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Death on the Diamond (1934)
Interesting for its authentic locations, even with implausibilities
There's an inherent danger in any movie director taking on a sports movie, and it's this: Very few directors know anything at all about the sport they're depicting, while the viewers they're courting know EVERYTHING about it.
That being a given, I am very impressed that this movie --- remember, it was made only a few years after talkies appeared --- has actual locations shots at L. A.'s Wrigley Field and St. Louis's Sportsmans Park (Busch Stadium #1).
Like a cop watching a crime movie and slapping his forehead going "That would never happen in real life", any true baseball fan will have his face-plant moments watching this....but give it a chance.
There's one gaffe so huge you could steer Elon Musk's ego through it: What should be the movie's most suspenseful scene, the denouement, instead is laugh-out-loud funny, in part due to a very poor choice of sound effect.
However, with today's pro sports being dangled like the Sword of Damocles's gambling industry from a single human hair of integrity, there are 2024 undercurrents presciently running through this 90-year old movie.
It was made not to be an Oscar nominee or Ebert's Great Movies entry, but just to be the final in a triplex at the corner movie theater, keeping summertime moviegoers buying popcorn and soda back when baseball was the national sport.
Set your expectations accordingly and you might enjoy it, especially when a baserunner is gunned down trying to score.
Adventures of Superman: The Machine That Could Plot Crimes (1953)
Rare outdoor locations I visited!
This episode always struck me as a bit off, and I never knew why until I was living in Los Angeles and got an attack of deja vu while pedaling between the old 4th and 6th Avenue Bridges connecting Boyle Heights with the Arts District. This is where this episode, starring Sterling Holloway and familiar bad guys Ben Welden and Billy Nelson, did a bunch of very rare "Superman" location shooting in the early 50s.
There's also a strange scene involving Lois Lane walking alone in an ominous-looking industrial area lined with railroad tracks, with Clark standing guard nearby. Then Welden robs a bank and his getaway car is parked across the street from G. W. Wright, a railroad industry servicer.
The episode features two scenes filmed virtually under the old 4th Avenue Bridge, where I pedaled my bike through a terrifying, pitch-dark tunnel that terminated on the elevated bank of the concrete-bed Los Angeles River.
Absolutely nowhere in this episode does Mr. Kelso advise me to pedal under that bridge, across those tracks, nor through that spooky bridge tunnel.
Years later I was participating in an L. A. downtown bicyle event where streets were closed to cars and trucks, and I stopped along the deck of the 4th Avenue bridge to see why bikers had stopped to peer over the edge. Turns out, movie production of a car explosion on a street beneath the bridge required a foot-deep bed of dirt first be steamroller-leveled on the blast site, then painted to resemble the road.
Adventures of Superman: Perry White's Scoop (1954)
Terrific story, hilarious gaffdenouement
This is one of the best-written episodes, as only a true journalist like Perry White is able to link a murder victim's last word --- Quincy --- to the bizarre diving suit he was killed in, to a water source with a Quincy phone exchange. You 'll just have to explain to the grandkids what a phone exchange was.
And, while "Quincy" isn't exactly "Rosebud"....work with me here, OK pal?
The fulcrum on which this seesaw rocks is a railroad freight car loaded with a cash counterfeiter's print stock....but getting there is an adventure. Try not to think logically about the plot, since it's unlikely real crooks will band a lone goldfish with a rail car number, drop it into a rooftop tank, then send a gunman after a guy wearing a diver's suit a d helmet at midday in downtown Metropolis.
Or, hey......maybe they would. I don't judge.
Once Perry, Jimmy, and Clark zero in on a water tank atop a fitness club's roof as a byzantine clue, the series' notoriously low budget kicks in. When they're on the roof, take note of the cityscape backdrop. It's a matte painting that was clearly folded in storage for a long time because not only is a high-rise across the city bending, but you can actually see a horizontal crease across the backdrop.
Train aficionados will love the denouement in a rail yard, climaxing as John Mellencamp might describe a burning.....like paper in fire.
Adventures of Superman: The Face and the Voice (1953)
Intriguing concept well executed
This episode gives George Reeves a chance to use a Bronx accent as a thug being surgically and vocally enhanced to impersonate Superman.
The swelling backing music is a main character here, providing emotion and depth to several scenes.
