Mr. Novak, NBC TV Series 1963-65. (2 Viewers)

[Jobla]

Flashgear, the photo under the caption "Ryder is really getting off on..." has a girl who looks like a young Lori (Linda) Saunders, later of PETTICOAT JUNCTION. Any idea who she is?

 

[Flashgear]

(I bet Randall knows Fury's real name.)

Ha, ha, Bob! One of the most hilarious factoids of '50s television was that Fury, real name Highland Dale AKA Wildfire, was the highest paid actor in the cast at (allegedly) $1500 per episode and 5% of the net. Sounds like the kind of trick for a studio accountant to really make hay with. (groan)...

Kind of a come down from the meaty work he did in "The Exile", for NOVAK.

Stephen Roberts is memorable in that scene with James Franciscus isn't he? His one real showcase scene that he can own for himself in season one. He was still luckier than some of the regular cast, though. Steve Franken was left with a few minor comedic interludes, Vince Howard had a few good scenes in a couple of episodes, Andre Phillipe, Kathaleen Ellis, Larry Thor and Marian Collier with just a casual interaction or two in most episodes. Jean Bal and Dean Jagger more often in solid support, with Bal getting two episodes where she was allowed to really shine. James Franciscus himself in that supporting role quite often in deference to the guest stars. He was left with about 6 to 10 episodes where he really carried the freight.

Flashgear, the photo under the caption "Ryder is really getting off on..." has a girl who looks like a young Lori (Linda) Saunders, later of PETTICOAT JUNCTION. Any idea who she is?

Jobla, I agree from her profile she does look like Lori Saunders. I went back to my copy and took some more screen caps from that scene in The Firebrand which definitely shows this girl not to be her. Whoever she is, she is uncredited...


Bob, you have me laughing again re: the gas station meeting between Walter Koenig and James Franciscus/Richard Chamberlain...certainly the two prototypical hunks resemble each other, especially in those publicity photos where the syringe and pen are interchangeable and perhaps our only "tell", ha, ha...

Good to see you again, Jim! How are you?


Excuse me, do I know you? Aren't you Valet parking?


It's me! Walter Koenig from Mr. Novak! We did three episodes together!
I'm in a little show called Star Trek now!


Don't call us, child, we'll call you...


Oh F*** this! Reminds me of Shatner!


Bob, thank you once again for another fine serving of cheesecake! This girl Lisa Jak warrants further examination...thus, out come my DVDs of Time Tunnel for further analysis...

I've heard that a region free Blu-ray set of Time Tunnel is coming from the UK. But I wonder how much of an improvement over our already spectacularly remastered DVDs will be evident? Speaking only for myself, I wouldn't be upgrading. And I do want to encourage vintage TV on Blu, even if it is the too often ridiculous Time Tunnel... still, there's enough good episodes, and I've always thought the Time Tunnel pilot to be the best pilot among the Irwin Allen shows. Maybe at a good sale price at some point.

Lisa Jak in Mannix S6, A Puzzle For One (Nov. 26, 1972), with Adam West...

Tangents welcome...we can always bring it back to Mr. Novak...

 

[Jobla]

I remember being really surprised that critic Roger Ebert had no idea who Whit Bissell was (revealed during an Ebert critique of some film).

 

[Bob Gu]

I think many folks in show business, even critics, are not fans. They are busy doing what they do and when it's over they are on to the next project. The actors, and directors, in a series may never even watch the completed episodes.

Tangent wise: That TIME TUNNEL Merlin episode featured action scenes from the Fox movie, PRINCE VALIANT, with Robert Wagner and Janet Leigh. TT also reused the same sets redressed with props from the film, like Prince Valiant's shield clearly seen in the background. (Or was it the TT Robin Hood episode?)

Wagner famously quipped, the wig he wore in the film made him look like Jane Wyman!! Phyllis Kirk had the same doo in THE THIN MAN, TV Series, with Peter Lawford, and, of course, Asta.

I watched all of Disc 5 of MR.NOVAK. I thought the episode "The Tower" was very odd, especially the way it ended. I know, for realism, shows like to not tie up everything neatly, but?? I'll wait to see what Randall/Flashgear has to say about this one, since he did not cover this one earlier, since he did not have it in his collection. "The Tower" guest stars Heather Angel as a 65 year-old teacher being forced to retire, due to unspecified, possibly medical, failings in her teaching ability. Heather Angel, what a lovely name, was in the 1936 THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS and the Bulldog Drummond movie series.

