Route 66 (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

Neal, Thanks for the Jeanne Bal link. She had a short career on TV. I’ve never seen Mr. Novak.

Your posts have been about the woman on Route 66, so they’ve been who I’ve been mentioning. And I’m a long time Star Trek fan, so it’s fun to see actors who did other shows before and after their Star Trek appearances. It’s also fun to see that DeForest Kelley did that episode you posted above. I haven’t seen too many of the westerns he was mostly known for then. I know Shatner has an appearance later on Route 66. And Julie Newmar has an appearance coming up too. I‘ve only seen one of her Route 66 episodes so far.

 

[The 1960's]

Neal, Thanks for the Jeanne Bal link. She had a short career on TV. I’ve never seen Mr. Novak.

Your posts have been about the woman on Route 66, so they’ve been who I’ve been mentioning. And I’m a long time Star Trek fan, so it’s fun to see actors who did other shows before and after their Star Trek appearances. It’s also fun to see that DeForest Kelley did that episode you posted above. I haven’t seen too many of the westerns he was mostly known for then. I know Shatner has an appearance later on Route 66. And Julie Newmar has an appearance coming up too. I‘ve only seen one of her Route 66 episodes so far.

Welcome Nelson! Yes it's easy to see you are a Trekkie and the original cast is sprinkled throughout Route 66. Our resident expert on all things 66 would know better than I. Speaking of Randall you should read the very popular thread he created about Mr. Novak, NBC TV Series 1963-65. You really should pick it up. Like Route 66 it's got that wonderful 1960's feel to it. It's a real shame that Warner Archive is just sitting on the remastered Season 2.

 

[Flashgear]

Welcome Nelson! Yes it's easy to see you are a Trekkie and the original cast is sprinkled throughout Route 66. Our resident expert on all things 66 would know better than I. Speaking of Randall you should read the very popular thread he created about Mr. Novak, NBC TV Series 1963-65. You really should pick it up. Like Route 66 it's got that wonderful 1960's feel to it. It's a real shame that Warner Archive is just sitting on the remastered Season 2.

Thank you Neal, I'm humbled. But you have done so much to restore and invigorate the Route 66 mojo on these pages. I wish that we could combine the older thread on Route 66 with this one, as it also had 'Hollywoodaholic's (Wayne's) fine and eloquent reviews that he did for season three and season four episodes. The guy is a screenwriter himself, and with his passion for this series, it definitely showed.

You're so right about the early '60s TV drama 'feel' commonality expressed by a show like Mr. Novak with Route 66...the essential hallmarks are alike for these high-minded quality shows that sought to have real virtue and not just to entertain on some superficial level or just fill an hour of primetime network TV and sell the sponsor's product line. Drama in this era certainly had an undercurrent of liberal advocacy, but without the insufferable heavy hand of the later 'relevance' era. I've meant to restart the Mr. Novak thread and review the rest of season two with screencaps from my DVD-R derived from the old TNT broadcasts for the episodes I have. I don't think we should entirely give up on WAC releasing season two, as you know, the TNT 1" tape transfers are ready off the shelf. I remain hopeful.

Effigy in Snow is another memorable episode (as always your screen caps are superb), and I share your high regard for Mr. Novak's Jeanne Bal, a fine actress who was the center of two great season one episodes in that series, as well as integral support for most of season one. Scott Marlowe could play 'creepy' with ease...I can never quite disassociate him from his memorable Outer Limits episode The Forms of Things Unknown, where he is a creep with one foot in the grave, and perhaps the other foot in immortality, but molesting both luscious Vera Miles and Barbara Rush at the same time, ha, ha...

You know, I didn't find any more episodes that are seriously compromised as to PQ on the Shout! DVD season two disc 6...to my eye, all 6 episodes on that disc look as good as on the Roxbury edition. It makes me even more confused as to why their season three disc 1 turned out so bad, wrecking Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma? and degrading Journey to Nineveh to a lesser degree. Oh, well...to me, I still believe any really serious devotee of Route 66 has to have both the Roxbury and Shout! sets to have the best possible copy of any given episode in the four season run.