Note during the grocery store robbery the appearance at the far right bottom of the screen of Sugar Frosted Flakes and Sugar Smacks...two Kellogg's brands; a bit of product placement by the series sponsor.
Funny how Hayden Roark from "I Dream of Jeannie" fame has a brief role as Clark's psychologist friend.
Kind of a bizarre climax, with Carleton Young telling the real Superman, believing it's Boulder, "And here's one for that new face!" while he shoots the gas tank at the rear of the laundry service vehicle he's using as a getaway car. Young then performs one of the strangest "The REAL one! No!!" faints/face plants I've ever seen. Even Superman casts him an odd glance.
And, of course, Superman's stunt double (as Boulder) who runs away from the truck looks nothing like George Reeves, but that was hard to tell back when the show aired on fuzzy-signal, rabbit-ears antenna TVs.
Adventures of Superman: Czar of the Underworld (1953)
A Kid Viewer's First Look At The Nitty-Gritty of Making TV Shows and Movies
This might be my favorite episode of the entire series because, as a kid, it took me inside the Hollywood Sausage Factory.
The massive soundstages where magic is made. The enormous banks of lights and cameras along the overhead walkways. The ladders, platforms, acoustic wall-padding, and hardware that go into creating every episode.
Of course, this episode, 70+ years later, recalls the current scandal enveloping Alec Baldwin and the armorer on the set of the upcoming movie "Rust", with a fatal live bullet somehow ending up in a prop gun.
I'm amused at this episode, where a studio star's trailer is so important, immediately following "Wonder Woman" on the Heroes and Icons network, co-starring Lyle Waggoner. After leaving the acting biz Waggoner founded Star Waggons, Hollywood's go-to source for luxury trailers for studio sets and film locations.
There are some continuing peculiarities here carrying over from several other first-season episodes:
--- dialogue coach Steve Carr as another vital character yet again denied a cast credit
--- that familiar brick wall, concrete steps and landing, and bizarre piping, perhaps from a soundstage's loading dock or the studio's parking garage
--- yet another shot of prominent plumbing as the studio's security guard passes a soundstage with its huge standpipe
--- the every-episode stock shot of the Daily Planet exterior --- the Clem Wilson Bouilding on Wilshire @ LaBrea --- with that badly-tattered flag flying horizontally in the wind.
There's a quick scene of Superman carrying the unconscious Luigi Donelli up a few outdoor steps to "Stage 13" --- might that be the door and landing we so often saw that first season, both earlier in this episode when Kent and Henderson are entrapped by the driver, from the inside and most prominently in "No Holds Barred"?
There's also a continuity gaffe as Superman crashes through Luigi Donelli's penthouse window, shattering glass. Just a second later there's NO glass at al, in the window frame.
All in all, a sensational, thrilling --- and educational --- episode.
Batman: A Horse of Another Color (1967)
Reeking of Ratings Desperation
Omigod...where to start?
Season Three was already reduced to one episode weekly from two due to the white-hot ratings comet that was "Batman" in its first (half) season beginning to burn out just as quickly.
Then Yvonne Craig with her wooden line readings as "Batgirl" with her Bat Cycle was added to boost fading viewership. Seriously, no characters knew she was the daughter of Commissioner Gordon??
But this episode should replace the popular saying "jumped the shark" from "Happy Days" as a symbol of a series whose ideas are tapped out, soon to be cancelled. In fact, after Fonzie actually jumped a shark in "Happy Days" season five, the series ran for 164 more episodes over 5 new seasons.
This episode, filmed at Hollywood Park racetrack, featured Burgess Meredith and Broadway musicals star Ethel freakin' Merman(!) running around the park, then reduced the Penguin and Batgirl characters to riding racehorses to advance a laughable plot.
Unlike "Happy Days" shark episode, our beloved "Batman" series was gasping for air at this point, cancelled at season's end.
The Fugitive: Nobody Loses All the Time (1966)
SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF? OR PREPOSTEROUSLY IMPLAUSIBLE?
"The Fugitive" was my be-all and end-all TV series as a 10-to-14 year old superfan. I lived for those Tuesday nights at 9pm, so much so that I always suffered through "Peyton Place" at 8:30 just to give my 13-inch Philco bedroom black & white TV time to warm up.
