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

[mark-edk]

Poor Conrad, they keep doing cheap shots about his weight.

A five part story is super ambitious for a failing show, but damn I'd love to see this.

When the show was running on one of the nostalgia subchannels they aired all five parts. It looked pretty good but there were downsides. For one they trimmed a few minutes out of each episode to squeeze in the commercials. And another issue: one part (i think part four) ends in a climactic fight scene, and apparently WB's new transfer somehow left out the music track! I was able to mix in the music from a different off-air recording that used an earlier transfer but that was careless for sure. (I also used earlier broadcasts to fill in missing scenes where possible.) The five-parter was really good; the rest of the episodes were variable.

 

[criblecoblis]

Earlier, I mentioned that I had just gotten one of the German-language 77SS sets. I haven't had much time to check it out since then, because we've been in the process of moving, and I haven't had a DVD player connected to a TV for all this time. But I did at last check the set out on a computer, and I have some things to report.

As far as I have been able to determine, the prints are the same syndication cuts we've been watching on MeTV and MeTV+. I haven't yet done detailed comparisons of all the episodes, but so far I have not found any more footage, and the quality appears to be identical to the MeTV prints. Moreover, there is no second English audio track for any of them.

It is interesting to note how well the German dialogue matches the mouth movements of the English speakers. That indicates to me that a reasonably good job was done with the German dubbing. Also, English is a Germanic language, so perhaps that has something to do with it too.

A few observations of the voices used: I must admit I was a little disappointed that they didn't go deluxe and get EZ to dub himself in German. That would have been fun. . . I am still trying to determine whether Suzanne is speaking German with a French accent. . . the voice used to dub Kookie is to my ears ridiculously inappropriate; it's too comic-relief squeaky and high.

So, sadly, unless you are fluent in German or just want to have them, I have not yet found any practical reason to get the German DVDs. Then again, it may be fun to have a German-language episode playing when people are visiting, just to confuse them a bit.

 

[criblecoblis]

The five-parter was really good; the rest of the episodes were variable.

I liked the five-parter too, but the quality plunged after the sixth episode with Elizabeth Montgomery. I think that once they introduced Hannah (Joan Staley), the quality of the episodes then improved steadily, until by the final episode they had pretty much restored the old Stu. That episode, with minor editing, could in my judgment stand as a solid Season 4 episode.

 

[ponset]

 

[Flashgear]

From Stephen ONeil's excellent 77 Sunset Strip page on Facebook...Atlanta Journal, October 24, 1959...recounting a recent reception and party for the 77 Sunset Strip cast, hosted by Dean Martin himself at his fabled Dino's night club on Sunset Strip...click on image to enlarge...

Warren County Pennsylvania Observer June 10, 1961, featuring WB producer Wm T. Orr's defensive comments about the (at the time idiotic) Dodd senate committee hearings on Juvenile delinquency that repeatedly tried to lay blame on TV shows like 77 Sunset Strip, Cheyenne, and others...but with more devastating effect on shows like Nick Adams' The Rebel (mentioned here and in it's second and last season despite strong audience share), and (beyond this June 1961 article) during the following season with highly publicized attacks on specific episodes of The Untouchables (just pick almost any episode), Boris Karloff's Thriller (all the horror episodes), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (the ultimately unaired Sorcerer's Apprentice with the bisection of Diana Dors) and the great single season Fox show Bus Stop (for the episodes I Kiss Your Shadow and A Lion Walks Among Us, where teen heart throb Fabian played an attractive psychopath)...The Untouchables just kept truckin' along, but spooked corporate sponsors meant the end of the critically acclaimed Bus Stop, and Alfred Hitchcock's pull at Universal, and his own rebooting of the soon-to-be Alfred Hitchcock Hour, meant the end of Boris Karloff's Thriller...click to enlarge...

 

[Desslar]

From Stephen ONeil's excellent 77 Sunset Strip page on Facebook...Atlanta Journal, October 24, 1959...recounting a recent reception and party for the 77 Sunset Strip cast, hosted by Dean Martin himself at his fabled Dino's night club on Sunset Strip...click on image to enlarge...
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Thanks for the articles! Very fun to read. I was amused by some of Mr. Horwitz's remarks in the first article:

They're expecting Roger Smith playing guitar on the show to be a ratings winner? Hmm... OK.