You mentioned Anne Helm being among those Route 66 players still with us...Barbara Barrie is another one, who is still a working actress at age 90! Last night I watched season two's Even Stones Have Eyes, featuring the well worn trope of temporary blindness...but here, it's so beautifully expressed and powerful, sucking me right back in...a real tribute to George Maharis' fine performance, Martin Milner too...but Barbara Barrie just tears your guts out, talk about needing a crying towel nearby....wow! And within a few months of this, she is so great in Naked City's season four episode And By the Sweat of thy Brow...another well worn trope using the old 'Beauty and the Beast' parable...but that one sneaks up on you with Barbara Barrie's brilliant performance, along with Richard Jordan as the disfigured 'beast', and to me is one of the great final season Naked City episodes...

 

[The 1960's]

Thank you Neal, I'm humbled. But you have done so much to restore and invigorate the Route 66 mojo on these pages. I wish that we could combine the older thread on Route 66 with this one, as it also had 'Hollywoodaholic's (Wayne's) fine and eloquent reviews that he did for season three and season four episodes. The guy is a screenwriter himself, and with his passion for this series, it definitely showed.

Welcome Randall, you have an eloquent way with the pen or should I say your arthritic flying fingers of fate, hah! Thanks for your very kind words.

That is precisely why I decided against beginning a separate thread for 'The Women of Route 66'. Can we not make that request to the moderators about combining the two threads?

You're so right about the early '60s TV drama 'feel' commonality expressed by a show like Mr. Novak with Route 66...the essential hallmarks are alike for these high-minded quality shows that sought to have real virtue and not just to entertain on some superficial level or just fill an hour of primetime network TV and sell the sponsor's product line. Drama in this era certainly had an undercurrent of liberal advocacy, but without the insufferable heavy hand of the later 'relevance' era. I've meant to restart the Mr. Novak thread and review the rest of season two with screencaps from my DVD-R derived from the old TNT broadcasts for the episodes I have. I don't think we should entirely give up on WAC releasing season two, as you know, the TNT 1" tape transfers are ready off the shelf. I remain hopeful.

I have watched Mr. Novak twice through since it’s November 2018 release and I hope you are right as I’m biting at the bit for Season 2 already and yes, resurrect that thread and post those screen caps. I’ll hold down the fort here in the meanwhile!

Effigy in Snow is another memorable episode (as always your screen caps are superb), and I share your high regard for Mr. Novak's Jeanne Bal, a fine actress who was the center of two great season one episodes in that series, as well as integral support for most of season one. Scott Marlowe could play 'creepy' with ease...I can never quite disassociate him from his memorable Outer Limits episode The Forms of Things Unknown, where he is a creep with one foot in the grave, and perhaps the other foot in immortality, but molesting both luscious Vera Miles and Barbara Rush at the same time, ha, ha...

Well said and very funny! For me Scott Marlowe is forever typecast as the ’creepy' Andre in The Forms of Things Unknown between Vera Miles and Barbara Rush. I would have loved to have been Andre, what a glorious way to go! You nailed it one of my all-time favorite Outer Limits episodes. Oh that 1960's feel is there as well!!

You know, I didn't find any more episodes that are seriously compromised as to PQ on the Shout! DVD season two disc 6...to my eye, all 6 episodes on that disc look as good as on the Roxbury edition. It makes me even more confused as to why their season three disc 1 turned out so bad, wrecking Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma? and degrading Journey to Nineveh to a lesser degree. Oh, well...to me, I still believe any really serious devotee of Route 66 has to have both the Roxbury and Shout! sets to have the best possible copy of any given episode in the four season run.

Thanks again for taking a final look comparing the two releases of R66. Still awaiting my delivery.

You mentioned Anne Helm being among those Route 66 players still with us...Barbara Barrie is another one, who is still a working actress at age 90! Last night I watched season two's Even Stones Have Eyes, featuring the well worn trope of temporary blindness...but here, it's so beautifully expressed and powerful, sucking me right back in...a real tribute to George Maharis' fine performance, Martin Milner too...but Barbara Barrie just tears your guts out, talk about needing a crying towel nearby....wow! And within a few months of this, she is so great in Naked City's season four episode And By the Sweat of thy Brow...another well worn trope using the old 'Beauty and the Beast' parable...but that one sneaks up on you with Barbara Barrie's brilliant performance, along with Richard Jordan as the disfigured 'beast', and to me is one of the great final season Naked City episodes...

