I've recently recognized several faces on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, including Linda Lavin (Alice), Karen Black and Hal Linden (Barney Miller). Criminal Intent is often a treasure trove of recognizable faces.
I was just watching the 1950s version of Dragnet and recognized Leonard Nimoy as a teenage hood. The episode was The Big Boys.
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I watched a couple of Edward Arnold movies this week, and I searched YouTube for more. One of the Edward Arnold movies I found didn't feature actor Edward Arnold. Instead, one of the characters in Before Midnight was named Edward Arnold. It featured Ralph Bellamy.
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I was just watching an April 1975 episode of Adam-12 called Gus Corbin. As soon as Corbin showed up as Reed's temporary partner, I recognized the puppy version of Mark Harmon.
Corbin made at least two mistakes in the episode, including once disobeying Malloy and another time losing his firearm. Corbin/Harmon was intimidated by Malloy, and it was strange to see the young Leroy Jethro Gibbs acting that way.
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I'm watching a Sherlock Holmes TV episode called The Shy Ballerina; it stars Ronald Howard. I immediately recognized the woman in the episode; it was Natalie Schafer, Lovey on Gilligan's Island.
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I was just watching the 1952 movie Red Planet Mars and noticed three familiar faces. Peter Graves, the movie's star, played Jim Phelps on the TV show Mission: Impossible. Morris Ankrum (the Secretary of Defense) and Willis Bouchey (the President) both played judges on the TV show Perry Mason.
It's not about the visual part of science fiction. It's clever, and it's all about thoughts and ideas. WARNING: The ending is religious. You can see it here.
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Years ago, I checked The Sin of Harold Diddlebock (also called Mad Wednesday) out of the video store three times before Holly found me a copy of my own.
I've watched it more than a dozen times total, and just now I found a copy on YouTube. You can find it here.
It's a little uneven, but I still love it. (I did skip the part with Harold's sister, played by Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz. I usually skip that.)
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I'm watching another episode of Burke's Law, and I've noticed several well-known actors, including Lola Albright, Nehemiah Persoff, Louis Nye, William Bendix and Elsa Lancaster.
I don't know if it's a great episode, but it's a strange one. In fact, every character seems stranger than the last.
Don't tell anybody, but it was Louis Nye, the butler.
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I just found a 1964 Burke's Law episode called Who Killed Annie Foran? It had a great cast featuring Don Ameche, Wendell Corey, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands (Cassevedes' wife). Spoiler: Corey was the killer.
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I had, for some reason, thought that Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet was also in the movie Tobor the Great. As I learned tonight while watching YouTube, he wasn't.
The robot they used wasn't much compared to Robby, and the movie was so-so compared to Forbidden Planet. It was a cute movie, but I won't watch it again. I will watch Forbidden Planet again.
It happened again. I'm watching an episode of Matlock titled Brennen, and I just recognized the actor (Eric Menyuk) who played The Traveler on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I recognized his nose and forehead.
I also picked out George Dzundza, who had played Max Greevey on season one of Law & Order. He was Brennen.
I'm watching an episode of Dragnet and recognized two faces. Olympic decathlon champion Rafer Johnson was playing a policeman in the episode Community Relations, and an uncredited O.J. Simpson was playing a potential candidate for the police academy.
O.J. needs no explanation.
(I just learned that Joe Friday's birthday was April 2. Not coincidentally, Jack Webb's birthday was April 2, 1920.)
I just watched an episode of the TV show Adam 12 called Suspect Number One. It featured one of my movie favorites from my youth, Don "Red" Barry. Barry wasn't youthful or red at this point. He was an old man who wanted to go back "home" (to jail).
Malloy and Reed decided to get him a spot at a halfway house, and they went looking for him. They found him robbing a bank without a gun (he was using his finger under his coat).
A bank security guard was told to stay back, but he decided to shoot the unarmed "robber." Barry's character asked Malloy if he'd shot him, and he seemed happy when Pete said no.