But, I'm a senior now and can recognize laughable storylines when I see them. In this case we're asked to believe:
1. Our hero Kimble would actually walk off the job and leave patrons at an unstaffed bar;
2. That the Hippocratic Oath Kimble accepted to practice medicine would overwhelm his being just steps away from apprehending the one-armed man he's pursued for 4 years;
3. That a hospital would allow an unnamed stranger to perform surgery on an ER patient;
4. That the hospital would allow him back for further care of the patient.
5. That Richard Kimble, constantly on the run and leaving a job tending bar, would accept financial responsibility for this woman's elevated hospital care just to try and extract info about her one - armed boyfriend.
6. That Kimble would be able to steal an ambulance and drive all over the railroad tracks and tunnels under bridges spanning the L. A. River.
Who at ABC would have green-lighted such a fairy tale?
Still, it was nice to see Tatum O'Neal's mother Joanna as Kimble's loyal comrade/nurse; and Don Dubbins, the abused Marine bullied by Sgt. Jack Webb in "The D. I.", this time with no sand flea to get him in trouble, as a local detective.
Adventures of Superman: The Mind Machine (1952)
McCarthy-like hearings with potentially devastating technology
Like the McCarthy-led 1950s Senate banishing Charlie Chaplin and Charles Lindbergh from the USA, not to mention dozens of Hollywood veterans for their "un-American" activities, "The Mind Machine" skillfully blends fear of evolving technology with it getting into the wrong hands, as Dan Seymour and Ben Welden attempt to control people's minds with even more evil intent than Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg.
A machine made with intent to benefit mankind, now in the wrong hands, leads the Senate's interview target, who can finger Seymour and Welden's organized crime syndicate, to bizarrely end up on the dirt hill over La Ballona Creek in Culver City, commandeering a disabled school bus with a few kids aboard.
While visiting dozens of film locations around L. A. I attempted to drive up that hill, but got only halfway up, stopped by a chain-link fence.
If you freeze-frame carefully you can see the "Gone With the Wind" mansion Tara on the Culver Studios "back forty" backlot in the distance when Superman pauses for a moment on the windy hilltop.
The flying episodes from the hill are very awkward with choppy editing, clearly by a stunt double, since they were away from the soundstage and its ideal lighting and props.
Phyllis Coates is once again half Lois Lane, half Perils of Pauline as Seymour and Welden at the machine's controls zero in on controlling her break just as she prepares to testify earlier than expected, catching a panicking Kent off-guard.
Yet again we see the multi-talented Dialogue Coach Steve Carr --- yet again with no onscreen acting credit --- as Dr. Stanton's devoted aide who first informs Clark Kent of the theft of the mind machine, then later absorbs a haymaker from Clark in the interest of protecting our hero's dual identity.
Frequent first-season heavy (so to speak) Dan Seymour was a fascinating man. With his immense girth and menacing mien he was regarded as the poor man's Sidney Greenstreet and, in fact, co-starred with Humphrey Bogart in several films. Despite his morbid obesity and heavy cigar-smoking habit he lived to be 78. He spoke fluent German, befriending legendary director Fritz Lang, and becoming executor to Lang's estate.
Adventures of Superman: The Stolen Costume (1952)
A Hitchcockian mystery with a startling denouement
Alfred Hitchcock was famed for giving his movie viewers clues his onscreen characters had no idea of; for instance, the ticking time bomb beneath the character's restaurant table. I think this is where talking back to the screen must have started.
This episode is distinctive in many ways, the first in that it's clearly not a pure master recording; it looks like a movie that's been projected way too many times with so many "bugs" flowing across the screen. Still, it's one of the series' best episodes.
In the brilliantly-scripted "The Stolen Costume" the viewing audience is immediately aware that Clark Kent's apartment has been burglarized, but he can't tell anyone what was taken, not even his good friend, detective Candy (Frank Jenks), which is maddening to Candy, but plausible to viewers.
Dan Seymour, fresh from "The Mind Machine" is back here in his size 60 high-waist pants with huge midriff bulge, somehow attracting the good-looking gun moll (Veda Ann Borg), living in a nice apartment where the costume thief has staggered, dying on their couch.
