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A Digression About TV Guide in the 60's (Psycho, Hitchcock, Movies)

posted 7 years ago by ecarle (14979)
34 replies | jump to latest

I believe on Seinfeld, George' father had a TV Guide collection.

As a 60s kid, I sorta/kinda did too. I didn't keep that many issues, but a few with movies or shows of interest.

There weren't 500 channels back then. Pretty much three networks(ABC, CBS, NBC) and, where I lived, four local independent channels (5, 9, 11, 13 as I recall, each with its own distinctive personality.)

TV Guide could cover the shows and movies on those 7 channels with ease...a few small paragraphs per half hour(or hour) about what was on all day and all night. Advertisements placed by the networks for their shows and "broadcast movies"; the same for the locals.

As I've noted before, sometime in the late sixties, TV Guide gave critic Judith Crist a page "up front" about all the broadcast theatrical films to be shown that week on the three networks. Each week's list looked something like this:

Dr. Strangelove, ABC Sunday
Charade, NBC Monday
Never So Few, CBS Thursday
Viva Las Vegas, CBS Friday
To Kill a Mockingbird, NBC Saturday

Those were the key movie nights for the networks; I think one of them (ABC, I guess) took Wednesday night, too.

But by checking those each week, I could see what "the good movies" would be that week, and over time, I knew to look out for the Hitchcocks. There were a LOT of Hitchcocks on network TV in the late sixties: Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, The Birds, The Trouble With Harry. NBC eventually picked up "The Man Who Knew Too Much '56" after it had gotten a local showing on LA TV Channel 9 (evidently Hitch and James Stewart sued over too low a priced sale, here.)

I kept an eye out at all times for Psycho on network but -- after that famous aborted 1966 try on the CBS Friday Night Movie...nope.

Still, Psycho got what was known as a "TV Guide Close-Up" for that 1966 showing (one half page, with a photo of Tony Perkins, a long paragraph about the movie, and a cast list) -- and the same "Close Up" was lifted for the 1967 Los Angeles late night showing on KABC TV( a network affiliate with the big bucks to show big movies local). I guess they kept the TV Guide Close Up on file.

TV Guide would arrive via mail the Tuesday before the Saturday that its week would start. So that gave a movie buff a "four day head start" on what was coming NEXT week. Cool.

Between the Judith Crist article and the ads, I pretty much knew what the big movies would be in the next week.

I don't recall caring about what TV series episodes were on next week, with one exception: I would check to see who the Batman villain was next week. If it were a known quantity like the Joker, Penguin, Riddler or Catwoman...no big deal.

But the show kept trotting out "new" villains(from the comics or made up) and I was curious to see what they would look like next week: What would Roddy McDowall look like as "The Bookworm?" Maurice Evans as The Puzzler? Vincent Price as Egghead?

My most embarrassing misfire: they announced Van Johnson as "The Minstrel." I pictured Van in blackface and straw hat singing "Mammy." Yikes -- he was a Renaissance Fair Minstrel.

Way back in the early 60's, a local horror movie show called "Chiller"(on Channel 11) announced itself with a full page ad for "The Giant Behemoth," a British Godzilla type movie that was just on TCM a coupla weeks ago -- pretty poor. The GB doesn't even show up ...in GB until about the last half hour.

The second week Chiller feature was "House on Haunted Hill" and I realize now how formative it must have been to see THAT full page ad in TV Guide. I mean, I'm in single digits, age-wise, and the poster has Vincent Price dangling a severed head by the hair! And there's a gorgeous dead woman hanging from a rope! And that old guaraneed childhood hair-raiser -- a grinning skeleton. Nightmare time.

"House on Haunted Hill" in 1962 on TV(it was a 1958 movie, sometimes 1959 listed) got the same playground discussion that "Psycho" would get in 1967. Who got to see it. Who didn't. (me.) How gory it was.

I once went onto library microfiche decades later, and found those full page TV guide ads for The Giant Behemoth and House on Haunted Hill and it amazed me -- back THEN(1962) a local channel would advertise cheap horror movies as "the event of the week." Because so few movies released to TV . Because so many Boomer Kids to watch them.

"Chiller" and its Channel 9 counterpart "Strange Tales of Science Fiction"(Home of The Thing, King Kong, and IT the Terror Beyond Space) played out their string for a few years. They stayed on the air , but eventually without full page ads or hoopla. They were from that same 50's/60's cusp where you find the great Hitchcock films, Harryhausen, Shock Theater(the Universal horror movies on Friday night), The Monster Mash, early TZ,etc.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I recall one Hitchcock movie getting a full page ad aroundf maybe 1965 or so: Saboteur. On the CBS affiliate on a weekday afternoon. I realized years later that, with Psycho a big hit and Rear Window, NXNW and The Birds not yet on network TV, a local channel would have to milk "Saboteur" for all they had - it was a HITCHCOCK movie after all, with a Statue of Liberty climax that anticipated Rushmore in NXNW. As I recall they even did up the word "Saboteur" in PSYCHO-like scare letters.

Meanwhile, Saturday night on the CBS affiliate (then KNXT-TV) had a major movie on "The Fabulous 52" every week(52 of them.) There I learned what the "important movies were" -- and I knew they were important whenever more than two names were shown in the cast, to wit:

MARLON BRANDO
EVA MARIE SAINT
LEE J. COBB
KARL MALDEN
ROD STEIGER IN
ON THE WATERFRONT

JOHN WAYNE
DEAN MARTIN
RICKY NELSON
WALTER BRENNAN
ANGIE DICKENSON
IN RIO BRAVO

BURT LANCASTER
MONTGOMERY CLIFT
FRANK SINATRA
DONNA REED
ERNEST BORGNIINE IN
FROM HERE TO ETERNITY

I didn't know who most of those people were -- Wayne, Martin and Borgnine maybe(McHales Navy) -- but I knew they were "important" and I knew that these movies were important and I knew that someday I would see these films for grown ups.