After he died, the guard said, "I did the right thing, didn't I?" Malloy's reply? "Did you?"
It was a heart-breaking episode. I didn't want to see one of my cowboy favorites die, but I knew I would. I saw that episode many years ago, in the 1970s.
I've been watching a lot of Dragnet lately, and actor Tony Eisley (Hawaiian Eye) has shown up on several of them. He's in the one I'm watching today.
I always liked him on Hawaiian Eye, and I hate to see him as the bad guy (he's been the bad guy in every Dragnet I've seen him in so far).
I was just watching the pilot for the old TV show My Favorite Martian, and Uncle Martin quoted Sakini from Teahouse of the August Moon ("Pain make man think. Thought make man wise. Wisdom make life endurable.")
He said he was quoting a wise man. This wise man was played by Marlon Brando.
I had watched Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but the beginning of it seemed different when I was just watching it on Netflix. It's not one of my favorite movies, but I love the ending.
So I skipped to the last 25 minutes. It's one of the best endings ever.
I've saved another Spielberg movie, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, on my Netflix list. While Encounters has one of the best endings ever, Raiders has maybe the best beginning ever.
UPDATE: I just heard the music to When You Wish Upon a Star in Close Encounters.
I just started watching an old TV show called Captain Midnight on YouTube, and I felt I had to mention it.
They depicted a bunch of people standing out in the open, wearing eye shades and watching an atomic bomb test. They didn't feel the extreme wind and heat of the blast, and there was no mention of the radiation.
Insane. And poor writing, even in the 1950s.
I'm watching an old show called Captain Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe, and it's much better than a lot of other science fiction shows I've been watching lately.
My only complaint is that it's too dark at times. I can't see.
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I just found an old movie called A Lady Takes a Chance, featuring Jean Arthur and John Wayne. She's an Easterner who is taking a tour of the West, and she's way out of her element.
It's OK, but Phil Silvers is irritating. He says he'll grow on you, but he didn't grow on me in a good way. More like a fungus.
I'm watching the first episode of the old Peter Gunn TV series on YouTube, and the cast includes future luminaries like Gavid Macleod (Mary Tyler Moore Show and the Love Boat) and Jack Weston (Dirty Dancing, among other shows).
The best thing about the episode, though, was the music. And Lola Albright. I loved her when I was a boy. She's still pretty good now.
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I've watched several old TV shows lately on YouTube, and, oddly, most of them are war shows: I've watched Combat!, 12 O'Clock High, Rat Patrol and M*A*S*H recently.
I didn't watch war shows intentionally; it just so happens that I was a fan of those shows when I was a kid. M*A*S*H might be my favorite show of all time.
I've also watched episodes of The Magician and T.H.E. Cat.
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I used Google and found one of my favorite episodes of the old TV series Combat! (The Furlough), featuring Vic Morrow and guest star Carol Lawrence.
One of Morrow's men is shot and is about to die. He tells Morrow's character that he wants to give money to an English girls school, and he asks Saunders (Morrow) to do it for him. So he does, and he meets Carol Lawrence's character.
Naturally, Morrow's character and Lawrence's fall in love (it would be almost impossible to NOT fall in love with her); sadly, she's killed in a Nazi bombing. The last scene shows Saunders walking off from the burial site.
I've been looking for the old TV show The Magician, starring the late Bill Bixby. I finally found an episode called Vanishing Lady on YouTube.
The show didn't last very long, but it was pretty good.
By the way, the lady who vanished was also in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called The Measure of a Man. She played the JAG officer who was trying Data.
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I'm just watching a Jeremy Brett/Sherlock Holmes episode. It's obvious the subtitles are done by computer. When someone says the name Holmes, the computer writes homes. And when four people are running on cobblestones, the computer says it's (Applause).
There are other screwups, but those are the most obvious.