I was unaware Barbara Barrie is still with us and still acting and yes Even Stones Have Eyes is yet another poignant series episode. I don’t recall And By the Sweat of thy Brow but I know I’ve seen it more than once. I’m currently in the middle of a Season 4 Naked City rewatch.

You and I and a very small assembly here on HTF need our daily 66 fix. Thus another will be coming shortly.

 

[The 1960's]

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[The 1960's]

S01E25 The Newborn (May.05.1961) Arlene Martel

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S01E26 A Skill for Hunting (Mar.12.1961) Joanna Moore

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Anyone recognize Bobby Jordan above from the film classic Dead End (1937) and then later The Bowery Boys?

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[The 1960's]

Jerry, I'm sure you'd agree that the picture quality of those first 12 episodes vary wildly, with a confounding assortment of syndicate cuts and old tape transfers...great episodes like A Fury Slinging Flame and Sheba, among others, look the worst...while a classic episode like Man on the Monkey Boards are from a great 35mm source and look great. When I bought the five VHS volumes of Route 66 released by Columbia House in the 90s, A Fury Slinging Flame was one of them that was included. And it was the uncut 51 minute complete episode. By the time that Roxbury released their first DVD set, someone decided that archived permission releases for the actual Waco and Dallas/Fort Worth TV newscasters seen in this episode couldn't be found, and thus they were (needlessly in my opinion), cut out for legal reasons. Too bad, as they were probably thrilled to have been in this. Herbert B. Leonard and Sam Manners peopled the backgrounds of many episodes with local businessmen, politicians and actual law enforcement members, so the editing out of the newscasters and reporters was strange in the context of the whole series.

The second volume of the old Roxbury/Infinity season one release was from newly remastered film transfers, but was initially released in a bastardized faux WS, 16:9! I don't know if they ever corrected it with a follow-on set. I still have all the original Roxbury/Infinity sets for seasons one to three, and am glad I didn't give them away when I purchased Shout!'s complete series set...I discovered that Shout's release, though a high quality set, had three discs, one in season two and two discs in season three, where Shout made the mistake of putting 6 episodes on a disc...usually leaving one episode to pay the price with diminished or dark PQ! Roxbury/Infinity presented seasons one to three on 8 discs each. Shout tried to do the same thing with only 6 discs. So for me, I need to have both the Roxbury/Infinity and Shout complete series in my collection, as Route 66 is one of my top 5 favorite all-time series.

In my opinion, for anyone who loves this series and has to have it in the best possible combination on DVD, I'd recommend the following:

Shout for season one.

Roxbury/Infinity for season two and three...if you can find them. Season two was released in one 8 disc set. Season three in two separate 4 disc volumes.

Shout for season four, of course, as they were the only one to release it.

I posted comparative screen caps that I took from both the Shout and Roxbury sets for the worst affected episode, season three's Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma?...the difference between the two sets' PQ was dramatic...scroll back a few pages in this thread to see them.

EDIT: I must have posted these comparative screen caps that I took in another thread on HTF...I'll post them here again as proof of what I'm talking about...

Shout! Factory...the first disc of season three having 6 episodes loaded on it...all the others look great, except Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma? A Damn shame as it's one of the best episodes in the whole series!
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Roxbury/Infinity...the difference is dramatic!
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Shout!
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Roxbury...
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Shout!...
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Roxbury...
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Shout!...
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Roxbury...the lovely surfer girl is Romney Tree, in a magical scene that is murky indeed on the overly compressed Shout S3 disc one release loaded with one too many video files with 6 episodes...
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Randall I received my Roxbury sets yesterday and all but Season 3 had broken trays. But no matter, all the discs were Brand New and as I said previously I paid a good price and the seller earned himself a negative rating, (my very first given in 20+ years on eBay.) I Immediately inserted each disc containing Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma? into my DVD and Region-Free BluRay players respectively.

