Poor Devil

Poor Devil ~ This failed TV pilot/made for TV movie is one I have been trying to locate for a while. I saw it a couple times as a kid and then never again, until recently I discovered it on YouTube. From 1973, Poor Devil stars Sammy Davis Jr. as a devil named Sammy. Sentenced to the furnace room of Hell, he's just trying to catch a break and get promoted, you know, up to a good devil position like buying souls.

In this case, the client is Jack Klugman, in his "Odd Couple" prime, trying to get revenge on his boss. He plays a similarly never promoted junior accountant who's just been overlooked after spending twenty-five years working at a department store in San Francisco. Frustrated, he finally says he'd sell his soul to get even with his superior. Along comes Sammy.

Klugman is always good, even as the nebbishy wimp he plays here. Sammy fills his scenes with class and enthusiasm, and sharp duds. This is the early seventies after all and everyone is dressed to the nines, especially in Hell, which is run like a corporate office (all in Satanic reds) that would make Don Draper proud. Christopher Lee rounds out the cast as the mod young Lucifer. The real standout of this flick however is Adam West as Klugman's slimy boss. This anti-Batman role was probably the template for Gary Cole's Bill Lumbergh from Office Space. Yeah, he's that big of a jerk.

Klugman's plan for revenge is to empty the department store the night before the biggest shopping day of the year - December 23rd. Yeah, this is also one of those Christmas movies that happens at Christmas but it's not really a Christmas movie. Yeah, I know, a Christmas movie with devils. I can definitely understand why NBC didn't pick it up as a series.

While it's hopelessly dated, but in a good way, and unfortunately slow in some places... I found that it still holds up. It was simple, but I enjoyed the flick. Catch it on YouTube if you get a chance.

Lost Hits of the New Wave #33

The "Quincy" Punk Rock Episode

Back in the day you knew when a trend hit prime time drama, it was over, so over. You knew Satanism was over when "Starsky and Hutch" had to deal with it, and when they did their disco episode... it was clear disco was dead. And then there's the infamous "Quincy" punk rock episode.

"Next Stop Nowhere" first aired on Sunday night, December 1, 1982, in the eighth and final season of "Quincy M.E." I never really watched the show but caught the faux punk band Mayhem as I was popping through channels (there were only a few if them in those pre-cable days). The point of the show was star Jack Klugman fighting against this music that not only promoted violence, but also killed!

Now the silliness of this episode has been skewered and beaten to death by many better than me, like Opie and Anthony (when they were still called Opie and Anthony, that is), so I won't go into that, but there is one more memory of the episode.

The same night it aired, the deejay on WXPN's Yesterday's Now Music Today had taped the two Mayhem songs from the TV, and played them on the show that night. I think that left more of a memory than the episode itself.

The Die Hard Prequel

The Detective ~ We know all about Bruce Willis in Die Hard, and its four or five (who's counting?) sequels. But did you know there was a prequel to Die Hard? And did you know it starred Frank Sinatra? All true, keep reading and I'll tell you all about The Detective from 1968.

The Die Hard we all know and love, starring Bruce Willis, and made in 1988, was based on a book by crime novelist Roderick Thorp. The book's original title was Nothing Lasts Forever and it was published in 1979. Thorp had been wanting to write a sequel to his earlier novel, The Detective, and felt inspired after watching the film The Towering Inferno.

Nothing Lasts Forever was destined for the screen almost immediately, but Frank Sinatra, who portrayed Joe Leland in the film based on the first book wasn't interested. The idea floated around Hollywood for a while, was even suggested as the basis for a sequel to Arnold Schwarzenegger's Commando movie at one time.

Eventually it ended up with producers Joel Silver and Lawrence Gordon, and director John McTiernan. The script was revamped and updated, some names and details were changed, and Bruce Willis came on board to play the younger John McClane as opposed to much older Joe Leland. The film went on to become a blockbuster with multiple sequels.

But as I mentioned, Roderick Thorp wrote a Joe Leland novel before Nothing Lasts Forever. The Detective was published in 1966, was a bestseller, and fast tracked to the screen starring Frank Sinatra two years later. The book featured a police case with as many possibilities as characters, almost reminiscent of a Raymond Chandler novel.

The film, while dated, lacks the humor of Willis' John McClane or even Sinatra's other crimestopper of the day, Tony Rome, so it has a very different vibe. Joe Leland is very serious about his police work. Those around him may joke, but Joe holds it together. Advertising of the time called it an adult look at police work.

The film features one of Sinatra's strongest performances of the late 1960s, a performance only elevated by the cast that surrounds him. Look for character actors Robert Duvall, Jack Klugman, Tony Musante, and William Windom, as well as beauties like Lee Remick and Jacqueline Bisset. There's also a great Jerry Goldsmith score that we just don't hear enough of.