But in the meantime, the ads for the monster movies and the horror pictures were the big draw. Along with the Hitchcocks. And the Batman episodes.

Came the 70's -- very quickly as I recall --I grew out of the TV Guide habit. I never really watched many shows in the 60's except for the spy stuff, I watched MOVIES. And I was home less and less and eventually I moved away in the 70s. And I rarely watched TV. Only Columbo regularly, the MTM comedies on Saturdays, that's all. And I never read TV Guide again.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The "TV collection" dwindled down over the years. I think I kept the Psycho local broadcast issues(but not, dammit, for the aborted 1966 showing), and the issue with The Birds and its ratings busting January 1968 showing and...that's all. They are in storage somewhere, I didn't throw them out.

In the early nineties, I was trolling a university "film book and periodical library" and they had bound copies of Variety and other showbiz periodicals.

And they had TV Guides. Bound. Decades worth.

I pulled out random issues from the 1960's -- and recognized every issue I pulled from 1966 on. I pulled out random issues from the 70's and 80s...no luck whatsoever recognizing anything. Though it was intriguing to see movies like Chinatown and Towering Inferno getting their late 70's debuts. I'm sure I watched THOSE. The newspaper told me.

One outgrows "regular TV." (Oh, not entirely, when I settled down in the 80's, Hill St. ,St Elsewhere and LA Law were favorites -- and now I love cable.) One outgrows TV Guide(which must now somehow, report on scores of channels.)

But I do remember this:

We must have still taken TV Guide in 1971. We had moved from LA to a very small rural-based city, hundreds of miles away. And I knew that one local channel ran a movie on Friday night,after the late news, at 11:30 pm. They bought some Hitchcocks one year, plus some other Universal thrillers: The Birds, Marnie, Charade, Mirage. Every Friday night.

And ONE Friday night, the TV Guide said, with a tiny little one-paragraph listing:

"Psycho." (1960.) Alfred Hitchcock's terrifying masterpiece about murder and madness at a small motel. Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh.

No full page ad. No half page ad. NO AD. Certainly no billboard. Psycho getting a local TV broadcast by 1971 was "just one of those things." TV fodder, no more, no less. (Uncut, too.)

And that's the First Time I Saw Psycho.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

And ONE Friday night, the TV Guide said, with a tiny little one-paragraph listing:

"Psycho." (1960.) Alfred Hitchcock's terrifying masterpiece about murder and madness at a small motel. Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh.

I have a real soft spot for the quasi-poetry of TV Guide's one or two sentence plot precises. One I always remember for King Kong (1933): 'Giant ape escapes, takes blonde up skyscraper.'

[–] MizhuB (165) 7 years ago

I remember one for 'Play Misty for Me'.

'Clint Eastwood plays a disc jockey who has a female admirer -- with a penchant for knives.'

That was it. I'd seen the movie twice already in the theater, and I still like it. Have it on DVD.

I remember Judith Crist's reviews toward the front of TV Guide issues that ecarle mentioned. I almost never agreed with her. Hell, I still don't agree with most critics. Of Misty, she said 'even though Jessica Walter is just great as the gal, it's still a schlock shocker.'

I also remember that the week before the fall season started (new programming), there was always an article naming EVERY movie that would be shown for that season, with a short synopsis. I always scanned that article quickly, since the movies' names would be in bold print, looking for titles I was hoping would be there (No cable or VCR's in those days).

I'd be happy when titles I wanted to see again showed up. Dunno why though, since networks always censored material that was apparently 'objectionable', so it wasn't even really the same film. There was always that dreaded 'edited for television' caption after the opening credits.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Of Misty, she said 'even though Jessica Walter is just great as the gal, it's still a schlock shocker.'

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I didn't get around to seeing Misty until quite recently, at which point my primary awareness of Jessica Walter was as unscrupulous, domineering, still very attractive matriarch Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development. Seeing Walter's hottie young self in Misty *after* Lucille was a lot like meeting Norman *after* first getting to know a powerful, up-to-no-good Mother/Norma.

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That's an interesting analogy....and it is interesting, I would guess, to see an actress who has been playing "elderly" suddenly summoned up as the sexual woman of her youth(though as I recall, Lucille still got some action on AD.)

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Note that in the show, a post-face-lift Lucille becomes the basis for a movie horror character 'Gangie' who's at the center of a series of films! Great show.

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As I say, there are certainly still some TV shows that hook me...and Arrested Development was a big one. It was hilarious how Ron Howard -- then in his fifties but still possessed of a boyish voice -- could prove to be such a great "deadpan narrator" for a series of such nuance and wit. Its like Opie got real smart, all of a sudden.

And Ritchie Cunningham's old pal, Henry Winkler was on the show, as the family's ineffectual lawyer. He offers one verbal legal opinion, and someone says "Are you confident in that legal opinion?" and he replies "well, that's what it said on Ask Jeeves."

Arrested Development was filled with "pros" -- from the very good Jason Bateman as the centerpiece and on through Jeffrey Tambor, Will Arnett(hilarious) and indeed, Jessica Walter. But again, we are talking about a "show made by the script."

