Best of Route 66 - Page 16

Re: Best of Route 66

Since Infinity/Roxbury have been "all over the map" with their combined season/mini releases for S1-2 (I think you could fill an entire shelf by now with the various sets--just type in "Route 66" on DD) it wouldn't surprise me if S3 gets multiplied as well at some point.

Re: Best of Route 66

I wouldn't be suprised if after they released Season 3 as two separate volumes, that they'd offer it up as a single release in the future.

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Perhaps their marketing data from the first two seasons, comparatively, showed the split Season 1 sets generated better revenues to start with. And then you have the suckers like me who double-dipped and ordered the complete Season 1 again to get the corrected Volume 2. As Michael notes, they've been all over the map with these releases. Marketing geniuses or just messed up?

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Keep in mind that there are a number of solo Milner episodes before Maharis' departure was finalized and Glenn Corbett was introduced. I don't have a reliable source on which episode was Maharis' last at hand, but I think it might fall within the first half of the third season.

Not that I think there's any compelling reason to split off the Maharis episodes; I'm sure Infinity isn't that well versed on the content and that this decision had more to do with the ability to have a higher combined MSRP on two separate sets.

I'm ambivalent about Infinity's handling of Route 66 at this point -- they haven't corrected all their mistakes or taken very good care of their earliest-adopter customers, but they've been responsive to complaints and that's more than any of the studios can say at this point. In any case I strongly encourage everyone to stick with the show as long as Infinity continues to deliver acceptable video transfers. Even if you're among the majority that strongly feels the absence of Maharis (I always stick up for Corbett as being brooding rather than wooden), the writing in the final two seasons remains very strong. The episodes that deal with Linc's stint in Vietnam are especially powerful.

Re: Best of Route 66

Infinity has done a better job responding to criticism than CBS/Paramount, the supposed leader in classic tv on dvd. Their response to complaints about The Fugitive apparently is just to quietly cancel the series on DVD and not do any more releases.

In my estimation, Route 66 Season 1 was the worst release of a classic B&W tv drama show last year, while The Fugitive Season 1 was the best. Now this year, The Fugitive Season 2, Volume 1 is by far the worst, while based on content, Route 66 The Complete Season 2 is probably the best. The worm has turned.

Re: Best of Route 66

Some random observations after finishing screening Season 1 and preparing to move on to Season 2 ...

The last episode of Season 1, "incident on a bridge," is "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with an ambiguous, but potentially happy ending (either they died together or they escaped together). What a bold piece of television ... leaving the ending to the viewer's imagination (pessimist or optimist?)

And Lois Smith. Wow. Remarkable features. Angelie Jolie lips. A much different look than the usual 60's barbie dolls, but stunning, nonetheless.

Whoever cast the women for this show had a remarkable eye for some seriously beautiful and often more exotic-looking women. Just in this first season we had the introduction of Joey Heatherton, as well as Ann Helm ("Sweet Thing"!), Joanne Moore ("Trinket"!), Inger Stevens, and the requisite appearance by Susan Oliver (what a showcase for acting they gave her with the story on burying her scandalous mother on "welcome to amity").

Forgive my obsesson with this (I actually still have my hair), but did George Maharis and William Shatner not have the best hairpieces of the early 60's? Shatner's worn a ridiculous rug ever since, but for Star Trek, it was seamless. And I'm still looking for the seam around the front of Maharis' piece. That stylist was a master artisan. And we're talking some serious glue when that Vette is cruising.

Another random note is how much this show is really just Naked City on the road. Naked City featured mostly character pieces with the investigating cops (the "stars" of the show) almost incidental to the story.

And what other show would give you a story where a small town uses a traffic citation to railroad Tod and Buz into being teachers for their lone schoolhouse ("trap in cordova")? Funny and poignant at the same time.

Want suspense? "a skill for hunting" waiting for Hum to step in the bear trap while he's stalking Buz, Tod and Trinket with a deer rifle. It doesn't get better on classic television.

