77 Sunset Strip / Hawaiian Eye, etc. (1 Viewer)

[ponset]

 

[Flashgear]

Published on Facebook via Vintage Los Angeles from a personal collection...one of the tabletop candles from Dino's and a nice picture on the street that I've never seen before...

 

[Neil Brock]

Are the 46 minute HE episodes on ME-TV cut or timesped? The opening theme sounds a little fast to my ears. I know that when Warner remastered their shows they took out all of the bumpers going in and out of commercial but is content cut?

 

[timk1041]

Are the 46 minute HE episodes on ME-TV cut or timesped? The opening theme sounds a little fast to my ears. I know that when Warner remastered their shows they took out all of the bumpers going in and out of commercial but is content cut?

Quite possibly. I have the entire series on DVD with some episodes recorded off Good Life and others off 16 mm transfers. The 16 mm ones have many of the bumpers and all episodes appear uncut.

 

[Desslar]

View attachment 182925

Man, what a trainwreck this ad is. The leisure suit, the helmet hair, the full freakin' interview in a comb ad. Plus, you'd expect a string of wisecracks from a Kookie interview, but mostly he gives his serious thoughts on hair styling (!).

 

[Neil Brock]

Quite possibly. I have the entire series on DVD with some episodes recorded off Good Life and others off 16 mm transfers. The 16 mm ones have many of the bumpers and all episodes appear uncut.

I have a good number of 16mm episodes as well. For instance I looked at the episode I Wed Three Wives and the two leads from 77 Sunset Strip are guests. On the ME-TV copy, they are on screen for about 10 seconds at the beginning of the show and I can't believe it aired that way.

 

[Tom.W]

Are the 46 minute HE episodes on ME-TV cut or timesped? The opening theme sounds a little fast to my ears.

Both. I edited a few HE episodes from Me-TV and found one at 46 minutes and another at 48 minutes. Most of the teasers are cut, which are about a minute in length. Your hearing is accurate. The dialogue occasionally is garbled or unintelligible from being timesped. Not often enough to be a large distraction, but annoying when it happens.

I recently compared my copies of Stamped with Danger from Me-Tv and Goodlife. The Goodlife version seemed sharper and cleaner to me. It was not timesped from what I could tell.

 

[timk1041]

I have a good number of 16mm episodes as well. For instance I looked at the episode I Wed Three Wives and the two leads from 77 Sunset Strip are guests. On the ME-TV copy, they are on screen for about 10 seconds at the beginning of the show and I can't believe it aired that way.

Yes. Unfortunately. I remember that too.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

I have the 77 Sunset Strip, Bourbon Street Beat and Hawaiian Eye Me-TV/Goodlife 3rd party archived sets with very few complaints about the viewable quality of all episodes in them. Sadly, the Surfside 6 set has a majority of simply unwatchable episodes, a mere shadow of its handful of "quality" episodes and probably coming from badly deteriorating mangled 16 prints to super low rez VHS sources. It's heartbreaking because the show is really addicting with a great cast and fascinating scripts. Why is this? Did Me-TV and Goodlife have such a short Surfside 6 run that most episodes never made it? Of course, I'd pay a kings ransom for a quality set of this or any official release of all four of these legendary series. Wonder if some streaming service or whatever will include these in the future. Hate to see them die in darkness,

 

[Tom.W]

Sadly, the Surfside 6 set has a majority of simply unwatchable episodes, a mere shadow of its handful of "quality" episodes and probably coming from badly deteriorating mangled 16 prints to super low rez VHS sources.

Yes, unfortunate that Surfside 6 seems to have been short changed compared to 77SS and HE in recent airings. Though I think it may have had a complete (or nearly) run in Seattle in 1989-1990. Goodlife repeated a smaller set of Surfside 6 during the run when I had the channel. Me-TV has not acquired it yet. Seems less likely for the reasons you stated, but again, Hawaiian Eye was a pleasant surprise when it showed up.

 

[Neil Brock]

Yes, unfortunate that Surfside 6 seems to have been short changed compared to 77SS and HE in recent airings. Though I think it may have had a complete (or nearly) run in Seattle in 1989-1990. Goodlife repeated a smaller set of Surfside 6 during the run when I had the channel. Me-TV has not acquired it yet. Seems less likely for the reasons you stated, but again, Hawaiian Eye was a pleasant surprise when it showed up.

Between goodlife episodes and ones I transferred from 16mm, I would say that 95% of the ones I have are great quality. The problem is that the people like myself who are serious collectors don't go around bootlegging copyrighted material. The folks who do that are the ones who got 3rd, 4th generation and worse copies.

 

[Neil Brock]

My friend's husband is big into HE but hasn't seen the other WB detective shows. I want to send him sample episodes of each of them. I've never been a huge fan so I don't know the best episodes. I do remember for years that all of the 77SS fans were hot to get the Reserved for Mr. Bailey episode. What would you suggest as the best episodes of Strip, Surfside and Bourbon Street?