I also liked how the show captured the ambiance of Orange County, California -- a mere 40 or so miles south of Los Angeles, but its own entire suburban world. It used to have a reputation as a WASP Republican enclave, but that's pretty much over with many diverse folks moving in -- its heavily Asian-American upscale in the wealthy parts now, mid-range in Little Saigon, very Hispanic elsewhere.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Still, Arrested Development captured the "old WASP wealth moves to the beach ambiance" of Orange County quite well. In my experience, I met lots of families who had moved down to Orange County from Pasadena and the like(Noah Cross territory) to "escape diversity." And it followed them there.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I remember one for 'Play Misty for Me'.

'Clint Eastwood plays a disc jockey who has a female admirer -- with a penchant for knives.'

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Ha. That about sizes it up. I once took a screenwriting course where the teacher said "try to imagine the one sentence that will describe your story, in TV Guide."

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That was it. I'd seen the movie twice already in the theater, and I still like it. Have it on DVD.

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The Time magazine critic wrote of "Misty" -- "Director Eastwood has obviously seen Psycho and Diabolique, and has come from his lessons with a passing grade."

The film's one murder is definitely of the Arbogast variety-- plain clothes cop John Larch shows up to investigate a dark house, and gets a pair of scissors in his heart.

The film presaged Fatal Attraction, but without the complication of the male being a MARRIED man. Clint was here more of a swinging bachelor (a Carmel jazz DJ, which allowed Clint to play off his whispery voice -- but in a period of temporary separation from a girlfriend. He reconciles with her, Jessica becomes VERY angry.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I remember Judith Crist's reviews toward the front of TV Guide issues that ecarle mentioned. I almost never agreed with her. Hell, I still don't agree with most critics. Of Misty, she said 'even though Jessica Walter is just great as the gal, it's still a schlock shocker.'

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Hmm. Crist became a very famous critic for a few years because of those TV Guide capsules -- it was the highest-selling magazine of that decade -- but she wasn't all that good, really.

Still, I can recall a few of her capsule descriptions:

North by Northwest: "If you haven't seen the sight of Eva Marie Saint skittering down Mount Rushmore in high heels...you owe yourself the treat."

The Birds: "A dull and plotless tale beyond the birds and the beaks, but once Hitchcock's hordes of murderous birds take the stage, it takes flight.

Torn Curtain: "Hitchcock tosses this one off with unforgiveable slickness, but even mediocre Hitchcock is better than most everyone else." (On THAT one, the second sentence was written a lot, and I don't think "unforgivable slickness" TELLS us anything -- what could it mean?)

I do recall one opening paragraph: "Hats in the air and the season is saved: Dr. Strangelove is here!"

For indeed, when certain key movies "made it to broadcast TV" back then, it was an EVENT. Strangelove isn't really a good example; The Bridge on the River Kwai, Ben-Hur, The Sound of Music....even The Godfather(in 1974 just ahead of Godfather II.) Networks showed these films in the "sweeps" months when ratings were counted to set ad prices(November and February) --theatrical movies were a big part of broadcast TV back then. (And yes, Psycho was shown locally in LA TWICE...once in November and once in February.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It took awhile for it to happen, but once HBO, the Z Channel(in the Los Angeles area) exclusively , and other "movie channels" popped up(like The Movie Channel)...there was no money to be made by the networks in showing theatrical films. The "big killer" for broadcast TV showings of theatrical films was the R rating -- the networks would show these heavily edited versions of movies and there was a craving for "uncut" versions. Enter HBO. No commercials either.

I've noted that two Hitchocck films were heavily edited for TV broadcast:

Torn Curtain(NBC, 1970): The Gromek murder was so heavily edited you couldn't tell HOW Paul Newman killed the guy. It seemed to be a struggle that ended with Gromek...disappearing. And Newman and the famer's wife looking shocked in the aftermath.

Frenzy(ABC, 1975). The famous rape-murder became...nothing. All they could show was Rusk's initial struggling with Brenda(no rape implied), and then his taking off the tie and Brenda screaming "My God! The Tie!" and ...freeze-frame on Brenda's face and fade out. I remember thinking that Frenzy WITHOUT the detail of that scene rather collapsed; it was one of the biggest set pieces in the film and, as Hitchcock had said, "the entire reason why I made the picture." Horrible that scene may have been, but it WAS the movie, at heart, and ABC didn't really show Frenzy that night. (I think ABC felt with Hitchcock as a brand name, they HAD to try to show Frenzy...I don't recall movies like Straw Dogs and A Clockwork Orange getting network showings...though I think Deliverance did, with ITS key scene removed.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I also remember that the week before the fall season started (new programming), there was always an article naming EVERY movie that would be shown for that season, with a short synopsis. I always scanned that article quickly, since the movies' names would be in bold print, looking for titles I was hoping would be there (No cable or VCR's in those days).

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Yep, that was a big deal for the movie fan. They would "bunch up" all the CBS movies, all the ABC movies, all the NBC movies, and you'd catch the really big ones right off the bat.

I recall being excited when titles were announced that I had not been able to see when younger: Charade, The Manchurian Candidate, The Guns of Navarone, etc.

Its funny. Early on with network movies, it took YEARS for a movie to get to TV. 8 years for 1959's North by Northwest to be shown in 1967. 12 years for 1954's Rear Window to be shown in 1966.

