MovieChat Forums > The Name of the Game (1968) Discussion > "The Name of the Game" At 50

"The Name of the Game" At 50

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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I was surfing the net, and I stumbled upon a "50 year anniversary article" in 2018 about a series that launched in 1968 called The Name of the Game.

I read the article, and I was surprised at the length, depth, and breadth of what the article had to say about TV as the 60's closed out...particularly TV out of Universal Studios, which strode American network TV like a Colussus, practically programming the NBC TV network with a parade of shows that looked and sounded the same(same sets, same credit titles) and yet managed to differentiate for quality when possible. From this era (more the 70's than the 60's), Columbo and The Rockford Files managed to stake out near-movie-level classic status. But a whole lotta other Universal shows(McCloud, McMillan and Wife, Quincy) were just cookie cutter vehicles for stars of a certain level -- TV stars only(Dennis Weaver in McCloud); movie stars brought low(Rock Hudson,MacMillan and Wife.)

Anyway, The Name of the Game.

It was based on one of the first TV movies ever made, called "Fame is the Name of the Game" and starring Tony Franciosa as a handsome, rebellious magazine reporter who crosses paths with The Mob in one of his magazine investigations. Evidently "Fame is the Name of the Game" was a ratings hit and NBC wanted a show out of it, and they wanted Franciosa to star in it.

But he balked -- as an actor named Peter Falk would later balk about doing Columbo as a weekly series. So the TV show "The Name of the Game" posited Franciosa as one of THREE rotating stars, each star anchoring one episode a week.

The other two stars were Robert Stack(late of The Untouchables TV show) and Gene Barry(late of the suave Burke's Law whodunit TV show.) Unlike the "mystery movie wheel" -- which put entirely different SERIES into rotation(Columbo, McCloud, MacMillan and Wife...Richard Boone as Hec Ramsey), The Name of the Game posited that all three stars worked at the same place: for a magazine empire run by Gene Barry, with Franciosa writing articles for "People magazine"(hey, wait a minute) and Stack writing articles for "Crime magazine." Stack thus ended up with crime episodes, it would seem -- except both Franciosa and Barry got crime-related episodes because, of course, crime sells.

This "50 year anniversary" review of The Name of the Game takes potshots at Franciosa, Barry, and Stack...because all three men are dead now. Simply put, it makes the point that Barry was a self-infatuated prima donna, Stack was unwilling to share his stardom with anybody(he wouldn't "act with" his co-stars) ...and Franciosa was just plain nuts: tempermental, but worse than that, and perhaps on drugs in a big way during the run of the series.

I was intrigued to learn that, as with Peter Falk on the Mystery Movie, Franciosa's Name of the Game episodes were always the highest rated. NBC put up with Franciosa's crap as long as they could because he DELIVERED.

And yeah -- I see it. Tony Franciosa had it in him to be a Rebel Cary Grant -- he was very handsome(moreso as he aged), he had a very smooth voice, and he had that Italian-American flash that would come through later in Pacino, DeNiro...and Gandolfini.

I personally love Tony Franciosa in my guilty-pleasure 1964 Western "Rio Conchos," in which Franciosa plays "the wily Mexican" but with such ladies man charm and sudden-death danger that you see your way past it. Franciosa was paired with Richard Boone as "the two cool guys" in a team of four(Stuart Whitman and Jim Brown are the "straights") and it is an elemental pleasure to see Boone and Franciosa show off their star charisma together.

Indeed, CBS knew from Tony Franciosa's charm in Rio Conchos because CBS elected to run "Rio Conchos" as the CBS Friday Night Movie in 1968 AGAINST Tony Franciosa in an episode of The Name of the Game. I remember that night; you had to choose: Franciosa or Franciosa?

I chose: going to a high school football game with friends. I caught Rio Conchos a year later on CBS, and as for The Name of the Game...well. I don't think I ever watched an entire episode of that series. What I DID watch...like, anytime the show came on and I was home was...the credit sequence.

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Oh, the glorious memory of TV series credit sequences of the 60's. At the top of the list: the spy show credit sequences and music. The Man From UNCLE(four different ways for four different seasons); The Wild Wild West, and I Spy. But also It Takes A Thief(....to catch a thief; Robert Wagner in for Cary Grant.) And Ironside(QT had great fun with THAT theme as a theme within "Kill Bill.")

But "The Name of a Game" was a real lollapalooza. This "50 year anniversary" article calls it "Dave Grusin's space age bossa nova theme song" and that's about right. Its VERY exciting -- the kind of music that, frankly, is why Bernard Herrmann was thrown out of Hollywood for awhile until the classicists (Scorsese, DePalma) came in. It showcases each of the three stars -- whoever got the episode that week got the first billing. It can be found on YouTube.

And....in 1968 and '69 and '70...about all I ever watched(or listened to) of The Name of the Game ...was that credit sequence. I had moved on from TV series dramaturgy, for the most part(Columbo aside.) I had moved on to movies. And frankly, other activities on Friday and Saturday nights.

Stray final bits about The Name of the Game. One of the episodes (a Gene Barry one) was about a trip to the future of America -- and Los Angeles -- in 2017. How far in the future that seemed back in 1971. But now its here and gone. AMAZING. And the director was a fellah named Steven Spielberg.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Meanwhile, Tony Franciosa evidently got worse and worse and worse until they had to fire him off the series entirely -- tough to do when he was the main ratings-drawing star. Universal stuck good corporation men like Robert Culp(a frequent Columbo killer) and Robert Wagner(done with It Takes A Thief) into new characters reading Franciosa's lines.

And the series collapsed without him -- Stack and Barry simply didn't have the charisma.

Some take-aways from this older fellah's meanderings :

Tony Franciosa. Another actor I really felt had it in the unsung star charisma department -- put him up there near Richard Boone. But evidently personal demons felled Franciosa as a star. (Still...he got hired to star in more series after Name of the Game; I guess he sobered up AND Hollywood can't leave talented people alone for long.)

Rio Conchos: I've plugged it for Richard Boone. Now I plug it for Tony Franciosa.

The opening credits for "The Name of the Game." Check 'em out on YouTube: this is how TV series once created excitement on a weekly basis(this article says that "The Name of the Game" was intended to be "a Universal movie, each week.")

50 years ago? Seems like yesterday.

PS. In James Garner's autobio, he writes about making a spy comedy called "A Man Could Get Killed" for Universal. (Its the movie from which Sinatra's infamous "Strangers in the Night" comes.) Tony Franciosa was the co-star. According to Garner, Franciosa kept punching stunt guys in the jaw for real; the stunt guys couldn't protest, but Garner warned Franciosa to stop it. Franciosa DIDN'T stop it -- so, wrote Garner, "I had to pop him one."

Ah, the show business we don't see...

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Here I thought I had seen all the classic shows. I'm going to have to watch this now.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Try the credits at least, on YouTube. They are a true "blast from the past."

Evidently now you can watch the show on DVD and there are a few episodes on YouTube, I think.

Its a "who's who" of 60's/70's Universal contract guest stars....

PS. However awful Tony Franciosa was behind the scenes, I sure enjoyed watching him act.