While there are a few light moments, the film lacks the humor, and for that matter, the action, of Bruce Willis' Die Hard. Sinatra may well be a god in the film and music industry, but he's no Bruce Willis, and this was no Die Hard. It is however, quite a good film, and definitely worth a viewing. Recommended.

The Magic of Gerry Anderson

Yesterday while I was writing about the deaths and lives of Jack Klugman and Charles Durning, we lost someone who was definitely lesser known, but also much closer to my heart - producer Gerry Anderson. They say these things happen in threes. Let's hope this is the cycle and we don't lose anyone else.

Many of you probably don't recognize the name Gerry Anderson and there are some of you who are mourning the loss of this great talent in genre television. He was a writer, director, producer, publisher, futurist, a television pioneer, the developer of Supermarionation, and a master of storytelling. However, all that said, you might just know him better by three specific words - "Thunderbirds are go!"

I first encountered Gerry Anderson, and his then wife and partner Sylvia, as a child of the 1970s. I have a very distinct memory of hearing about a new show coming on weekday afternoons on UHF channel 17, the TV announcer had said it was 'cooler than "Ultra Man,"' so you know darned well I was glued in front of the folks' black and white television when "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons" premiered.

"Captain Scarlet" was a program created completely using marionettes and models, and it wasn't stop motion or animation, it was film, and the puppets and machines were actually moving. To add to the fascination was the stunningly adult, startling violent story that went along with it. It was a spy drama with the earth defending itself against an evil alien race, the Mysterons, who had infiltrated mankind, and the hero who would save the day, Captain Scarlet, who had become indestructible.

It was awesome, and I was hooked. The only things that "Captain Scarlet" had going against it were my low tech TV (all the characters were color codenamed) and my own as yet non-mastery of spelling (I kept waiting for Mogera from the Toho film The Mysterians to show up). This was also around the time "Space: 1999" was hitting it big on prime time television, also, although unknown to me at the time, created by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, but in live action.

Anderson's most famous creations are perhaps only peripherally known here in the United States, but in his native UK, everyone knows "The Thunderbirds." Among his other work, both in live-action and in Supermarionation, include "Stingray," "Supercar," "UFO," "Terrahawks," "Space Precinct," "Fireball XL5," and "The Protectors," among others. He and his wife also produced two "Thunderbirds" movies at the height of their popularity.

In recent years, Anderson produced a fully computer animated version of "Captain Scarlet" and consulted on the big budget live-action motion picture version of The Thunderbirds. The former did quite well in the UK, but the latter was pretty much a flop here. The beloved producer's reputation was still untarnished.

Gerry Anderson passed away yesterday after a long battle with dementia brought on by Alzheimer's disease. We have lost a creative star in the field of television, he will be missed.

Charles Durning 1923-2012

On the same day we lost Jack Klugman, Christmas Eve, we also lost Charles Durning, the king of the character actors. The multiple award-winning actor, featured in over a hundred films, was 89.

I first encountered Charles Durning as Detective Moretti in Dog Day Afternoon. He was the likable but straight arrow cop who negotiated with Al Pacino's bank robber Sonny Wortzik. I love the film, a time capsule of the 1970s, that earned Durning a Best Supporting Actor nom from the Golden Globes. But it's not his only film, before or since.

Durning's resume also includes terrific roles in The Sting, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, O Brother Where Art Thou, The Muppet Movie, and Tootsie, among so many others. He was also a veteran of the Second World War, won a Tony for playing Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and had regular parts on the TV shows "Evening Shade," "Family Guy," "Everyone Loves Raymond," and "Rescue Me."

Throughout his long career as an actor he was rarely not working, and was always playing memorable characters. We've lost another of the greats. He will be missed.

RIP Jack Klugman

Award winning star of stage, screen, and television, Jack Klugman, passed away Christmas Eve in his home, surrounded by his family, apparently of natural causes. Born in Philadelphia, he was 90.

Jack Klugman was probably most well known in the role of Oscar Madison, the sloppy sports writer from TV's "The Odd Couple," in which he played opposite Tony Randall as the fussy photographer, Felix Unger. The sitcom ran for five years on ABC from 1970 to 1975, based on the movie, and the Broadway play by Neil Simon. While never having spectacular ratings, it found fame in summer reruns and syndication. As a kid growing up in the 1970s, "The Odd Couple" was a fixture in my Friday night TV programming.

Later in the decade, Klugman moved to NBC with the serious police/doctor procedural, "Quincy M.E." With a coroner as the protagonist, Klugman had said once, it was the best of both dramatic prime time worlds. In the sixties, he also appeared in four episodes of "The Twilight Zone," including "A Game of Pool" and "A Passage for Trumpet," two considered classics.

Before, and after his television days, Klugman was in more than a few films, most notably he was Juror #5 in 12 Angry Men. He also performed on stage throughout his career, even more than a few times in The Odd Couple. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1974, and in 1989 lost one of his vocal cords to it, yet he continued to act, albeit in a much quieter huskier voice.

Jack Klugman was a terrific actor, and he will be missed.