But later on...the "window" between theatrical release and broadcast tightened. Topaz was released in 1969, hit NBC in 1971. Family Plot was released in 1976, hit NBC in....1977!

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I'd be happy when titles I wanted to see again showed up. Dunno why though, since networks always censored material that was apparently 'objectionable', so it wasn't even really the same film. There was always that dreaded 'edited for television' caption after the opening credits.

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I think we were excited just to get SOME version a favorite movie, we had to put up with the bleeping of words and cuts to visuals. We had nowhere else to go in the 60s and most of the 70's. No HBO. No VHS tapes.

And there would be news articles about how networks would "negotiate with the censors" so that we would get SOME cuss words broadcast on TV with a major film. It seems so silly now...but like, they would allow the "s" word to be said in Patton's speech, or "bull-s-t" in a broadcast of Network. (I'm not sure the networks ever allowed the F word.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

When they showed The Wild Bunch on CBS in 1973, they showed the final mega-gunbattle with heavy editing. It was STILL pretty exciting -- you'd be surprised how much of the action does NOT show blood, and the sound effects of pistols, rifles, a machine-gun and dynamite going off created a sense of "aural excitement." Only one problem: you hardly saw anybody get HIT, or die. They just sort of disappeared.

The film's director, Sam Peckinpah said that he watched this 1973 broadcast and it enraged him and he got drunk and passed out.

I suppose in retrospect that the movement to develop HBO and VHS began right then and there. The broadcast networks could no longer broadcast a lot of the films being made in the 60's and 70's. A vaccum was created, and filled.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And ONE Friday night, the TV Guide said, with a tiny little one-paragraph listing:

"Psycho." (1960.) Alfred Hitchcock's terrifying masterpiece about murder and madness at a small motel. Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh.

---
I have a real soft spot for the quasi-poetry of TV Guide's one or two sentence plot precises. One I always remember for King Kong (1933): 'Giant ape escapes, takes blonde up skyscraper.'

---

Ha. That one sounds rather tongue-in-cheek.

Its been bugging me that I slightly mis-remembered that TV Guide quote for Psycho above. I have a near photographic memory for some of the things I read as a youth(as an older guy, not so much.) It was this:

"Alfred Hitchcock's BRILLIANT and terrifying masterpiece about murder and madness in a small motel."

The longer paragraph in the "TV Guide close-up" not only have I committed to memory, but I found it educational as a youth:

BEGIN:

"In Alfred Hitchcock's shocker, called "the blackest of black comedies" by one critic, withdrawn and nervous Norman Bates(Anthony Perkins) runs a small motel down the hill from his mother's American Gothic mansion. The arrival of Marion Crane(Janet Leigh) -- who has just stolen $40,000 -- moves Norman to talk about his aging, possessive mother. The 1960 film garnered four Oscar nominations and is greatly enhanced by Bernard Herrmann's score, George Tomasini's film editing, and the cinematography of John L. Russell. The screenplay is by Joseph Stefano, from Robert Bloch's novel."

END

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

This was a well crafted paragraph. I came to understood that Psycho was a "shocker"(i.e. something worse than the usual thriller), I had to ask an adult what a "black comedy" was -- and how could THIS horror story BE a comedy? I captured in my mind the image of a "small motel down the HILL(important) from an American Gothic mansion. (It was surprising how well my imagination matched what Hitchcock gave us in the film. The marking of Marion Crane as someone who had "stolen $40,000" told me that this was a crime picture of some sort, and then the discussion of the "aging, possessive mother."

When the TV Guide paragraph moved to "background information," I was also being educated. Educated that this most horrifying of movies somehow still had Oscar cred(very hard for me to reconcile the two); educated that Bernard Herrmann's music was important to the film(and how few 1960 critics mentioned this); and also of the contributions of film editing and cinematography. I recognized the name Joseph Stefano from "The Outer Limits."

In short, the TV Guide Close-Up paragraph was a well-written introduction to the essence of Psycho -- and the production team that made it so.

The photo of Anthony Perkins was quite eerie, too -- staged, and NOT one of the more famous ones where he is wearing the black crewneck sweater. Rather, he is in his gray jacket, and looking behind himself.

[–] MizhuB (165) 7 years ago

I didn't get around to seeing Misty until quite recently, at which point my primary awareness of Jessica Walter was as unscrupulous, domineering, still very attractive matriarch Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development. Seeing Walter's hottie young self in Misty *after* Lucille was a lot like meeting Norman *after* first getting to know a powerful, up-to-no-good Mother/Norma.
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Indeed. I've always found Jessica Walter to be very attractive, and she was certainly a hottie. I've never seen Arrested Development but I've always heard it's very good.

Interesting side note about Eastwood casting her. The extras on the DVD are very good. There's a pretty long segment that cuts between interviews with Eastwood and Walter. On why he cast her, he said (paraphrasing, but it's on the mark):

"The studio wanted me to cast a bigger star, such as Lee Remick. But I'd seen Jessica Walter in The Group. There was one scene where a man slapped her, and her change in expression immediately from one to another made me think, 'Oh yeah. That's her. That's the girl I want for this part.' So I sent her the script, then met with her and said, 'So, do you want to play this part?' And she said, 'Oh, yeah!' It was really that simple."
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The film's one murder is definitely of the Arbogast variety-- plain clothes cop John Larch shows up to investigate a dark house, and gets a pair of scissors in his heart.
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And it's shot in the style of Arbogast's murder, with the camera following his face as he falls to the ground.
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The film presaged Fatal Attraction...
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There are many people who refer to PMfM as the original Fatal Attraction. Eastwood himself refers to that film as 'When they remade -- or attempted to remake -- Play Misty for Me' on the DVD extras.

