium at night where Ram is held captive he has the Hindu show him the techniques he has taught Murray's boys, the knowledge of which he then imparts to Wayne who uses poor Jimmy to practice counter holds on. Lois is still steaming and in a conversation with White who tries to defend Kent says that no matter how right someone is one day they have to be wrong, it's only human which sets up the editor for the response "Sometimes I wonder if Kent is Human" which is delivered in a wonderfully reflective way. Naturally when the night of the big match comes Wayne triumphs which cause Murray and the goons to return to the gym and torture Ram, who they believe has betrayed them, until the Man of Steels clears the deck with all the wrestlers. Exciting stuff.

Superman is still pretty much of a new entity in this one. Ram, admittedly not the brightest bulb on the tree, thinks he is an actual genie and when the Daily Planet crew find out he's saved the day White bellows "Superman again!" Clark, by the way, walks around his apartment in a robe over his street clothes. Must be pretty warm when you think he also has his Superman suit underneath both.

It's a fun episode with a strong cast which also includes the always enjoyable Dick Elliot as honest promoter Sam Bleaker. Oddly, after Wayne wins the championship Jimmy, in the capacity as Winchester's trainer, offers to talk terms with Bleaker who promises both of them millions. Apparently no deal could be arranged because we never hear of Jimmy's wrestling affiliation again. Of course, we never hear of Wayne again either and apparently Lois eventually forgives Clark, until next week's episode anyway.

December 2005

TREASURE OF THE INCAS

By Bruce Dettman

There is a scene in this first year episode, written by Howard Green and directed by Thomas Carr, where Jimmy and Lois, having traveled to Peru, are in the company of a certain Don Anselmo (the ubiquitous Steven Carr) driving across what appears to be a scorching desert in a convertible. Neither reporter seems to be enjoying him or herself very much and the terrain looks about as hospitable as Death Valley in August. Seeing this I was immediately reminded of my own family's unpleasant experience with a topless 59 black Chevy Impala as we moved across California's Mohave Desert in the summer of 1960. My late father was one of those history buffs who would gleefully go fifty miles out of his way to visit a historical marker no matter how insignificant the event. Just let him see that forty miles away Kit Carson had once tracked beavers or John C. Fremont had built an outhouse and we were off, our true destination totally forgotten. "Oh, stop your bellyaching!" he would demand of us. "Do you people realize the pioneers came across this country in wagon trains and they didn't complain?" That summer with the temperature in the low hundreds and the top down (as I recall he didn't appreciate my reminding him that "covered" wagons were called that because they had canvas overheads to provide protection from the elements) he was pursuing the sight of some minor event of yesteryear when I noted that my mother seemed to have fallen asleep, remarkable since just a second before she'd been complaining of the heat with great passion. "Don't wake her," my father instructed. Let her sleep." So I didn't. Problem was she wasn't asleep at all. She had passed out from a heat stroke, a fact we didn't realize until we reached our motel. A doctor was called and she was ok, but my father paid dearly for that desert side trip, I believe in the form of a rather handsome bracelet. We sold the Impala not long after this.

Oh yeah, but back to Lois and Jimmy. While they think they're on a scenic drive of the Peruvian countryside (scenic if you like rock quarries) they're actually being led astray by the duplicitous Anselmo who thinks these two American reporters are too noisy for their own good. Back in the States while attending an auction, Lois had been approached by a Professor Lara (Hal Gerard) and given a thousand bucks to bid on a certain tapestry (for the record, the unseen auctioneer name is Samuel Tabor). With her reporter's antenna up and smelling a good story she goes ahead and purchases the item, but in the meantime Lara is murdered by a scar-faced guy named Pedro Mendoza (Leonard Penn).

This creepy character follows Lois to her barren office (not a single thing on the walls), brains her with his gun and steals the tapestry. From street level with his X-ray peepers Clark sees Lois supine on the floor. He dashes down a convenient alley with a beat cop watching his every move.

However, when Superman appears and takes to the sky the uniformed officer only thinks it mildly interesting and that all-important two and two (which no one in Metropolis seems to posses) are never spliced together. Lois recovers (people in early TV have extremely hard noggins and are always getting pummeled by steel gun barrels with only marginal damage being done) and is able to talk Perry White into sending her to Peru (on Pan Am Airways) with Jim along as a bodyguard which I have to admit I find a strange move on White's part since, let's face it, Jimmy isn't exactly a force to be reckoned with. We see their plane aloft and in the background hear the familiar sound of Superman in flight trailing behind. Hey, just because you can fly it doesn't necessarily follow that you're good at reading a map. So, after a few pieces of the puzzle are put together and we learn that the tapestry provides the secret to a buried treasure, we're back to Lois and Jimmy and Don Anselmo on their mid-day drive. Once out in the country their Jekyll and Hyde guide orders them to get out of the car at gunpoint. Jimmy, always valiant but hardly Jack Dempsey with his dukes, tries to defend his beloved Miss Lane but as usual is the recipient of a well-aimed right hand. Lois, of course, doesn't waste a minute in physically going after the mug but also lands flat on her keaster. Not to be deterred, the twosome follow the car to a cave where they are immediately captured and placed in chains until Superman arrives and you know the rest.

Lois seems particularly contemptuous of Clark in this episode, the barbs are fast and furious, so it's no surprise that when they find him in Peru ("Jim when I'm in a hurry to get someplace I really fly"). Lois is extremely annoyed and does everything to keep him out of the investigation although I have to say that I sometimes think she protests too much, that underneath it all she just might like old Clark a bit more than she's willing to let on. She also seems to get a real kick out of Jimmy. Keep your eye on her as she listens to his feeble attempts to converse in Spanish ("Jimmy, you're wonderful"). She also gives Perry a big kiss. Yep, Lois is all over the map in this one and looks great to boot. Bad scenery or not, I wouldn't mind being stuck in Peru with her, minus her bodyguard, of course.

December 2005

Thanks for Watching.

Lou (April 29, 2011)   

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