No pressure to Kookie-ize the show? Not too sure about that one either.

 

[Rustifer]

From Stephen ONeil's excellent 77 Sunset Strip page on Facebook...Atlanta Journal, October 24, 1959...recounting a recent reception and party for the 77 Sunset Strip cast, hosted by Dean Martin himself at his fabled Dino's night club on Sunset Strip...click on image to enlarge...
View attachment 217659


Warren County Pennsylvania Observer June 10, 1961, featuring WB producer Wm T. Orr's defensive comments about the (at the time idiotic) Dodd senate committee hearings on Juvenile delinquency that repeatedly tried to lay blame on TV shows like 77 Sunset Strip, Cheyenne, and others...but with more devastating effect on shows like Nick Adams' The Rebel (mentioned here and in it's second and last season despite strong audience share), and (beyond this June 1961 article) during the following season with highly publicized attacks on specific episodes of The Untouchables (just pick almost any episode), Boris Karloff's Thriller (all the horror episodes), Alfred Hitchcock Presents (the ultimately unaired Sorcerer's Apprentice with the bisection of Diana Dors) and the great single season Fox show Bus Stop (for the episodes I Kiss Your Shadow and A Lion Walks Among Us, where teen heart throb Fabian played an attractive psychopath)...The Untouchables just kept truckin' along, but spooked corporate sponsors meant the end of the critically acclaimed Bus Stop, and Alfred Hitchcock's pull at Universal, and his own rebooting of the soon-to-be Alfred Hitchcock Hour, meant the end of Boris Karloff's Thriller...click to enlarge...
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Very well done, Randall!

 

[ponset]

 

[John Hermes]

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Second photo is from the feature film Parrish, which needs a Blu-ray release.

 

[ponset]

Edd with Annette, Bob Denver, Frankie Avalon, Paul Anka, and Pat Boone.

 

[Mysto]

Just bumping the thread for some old friends.

 

[Flashgear]

Posted on Stephen ONeil's excellent 77 Sunset Strip Facebook page (if you love the WB detective series, you really should join, if you do FB)...Peter Brown comes over to the 77 Sunset Strip set in his Lawman attire to visit friend Roger Smith...and compare firearms...

Newspaper article from the Springfield, Mo. Leader-Press, December 25, 1960...an interview with Efrem Zimbalist Jr., During which time he was loaned out, filming the MGM-U/A movie By Love Possessed (w/ co-stars Lana Turner, Jason Robards, George Hamilton, Barbara Bel Geddes, Susan Kohner, Carrol O'Connor et al). By Love Possessed was an atypical melodrama for famed action movie director John Sturges (!), the same year he directed his immortal Western actioner with an all-star cast, The Magnificent Seven....Efrem had also done the WB movies The Crowded Sky and A Fever in the Blood in 1960, with another film, The Chapman Report coming in 1961...Efrem bemoaned missing out on being cast in Universal's Portrait in Black and MGM's Butterfield 8, an Oscar winning film for Liz Taylor, because WB wouldn't loan him out for it...But Efrem still says: "I like Jack Warner", and was happy doing 77 Sunset Strip (at the time in it's third season), and also being cast frequently in WB theatrical films...and with the long running series The F.B.I. in the near future, WB would make Efrem a very rich man...

Third season (1960-61) cast photo with new co-star Richard Long, ex-Bourbon Street Beat...

 

[Flashgear]

Also from Stephen ONeil's FB group...a little over a year after Surfside 6 ended, co-star Margarita Sierra (Fountainbleau Boom-Boom Room songstress 'Cha-Cha O'Brien'), passed away tragically from post-surgical complications at the young age of 27...LA Times, September 11, 1963...a report on her funeral, where Surfside 6 co-stars Troy Donahue and Van Williams served as pallbearers, along with frequent WB guest star Chad Everett...{seen in photo below)...