From Those Were the Days:

1945 - The NBC Radio program The Adventures of Topper was heard for the first time. Later, the popular sitcom would move to TV and continue with rave reviews.

1955 - NBC Radio presented The Lux Radio Theater for the final time. The program had aired for 21 years.
10:43:16 PM    comment []  trackback []  

“Well, I’ll be a dirty…”

Due to a scheduling anomaly, I had last night off from work, and so I went rummaging through my DVD collection in search of something to watch in the wee a.m. hours. (Preferably something I’ve not unwrapped yet.) Vera Cruz (1954), a western starring Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster got the nod as the first feature; it’s a big, splashy oater directed by Robert Aldrich—who helmed one of my all-time favorite noirs, Kiss Me, Deadly (1955), and one of my favorite Lancaster films, the truly underrated Ulzana’s Raid (1972).

Gary’s an ex-Confederate Army colonel and Burt’s a notorious outlaw in this one; both of them form an uneasy alliance (along with Burt’s gang, which includes Jack Elam, Ernest Borgnine and Charles [Bronson] Buchinsky) to transport a countess (Denise Darcel) and $3 million in gold on behalf of Emperor Maximillian (George Macready) to the titular town—but as it turns out, everyone in the film is ready to double-cross and triple-cross each other in order to make off with the three mil booty, including Caesar Romero as Maximillian’s stooge. Burt has the showier role, flashing that million-watt smile of his at every opportunity, and while I’ve never been much of a Coop fan (with the exception of High Noon and the cult classic Man of the West) I have to admit his underplaying—waaaaay underplaying—works wonders here; he and Burt make a sublime team. Plus, Bronson gets to practice his harmonica skills years before he starred in the classic Once Upon a Time in the West.

Of course, I’ll watch pretty much anything that Lancaster is in, as I’ve always been in his camp—and as great as he is, I truly believe he’s just one of many actors who got better and better as he got older. Many of my favorite Burt flicks are from his later period, films like Go Tell the Spartans (1978 - I can’t for the life of me figure out why this film isn’t discussed when Vietnam movies are the topic), Atlantic City (1980 – I think this is his best performance, to be honest), and Local Hero (1983). So after watching Burt and Gary, I slipped Sweet Smell of Success (1957) into my player—words simply cannot describe how much I adore this film, and Burt is absolute perfection as the Walter Winchell-inspired columnist J. J. Hunsecker. Hunsecker hires weaselly press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis, who matches Lancaster scene for scene) to keep his sister Susie (Susan Harrison) away from a guitar player (Martin Milner) in a jazz quintet, with disastrous results for both him and Falco. The dialogue in this film is literally etched-in-acid (courtesy of Clifford Odets and Ernest Lehman, based on Lehman’s novelette) and contains many memorable lines like “I'd hate to take a bite outta you…you're a cookie full of arsenic” and “I love this dirty town.” (The one that always makes me laugh-out-loud is “I like Harry, but I can’t deny he sweats a little.”) Jeff Donnell, Sam Levene, Barbara Nichols, Chico Hamilton (and his quintet) and an uncredited David White (Larry Tate on Bewitched) round out the supporting cast. (The columnist that Curtis tries to blackmail in the restaurant is played by Lawrence Dobkin, and his wife is portrayed by Lurene Tuttle—just in case you were curious as to how I planned to tie this to old-time radio.)
10:41:32 PM    comment []  trackback []