There is suspense galore, in several ways, with a knockout finale where Superman takes Seymour and Borg out where they will not be able to betray their blockbuster secret, with Superman's promise to provide food and shelter for them.
At this point, Jimmy Cagney's Cody Jarrett (from the crackling "White Heat") would have yelled "Made it, ma! Top of the world!!". Those were Jarrett's last words before his final act. Think about that while Seymore and Borg believe their final act, from literally the top of the world and in dress clothes and shoes, is a good idea.
Adventures of Superman: Treasure of the Incas (1952)
Familiar sites with ominous results
That memorable first season of TAOS made great, very frequent use of the locations, actors, and props only a low-budget series could access.
In 'Treasure of the Incas" we see good ol' reliable Dialogue Coach Steve Carr, again cast in a role without an acting credit.
We see the future Mayberry storefront labeled "Samuel Tabor, Auctioneer" which was seen several times in walk-bys by extras in previous episodes.
We see that same alley, where the tapestry-bidding professor is chased and killed, that we recognized from Dr. Ort's office in "The Secret of Superman" which is also where many of Superman's first-season vertical launches from several early episodes originate, complete with the very same flying trash.
For something like the 7th time in the first 17 episodes we see that ominous cave yet again, this time completely springing up from the desolate Sonoran Desert Lois and Jimmy are trying to walk across after being abandoned and left to die.
If the first season of TAOS didn't keep kids from going into abandoned mines and caves, nothing would.
Like any 1950s TV episode there are now-cringeworthy stereotypes of Mexican characters, like the siesta-taking taxi driver who reminded me of the old Three Stooges short with the Mexican guy repeatedly mistaking them asking him to take them to "see Esther" with "siesta".
Funny how things change over the eras: Now many American business types see mid-day power naps as beneficial to productivity.
That's one serious scar across Leonard Penn's face with no explanation of how he got it; that might be an interesting sidebar.
Given how many different roles the talented Steve Carr played in the first season I'm really surprised he wasn't used in subsequent seasons. He was Mexican here; he was in drag for "Double Trouble"; he was the horrified, wordless captive Dr. John Hurley in "Mystery In Wax", which is probably why he wasn't listed in the credited cast since he didn't have any dialogue.
When I lived in Chula Vista CA, between San Diego and the USA/Mexico border, I kept envisioning "Treasure of the Incas" when I walked around filthy Tijuana, trusting no one and making sure to NOT bid on any "genuine" tapestries at the open markets.
Adventures of Superman: Double Trouble (1952)
Bizarre sets for a European-flavored Cold War story
On a low-budget series with a tight shooting deadline every week you have to make do with what you have: And it appears that the Desilu/Hal Roach/Culver Studios' parking garage beneath the studio HQ or soundstages has doubled yet again as a shooting site, with this episode's ambulance bay backed --- as in "No Holds Barred" --- with that brick wall, guard-railed concrete landing outside the door, and a rectangular web of weird plumbing pipes everywhere....with even more vertical pipes visible in indoor scenes. Was this episode filmed by plumbers?
The only thing distinguishing this ordinary Culver City parking garage from a genuine French or German transit outpost is the peculiar white picket fence (?) and a very bad French accent by the "lady" taxicab passenger.... Steve Carr in drag, wooing Jimmy Olsen into schlepping his illegal package or radium to smugglers waiting in an ambulance.
Poor Steve Carr: Yet again a featured player; yet again no acting credit. Gotta admit; he makes a nice-looking woman. Though he IS the credited Dialogue Coach. Inside the train's stateroom when Superman enters and is attacked by Steve Carr, there's a sloppy edit, showing Carr making the initial strike from above, and his stunt double going over Superman's back to the floor.
Note in the moving train how the black porter's words are dubbed by a white actor --- the black actor's lips don't even move. That prevented the porter from receiving a speaking role credit.
Note in the showdown climax at Rudolf Anders' office --- used for what looks like the fourth time in the first 16 episodes --- how George Reeves slips into his classically-trained "Mid-Atlantic" accent so familiar to the London and New York theater stages: "You'll EAT those wuhhhds!".
This episode, like so many movies and TV shows of the 1950s, reflected the Cold War and our worldwide fears of nuclear/atomic annihilation and the power/threat of radiation.