[–] MizhuB (165) 7 years ago

Getting back to the OT of TV Guide ads and descriptions...

I remember one (maybe a half page ad) for Psycho, that said 'Alfred Hitchcock's terrifying masterpiece!'.

Problem was, the screen shot in it was of Norman running from the cellar door, knife raised, dressed as mother. I'd already seen the movie and remember thinking, 'Damn. That gives the whole secret away right off the bat.'

They also ran smaller ads at the bottom of the page. One was for 'Eye of the Cat'. It said, 'If you liked The Birds, this one will make you PURRR!' Giving the impression there would be random cat attacks, or something. I'd seen the film in the theater, so I knew it wasn't like that at all, although there were many cats.

To make it worse, there were two different versions filmed. One for the theater, and one for TV. I was surprised when there was no 'edited for television' caption at the beginning. No need. The TV version added some scenes, and deleted others. And CHANGED a major scene toward the end. Instead of dozens of cats pursuing Gayle Hunnicutt, there was ONE cat pursuing her. And no blood on her dress. Running through the house from one cat made it ridiculous.
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Torn Curtain(NBC, 1970): The Gromek murder was so heavily edited you couldn't tell HOW Paul Newman killed the guy. It seemed to be a struggle that ended with Gromek...disappearing. And Newman and the famer's wife looking shocked in the aftermath.
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I first saw it on TV. I remember the 'edited for television' caption on the very first shot after the credits, below the shot of the ship. I agree. The Gromek murder made no sense. Even though I was seeing it for the first time, I KNEW it had been hacked to pieces. In fact, the first time I saw it intact was on YouTube!

[–] MizhuB (165) 7 years ago

The film's director, Sam Peckinpah said that he watched this 1973 broadcast and it enraged him and he got drunk and passed out.
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I've never seen The Wild Bunch. That goes on my list. From what I've heard (maybe on the extras on the DVD?) about 'Straw Dogs' though, Peckinpah was quite known for getting drunk, passing out, and missing work.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I've never seen The Wild Bunch. That goes on my list.

--

Its another "violent landmark film" after Psycho and Bonnie and Clyde, and for my money, the most violent of the bunch. But the technical prowess of the major shootout sequences is the best I've ever seen(film student George Lucas took his pals to see The Wild Bunch over and over again; he thought it was the Greatest Movie Ever Made) and its near-final scene of Bad Men Gone Good and Facing the End is one of the great endings of all time.

But you might not like it. I don't recommend movies much anymore. These are my PERSONAL favorites.

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From what I've heard (maybe on the extras on the DVD?) about 'Straw Dogs' though, Peckinpah was quite known for getting drunk, passing out, and missing work.

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Big drinker, big drugger. It killed him young of a heart attack at age 59, and lost him a lot of jobs("I won't work with a drunk" said Charles Bronson when offered a Peckinpah film.) Worse, you can see the effects of the drinking/drugging ON SCREEN -- scenes that don't make sense or don't cut together right. These were Peckinpah films made after The Wild Bunch, however.

But Peckinpah truly was an artist (a level or two down from Hitchcock, but of the same exciting type) and he made a LOT of movies from 1969 to 1978. Then a long drought without work until 1983(The Osterman Weekend.) Then death.

I'm a big Peckinpah fan. He's like the missing link between Hitchcock and Tarantino. And he made one sweet non-violent film in there: Junior Bonner, about a rodeo family (Dad Robert Preston, sons Steve McQueen and Joe Don Baker.) I really like that movie...

...but I'm not recommending it.

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

And he made one sweet non-violent film in there: Junior Bonner

Sweet Peckinpah is also there in The Ballad Of Cable Hogue, a self-consciously wry, small, comic film (it's mostly a sexy two-hander between Jason Robards and va-va-voom Stella Stevens).

Heh, when I was in High School in the early '80s - just before VHS hit big - we had a film society which screened available 16mm prints. We did weekly screenings plus weekend seminars (9 a.m. to Midnight on Sat, 9.a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday - we were maniacs) about 5 times a year. One seminar was on The History of the Western. We got to the Revisionist Western and The Vietnamist Western on Sunday (after climaxing the trad. western on Sat Night with Once Upon A Time In The West) where we watched and discussed Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, Cable Hogue, The Beguiled, Outlaw Josie Wales (or one of the last two may have been the next week as part of an ongoing Eastwood season - it's hard to remember ever detail). Good times!

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Connecting back to Psycho.... I first saw Psycho on 16mm as the pivotal feature in a 'History of Horror' weekend seminar. I knew the film backwards already, however, from the Anobile Photo-book and Hitchcock/Truffaut and so noticed immediately when bits of the murder scenes were missing!

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I have noted that for a few years in the 70's and 80's -- and even on the "AFI Life Achievement of Alfred Hitchcock Show" of 1979, the Arbogast murder clip always had a big "tear in the image" -- a crooked diagonal line just as he reached the top of the stairs. It became part of the scene for me.

I think this happened: somebody removed the murder scene one time the print was shown, and then somebody restored it later. The "tear" in the screen occurs just before the cut to the overhead of mother rushing out.

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Worst of all the whole end of the film was missing too. We got almost to the end of mother's jail-cell voiceover then cut to almost full black (i.e., to just a few frames of lines slicing over car and swamp and THE END). The triple-dissolve to the skull and then car that we'd been primed for were completely absent.