 

[Tom.W]

Between goodlife episodes and ones I transferred from 16mm, I would say that 95% of the ones I have are great quality. The problem is that the people like myself who are serious collectors don't go around bootlegging copyrighted material. The folks who do that are the ones who got 3rd, 4th generation and worse copies.

About 20 Surfside 6 episodes were posted on the Warner Archive website several years ago, along with HE. They were taken down after a few weeks.

 

[MartinP.]

^^^

Also 77 Sunset Strip. One of them was the Christmas episode that Me-TV never seemed to air. If I recall correctly they put up 77 and HE, and sometime later on S6. I remeber watching that one later on (with Please Don't Eat the Daisies)!
Thanks Warner Archive, that is actually when I saw any of these three series for the first time!

 

[Timothy E]

My friend's husband is big into HE but hasn't seen the other WB detective shows. I want to send him sample episodes of each of them. I've never been a huge fan so I don't know the best episodes. I do remember for years that all of the 77SS fans were hot to get the Reserved for Mr. Bailey episode. What would you suggest as the best episodes of Strip, Surfside and Bourbon Street?

I cannot say if it is the best episode of 77 Sunset Strip, but I would love to see the episode of Conflict entitled “Anything For Money” in which Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. first played the character of Stuart Bailey.

 

[Tom.W]

My friend's husband is big into HE but hasn't seen the other WB detective shows. I want to send him sample episodes of each of them. I've never been a huge fan so I don't know the best episodes. I do remember for years that all of the 77SS fans were hot to get the Reserved for Mr. Bailey episode. What would you suggest as the best episodes of Strip, Surfside and Bourbon Street?

The pilot episodes of all three are good, imo. Actually, it's the first series episode of 77SS, Lovely Lady, Pity Me. They convey the elements of drama and mystery basic to each series. I especially like the Bourbon Street Beat pilot, Taste of Ashes, which tells how Cal joined Rex in the detective agency. It also has a nice rendition of the theme song played by Eddie Cole, which sets the tone for the series.

Some others I like are from 77SS: One False Step (borrows from Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train), The Bouncing Chip, Only Zeroes Count (crossover with HE), The Kookie Caper, Hong Kong Caper, The Laurel Canyon Caper, The Valley Caper, The Negotiable Blonde. Just a sample from many.

From Surfside 6, The Frightened Canary, The Impractical Joker, Circumstantial Evidence, An Overdose of Justice, Daphne, Girl Detective, Affairs at Hotel Delight, Jonathan Wembley is Missing.

Bourbon Street Beat: Any episode with Nita Talbot (Lusti Weather), including Mrs. Viner Vanishes; Torch Song for Trumpet, Girl in Trouble, The Mourning Cloak (captures the spirit of New Orleans), Girl in the River (w. Mary Tyler Moore), Last Exit (Ray Danton & Madlyn Rhue). I'd actually rate most BSB's pretty high. I know you want a sample.

Hope that helps.

 

[Flashgear]

Nice color photo of screen legend James Cagney trading guitar riffs with Roger Smith...Cagney was a mentor and good friend of Roger Smith, and indeed was credited by Roger with giving him his start in show biz...and they both were in Cagney's 1957 Lon Chaney biopic Man of a Thousand Faces and later the 1959 feature film Never Steal Anything Small, with Shirley Jones, Cara Williams, Nehemiah Persoff, Anthony Caruso, Jack Albertson, Royal Dano et al. Roger must have filmed with Cagney during 77 Sunset Strip's hiatus between season one and two...

 

[MartinP.]

Never Steal Anything Small: I once heard this musical described as if On the Waterfront and Guys & Dolls had a baby.

Jake Macllaney (Cagney) will do just about anything to win the presidential election of longshoreman union Local 26. When he encounters young upright attorney Dan Cabot (Smith) and Cabot's attractive wife Linda (Jones), Macllaney breaks up their marriage, pursues Linda, and pins a grand larceny rap on Dan.

Sounds like a musical to me, LOL!

Never Steal Anything Small is the oddest film musical and yet I love it for that. Worth the price of admission alone is the song, "Sorry, I Want a Ferrari."

As the lobby card above attests there's only 5 songs in the film:

• Never Steal Anything Small
• I'm Sorry, I Want a Ferrari
• I Haven't Got a Thing to Wear
• It Takes Love to Make a Home
• Helping Our Friends

I don't know if others would agree, but I always think movies from 1959-61, say, have this kind of feeling; like the past and present were jostling for space at that time as to what came next. What was and what's to come. Complacent and yet restless at the same time. You can somehow feel it in that time period. I feel that watching North by Northwest. Or Pillow Talk. Even West Side Story. Does that ring true for anyone else?

Could be, who knows?
There's somethin' due any day
I will know right away, soon as it shows
It may come cannonballin' down through the sky
Gleam in its eye, could be...who knows?

Would that apply to these early TV detective series?

 

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