Adventures of Superman: Mystery in Wax (1953)
Pure Grand Guignol as "Sunset Blvd." Meets "House of Wax"
What a guilty pleasure this class in Overacting 101 is! Casting directors will tell actors doing their scenes (or "sides" in auditions) "Bigger! Bigger! Sell it!; I can always rein you in if I have to!".
Well, nobody reined in Myra McKinney as she chewed the scenery and spat it out as a deranged Norma Desmond operating a Vincent Price-like museum of real people turned plaster casts (or waxed) for her business's and her reputation's macabre benefit.
Also as in "Sunset Blvd." Madame Selena's milquetoast manservant Andrew (Lester Sharpe), like Erich Stroheim's Max, has a conscience and if fully aware, and afraid, of his woman's madness.
This is a truly well-written episode, economical and truly creepy, capturing with great suspense what happens to all of Madame's purported suicides after Clark questions the Inspector about recovery efforts for all of her victims' bodies.
Yet another Steve Carr sighting....but no acting credit! Just as Dialogue Coach again.
Adventures of Superman: The Runaway Robot (1953)
Legendary Hollywood Dialect Coach Plays a Goof Here
There's a scene in "The Runaway Robot" where a young ham radio operator speaks as if he just fell off a turnip truck. That's Bob Easton, who suffered through more than 150 small roles, largely as a hayseed, before getting fed up and becoming one of Hollywood's top dialect coaches for more than a half century. And sure enough, in this episode Bob sounds like a hillbilly.
When I lived in L. A. I loved going through The Studio Store's two locations just to see all the actors' DVDs teaching them how to acquire....or lose....almost any kind of regional or international accent. I wonder how many of those were narrated by Bob Easton.
Otherwise, this is probably the first episode of TAOS aimed largely at kids despite the potential violence (like the robot about to step on a guy's skull), with the clumsy robot and his mushmouth creator the first of many nonsensical mad doctors/professors taking center stage.
Adults may find the verbal shtick of lead actor Lucien Littlefield nausea-inducing, but it's nice to see future "Gilligan's Island" Professor Russell Johnson, and familiar TAOS heels like Dan Seymour (3 bad guys in the series' first 17 episodes!), and John Harmon, many years later of "The Magic Necklace".
Very funny final shot, leaving everyone laughing....or trying not to.
Law & Order: Reality Bites (2009)
Conedian Jim Gaffigan goes dramatic
It's always risky allowing your iconic TV series to be a springboard for a comedian to stretch and show off dramatic chops. On this series alone we've seen Chevy Chase, Robin Williams, and now Jim Gaffigan change their colors.
Here Jim portrays a likable husband with a wife who share a large family of adopted special needs children whom they've turned into TV reality show stars.....or freaks. The wife turns up dead, driving the story.
The most pleasant surprise for me was the strong performance of Marin Hinkle as Gaffigan's defense attorney. Gaffigan, whose familiar comedy act is largely about raising his five real children, is credible going completely straight as a murder suspect.
The episode's closing line, directed at Jack McCoy, is a stunner.
Law & Order: Just a Girl in the World (2009)
The Black Widow Smiter Bites Lupo
If ever you wonder how rich, famous pro jocks can be taken to the cleaners by predatory women seeking an easy extortion payoff --- insert your owm Trevor Bauer joke here ---, just watch the alluring, enticing Camille Chen (as Emma) working her charm on Lupo....and just wait til she gets on the witness stand!
Lupo's detective character is neither rich, nor famous, nor a pro jock......but he has something Chen's little girl-like Emma really covets, and she knows exactly how to get it through the psychological phenomenon called "projection": Accusing someone else of exactly the crime she is committing, then screaming "Unfair!" as she martyrs herself as a victim.....even to the episode's final minute as she drops more bait into her siren-lure water. She'll never change because it always works.
In fact, insert your own politician joke here.
Law & Order: Lucky Stiff (2009)
Dirty little insurance/inheritance practice revealed
I never realized this until I passed my state's life insurance sales license test last year, but one of the reasons it may take awhile to clear away a dual-fatality car accident is because of potential issues involving wills, insurance, previous marriages and blended families. One huge issue if both a wife and husband are killed is determining who died first....even if only minutes apart. Entire financial estates and their beneficiaries may be at stake as this episode pointedly makes clear, especially if the husband and/or wife has children from a previous relationship and/or records documenting who gets what. This episode is very illuminating.