On to Season 2 with great anticipation. Julie Newmar!. As a Paris Hilton-like kooky heiress roaming around the country causing trouble while a family-hired P.I. follows behind to clean up her messes. Is that a great premise for a spin-off television series or what?!

Re: Best of Route 66

Lois Smith must have been some kind of muse for Stirling Silliphant: he wrote a ROUTE 66 for her each and every year (in the days when an actor could guest star on a TV series multiple times in different roles), and a NAKED CITY. She's mesmerizing -- a great character actress later on, but hardly anybody saw her as a star like Silliphant did.

Julie Newmar ... well, when you see the show, you'll see that "terrifyingly sexy" is a better phrase than "kooky." She'd squash Paris Hilton with one motorcycle boot. Vicki is one of the great TV characters ... although the sequel to that episode is infuriating, a Silliphant gimmick that backfires.

Re: Best of Route 66

Amen to that, Wayne. Beauty and talent both--such were the lovely small screen sirens of television's golden age. What amazes me still is how the more sensual these women appear as a result of Rodman's and Silliphant's penchant for subtlety and understatement.

Right! These actresses were all given meaty monologues and fully developed personas, and they responded in kind by giving very lived-in performances that are so much different the usual decorative ingenue role of that era or beyond. And so much sexier because they come off as more real.

I didn't know Lois Smith was a muse of Silliphant, but I can understand why now. She should have had a major star career like Angelie or Julie Roberts - but back then. But, alas, a different time. It reminds me of Shirley Knight, another awesome actress of the era who, for whatever reason, seemed to get more roles as a character actor after she lost her initial beauty. Perhaps that was always their real comfort zone.

Oh, and forgive me for leaving out Lois Nettleton from "the opponent." I don't know if people (or Hollywood) would immediately have put her in the category of sexy ... but she was. She had a very vulnerable but definite allure. And it's kind of cool to see that the episode featured her hiding the fact from her beau Darrin McGavin that she got a job as, basically, a sex object. No doubt she appreciated being cast for the vulnerability, but still thought of as the other.

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Okay, so I'm NOT seeing things. The Corvette in the 4th episode of the Second season ("birdcage on my foot" - where's Robert Duval's Emmy?) is NOT the same car as in the episodes before or immediately after ("first class mouliak" - Robert Redford, NO Emmy for you!).

I'm sure there's an explanation (they couldn't get the car to Boston in time; the episodes aired in a different order than production), but I'd like to hear the real one if someone knows.

Maybe Buz and Tod inherited enough cash to buy some new wheels after tracking down the blues band in Episode 3, "goodnight sweet blues," for Ethel Waters (Emmy!).

(And yes, that Season 3 listing or non-listing begs clarification from Infinity)

Re: Best of Route 66

The mystery deepens. In the very next episode 6 from Gloucester, Massachussetts ("once for every man") the other Vette is back again. This leads me to believe the episode 5 shot in Cleveland was not ready in time and they aired the Boston episode 4 before it with the (newer?) Vette.

To complicate matters, this episode features a THIRD Vette all souped up with side chrome pipes and a bubble roof owned by the heiress Tod falls in love with (Corvette aficionados, please excuse my technical ignorance).

And, finally, to top it all off, in the very last scene of this episode after Tod dumps the heiress and goes to rejoin Buz leaving, he passes the ORIGINAL Vette they'd been using throughout the first Season and into the second, and parks two cars in front of it! My first thought is that maybe there was a missing scene where the heiress bought Tod the new Vette and Tod gave the old one to Buz. But no, Buz is about to get into a cab.

I'm sure there's a Route 66 trivia expert out there who can explain these anomalies, but it would have been very simple to explain the switched Vette (my heiress gift theory works fine).

I just thought it was odd that, if you're just going to show them driving a newer model Vette, why give a last moment cameo to the old one without any explanation?

Perhaps the only explanation needed at the time was ... sell more Chevys.

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Bob, thanks for the post. I had just looked at that at TSoD a minute ago.

I guess this release is sort of a "best of" or a sampler of the show? Are you going to get this one in addition to the series-set releases?

I got R66 S2 from Santa but haven't viewed any of it yet.

