Route 66: The Complete Series (1960 – 1964/Shout! Factory DVD Box set)
Picture: C+
Sound: C+ Extras: C+ Episodes: B
One of
the hit TV shows that put Columbia Pictures on the map and helped them reach
major studio status, Route 66: The
Complete Series (1960 – 1964) finally comes to DVD in total and the show is
initially very impressive with some bold TV for its time and a fan favorite for
a reason. Unfortunately like most TV
shows shot in black and white, it has disappeared from view and was rarely
shown in reruns to the detriment of us all.
Now, Sony has licensed the entire series to Shout!
Factory and it is great to see it again.
The show
has its two leads traveling the country on an extended road trip of it (though
they are not much on the actual title road, but there are plenty of location
shoots just the same, unprecedented at the time for any TV show) driving around
in a nice blue Corvette belonging to Tod Stiles (Martin Milner, later of the
even bigger hit TV show Adam-12,
also on DVD from Shout! Factory and reviewed elsewhere on this site) who
inherited it from his father. He is
joined by best friend Buz Murdoch (George Maharis of Exodus, The Satan Bug
and short-lived series The Most
Dangerous Game), a streetwise guy from New York and they decide to take this
trip for fun.
Not
having much money, they get oddjobs here and there, though this would not work
or be viable as a plot device today with gasoline prices so high, but it worked
for this show. Created by Herbert B.
Leonard (The Naked City) and the
legendary Stirling Silliphant (In The
Heat Of The Night, Village Of The
Damned, The Poseidon Adventure),
the show tackled social issues (and minus anyone chasing them, was a forerunner
of The Fugitive and its many imitators) in ways TV rarely had before. Some of the best episodes are early ones
including Black November (the first
show), The Opponent (Season One,
Episode 28) and To Walk With The Serpent
(Season Two, Episode 14), but there are many more.
Milner
and Maharis have great chemistry and that makes the shows as convincing as it
was great in its time, but another reason to watch the show is for the guest
cast and it is formidable one including Keir Dullea, Everett Sloane, Patty
McCormack, George Kennedy, Whit Bissell, Janice Rule, Murray Matheson, Betty
Field, Ed Asner, Bruce Dern, Lew Ayres, Roger C. Carmel, Michael Conrad,
Barnard Hughes, Alfred Ryder, Suzanne Pleshette, Warren Stevens, John Larch,
Harry Townes, E.G. Marshall, Joey Heatherton, Jay C. Flippen, Charles McGraw,
Donna Douglas, Inger Stevens, Edgar Buchanan, Leslie Nielsen, Lee Marvin,
Harvey Korman, Regis Toomey, Anne Francis, Jack Lord, Barbara Bostock, Jack
Warden, DeForest Kelley, Michael Rennie, Dorothy Malone, Bert Remsen, Penny
Santon, Martha Hyer, Ben Johnson, Sylvia Sidney, Carmen Phillips, George
Macready, Scott Marlowe, Walter Matthau, Beatrice Straight, Royal Dano, Dan
Duryea, Albert Dekker, Harold J. Stone, Gene Evans, Denver Pyle, Thomas
Gomez, Robert Duvall, Lois Nettleton, Al
Lewis, Logan Ramsey, Nehemiah Persoff, Darren McGavin and a rare acting role by
the brilliant cinematographer John A. Alonzo just in the first season!
They were
followed by (without renaming people from the previous list returning as other
characters) legendary blues singer Bessie Smith who received a landmark acting
Emmy Nomination, Claude Akins, Bill Gunn (later director of the indie classic Ganja & Hess, reviewed on Blu-ray
elsewhere on this site), Robert Redford, Martin Balsam, Richard X. Slatterly,
Sylvia Miles, Lon Chaney Jr., Nina Foch, Keenan Wynn, Anita Gillette, Milt
Kamen, James Caan, Martin Sheen, Frank Campenella, Inger Stevens, Pat Hingle,
Dan O’Herlihy, Simon Oakland, Frank Sutton, Joseph Campenella, Albert Salmi,
Slim Pickens, John Ericson, Marion Ross, Noah Berry Jr., Steven Hill, Henry
Beckman, Julie Newmar, David Wayne, K Callan, Peter Graves, Lili Darvas, Akim Tamiroff,
Harvey Lembeck, Elizabeth Seal, Russell Johnson, John Astin, Harold Gould,
Barbara Barrie, Tuesday Weld, Cloris Leachman, Veronica Cartwright, Burt
Reynolds, Arthur Hill, Michael Tolin, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Ralph Meeker,
Henry Jones, Susan Oliver, Herschel Bernardi, Signe Hasso, Joe De Santis,
Michael Pate and Arthur O’Connell for the second season.