Law & Order: Bogeyman (2008)
Was that Barack Obama in the judge's chair?
Peter Francis James is the trial judge in this episode and he follows the "Law and Order" history of sometimes curious casting for judges, following Jeffrey Tambor --- who, as an oddball judge I kept waiting for him to drop a Hank Kingsley "Hey now!" on the jury; Rudy Guiliani's ex-wife the locak TV news anchor Donna Hanover; and Fran Lebowitz.
James is a fine choice for this role, but seeing him and hearing that voice and delivery I couldn't help but wonder when James will surely be cast as the lead in "The Barack Obama Story".
The presidential connection to this episode doesn't stop there. This episode is a cautionary tale about being swallowed up into a dangerous cult, like we've seen the last decade in some dark corners of American politics.
Law & Order: The Family Hour (2007)
A politician who hates women? Surely you jest.
Harry Hamlin, who was so good for several years as a trial attorney/law firm partner on "L. A. Law", excels here, stretching as a former U. S. Senator with serious anger control issues regarding women, as well as his own family.
This episode is a welcome departure of the wooden Nina Cassidy character after one season. A photograph of her one facial expression could have stood in for her season-long role. Very rare poor casting for this great series, but also recognized and promptly corrected.
Very uncharacteristic of the series' usual technical excellence is the distracting sound of every single step on the courtroom floor during Alana de la Garza's (ADA Rubirosa) dynamite summation to the jury. The clump-clump-clump of her heels comes through a poorly-placed or over-attenuated mic, not recognized during editing.
Jeffrey Tambor shines as an obviously partisan political hack chosen to fill a judgeship, not that that would ever happen in real life, of course.
Law & Order: Birthright (2005)
Richard Brooks returns
One of the reasons it took me awhile to really like "Law & Order" in its first few seasons was the miscasting of George Dzundza in the first-season lead and Richard Brooks as ADA Paul Robinette with his Kid 'n Play haircut and mushmouthed line readings.
The show improved markedly when Dzundza left after only one season and Brooks was replaced by Jill Hennessey after season three just as the series really found its stride.
Experience, age, and apparent acting classes have improved Brooks's presence as he returns here as a defense attorney, with Annie Parisse now in Brooks's old role. He's good in this episode.
Adventures of Superman: The Prince Albert Coat (1957)
Adult topics with twists & turns
I find this to be one of the series' best episodes thanks not only to its more mature themes, but to the use of studio locations, which became more prevalent with the show's Season Five move to long-ago ZIV Studios in the 5900 block of Santa Monica Blvd., now fronted by a 7-11 and Los Tacos strip mall.
A little boy wanting to help the less fortunate. An elderly grandfather sharing the house. His life savings stashed into the lining of an old coat he had hidden away. A town in immediate peril expecting a dam collapse. A Dickensian actor in need of just such a coat.
This script echoes California's history both past and present (for 1957), with its faint echo of the St. Francis Dam Collapse of 1928 that roared through Saugus (now Six Flags Magic Mountain) killing nearly 500 people. The stage play and its stately star are familiar to anyone living in L. A. with its preponderance of actors and productions. The grandpa and his distrust of banks goes right to the heart of The Great Depression less than 30 years prior. And no state's residents live with more constant awareness of natural disasters than California, be they floods; wildfires; earthquakes; landslides, or tsunamis.
The ZIV Studio's massive soundstage and vehicle ramp is the episode's County public emergency center, tucked into a tight corner of the huge building with the sound-absorbing insulation removed from its wall. ZIV also used its 2-floor script readers offices for the HQ of "The Fireman's Friend" from "Money To Burn". One of those tiny offices doubled as the criminals' hideout in several episodes that season, even to the dingy decor and same window covering.
One reviewer here lamented this episode's "completely disappointing" denouement. I wonder if he saw it through to the end with its surprising double twist, announced by the unexpected arrival of the actor who portrayed the struggling shoe salesman mistaken for a TV talent scout from a memorable episode of "The Andy Griffith Show", bringing startling news for Grandpa and the boy.