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Talk about coitus interruptus!

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Such were the perils of the pre-VHS and pre-DVD world: very beat-up prints would circulate for decades, unscrupulous projectionists would snip out frames for their private collections, and so on.

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QT spoofed this phenomenon with his part of the Grindhouse double bill -- "Death Proof." Kurt Russell convinces a young lovely to give him a lap dance to music and when that scene is about to start there is a sudden jagged cut: "SCENE MISSING -- OUR APOLOGIES." Evidently projectionists would cut out and keep sexy scenes for their own pleasure.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Sweet Peckinpah is also there in The Ballad Of Cable Hogue, a self-consciously wry, small, comic film (it's mostly a sexy two-hander between Jason Robards and va-va-voom Stella Stevens).

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First a BIG tip of the hat to "va va voom Stella Stevens." She's from that sixties crop of gorgeous curvy women(Jill St. John, Daliah Lavi, Ann-Margret) who were rather marched off screen in the 70's, but IN the seventies a slightly aged Stevens kept up her end of sexy charisma.

And Cable Hogue IS sweet, though a bit of violence pops up here and there.

Peckinpah made the point in the press that his sweet films(Hogue, Junior Bonner) simply didn't make the money his more violent work did(Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, The Getaway) -- and he ended up typecast.

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Heh, when I was in High School in the early '80s - just before VHS hit big - we had a film society which screened available 16mm prints. We did weekly screenings plus weekend seminars (9 a.m. to Midnight on Sat, 9.a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday - we were maniacs) about 5 times a year. One seminar was on The History of the Western. We got to the Revisionist Western and The Vietnamist Western on Sunday (after climaxing the trad. western on Sat Night with Once Upon A Time In The West) where we watched and discussed Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, Cable Hogue, The Beguiled, Outlaw Josie Wales (or one of the last two may have been the next week as part of an ongoing Eastwood season - it's hard to remember ever detail). Good times!

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I suppose the moral here is that "film folks" always found a way to enjoy films. My TV Guide digressions are really about how "I set up my own film school" guided by Judith Crist and print ads to the good movies on TV; and I, too, was part of a small clique(backed by a "sponsor teacher") who rented 16 mm films to show on campus from time to time. (Bonnie and Clyde was approved by school brass; Psycho was not!).

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

where we watched and discussed Wild Bunch, Little Big Man, Cable Hogue, The Beguiled, Outlaw Josie Wales (or one of the last two may have been the next week as part of an ongoing Eastwood season - it's hard to remember ever detail). Good times!

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Its interesting to remember how popular "revisionist Westerns" really were in the late sixties and early seventies before the genre died out.

Clint Eastwood, spaghetti Westerns, The Wild Bunch, Peckinpah -- even Late John Wayne(True Grit, The Shootist)...all kept the Western in vogue, albeit in new , bleaker ways. And this: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid -- a "comedy Western" with a tragic ending -- was the biggest hit of 1969, I believe.

But it ran out of gas. Wayne got sick and eventually died. Eastwood segued to Dirty Harry and modern action. The spaghetti Western fell out of favor. And -- in my circles at least -- it seemed that no woman ever wanted to see a Western on a date.

Interesting, though. Ever since, occasional Westerns have held on as classics(Unforgiven) and as hits(the new True Grit and Magnificent Seven; Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight.)

It never quite totally dies out, The Western.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Getting back to the OT of TV Guide ads and descriptions...

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Oh, some of it is OT, but we have certainly weaved Psycho and Hitchcock in and out of it.

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I remember one (maybe a half page ad) for Psycho, that said 'Alfred Hitchcock's terrifying masterpiece!'.

Problem was, the screen shot in it was of Norman running from the cellar door, knife raised, dressed as mother. I'd already seen the movie and remember thinking, 'Damn. That gives the whole secret away right off the bat.'

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Ha. Well, as I've written , a 1965 re-release poster for Psycho posited Norman with a knife(AS Norman, not as Mother) It seems that at some time after 1960, the powers that be decided "everybody knows the twist ending" and it was time to sell Norman AS a Psycho...like Michael Myers or Jason.

But: fast forward a few decades, and many new generations DON'T know the twist so....

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I''ve mentioned the billboards and print ads that bespoke the 1967 LA debut of Psycho. I should mention that the print ad was used again a few times in the 70s, by the same channel, once they owned Psycho permanently, it seemed, for annual showings. They did up one of the ads with the words: "If you think the son is weird...wait til you meet the mother!"

And this: Whereas Psycho in 1967 had to be shown at 11:30 pm at night; Psycho in the 70's played on "the 6:00 movie" Dinner time. IN TWO PARTS(one each night.) Talk about being cut into nothingness!

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

They also ran smaller ads at the bottom of the page. One was for 'Eye of the Cat'. It said, 'If you liked The Birds, this one will make you PURRR!' Giving the impression there would be random cat attacks, or something. I'd seen the film in the theater, so I knew it wasn't like that at all, although there were many cats.

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Psycho AND The Birds sure were used to promote other , later thrillers, weren't they? "If you liked Psycho....if you liked The Birds...."

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To make it worse, there were two different versions filmed. One for the theater, and one for TV. I was surprised when there was no 'edited for television' caption at the beginning. No need. The TV version added some scenes, and deleted others. And CHANGED a major scene toward the end. Instead of dozens of cats pursuing Gayle Hunnicutt, there was ONE cat pursuing her. And no blood on her dress. Running through the house from one cat made it ridiculous.