The third
season added David Jansen, Joe E. Brown, Buster Keaton, Luther Adler, Jeremy
Slate, Sorrell Booke, Rod Steiger, Penny Fuller, Madlyn Rhue, Joanne Linville,
Ron Howard, Harry Guardino, Jennifer Billingsley, Theodore Bikel, Dan Frazer,
Vera Miles, Frank Overton, Robert Emhardt, Natalie Schafer, Robert Webber,
Barry Sullivan, Vivian Blaine, James Leo Herlihy, Richard Basehart, James
Whitmore, Dick Wilson, L.Q. Jones, Barbara Shelley, Steve Cochran, Ruth Roman,
Alan Hale Jr., Diane Baker, Alejandro Rey, Dick York, Guy Lombardo, Rip Torn,
Gene Hackman, Miriam Hopkins, Richard Mulligan, Chester Morris, Clifton James,
Tom Bosley, Alan Alda, Marco St. John, Bruce Glover and a reunion of Peter
Lorre, Lon Chaney Jr. and Boris Karloff.
The
fourth and final season included Anthony Zerbe, Joan Crawford, Patrick O’Neal,
Arthur Anderson, Alex Cord, Tammy Grimes, William Shatner, Audra Lindley,
Louise Sorel, J. Carrol Naish, Alfred Ryder, Lou Antonio, Michael J, Pollard,
Linda Marsh, Jo Van Fleet, Rosemary Forsyth, Parker Fennelly, Stephanie Powers,
Jessica Walter, Linda Day George, Chad Everett, Jean Stapleton, Joanna Pettet,
Daniel J. Travanti, Diana Van der Vlis, Eugene Roche, Larry Blyden, James
Coburn, Michael Parks, James Farentino, Elizabeth MacRae, Lee Philips, Ruth
McDevitt, Soupy Sales, Roland Winters, Lee Meriwether, Grayson Hall, Will
Mackenzie, Lee Kinsolving, Robert Loggia, Tina Louise, Barbara Eden, Chill
Wills and Scotty Morrow.
With all
those names, including many you may not recognize but would know to see their
faces, you can see this was an early big hit with more than enough talent to
spare. However, the show became so
successful (running 116 hour-long episodes in all on 23 for the 24 DVDs in this
set) that Maharis rightly asked for a raise between the high ratings and some
merchandise tie-ins. Instead, Screen
Gems decided to eventually stop negotiating (whatever the extent of that might
have been) and actually dropped him from the show!
His
successor was a good actor named Glenn Corbett (William Castle’s Homicidal and the original Zefram Cochrane
from the original Star Trek series)
arriving sometime during the third season, but he was less streetwise if at
all, was too similar to Milner and they had much less chemistry. In addition, a show about social justice
suddenly was unconvincing when it’s co-star was dropped instead of giving him a
little more money, so the scripts started to become formulaic melodramas and
audiences felt the falseness leading to declining ratings and
cancellation. Had they kept Maharis,
they would have still made money and runs for several more seasons because when
all is said and done, it feels like the show had much more to offer. Too bad the changes turned out to have such a
bad effect.
Another
problem is as the show started to contract with Corbett on board, it looks like
budgets were lowered and the look of the show becomes visually restrictive to
the point it does not even look like a road show anymore. It looks more like contrived TV where they
shoot everything in a studio, then insert stock footage of a given locale,
though location shooting was still going on.
Despite the talent on hand to the end (including directors like Arthur
Hiller and James Goldstone on hand), the series never recovered. By 1993, the show was so forgotten that a
horrid revival with former MTV personality Dan Cortese lasted only 4 really,
really bad episodes and even being in name only killed a revival as it was dead
on arrival.
However,
we still have the original series and its long overdue arrival in a final set
is better late than never. If you would
like to see some quality TV for a change instead of junk and reality TV, this
set is worth your time; a smart, fun show that also has a mature, serious side
that reminds us that commercial TV production does not have to be idiotic. This is one of the best TV box sets of 2012.
The 1.33
X 1 black and white image from episode to episode looks good for its age, but
this does not have the detail of similar such shows from the same time like the
more studio bound filmed shows like I
Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Twilight Zone or Have Gun – Will Travel and I cannot be
certain whether they shot with Kodak or DuPont film stocks. However, some detail limits seem to come from
the film and not these transfers. The
prints are in nice shape for the most part and we get some nice shots in just
about every episode. The lossy Dolby
Digital 2.0 Mono on each show is a little rougher in the first season than
later ones, but sounds about as good as they are going to get in this
codec. The combination is as good as the
show has ever looked or sounded, save maybe a few film prints of a few shows in
the vault or private collections. The
instrumental theme song by Nelson Riddle (Nat King Cole had a vocal hit with
the classic at the time) is an enduring instrumental favorite as well.
Extras
include an abbreviated version of a 1990 special at The Paley Center on the
show, British Great Cars: Corvette program and a collection of classic TV
commercials for sponsors of the show including Chevrolet (makers of their
Corvette, of course) particularly keen on promoting the now-infamous Corvair
and second reel promoting Bayer Aspirin and Milk Of Magnesia, which includes a My Three Sons tie-in ad with William
Frawley and the child cast of that show.
- Nicholas Sheffo