As you said, a stark difference between the Roxbury and Shout versions. If I had to rate it as per the IMDb 1-10 scale (picture quality-wise and compared to the very best R66 transfers), I’d give the Shout version a 4.5 and the Roxbury version a 7.0. The exposure, the contrast and the clarity are much superior on the Roxbury. Dark and muddy is how I would describe the Shout version. Thank you pointing this out so I could re-purchase the sets I gave way years ago. I'm going to check out the other episode comparisons you mentioned.

On a sidetone being that we were recently discussing Effigy in Snow and Jeanne Bal, along with actors who appeared in Route 66 and later became well known in Star Trek. In the case of Ever Ride the Waves in Oklahoma? though he never really became well known?, Bruce Watson who portrayed the fateful Jimmy Mills four years later also portrayed Ensign Green and had the life and salt sucked out of him by the Nancy Slater M-113 creature in The Man Trap (1966)

It all seems to be interconnected in the world of classic television.

 

[The 1960's]

S01E28 The Opponent (Jun.02.1961) Lois Nettleton

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S01E29 Welcome to Amity (Jun 9, 1961) Susan Oliver

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[Jeff Flugel]

Man, Neal, you are going to town on the screencaps...It's all I can do to keep up! Kudos to you, Randall and Nelson for keeping the Route 66 love train going (and Nelson, you definitely need to pick up Mr. Novak S1!) Don't have much time to contribute anything of value at the moment, but know that I'm reading and enjoying everyone's posts in here.

 

[The 1960's]

Man, Neal, you are going to town on the screencaps...It's all I can do to keep up! Kudos to you, Randall and Nelson for keeping the Route 66 love train going (and Nelson, you definitely need to pick up Mr. Novak S1!) Don't have much time to contribute anything of value at the moment, but know that I'm reading and enjoying everyone's posts in here.

Thanks very much Jeff. I appreciate your kind words and knowing that you are enjoying these. I do find myself drifting off the topic at hand. While doing these episodes I'm discovering seeing stuff I've never seen before and I can't resist not sharing it. With each episode there are a greater number of caps. At some point I may need to reassess that.

 

[Flashgear]

Neal, more great screen caps of some great episodes...Route 66 was certainly churning them out as season one was in the homestretch. I think The Newborn is another of my favorites, with those stunning New Mexico Sangre de Cristo panoramas, Apache and Mescalero reservations...and another fine performance by Arlene Martell, temporarily 'Sax'. Albert Dekker is a conflicted heavy, with Robert Duvall for his dirty work. I can never quite think of Albert Dekker without thinking about his hall-of-fame 'Hollywood Babylon' ending, but I'm dark like that, ha, ha...I love it when real Native Americans are front and center, and we have yet another Denver Pyle and Bing Russell sighting. Arthur Hiller (a fellow Canadian from Alberta!) directed many great episodes. Love the beautiful old Santa Fe sites in A Skill for Hunting...

Has Susan Oliver ever been better or more lovely than in Welcome to Amity? The first of her 3 episodes in Route 66...Ohio locations were a sentimental homecoming for Sam Manners, who was the production executive who supervised the road company of 60 people for Herbert B. Leonard. From what I've read, Stirling Silliphant picked out the locations from his own travels, local events and culture, and for his desired story outlines that he refined into his tremendous scripts, always under deadlines for a unique series never attempted before or since. But Sam Manners also held some sway, as when they went to Youngstown or Cleveland, his home town. They even filmed in his boyhood house in season three's Welcome to the Wedding! Another great episode.

Welcome to Amity was filmed in Kinsmen Ohio. And the 'rooming house' that Susan Oliver stays in was renowned trial lawyer Clarence Darrow's boyhood home. Darrow of course being famous for the legendary debate with fellow titan William Jennings Bryan in the 1926 Scopes 'Monkey Trial', immortalized in the Broadway play and film Inherit the Wind. The Octagon shaped house dates from 1854 and was dedicated as a National Historic Place in 1971.

You can't do better than the sheer Americana that is Route 66...