Beverly Garland's Series Decoy Coming to DVD This Month (1 Viewer)

[Darby67]

I'm almost through disc #1. This was a blind buy for me and I'm very happy with the purchase. The stories and the acting are both well done. The booklet is very informative and a nice addition to the set.

 

[Gary16]

Episode #4 is the first one I've seen that looks to be 16mm sourced compared to Episodes 1-3.

And episode 5 is back to 35mm.

 

[Neil Brock]

Just watched the first one last night and it looks great. Didn't recognize Joanne Linville at first but couldn't miss that distinctive voice. Certain actresses, like Carol Lynley, where you just have to hear the voice to know who they are.

 

[FanCollector]

Enjoying this series, which I had never seen before buying this set. The first episode is the best thus far, mostly because of Ms. Linville's performance and the way she and Ms. Garland meshed together.

I haven't read her book, but Ms. Linville has been an acting teacher for a long time and one of the special skills she emphasizes is the ability to craft a fully developed character when you only have a couple of days preparation, as is so often the case in episodic television. She was always terrific, and her appearances were often among the highlights of some very good series.

 

[disctrip]

Does anyone want to comment on the smell of the discs and booklet. It is really overpowering.

 

[Gary16]

Does anyone want to comment on the smell of the discs and booklet. It is really overpowering.

I haven't noticed anything.

 

[disctrip]

I haven't noticed anything.

Mine have a chemical smell. Especially the booklet.

 

[Jack P]

I noticed that about the case too and got rid of mine in favor of an old clear plastic three disc one but I can tell the smell is lingering in the booklet.

 

[Flashgear]

Just watched the first one last night and it looks great. Didn't recognize Joanne Linville at first but couldn't miss that distinctive voice. Certain actresses, like Carol Lynley, where you just have to hear the voice to know who they are.

Enjoying this series, which I had never seen before buying this set. The first episode is the best thus far, mostly because of Ms. Linville's performance and the way she and Ms. Garland meshed together.

I haven't read her book, but Ms. Linville has been an acting teacher for a long time and one of the special skills she emphasizes is the ability to craft a fully developed character when you only have a couple of days preparation, as is so often the case in episodic television. She was always terrific, and her appearances were often among the highlights of some very good series.

I agree completely, Joanne Linville turned in many memorable performances in episodic TV...she really was allowed to shine as a guest star...but as a supporting player, due to the nature of those shows, she quite often accomplished so much in just one brilliant scene...like in the season 1 Defenders episode 'Killer Instinct'...as the fearful wife and mother with William Shatner...the scene early on, at the breakfast table...this debut episode of Decoy is certainly among her earliest TV work, she would have been 29...she also did a lot of stage, Broadway included...other than this appearance on Decoy, I think the earliest things I've seen her in is the very good season 3 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode 'A Safe Place'...and the Great season 1 episode of One Step Beyond, 'The Dead Part of the House'...among my favorite Joanne Linville appearances...season 1 of Dr. Kildare 'The Road to the Heart'...two Great Gunsmoke episodes, season 7's 'Old Yellow Boots' and season 8's 'The Ditch'...Naked City S3 'Let Me Die Before I Wake', S4's 'The Highest of Prizes'...Route 66 S3 'Poor Little Kangaroo Rat'...the absolutely brilliant and terrifying episode of Bus Stop 'I Kiss Your Shadow' (on Youtube)...Twilight Zone's 'The Passerby'...despite how naturally pretty she was, because of her depth as an actress, she was often called upon to play the desperate girlfriend or worn out and distressed mother...and even the old maid type...as she so brilliantly conveyed in performances like 'Old Yellow Boots'...of course, she's wonderful as the Romulan commander in Star Trek's 'The Enterprise Incident' too...I had no idea that she has spent much of her career as an acting teacher, good to know...

I should have my copy of Decoy soon...so glad to hear all the positive reports on the quality of the sources...I agree it's one of our best ever bargain price complete series on DVD...kudos to Film Chest...

Joanne Linville, unfortunately in the background, in a 1958 publicity photo for a United States Steel Hour episode (with the ubiquitous Shatner) 'Old Marshalls Never Die'...

Looking lovely on Hawaii Five - 0, 'Once Upon a Time' 1969...

And really messing with Spock's brain in season 3's 'Enterprise Incident'...