D. J. Fone.
Adventures of Superman: The Deadly Rock (1956)
Fascinating premise almost derailed by chewing the scenery
A really good concept for this episode with Kryptonite making its deadly return, but affecting an old friend of Clark Kent's in Gary Allan (Robert Lowery), returned from world travel. It's interesting how often United Airlines is shown, both as Gary's plane and in the wall posters at the airport; were they a sponsor? The two heavies living high on the hog in a spacious house are also well-cast, like Lowery, but why they picked Steven Geray to play Professor Van Wyck as a sputtering, stammering milquetoast who does everything expect balance a circus ball on his nose for attention is bothersome. There was a lot of dramatic possibility in this story, but Van Wyck is just a cartoon, not a character. "The Adventures of Superman" as a series in whole, especially in its later years, was not kind to professors (i.e., Pepperwinkle; Van Wyck; the Yoda-talking Rolfe Sedan character in "The Big Freeze", etc.), so I wonder if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis grew up watching this series, given his horrid attitude toward college and university faculty and higher education in general.
Law & Order: Causa Mortis (1996)
Great episode, but who cut Benjamin Bratt's hair???
I'm not usually one to be distracted by bad makeup or hair, but this one took me out of the story for awhile. Why did they make Benjamin Bratt open season 7 looking like a 9 year old boy with that goofy 'do? Was he working between seasons on a live-action "Calvin and Hobbes"?
I notice as the series went on they never again made him look like that.
Bratt made a solid debut the season before, establishing good chemistry with Jerry Orbach. No doubt he was cast in no small part because of his looks, so why mess with that?
It was so much fun a few years later to see Bratt as Sofia Vergara's carefree ex-husband on "Modern Family".
With a full head of hair.
Law & Order: True Crime (2002)
Bob Gibson, spitballer???
User reviewer Daytom nailed it: A ghastly script error at the end of this episode alleging fireballer Bob Gibson, as said by Fred Thompson, made the Baseball Hall of Fame by throwing spitballs. Of course, it was actually Gaylord Perry.
I'm depressed a bit that nobody in the entire show's cast or crew recognized this before it aired, proving for the umpteenth time that writers and actors should never touch the sports world unless they really know their material since sports fans will explode at the first hint of inaccuracy or inauthenticity.
All you need to do is watch the execrable Wesley Snipes/Robert DeNiro movie "The Fan for proof. Or Tony Perkins, playing baseball like a CampFire Girl, trying to be All-Star MLB outfielder and hitter Jimmy Piersall in "Fear Strikes Out". Or meatball-tossing "pitcher" Michael Moriarty and elfin catcher Robert DeNiro in the maudlin "Bang the Drum Slowly".
Directors can learn a lot about casting a sports movie from the hockey film "Miracle", which employed college hockey players, teaching them how to act in brief scenes, rather than trying to teach snowflake actors how to skate and play believable hockey. It worked!
Adventures of Superman: Dagger Island (1956)
Did they film a dual episode with this and "The Jolly Roger"?
I find it odd that the "Dagger Island" and "The Jolly Roger" episodes, originally airing only a few weeks apart, feature not only the very same tropical island set; but the same island outfits for the Planet reporters; and even the three same heavies, in Ray Montgomery, Dean Cromer, and Myron Healey. The series was infamous for operating on very tight budgets, so this scenario makes economic sense, if not dramatic, for them to film both episodes likely back-to-back, probably in the same week. You can see the satire falling into self-amusement by the eye rolls and tongue-in-cheek dialogue that such preposterous plotlines elicit from the actors and writers.
Adventures of Superman: The Town That Wasn't (1957)
The Episode That Every New Driver Took To Heart
A wonderfully creative and entertaining episode, fully believable when America was still largely rural, and still relevant today. While a phony pickup 'n leave small town banking on the booty from hijacked trucks is fictional, small town speed traps are not. Take the case of the tiny Lake of the Ozarks speed trap town of Macks Creek MO, which made the mistake of entrapping a motorist who was a state legislator, who returned to work hell-bent on dismantling it. His investigation revealed a huge chunk of the town's revenue came from dubious "speeding violations", resulting in state laws forcing similar speed-trap schemes in small towns in Missouri to also go straight. Similarly, another tiny Missouri town, St. George just outside St. Louis, was dissolved entirely due to sketchy police officers abusing their power. I lived just 3 miles from St. George, and applauded its demise.