Harold Foster, the great creator/ writer/artist of the PRINCE VALIANT full page color Sunday newspaper strip, was also a painter of Mounties.

 

[Bert Greene]

I've always liked Heather Angel. Very, very pretty gal, with an appealing British reserve. Can't remember where I first noticed her, many decades ago, but it was probably the Bulldog Drummond films, or the equally common "Daniel Boone" (1936) with George O'Brien, all familiar public-domain items that circulated widely. There was also a cute little b-movie she headlined called "Half a Sinner" (1940), which was originally slated to be released thru Grand National, but picked up by Universal. I think I still have my old vhs recording of it that I taped back around the mid-1980s. Angel also appeared in quite a number of films in her native Britain, but I don't think I've seen nary a one. I'd love to, though. Hope they still survive. I'm not well-versed in the survival rates of some of those British films of the 1930s, but it seems a fair number are apparently missing. But so is one of Angel's films shot here in America, one of the lamentably lost Charlie Chan films.

 

[Flashgear]

Wow, a wonderful selection of great photos and illustrations there, Bob! You really tie everything together in six degrees of separation or less! About Time Tunnel, that series was a childhood fave, as I was only 10 when it debuted, and loved it alongside VTTBOTS. I do remember becoming very disdainful of my previously loved Lost in Space that same fall, so I imagine the 'Batmanization' (I kinda hated the Batman TV show but loved the old comics) and shifted emphasis to having the screaming ninnie of Professor Smith as the new focus of the show really turned me off, even as a kid. I (mostly) love the first season of LIS and the first season of VTTBOTS the most now as a jaded adult. Sometimes it's necessary to try and revert to a child like dream state and just accept the multitude of inanities and the sloppy Irwin Allen production ethic and accept all the precepts of that world in order to enjoy it to the maximum now. But it is what it is, and often loses out in allocating my limited time in viewing my now massive vintage tv and movie collection. The Fox DVDs look extraordinary, I can hardly imagine a Blu ray looking much better.

Fox certainly had the studio infrastructure to elevate the look of all the Irwin Allen shows. I don't think that Jim McMullan, who played the young Arthur in the TT "Merlin' episode, looked any less ridiculous in the Prince Valiant wig than Robert Wagner...I loved the Prince Valiant color funnies of way back and still have some old yellow copies of the Saturday Funnies section of my hometown newspaper. That hair do really seemed to work on the actresses you cited...the great Jane Wyman and lovely Phyllis Kirk. Too bad that The Thin Man TV series is probably caught up in literary rights issues (Dashiell Hammett), I'd love to see WAC release that delightful series too! I have a pretty good alternative set otherwise.

I'm looking forward to finally seeing Mr. Novak's The Tower...thanks for your impressions on that one, Bob! I will likely view that one first when I finally get the new WAC season one release, along with Kim Darby's To Lodge and Dislodge and Marta Kristen's Senior Prom. The premise for Heather Angel's The Tower struck me as a little strange as Mr. Novak had already featured two episodes with elderly teachers in the central roles...the very good Hello, Miss Phipps with Lillian Gish and (for me) the absolutely great Chin up, Mr. Novak with Hermione Baddeley, the same year she did Mary Poppins.

Warner Archive has released a short (3:35) promo video of the opening segment of the Mr. Novak pilot episode First Year, First Day (written by Joseph Stefano of Psycho and Outer Limits and directed by co-creator Boris Sagal)...featuring some of the regular cast, Steve Franken and Marian Collier, and two actors who might have been regulars in Gloria Talbot and Ed Asner. The troubled kid who backs his T Bird into Novak's ugly Plymouth Valiant station wagon is guest star Lee Kinsolving...the Valiant had it coming...too bad Prince Valiant himself hadn't been there to protect his namesake, ha, ha and all that...

 

[Bob Gu]

Thanks,, Randall. In those old teacher episodes. Lillian Gish was 70, Hermione Baddeley 58, and Heather Angel 54.