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I'll be passing on this too.

Only season sets for me for this series.

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There were many episodes of the series aired out of the order of filming, especially in the 3rd-season, when they tried to gamely string out the remaining Maharis episodes as long as possible (mixed with many solo Milner eps) before Corbett's arrival.

As for the changes in the Corvette, the most noticeable change is obviously in that later ('64) model. This is second-hand info, and I can't really verify it, but I heard that one of Silliphant's scripts (maybe it was the Harry Guardino episode) provided the scenario that the old-style Corvette got totalled in a climactic rescue scene at a rock quarry, and out of gratitude, a character replaces the boys' auto with the new model. However, my memory of the episode, is that this situation never occurred. The new model was never explained. It might have been written, but never filmed.

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Thanks for that bit of info, Bert. I'm definitely waiting for the next Season (or split Season) set. I bought that earlier "Best of" set from Infinity a couple of years ago anyhow. But I want Season sets at this point.

Gary "hope you and your family had a great Christmas, Bert" O.

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June 23rd would be a lot easier wait if it was the entire Season 3 set and not just Volume 1. Perhaps Infinity will have time to re-think this strategy.

The Second Season has been consistently strong in my re-viewing. There's a remarkable shot in the 7th episode, "the mud nest," which is a very poignant story about Buz searching in Baltimore for the mother who abandoned him. Buz and Tod leave a strip joint where they've hit a dead end and exit into an alley and, I swear, there's a mission in the same frame directly across the alley from the Circus strip joint with the neon sign looming above them reading, "God Is Love." It fits the theme of the episode perfectly, and it's very real. (I remember once stumbling out of a nightclub in L.A. only to find a revival meeting tent directly across the street). Sodom and Gomorrah in the same frame.

In the credits, I noticed three siblings of Maharis listed as the Colby clan (Lon Chaney, Jr.!). Perfect casting to start the genetic detective story.

And the newer Vette is definitely on board from now on. It would have been so easy to write the transitions into the story instead of just leaving it as ... Chevy gave the production a new one to promote for this season.

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I just hope this flailing about with release dates and best-of compilations isn't a sign of poor sales and impending doom. The pattern here certainly resembles the death throes of "Ironside" with Shout Factory.

Regarding the Corvette, episode-to-episode chronology just wasn't something anybody considered much back in the '60s; it's remarkable when you do find it handled with accuracy (on "Peyton Place" or, to an extent, "Run For Your Life," for instance).

I've been watching the first season of "The Untouchables," which has two totally separate and contradictory chronologies going. It's fairly coherent in explaining the arrivals and departures of Jerry Paris and Anthony George within "real time" (George's exeunt is correctly dated "a few months" after his introduction). But the episodes explicitly do not occur in chronological order; each one might occur any time between about 1931 and 1934, with the narrator often identifying the date precisely. And it's important to the stories whether they take place before or after the arrest of Al Capone or the end of Prohibition. So for the narrator's chronology to work, both Paris and George would have had to be present for the whole 3-4 year time span.

It's fascinating that nobody on the show thought this would bother anybody. Now, they'd get letters (er, e-mails).

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And then there's the episode in Season 2 ("the thin white line") where Tod's beer is spiked with some hallucinogenic powder and he wigs out for the entire episode like some over-the-top "Reefer Madness" parody. I can't believe Silliphant had anything to do with this episode (even as a story editor) since he scripted Robert Duval so poignantly and believable as a junkie just a few episodes prior. This one is a laugh riot.

There's the cougar barmaid who somehow gets turned on by Tod acting crazy in a bar and takes him home. And while she's putting the moves on him, he's suddenly freaking out hallucinating her as some stalking monster with bad hair and make up. I suspect the writer was inspired from an experience sobering up during a one night stand at some point.

But my favorite moment is the psychiatrist being questioned by the police about what to expect from this roving lunatic. The doctor says something like, "In the 20 times we administered it to ourselves during clinical trials we always ended up with suicidal thoughts." Cue suspense music. But I'm cracking up because, you would THINK that after the first TEN TIMES they tried this experimental 'therapy' that left them suicidal, they might get the hint this substance is not exactly the right direction to take their research.