 

[hypnohighball]

I agree completely, Joanne Linville turned in many memorable performances in episodic TV...she really was allowed to shine as a guest star...but as a supporting player, due to the nature of those shows, she quite often accomplished so much in just one brilliant scene...like in the season 1 Defenders episode 'Killer Instinct'...as the fearful wife and mother with William Shatner...the scene early on, at the breakfast table...this debut episode of Decoy is certainly among her earliest TV work, she would have been 29...she also did a lot of stage, Broadway included...other than this appearance on Decoy, I think the earliest things I've seen her in is the very good season 3 Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode 'A Safe Place'...and the Great season 1 episode of One Step Beyond, 'The Dead Part of the House'...among my favorite Joanne Linville appearances...season 1 of Dr. Kildare 'The Road to the Heart'...two Great Gunsmoke episodes, season 7's 'Old Yellow Boots' and season 8's 'The Ditch'...Naked City S3 'Let Me Die Before I Wake', S4's 'The Highest of Prizes'...Route 66 S3 'Poor Little Kangaroo Rat'...the absolutely brilliant and terrifying episode of Bus Stop 'I Kiss Your Shadow' (on Youtube)...Twilight Zone's 'The Passerby'...despite how naturally pretty she was, because of her depth as an actress, she was often called upon to play the desperate girlfriend or worn out and distressed mother...and even the old maid type...as she so brilliantly conveyed in performances like 'Old Yellow Boots'...of course, she's wonderful as the Romulan commander in Star Trek's 'The Enterprise Incident' too...I had no idea that she has spent much of her career as an acting teacher, good to know...

I should have my copy of Decoy soon...so glad to hear all the positive reports on the quality of the sources...I agree it's one of our best ever bargain price complete series on DVD...kudos to Film Chest...

Joanne Linville, unfortunately in the background, in a 1958 publicity photo for a United States Steel Hour episode (with the ubiquitous Shatner) 'Old Marshalls Never Die'...

What a great picture!

 

[Darby67]

I finished watching the entire series and I sincerely thank all the posters who recommended purchasing this release. I found most episodes very enjoyable and I'm very content to have this in my collection.

 

[Bartman]

I've just watched a couple of episodes on Amazon Prime, it's kinda cute and I like it's style but the video quality is a little 'off' with Episode 4 being worse. Has anyone compared the Film Chest DVDs vs Amazon Prime's Multicom sourced episodes?
Interestingly there have been lawsuits over the years between Multicom and Film Chest, it begs the question did they patch things up and do business or did Film Chest go directly to CBS and obtain 35mm elements? A visual comparison of episodes might reveal the answer.
I've read through the thread again (looking for clues), there are many positive reviews of the video quality. If the Film Chest DVDs were legitimately sourced from Multicom why would they bother removing the Multicom logo? Nobody has mentioned the Multicom logo on the Film Chest DVDs. I'm tempted to order the DVDs to answer the question for myself, I'll wait a few days to see if I get replies to this post!!

 

[Vic Pardo]

I bought the set, watched the entire series and devoted a blog entry to it. I emphasize Ms. Garland's superb performance, the variety of New York City locations, and the abundance of future stars at the beginning of their careers in the episode casts. I also rebut J. Hoberman's assertion in his New York Times piece that this series is "notably (shockingly) white." Not true. Here's the link to my piece:

https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/decoy-1957-a-policewoman-in-new-york/

 

[Darby67]

I bought the set, watched the entire series and devoted a blog entry to it. I emphasize Ms. Garland's superb performance, the variety of New York City locations, and the abundance of future stars at the beginning of their careers in the episode casts. I also rebut J. Hoberman's assertion in his New York Times piece that this series is "notably (shockingly) white." Not true. Here's the link to my piece:

https://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2017/10/16/decoy-1957-a-policewoman-in-new-york/

Brian:

I thoroughly enjoyed your write-up on the series! Thanks for posting the link.

 

[Flashgear]

Absolutely outstanding Blog article Brian! Brilliant analysis and overview, and fantastic screenshots! I really need to follow you on Facebook as well...I'm glad also that you shot some holes in Hoberman's NYT article...

I was very happy to finally see the entire run of Decoy in this fine and very affordable Film Chest release, which was totally unexpected...I find the show very entertaining and love the late '50s NYC locations...very nostalgic to see things like the Jerry Lewis poster in the window of Colony Records advertising his huge song 'Rock A Bye Your Baby', one of the biggest hit parade songs of 1958...great also to see Christmas trees for sale on the narrow sidewalks in front of a hardware store (Brooklyn?) too...and as usual, Beverly Garland's smokin' sensuality...