Bert, I think I have the Alpha HALF A SINNER, I will have to dig it out. I recently saw BERKELEY SQUARE-1933, with Heather Angel and Leslie Howard, from YouTube. Is that a U.S. Fox film or U.K. Fox? I couldn't make out the copyright. I was led to BERKELEY SQUARE by the remake THE HOUSE IN THE SQUARE-1951 with Tyrone Power and Ann Blyth. I was looking up Ann Blyth movies. Bert, do you know what this movie is, with Ann Blyth and maybe Lassie?

NOVACK extras spotted: Speaking of VTTBOTS, the blond ambulance attendant in "Death of a Teacher" is a non-speaking Seaview crew member. I think he is also one of THE INVADERS. Spotted an extra, playing a non-speaking teacher, walking through the school, who is in every episode of PERRY MASON, usually as the bailiff, but sometimes other parts.

 

[Bert Greene]

I think TCM just ran "Berkeley Square" (1933-Fox) a few months back. I didn't watch it, as I'd seen it before. Wish TCM would lease more of those rare pre-20th "Fox" features. Many have NEVER been aired on television to this very day. It's been a long time since I've seen "Berkeley Square," but I always assumed it was shot stateside at Fox. Heather Angel was already in the US at Fox that year, as she also had that part in John Ford's rather fascinating "Pilgrimage" (1933), as the young lover that Henrietta Crossman helps, towards the end of the film. I sometimes used to think there were two of those early versions of "Berkeley Square," but I believe I'm instead always getting it mixed up with "East Lynne." Don't ask me why.

 

[Jobla]

The episode of TIME TUNNEL about the Trojan War used clips from THE 300 SPARTANS.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Bob, thank you once again for another fine serving of cheesecake! This girl Lisa Jak warrants further examination...thus, out come my DVDs of Time Tunnel for further analysis...

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I've heard that a region free Blu-ray set of Time Tunnel is coming from the UK. But I wonder how much of an improvement over our already spectacularly remastered DVDs will be evident? Speaking only for myself, I wouldn't be upgrading. And I do want to encourage vintage TV on Blu, even if it is the too often ridiculous Time Tunnel... still, there's enough good episodes, and I've always thought the Time Tunnel pilot to be the best pilot among the Irwin Allen shows. Maybe at a good sale price at some point.

Tangents welcome...we can always bring it back to Mr. Novak...

Yowsa...thanks for those further snaps of the lovely Lisa Jak, Randall! I have no idea if she can act, but boy, what a stunner. Pity she appeared in so few things.

This kind of tangent I always have time for. Indeed, those screencaps from The Time Tunnel DVD set do look gorgeous. Since I've yet to purchase the show on DVD, I'll probably pick up the new Blu-Ray set when time and money permit.

I agree with many of your comments on the Irwin Allen shows. They usually start very strong (season 1 of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, etc.) and gradually decline in seriousness, budget and overall quality as the shows go on. IMO, The Time Tunnel has aged better than some of the other shows (like Lost in Space) partly because it never lasted beyond a single season. The pilot episode is quite impressive in its production values, but by the end of the season, when the tin-foil-suited "aliens" start to show up, it's clear that the money (and ideas) were starting to run out.

To bring this back to Mr. Novak...any news on whether your set has shipped, Randall?

 

[Neil Brock]

Has anyone spoken with Warner as to what their plans are with season 2 and if they will be able to clear the Faculty Follies 2-parter? Having watched it at LOC, I can honestly say that it would be no great loss if they weren't able to include it. However, Warner seems to take the attitude that if they can't release a season in its entirety, they won't release it at all.

 

[Bob Gu]

In the last Season 1 episode, "The Senior Prom", Mr. Johns, Andre Philippe, sings "Hi Lili, Hi Lo" from the 1953 MGM film LILI, with Leslie Caron. So, they were able to clear that one.


Leslie Caron

Previous NOVAK guest, Shelley Fabares version of "Hi Lili":


"The Senior Prom" guest starred, Marta Kristen.