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I just found YouTube episodes of Mannix and Burke's Law, shows I watched years ago. The Mannix episode (Medal for a Hero) showed Peggy's late husband, played by Terry Carter, who was Joe Broadhurst on McCloud. Bobby Troup (Emergency!) and Jack Ging were also featured.
The Burke's Law episode was called Who Killed Davidian Jonas? I never saw who played Davidian Jonas, but Ruta Lee, Sheree North, Cesar Romero and Reginald Gardiner showed up.
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My wife and I noticed a link to an Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law episode. I immediately remembered that the first name of the show's star was Arthur. Seconds later, I came up with Hill. It was one of the few times I've been right. Canadian Arthur Hill starred in the show from the 1970s.
I later watched an episode featuring William Shatner, and the next day watched one with Pat Boone. The show wasn't Perry Mason, but it was worth watching.
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I've recently watched YouTube to see an old television show called What's My Line? I caught one episode with Edgar Bergen and daughter Candice, and another with the great Jonathan Winters.
It's mild TV for today's viewers, but I can see where people of the '50s would enjoy it. And it was great to see some people from my youth.
The panel didn't guess the Bergens, but Arthur Godfrey did guess Winters.
In other episodes, they successfully guessed Raymond Burr (Are you Perry Mason?) and Red Skelton. Both men got huge ovations.
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I love the 1959 Cary Grant movie Operation Petticoat, featuring a pink submarine, some goofy sailors and a bunch of attractive nurses. The movie features, among others, Tony Curtis, Gavin MacLeod, Dina Merrill and Virginia Gregg.
It's not a great movie, but it's a really good one. The pig was a big hit.
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I just found an old movie (1939) called The Lone Wolf Spy Hunt. Warren William played the Lone Wolf something like nine times over the years, and this one featured two future movie stars, Rita Hayworth (bad girl) and Ida Lupino (pain in the butt girlfriend).
The Lone Wolf (reel name Michael Lanyard) is a reformed jewel thief turned private detective; here, he gets in trouble with the law even though he's gone straight. He reminds of a cross between Simon Templar in The Saint and the lead character (Neal Caffrey) on the TV show White Collar.
I might check out another Lone Wolf movie now and then on YouTube.
TV EPISODES ON YOUTUBE
★ Combat! S1E05 Far From The Brave ★ Combat S05E15 The Furlough
★ 12 O'clock High : S1E01 Golden Boy Had 9 Black Sheep
★ Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe Ep. 2."Atomic Peril"
SERIAL
CLIPS ON YOUTUBE
★ Cora's Plan for Lady Edith & Marigold | Downton Abbey | Season 5
★ The Sinking Of The RMS Titanic | Downton Abbey
★ James Garner: His Extraordinary Life (Jerry Skinner Documentary)
★ Dr. No: 14 things you don't need to know
★ Arsenic And Old Lace: 13 Things You Don't Need to Know
★ M*A*S*H tribute ★ Making M*A*S*H - 1981 PBS Special
★ Robert Culp - on Bill Cosby and "I Spy" ★ Bill Cosby remembers Robert Culp
★ James Stewart: The Last of the Good Guys - Part 1
★ Keating's class ★ Dead Poets Society: Oh captain, my captain
★ Fall Guy documentary ★ Kevin Costner "Field of Dreams" 25 years later
★ Michael Biehn remembers The Terminator ★ Top 10 best spy films ever
★ Making That Thing You Do! (1996)
★ Remembering The Main Cast From Zorro 1957
★ That time Murder, She Wrote went off the rails
★ What's so great about Casablanca? Ask a film professor.
★ Buck Rogers - Classic TV Review 1979 RetroBlasting
★ Bill Mumy discusses working with The Robot on "Lost in Space"
MORE BLOG ENTRIES BY TOM GILLISPIE
ANECDOTES BY TOM GILLISPIE
ENTRIES FROM THE DOG BLOG
BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)