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One cat. Hah. This was the other side of network TV censorship in the 70's. In addition to cutting violent or sexual scenes, the networks were provided with ALTERNATE sequences.

The most famous reversal via this technique as of the 1976 movie Two Minute Warning. In the R-rated theatrical, a crazed sniper takes up position at the LA Coliseum during a pro football game -- and eventually shoots and kills many of the billed cast(David Janssen, Walter Pidgeon, Jack Klugman) as the crowds stampede and cops led by Chuck Heston kill the sniper.

The TV version eliminated all the murders at the end, and one scene with Chuck Heston was added where he was on a walkie talkie saying:

"I don't think this sniper intends to kill anybody. I think he's distracting us from a burglary of the museum across from the stadium." True -- and they filmed additional scenes with new actors as the burglars.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Now, this could be seen as the "rape" of a movie for TV; but a lot of critics faulted Two Minute Warning as a "gratuitous bloodbath" out to excite people with sniper killings. In short, maybe "the NBC version" was an apology for the gore of the theatrical. But...the original was still ruined.
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I first saw (Torn Curtain) on TV. I remember the 'edited for television' caption on the very first shot after the credits, below the shot of the ship.

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And they cut the ENTIRE FIRST SCENE of Newman and Andrews "doing something" under their bed blankets. The entire scene! And that was before they messed with Gromek.

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I agree. The Gromek murder made no sense. Even though I was seeing it for the first time, I KNEW it had been hacked to pieces. In fact, the first time I saw it intact was on YouTube!----

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I saw it in 1966 at the theater(I was very young, but it didn't bother me) and then, after that 1970 "non-version" and several later edited versions(the edited Torn Curtain went into syndication) I next saw the Gromek murder fully uncut in the 1973 PBS documentary "The Men Who Made the Movies" in the episode about Hitchcock. After several years of only seeing the edited version -- the return of the "uncut version" was like a sock in the jaw. It seemed much more violent than when I first saw it as a kid.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Indeed. I've always found Jessica Walter to be very attractive, and she was certainly a hottie. I've never seen Arrested Development but I've always heard it's very good.

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It is. At least the version that was on TV. I never figured out how to access the version on Netflix or Amazon Prime or wherever it ended up! That was a "later new season." I'm sure its good too.

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Interesting side note about Eastwood casting her. The extras on the DVD are very good. There's a pretty long segment that cuts between interviews with Eastwood and Walter. On why he cast her, he said (paraphrasing, but it's on the mark):

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(paraphrasing, but its on the mark) I do that all the time!

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"The studio wanted me to cast a bigger star, such as Lee Remick. But I'd seen Jessica Walter in The Group. There was one scene where a man slapped her, and her change in expression immediately from one to another made me think, 'Oh yeah. That's her. That's the girl I want for this part.' So I sent her the script, then met with her and said, 'So, do you want to play this part?' And she said, 'Oh, yeah!' It was really that simple."
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Eastwood -- like Hitchcock -- much preferred to "view film" on actors rather than to audition them live. With both Hitch and Eastwood, this spared them the agony of turning people down. (I think some casting directors and directors LIKE to turn people down, plus there's the ol' casting couch.)

So, often the actor would learn that they got the part "outta nowhere." Hitch or Clint would call the actor, having already viewed them on film and said "I want to cast you in my new movie." I think that's how Martin Balsam got cast in Psycho -- Joe Stefano recommended him for Arbogast, Hitchcock viewed "12 Angry Men" -- done.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I rather like the "bachelor's vibe" at the beginning of Misty. Jessica turns up at the bar where Clint hangs with wry bartender Don Siegel(director of Dirty Harry and many other Clint movies). She's pretty, she's sexy and Clint picks her up with some ease. Cut to sex scene.

And then the trouble begins. I've always figured women must like the early scenes where Jessica latches onto Clint and won't let him go -- the cad's getting a taste of what happens when real emotion enters in. But I expect men AND women could relate to the spookiness of a stalker-type who tries to move in too soon.

But soon, Jessica is revealed to be a psycho, Clint re-unites with his ex(the more "girl next doorish" Donna Mills) - and the thriller begins.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The film's one murder is definitely of the Arbogast variety-- plain clothes cop John Larch shows up to investigate a dark house, and gets a pair of scissors in his heart.
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And it's shot in the style of Arbogast's murder, with the camera following his face as he falls to the ground.
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Yep. Though it is more realistically filmed than Arbogast's fall. Clint was evidently on even a smaller budget than Psycho, and couldn't rig up processl effects for the fall. It worked fine though -- this is clearly the Big Psycho Homage moment in Misty.

I suppose the "shower murder" is the earlier attack by Jessica (with knife) on Clint's African-American maid. An interesting scene -- the maid is NOT killed(how rare -- and Joe Stefano said the Psycho victims probably feared disfigurement, not death, while under attack), and she's African-American....I suppose the issue here was to show that Jessica COULD be released from the asylum because she didn't kill her victim.

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The film presaged Fatal Attraction...
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There are many people who refer to PMfM as the original Fatal Attraction. Eastwood himself refers to that film as 'When they remade -- or attempted to remake -- Play Misty for Me' on the DVD extras.

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Yes. One reason Brian DePalma turned down Fatal Attraction(OOPS) was that it was too much like Misty. To which I say: Fatal Attraction had a more disturbing premise: a married-with-child father strays one weekend, and the stalker threatens wife, child and bunny. Plus the guilt factor for the husband(which led to a lot of OpEds about adultery and this movie.)