Errol Flynn was a Mountie, too:

 

[Flashgear]

Wow, Bob, you've already watched the entire 30 episodes in Mr. Novak season one? Well done! If you care to and when you're ready, I would enjoy hearing which episodes were your favorites over all. And which particular guest star performances impressed you. And perhaps which episodes you regard as James Franciscus and Dean Jagger's best. I do agree with you about the sometimes repetitious and occasionally tedious "angry young man" that haunts the halls of Jefferson High. Perhaps that was from the popular influence of the Angry Young Men / British New Wave of early '60s cinema (Look Back in Anger, Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Billy Liar Etc.) that won critical acclaim and was considered trendy on the verge of the British invasion of Rock and Roll and Pop music that was just starting to break that winter of 1963-64. In Chuck Harter's great book on Mr. Novak, he relates that after the ratings failure of Sam Benedict, E. Jack Neuman and Boris Sagal were somewhat at a loss in establishing an arena or scenario for their next series at MGM...brain storming in late 1962, they came up with "what about a drama set in a high school?", which had the novelty of having never been attempted in television before. High School Sit-Coms had been done up the yin-yang, but never a weekly drama before. We all remember our own high school years, and certainly some of Novak's angry young men (or at least difficult) are more believable and compelling than others. Right off the bat you have Lee Kinsolving in the pilot, who establishes the angry and entitled kid with political or big money ties that will be an ongoing theme on the series for the long suffering Novak and Vane to contend with. I thought David Macklin (X is the Unknown Factor), Walter Koenig (Boy Without a Country), Tommy Kirk (Love in the Wrong Season), Richard Evans (The Exile), Beau Bridges (Sparrow on thw Wire), Teno Pollick (I'm on the Outside), and Michael Walker (Moment Without Armor) were all convincingly effective...Frankie Avalon (A Thousand Voices), Peter Lazar (My Name is Not Legion), Peter Helm (...Douglas Morgan Jr.), Tom Nardini (One Way To Say Goodbye) less so...the difficult, angry and threatening kids will return in season two, along with the painfully vulnerable and awkward girls also...and the self possessed, arrogant and pompous parents, school board administrators and teaching colleagues as well. Perhaps things we all remember as resembling our own high school memories...

To bring this back to Mr. Novak...any news on whether your set has shipped, Randall?

I appreciate your concern, Jeff, thank you! My own copy of season one will be delayed, unfortunately. Just what I'd expect after awaiting this series on DVD for all these years. My order from Oldies has shipped, but I don't yet know if it's coming via FedEx or the postal system...wouldn't you know it? We have rotating postal strikes ongoing in Canada right now. First postal strike in many years. Our Federal Gov't. might order them back to work. So, once I can check Oldies tracking I might have a better idea. I phoned them yesterday and they told me it had shipped USPS international. Big problem for me if that's the case. On my Oldies order page it still says FedEx...I certainly paid enough for shipping for it to be FedEx.

Bob, those photos of Marta Kristen are eye popping, especially the one of her doing the hand stand at the beach, wow!...and she's still a very good looking woman today, as evidenced in the recent photos I've posted here of her holding Chuck Harter's book. And she is delightful in the Lost In Space video extras on the Blu-ray set...

Leslie Caron was a stunning and very talented lady with the grace of the elite Ballet dancer she once was. Great photos of an absolute icon of American musical cinema in the '50s...just thinking of her, I can hear Ira Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue playing in my mind.

Thanks Bob for the info on the third party music in Senior Prom. An episode, as you know, that is one of the three first season Mr. Novak episodes not shown on TNT back in 1988-90. So, I haven't seen it since 1964, not that I'd likely have any vivid memories of it...unless Marta Kristen did a bikini hand stand in that episode? In which case, I would no doubt remember it vividly! Hi Lili, Hi Lo is certainly a lovely song and must have been a highlight for Andre Phillipe, who of course played the French teacher in the cast and had previously been seen singing in other episodes...Frere Jacques for instance, which must be public domain traditional, and thus free of entanglements...

I love that wartime Errol Flynn movie Northern Pursuit...along with 49th Parallel, the Mounties were chasing all over Canada for escaped Nazi prisoners of war...where I live right now, there are the still standing buildings of a drill hall and a few quonsets from an old WW2 German prisoner of war camp. They held over 14,000 POWs here in the war. Not one escape that I'm aware of, though. Those guys were happy to be in Canada. Another 30,000 Germans in other camps within 200 miles of me in those days. So Errol Flynn would have been twiddling his thumbs here waiting for a breakout, ha, ha...Unless Helmut Dantine had been in charge, then all bets are off!

