77 Sunset Strip / Hawaiian Eye, etc. (4 Viewers)

[MartinP.]

^^^

No period?

 

[Gary16]

^^^

No period?

How’s this?
No!

 

[Bob Gu]

For color 77SS, there's always the comics:

 

[Gary16]

For color 77SS, there's always the comics:

View attachment 49789

And this too!

 

[Dolly8]

^^^

I have read that Wilder did want/plan to film Some Like It Hot in color, but that the color makeup tests for Lemmon and Curtis kept looking greenish so that is why they did not, but, yes, that's also true about Marilyn's contract specifying all her movies were to be in color, so he would've had to convince her.

I actually would like to have it been shot in color, what with the great Orry-Kelly costume designs and great location shooting at the Coronado Hotel. I'd always thought it wYESould be nice to have done a Wizard of Oz type thing and filmed the cold, snowy Chicago scenes in b&w and transfer to color when they arrive in Florida. I wouldn't mind seeing a colorized version, either. In lieu of that, there are quite a few behind the scenes photos of the filming in color as well as film footage. And in the film footage the makeup doesn't look greenish, so...?

I know colorizing is blasphemous to some people, but I ask in all seriousness, would any of you like to see a few 77 Sunset Strip episodes in color?

YES!

 

[criblecoblis]

We made it to page 100! Sorry I've been silent for a while, but the side effects of the medicines I need to take during my recovery caught up with me, and I can hardly find two adjectives to rub together.

Russ, I hope things improve for you soon.

And I would LOVE to see some well-colorized 77SS episodes. Colorization of TV shows from that period does not bother me, because B&W was not an artistic choice--it was forced upon the filmmakers, especially on ABC.

 

[Flashgear]

Russ and Rob, I hope you both feel much better soon. Getting better is the priority. Perhaps I will blunder on in the thread with something of marginal interest soon. Just have to come up with something worthy of what you guys have been regularly giving us. All the best!

 

[Rustifer]

I know colorizing is blasphemous to some people, but I ask in all seriousness, would any of you like to see a few 77 Sunset Strip episodes in color?

This discussion reminds me of when Mad magazine went entirely in color. Somehow, it lost all its charm. At least for me.

 

[Rustifer]

We made it to page 100! Sorry I've been silent for a while, but the side effects of the medicines I need to take during my recovery caught up with me, and I can hardly find two adjectives to rub together.

Yep, 100 pages! Quite a milestone for all of us. Maybe one of the forum's Powers That Be will poke their nose in to congratulate us.
And maybe bus tires are made of marshmallows.

 

[Rustifer]

Russ and Rob, I hope you both feel much better soon. Getting better is the priority. Perhaps I will blunder on in the thread with something of marginal interest soon. Just have to come up with something worthy of what you guys have been regularly giving us. All the best!

Thanks much for your concern. I believe I'm now on an upward swing healthwise.

Oh...and Randall--it would be great to hear from you more often. I think you underestimate your capabilities--your number of "Likes" defies your gentle humbleness.

 

[Rustifer]

Episode Commentary Redux

I wrote a few lines about "Hit and Run" (S1Ep13) many pages ago. Having re-watched it last night, I thought I'd do a little commentary spackling and fill in the story line a bit more. This episode attempts at being a paean to 50's-style teenage angst towards grown-ups. It reminded me of long-ago required high school films about "good" kids vs. "bad" ones--who's more to blame--those rambunctious acne-ridden young folks or the stern, unforgiving parents? It was such an unhip world back then, man.

Stu Bailey lends Kookie his T-Bird for a hot date in Malibu. One might as well drive a nail through a butterfly for what happens next. Kookie passes a hit and run accident where two people are dead. As he drives slowly by, he's followed by a blonde down the Strip who tries to run him off the road but instead crashes her own car. Before Kookie can grind to a halt, a vagabond passer-by witness finds the woman severely injured and unconscious and calmly palms her purse. When Kookie rushes up, the scoundrel promises to run to the nearest phone and call the police. Instead, he turns to the trail of oblivion. Police arrive and immediately arrest Kookie for causing the accident because, well...he just looks the type.

Robert H. Harris, Sue Randall and Edd Byrnes, Russ Bender

Kookie ends up at the police station being questioned by Capt. Bradford (Russ Bender), who is unconvinced of Kookie's innocence or the presence of a witness. But Kookie stands firm, his conscience as clear as that of a meteorologist on vacation. Turns out the injured woman is Liz Murray (Gloria Robertson), wife of wealthy old coot Robert Murray (Robert H. Harris) who sounds like his nose is packed with a wad of driveway gravel. A once active actress, Liz's face is her calling card--now horribly disfigured in the accident. Her chance of returning to acting is as distant as the cheese side of the moon. Murray is apoplectic and promises to sue the livin' bejesus out of Kookie, who has a net worth of about $7 and is poorer than lint. In an unforeseen turn of events, the vagabond shows up with the wife's purse and blackmails Murray--as he knows wifey was the one who caused the hit and run. A fight ensues, and vagabond whacks his head on an iron radiator and is instantly transported over the rainbow.

Eventually the Murrays come clean and Kookie is vindicated, a credit to the race of hepcats who patrol the Strip. Directed by Leslie Martinson, this could be a workable episode but for a fairly straight-laced Kookie, and who wants to see that? The story is a bit preachy and, as such, lets some air out of the uber hip balloon that is 77 Sunset Strip. As Kookie laments "I might be young, I might like Rock 'n Roll, and every now and again I might have rocks in my head. But I'm no idiot."

NOTE: While at the police station, Kookie divulges some personal information:
Address: 18026 Valleyheart Drive (An actual LA address that we've discussed earlier)
Father: Deceased
Mother: Helen Margaret Kooksen, public stenographer

Added: Gloria Robertson seems to be another one of those almost-unknown TV actresses with limited credits who disappeared into the mists of obscurity. I couldn't even find a picture of her.