Clint played it a bit less uncomfortable. When he takes up with Jessica, he is single. He has no children. He re-unites with girlfriend LATER. The cheating-dad premise of Fatal Attraction is not there.

But the female stalker sure is. (And recall the angry pieces by women against Glenn Close being portrayed AS a stalker -- what kind of attack on single career women was THIS? )

[–] MizhuB (165) 7 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I had to ask an adult what a "black comedy" was -- and how could THIS horror story BE a comedy?

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I read an article where Hitch said about Psycho:

'Psycho is, in a sense, a comedy. The audience in the theater screams in terror, but they know they're actually safe. It's rather like taking a group of people through the haunted house at the fair grounds. While inside, they scream in terror, but when they get back outside, they're laughing about the very fear they just experienced, because they knew they were safe all along'.

He may have also called it something like 'fun terror', but I'm not 100% about that.

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Hitchcock wasn't always the most precise talker about his own films. I think he sort of mixed up his intentions in describing Psycho as a comedy. Surely the film has lots of little jokes along the way, and the scene where Arbogast questions Norman draws laughs because Norman so screws up along the way.

But the murder of Marion Crane is anything but funny -- it is mean and merciless and sickening and brutal and tragic, covered by being...eminently scream-worthy.

And that's where Psycho IS fun. I was blessed to see Psycho, only once in my life, with a full house audience that screamed in all the right places, and it was a revelation: Psycho DID play like a ride on a roller coaster or a walk through a fairground haunted house. I mean, big , huge GIANT screams -- the shower murder, the staircase murder, the fruit cellar reveal....AND Lila's reflection in the mirror AND Norman suddenly appearing behind Sam in the motel doorway ("Looking for me?").

So Hitchcock was right about Psycho being "fun" in the viewing. But the film also had an undertone of sadness, and bitter irony -- people getting killed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, etc. Its not funny.

I might add that the term "black comedy" doesn't necessarily relate to "ha ha ha" comedy, either. I think Dr. Strangelove is a black comedy, and Rosemary's Baby, too.

[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

Speaking of Judith Crist, I remember salivating in anticipation of the Fall )Preview issue which typically included a 2-3 page preview of the entire movie lineup for the coming season.

And this is way off topic, but my all time favorite Letter to the Editor and reply in TV GUide was a reader complaining about critics panning My MOther the Car while praising the Mary Martin production of Peter Pan.

The editor had a lot of fun answering this, pointing out that Peter Pan satisfies two wish fullfilments that encompass all of human history: the ability to fly, and eternal youth. On the other hand, it is likely that no one has ever hoped for their mother to be reincarnated as a car.

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Speaking of Judith Crist, I remember salivating in anticipation of the Fall )Preview issue which typically included a 2-3 page preview of the entire movie lineup for the coming season.

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That issue was a big deal. They still do "fall preview" issues...most broadcast TV series still follow the ritual of taking the summer off and roaring back in the fall....BUT so many shows now debut in every month of the year(on basic cable, on pay cable, on streaming)...that the solidified uniformity OF a fall preview issue is lost.

I would study those "Fall Preview" issues and decide if there were any shows I wanted to watch. Very few as the years went on. But the MOVIES? Oh, yes, it was very exciting to see what package each network would have that coming year.

I've mentioned this before, but one way that Hitchcock stayed "hot" in the sixties and seventies was:

His movies got big promotion during the summer as being "one of the two or three big ones" coming to TV in the fall.

I have three examples:

Summer of 1966: All summer, CBS promoted The Music Man and Psycho as their two biggest movies that fall.

Summer of 1967: All summer, CBS promoted Elvis in Viva Las Vegas and North by Northwest as their two biggest movies that fall.

Summer of 1970: All summer, NBC promoted John Wayne in The War Wagon and Torn Curtain as their two biggest movies that fall.

And I mean commercials that ran all day long, all night long.

(In summers where Hitchcock movies weren't the big ones being promoted, movies like The Guns of Navarone and The Dirty Dozen were promoted over and over. I recall the Navarone commercial on CBS; Greg Peck snarling "You're in it now, up to your NECK!" That's the line I use for my patented Greg Peck impression.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And this is way off topic,

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Eh, not necessarily...after all My Mother the Car was about a young man's dead mother dominating him after her death.....

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but my all time favorite Letter to the Editor and reply in TV GUide was a reader complaining about critics panning My MOther the Car while praising the Mary Martin production of Peter Pan.

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The editor had a lot of fun answering this, pointing out that Peter Pan satisfies two wish fullfilments that encompass all of human history: the ability to fly, and eternal youth. On the other hand, it is likely that no one has ever hoped for their mother to be reincarnated as a car

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Ha. I''m in agreement about the Pan analysis, but trying to conjoin Peter Pan and My Mother the Car in ANY way strikes me as...psycho. What was that letter writer thinking.

About My Mother the Car: I watched a few episodes, and I found that its theme song -- a catchy Dixieland sort of thing -- had an absolute "earworm" of tune and lyrics I never forgot. They went like this:

Everybody knows in the second life, we all come back sooner or later
As anything from a pussycat, to a man eating alligator
Well you all may think this story is more fiction than its fact...
But believe it or not my mother dear, decided she'd come back
As a car...she's my very own guiding star
A 1928 Porter, that's my mother dear
She helps me through everything I do...and I'm so glad she's here

I did that from MEMORY. Its an earworm, I tell you. Almost Satanic in its immortal grip...