There were several escapes, including a big one, of German POWs in Eastern Canada. The most famous escape by a Luftwaffe fighter ace, Franz Von Werra, as accurately depicted in the great J. Arthur Rank 1958 British film The One That Got Away...there was a big breakout at an Arizona camp too...a great book was written on that incident, The Faustball Tunnel...

About the possible music rights complications in Mr. Novak season two, I might do some screen caps from the three episodes where there might be complications...screen caps from each, episode synopsis and a rundown on the third party music itself, although I'm no musicologist.

 

[Ian K McLachlan]

I had never seen Mr. Novak before I read about the book that was going to be published about the series. As a keen fan of 1960s TV I purchased it and hoped that one day it would reach DVD. I now have the first season and I must say that I really enjoyed the first 2 episodes. Why can't they produce TV of this quality today? I am going to be eagerly watching the other episodes. One mistake I noticed in the book it that it said that Burgess Meredith did not get a continuing role after Mr. Novak for some time. However he was a continuing character in Search (Control) which is one of my all time favourites. I feel that Mr. Novak is a series of similar quality to The Defenders. I am still disappointed that we seem to not be getting the remaining seasons of that. I hope that we get the remaining season of Mr. Novak. Sometimes here in the UK if there are problems with music there are some substitutions which might be possible. As long as there is not the unfortunate situation like there was with The Fugitive then I could live with subs for 3 episodes or so as long as we got the drama.

 

[Bob Gu]

Off hand, my favorite episode is "The Senior Prom". It was nice to see Marta Kristen front and center in a show. I don't think I have ever seen her in a show that really focused on a character she played. (I only remember maybe one episode of LIS that was about Judy. There must have been more, maybe?) In NOVAK her character actually grew, and her interactions with Mr. Novak went from prickly to funny, to friendly.

I forgot to mention that her father was played by Ray Montgomery, of RAMAR OF THE JUNGLE.

The angry young men, to me, were all unsympathetic and, basically, too far gone to be worth saving. But, again, Mr. Novak is a saint.

I guess "The Exile" is my 'favorite' angry young man story but more for the interactions between Mr. Novak and Mr.Peeples. The dropout's refusing to go to night school because he didn't think he'd fit in with the older students was crazy.

As always, Randall, I enjoy your vast knowledge of history. Bringing German P.O.W.s to North America. That sure would impede escape attempts. It's a long swim to Germany.

The star of that Mountie serial, Bill Henry, is an interesting, actor. He was a lead in B-movies and was still playing the sheriff, or gunman number three into the 60s. His wife, Barbara Knudson,appeared with him in many shows.

Found a small article at cinemaretro.com about R.C.M.P. Search the search box over there for 'Gilles'.

 

[Jobla]

Wow, "Hi Lili, Hi Low"---really rocking the house with that one.

I'd like to see frame grabs from those "musical" season 2 episodes.

Happy Thanksgiving to the readers of this thread!

 

[bmasters9]

As long as there is not the unfortunate situation like there was with The Fugitive then I could live with subs for 3 episodes or so as long as we got the drama.

It would be even easier, as I've said before, if people who are getting the releases of Mr. Novak have not seen it prior to purchase, and know nothing about the swaps.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Wow, "Hi Lili, Hi Low"---really rocking the house with that one.

I'd like to see frame grabs from those "musical" season 2 episodes.

Happy Thanksgiving to the readers of this thread!

Same to you, Jobla! And to all my fellow HTFers in this thread and elsewhere..including yoose Canucks who already celebrated Turkey Day back in October!

Seriously, this thread is a kick in the pants. Randall's probably wagging his finger at me disapprovingly, as I've plumped for Dan August and a few other Black Friday sale titles rather than Mr. Novak S1. Don't worry, Randall, I will get this set sometime in the New Year.

 

[bmasters9]

Wow, Bob, you've already watched the entire 30 episodes in Mr. Novak season one? Well done!

Certainly well done-- there is something in that Novak that must have been at least as riveting to him as Karl Malden's Lt. Mike Stone in The Streets of San Francisco and Lee Marvin's Lt. Frank Ballinger in M Squad have been to me!

 

[Jobla]

"Hi Lili, Hi Lo" is a great song for those who consider the Murmaids' "Popsicles and Icicles" to be "too wild."