The night they filmed the Apollo Marquee which was showing 'The Magnificent Seven' (Kurosawa's Seven Samurai) you wonder if young Martin Scorsese was inside seeing it for the first time!

For me, Decoy is second only to Naked City for taking us to mind blowing lost locales of NYC...Naked City really went the extra mile to shoot film at difficult NYC locations...like the upper superstructure of the Queensboro Bridge, roof of Riverside church overlooking Grant's Tomb and Execution Rocks Lighthouse, among many others...

Too bad that Staten Island wasn't utilized for Decoy as they roamed far and wide...Naked City took us there several times...

 

[Vic Pardo]

Many thanks, Darby and Flashgear. I took hundreds of screen grabs and used only a portion of them. So many great shots of Beverly. There were some locations I was curious about but couldn't quite identify. E.g. the campus used in "The Savage Payoff": Was it Fordham University, the old Hunter College Bronx campus (now Lehman College) or some other area campus? There's a housing project featured in "The Lieutenant Had a Son" that I'm sure is in Manhattan and, in 1957 at least, had a predominantly white population. I Google imaged Manhattan housing projects but none of the ones I found looked like the one in the show.

I loved the scene in "The Sound of Tears" where Beverly has followed a female suspect in a cab to Grand Central and has the cab drive right in to the drop-off area and she then has to run through Grand Central in search of her. None of the people walking by are extras and some of them look at the camera. The cameras don't appear to be hidden so I'm wondering if they got permission to shoot there or just set up the camera really quick and shot quick, short pieces of action. I wish this series had been discovered sooner so someone could have interviewed Garland and some of the other creators about it. I actually ran into my screenwriting teacher, who wrote some episodes, a few years ago at a film festival but of course I hadn't heard of this show back then.

That's Leo Penn, a future director and father of Sean, standing with Garland here:

 

[Flashgear]

Very interesting, Brian! Those scenes with bystanders making their way through the Decoy shots have all of the same charm that we see in similar scenarios on Naked City and Route 66...it's one of the things I love those shows for...same thing with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman jogging through Battery Park in an early Odd Couple episode with a driver hanging out of his window looking backward from the direction he's driving in with almost disastrous results, ha, ha...

Not easy to determine some of those locations after 60 years of 'Urban Renewal'...it kills me a little bit when I can't, which is often...I'll have to take another look through Decoy...Brian, have you seen season one of The Defenders? I struggle to identify the Hospital entrance seen in 'The Accident' (Lenox Hill?)...if they filmed at Ryker's Island for the cell block exteriors seen in "The Riot'...or maybe it's Governor's Island?...I'd like to know which roadway ramp is under construction in 'Man With the Concrete Thumb' and if the airfield seen in 'The Empty Chute' is Floyd Bennett Field at about the same time as the American Airlines 707 Airliner crash in Jamaica Bay in March 1962...

 

[Charles Ellis]

Angie Dickinson, Sharon Gless, Tyne Daly, and Mariska Hargitay owe Beverly Garland A LOT!

 

[Flashgear]

Behind the scenes photo of Beverly Garland studying her script while on location at Penn Station for the filming of Decoy episode 4, "To Trap a Thief"...probably in October 1957, as the episode debuted in November for syndication...

Promo photo of Beverly Garland and Anthony George from the Checkmate episode "Between Two Guns", S1, Ep 19, Feb. 11, 1961...

Beverly welcomes Barbara Hale and John Forsythe to Stump the Stars, January 28, 1963...

Beverly Garland with Frank Overton and Joseph Campanella in The Nurses season one episode "The Walls Came Tumbling Down", Oct. 4, 1962...

Beverly Garland and Norma Moore in a scene from Wonderful World of Disney's Texas John Slaughter... two episodes, "Killers From Kansas" and "Showdown at Sandoval" (Jan. 9 and 23, 1959) were stitched together to screen a feature film overseas, "Gunfight at Sandoval"...

Photo taken at a family gathering at her parent's home in the '50s...

 

[Pathfiner]

Beverly is also great in 'Smoke Screen' episode of 'The Fugitive' (1963) and in several episodes of 'Rawhide'