 

[Flashgear]

We all love Suzanne (Jacqueline Beer), so here are some screen caps I took of her!
From season 4, "Violence for Your Furs" (Mar. 30, 1962)...I want to run away with her...

I love her choice of reading material while she whiles away her time at the switchboard...same episode...Girl on the Run is a nice inside joke on Roy Huggins pilot teleplay for the series, of course...

Philip Carey edges in...take a powder, bud!

Suzanne has a brain too, to go along with her beauty, and is thus interested in the news of the day...such as the question we were all asking ourselves...that loudmouth Kruschev was scaring the hell out of us, banging his shoe on the UN podium in New York...interestingly, as this very episode was going to air, the first shiploads of Soviet troops and missile batteries were on their way to Cuba in complete secrecy...with nuclear warheads soon to follow...and by October and the discovery of the missile sites, there were over 90 Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuba...good times, and as a six year old, I thought I was going to die...they sent me home from school with a civil defense booklet with a map depicting the blast and radiation devastation of my hometown of Calgary, if it was targeted by a 5 Megaton Soviet H Bomb, as expected...we all watched JFK's live TV address on the missile crisis, where he announced the naval blockade...and DEFCON 2...war was imminent...

She tries to explain it all to Kookie, but he's just been brained in a truck load hijacking...so he's a little off...on a good day he should be assessed for concussion protocols...in the same clinic with Stu and Jeff...and the patron saint of TV concussions, Joe Mannix, ha, ha...

Mala Powers in Violence for your Furs...

As my Dad would say..."Nice Superstructure"...dear old Dad was a WW2 Navy veteran, and assessed all women in ship engineering terms..."Top Heavy", "Wide o' Beam", "Built like a Battleship", "Heavy Displacement" etc...ha, ha...

Jeff has that look on his face that just tells you he is rightfully suspicious...he's seen plenty of double dealing dames...

Anyway, it all gets tied up neatly in the end...although Roscoe doesn't seem entirely pleased with how things transpired at the greasy roadside diner, where he was undercover as a harried short order cook...Suzanne does cheer him up, as she does for all of us too...

11 bells and all is well on the strip...Jeff's T Bird about to roll out...

 

[Flashgear]

Bumper to bumper stop and go traffic in front of Dino's...screen caps from Violence for your Furs...about 200 grand in collector cars if you had them in that condition today...'57 Del Ray, '57 Nomad, '58 Impala, etc...I guess folks on the actual strip always knew WB was filming down there on location when the '77' canopy went up and Dino's featured performers of the week marquee was taken down from curbside...

A newer car...'62 Pontiac Strato-Chief?

I know we love it when Stu and Jeff go for a drive with cameras rolling on the old time freeways of LA, and wish they had done more of that back then...well, feast your eyes on these screen caps from Route 66 season one, An Absence of Tears (Mar. 3, 1961)...on the Hollywood freeway...

Milner and Maharis are actually driving the 'Vette and not being towed by a camera car...all of this at highway speed and no closed track, of course...I just love the fearless and splendid location shooting of this series, which was often stunning...

Somewhere in West Hollywood...perhaps you Angelinos will recognize this place?

 

[Rustifer]

Suzanne has a brain too, to go along with her beauty, and is thus interested in the news of the day...such as the question we were all asking ourselves...that loudmouth Kruschev was scaring the hell out of us, banging his shoe on the UN podium in New York...interestingly, as this very episode was going to air, the first shiploads of Soviet troops and missile batteries were on their way to Cuba in complete secrecy...with nuclear warheads soon to follow...and by October and the discovery of the missile sites, there were over 90 Soviet nuclear weapons on Cuba...good times, and as a six year old, I thought I was going to die...they sent me home from school with a civil defense booklet with a map depicting the blast and radiation devastation of my hometown of Calgary, if it was targeted by a 5 Megaton Soviet H Bomb, as expected...we all watched JFK's live TV address on the missile crisis, where he announced the naval blockade...and DEFCON 2...war was imminent...

See, Randall? I knew all we had to do was find the key to wind you up and you'd spill out a whole bunch of cool stuff!

I'm right there with you on the Cuba Crisis. I was around 11 years old and didn't think I'd see 12. My dad actually contemplated moving the family down to Argentina. Cripes! I could've grown up to be a gaucho.

 

[Bob Gu]

Russ, are you sure you didn't?

Oh! You said gaucho.

 

[Rustifer]

Russ, are you sure you didn't?

.

Yee haw and giddyup.

 

[Rustifer]

Tiny TIDBIT

Since first appearing in a stage play in 1937, Robert Harris played almost exclusively bad or disturbed guy roles. With that face, he really had no other options.
Contrary to his TV and film personas, the Kingston Daily Freeman in April 1952 reported that Mr. Harris was a prolific writer of children's songs, a portrait photographer and an amateur sculptor.

Who'da guessed?

 

[MartinP.]

Somewhere in West Hollywood...perhaps you Angelinos will recognize this place?
View attachment 49873

The Roller Bowl was at 5612 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. You can see the 5624 address number on the building to the right of it in the photo.

Probably 30 years ago I used to talk to George Maharis on occasion as he was a frequent customer where I worked for awhile.

Thanks for those screencaps Randall!

 

[Gary16]

Since we made it to page 100 and if my math is correct, the 100th episode of 77SS aired on 4-7-61 titled “Vamp ‘til Ready.”

 

[MartinP.]

^^^

On Easter Sunday, April 2, 1961, I saw that Disney Dalmatian movie for the first time.

"Now on to page 101 !!!"​

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