But this episode only adds to the vast, entertaining canon of stories and styles (or should I say 'Stiles') that comprise Route 66.

Re: Best of Route 66

Season 2, episodes 12, 13, 14

"and the cat jumped over the moon" - Martin Sheen and James Caan play chicken on a rooftop ledge over Philadelphia. Really. That's about it. Still pretty entertaining.

"burning for burning" - Inger Stevens! 'Nuff said.

"to walk with the serpent" - Yikes, a John Birch Society polemic. I didn't remember this one. Buz and Tod go undercover as sympathizer bigots to help pull down a white supremist hate society mouthpiece. I remember the John Birch Society, which this organization is clearly modeled after. I guess things haven't changed too much. Today, it's Rush Limbaugh. Hate and fear still have their fan clubs. This episode was scripted by Will Lorin. No doubt McCarthy would have gone after him as a lefty pinko.

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Not McCarthy specifically, but Lorin was blacklisted during the fifties, so good guess. Lorin also wrote "Goodnight, Sweet Blues," one of the great ROUTE 66 episodes.

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This makes me appreciate the series even more. It wasn't just a show about two drifters on a joyride around America; the writers and creators, like Rod Serling, had much bolder aspirations (and courageous loyalties).

And then there's "a long piece of mischief," the episode I screened last night. A poetic valentine of love to a mean-spirited world. I dare anyone with a heart to get through this story (and Albert Salmi's great performance) of a sad sack rodeo clown without shedding a tear. And there's no better writing than Maharis' speech about how to turn being mocked or laughed at into a victory. Here's a great example of classic television when it soars.

This was also the episode I saw on Nick at Night the night before I serendipitously ran into George Maharis at a restaurant in Santa Monica. I remember talking to him about Audrey Totter and joking about all the lonely, alcoholic women the series seemed to hover around. It's easy to imagine where Silliphant got his muses from when he hung out in a town (bar) to script an episode prior to the production team and cast rolling in.

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Well, I'm just about to dive into the 2nd-season set. I was holding off for a while, trying to finish off a few other sets. No real rush for me, as I've long had copies of all these "Route 66" episodes from my Nick-at-Night tapings, and have viewed them all repeatedly through the years. But, I'm still looking forward to them, as the series remains in my top two or three all-time favorite shows.

I'm not quite as keen on "To Walk With the Serpent," though. Visually it's great, but I always found the script too hamfistedly messagey for my tastes. One of the reasons I always loved "Route 66" (along with "Naked City") was its emphasis on character studies and slice-of-life reality. That's the style of narratives I love, and one of the reasons I'm so fond of tv-drama of that era. I only balk when I get the sense that the characters are not full-blooded individuals, but basically just mouthpieces for an offscreen writer's message or agenda. Then, I immediately feel I'm being lectured to, and it ruins the viewing for me. Sometimes it's a fine line, and certain adept screenwriters are able to navigate it better than others, but once that barrier is broken, I get pretty rebellious and ornery to the whole enterprise. Anyway, I recall "Serpent" taking that avenue, and leaving me a bit miffed, which is not something that occured often with that series.

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You're right that this episode doesn't hold up as well as the usual character drama on Route 66; it's somewhat of an anomaly, and definitely pushing an agenda. And the idea that Buz and Tod would be approached by the FBI to go undercover in this society simply because the leader took a liking to them, was beyond a stretch. But finding out the writer had been blacklisted suddenly gives it a different appreciation. The show's producers lent him a soap box and let him run with it. And then we're returned to the regular universe of Route 66.

I haven't seen these shows in 20 years, so I'm marveling at how well they hold up - primarily because they are about the human condition, and not about passing trends, technology or gimmicks.

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Definitely. That's what makes this show, and THE FUGITIVE, the gold standards of TV drama.

Gary "ugh... I wish I hadn't mentioned that, now I'm getting sick all over again thinking about how CBS/P mangled my favorite show of all time" O.