Vautrin

Well, poor ol' Buz lost his eyesight yesterday. Somehow he miraculously regained it before the episode ended. Never underestimate the healing power of Route 66.

My cable provider at the time had AMC before TCM came along and for some time afterwards. Bob was indeed a very friendly presence on the channel. He was not as knowledgeable about studio eras films as Osborne, but he did have a genuine enthusiasm for them. I don't recall too many details about his intros and outros after all these years. I do have an old VHS tape of Sudden Fear when it ran on AMC, but I'm not sure exactly where it is.

Yes, even for Hollywood that was pretty bizarre, though there is some disagreement about when their relationship started. I've always liked Gloria and thought she was very sexy, and definitely so in her small role in Odds Against Tomorrow. Upstate bank robbery? No longer interested. I came across an interesting bit of trivia I hadn't known before. Gloria was a sister-in-law to a brother of Bob Mitchum's. It's a small world after all.

Looks like she's already been pinned. Unless cigarjoe is into necrophiliac rasslin' he might be out of luck.

I think it hits the nail on the head, figuratively speaking of course.

I think he came back the first time but the second time he was gone for good. I think his last episode was about midway through the third season. I don't know about Buz. Today he was in a girl's apartment and she told him there were cold beers in the fridge. So he gets one out and doesn't even ask her if she wants one. Maybe some of that Zen stuff is messing up his mind.

I stumbled across a site that gives detailed info on all the locations that appear in the series with then and now photos and other info about the locations. I don't recall the name but if one googles Route 66 (the TV show) it will pop up on page one. As you say, most of the buildings are gone. Janice Rule was in an episode recently where she played a woman who worked for the family boat business near Boston. I think this one is a different episode from the one with Susan Kohner. I've noticed a strange thing about the episodes on FETV. First the title Route 66 is shown, then a bit later the title of the episode. Then they go to a commercial and when the commercial is over they show the title of the episode a second time. I've never seen that on a TV show before.

We know that Gloria was a little kinky, so maybe she was into a bit of s & m. Don't hurt me, daddy. Don't hurt me, daddy. Oh daddy, hurt me, hurt me.

Not to be rude, but would she want to be done?

Right wing nutjobs on parade.

I always thought Gloria was hot, odd or not.

I've never seen the 1950s version of Dragnet, just the unintentionally hilarious late 1960s version, but I'm sure you're right that you get to see a lot of L.A. as it was at that time. Watching Route 66 makes you realize how much the country has changed in the past 60 years.

Speaking of Route 66 and the JFK assassination, one of today's episodes took place in Dallas and Tod and Buz work at the Trade Mart and Love Field is shown at the start. Buz is kidnapped by a religious nut who intends to kill him. A little spooky.

I guess being the only color episode in the series it seems out of place, but I did like the look of the color, though the episode itself is nothing special. It was a bit like a Dragnet plot, only missing Friday's closing straighten up and fly right lecture.

Yes it was one from season 9. I've read that it was done as a test to see how the show would look in color in anticipation of a tenth season. I thought it looked pretty good. Tonight's first season episode has one sexy blonde and one sexy brunette, though the sexy blonde is several inches taller than the sexy brunette. (Hold it, another sexy blonde babe just showed up). As a bonus Aunt Bee (Frances Bavier) is also in it. She plays an aunt of the sexy brunette and an old friend of Perry's. One of those old TV friends that we've never seen before and will never see again.

I missed the original run of Route 66. It was either on too late or I was playing outside, so it was refreshing to watch a show whose episodes I haven't seen half a dozen times. I think the writers and producers were trying to go a bit to the idea of socially significant themes in many of the episodes. I think back in the early sixities the plots seemed original and fresh but now they look kind of cliched and obvious. Buz especially seems to beat the crap out of somebody in most episodes while Tod is a bit more restrained. And Buz was more of a rebel type while Tod is more of a white bread college boy guy. It's funny how two guys traveling around in a car happen to meet so many nuts and weirdos and get into so many dangerous situations every week. Must be a TV show. Despite all that I still find it entertaining, probably as much for how parts of the country looked and the mores of the early 1960s than for the plots themselves.

I think Fetv showed Perry Mason four times a day, two episodes in the afternoon and two in the evening. Now they're down to just two a day. And of course loads of commercials, as if the plots weren't already confusing enough. They showed the one color episode that was a test to see how it looked if there was going to be a tenth season in color. Looked pretty good and Paul's hair was as white as snow. Fetv, and then there's Maude.

It's a channel that shows old TV shows (with lots of commercials or course). As far as I know it's the only channel like that on DirecTV except for TVLand. Perry Mason. Mary Tyler Moore Show, Roy Rogers, Sgt. Preston, etc. They just started showing Route 66 at the beginning of June. Fe stand for Family Entertainment.

Fetv just showed the last episode of PM last week and has started over at the first season. There sure are a lot of sexy blondes in these episodes. No wonder Drake sometimes looks so out of it. Paul Drake made Burger look like a sick horse.

I didn't want to use up space quoting the whole post, but it does show that her album sales are slowly shrinking. However important or unimportant that is I leave to others. I can't blame Madonna for being a little upset with Lady Gaga. Gaga took Madonna's early 'look at all the outrageous things I'm doing' shtick and just copied it. Of course she had to be even more outrageous or it wouldn't work. Now she's going mainstream and doesn't have to resort to that as had did in the past. I'm sure she'll come up with something a little outre every once in a while to keep interest up.

Nothing wrong with selling a million albums, but ten or fifteen years ago that would have been a disappointment for her, when she was moving 5 or 10 million worldwide. And no matter how many or few she sells they usually go to number one regardless. I remember reading an article a long time ago on Clive Davis about Bob Dylan. Davis said that all the Dylan fanatics would go out and buy his latest album as soon as it came out so it would go to or near the top of the charts, but after that initial pop sales would fall off. Maybe something similar happens to Madonna's recent records. This really isn't specific to her. It happens to most performers who have been around for a relatively long time. And her sales over 35 years are certainly impressive, but they are slowing up.

My, what a big, gaping, teeth less mouth you have. And then ol' Gigi lets it rip. Once the wife was killed, there was no need for Helmore anymore, though he might have been involved in some type of blackmail plot. But I figured his character was the type just to move on to the next dame.

LOL. I hadn't noticed Barbara Billingsley until the final credits! I couldn't stand the Gigi character so I was rooting for Ann to succeed, the first time I saw it. Definitely not a classic, but worth seeing once. Unless I missed something on a brief snack run, she was only in one scene for maybe a minute, so I'm not surprised she would be missed. I don't know, I didn't think the kid was more annoying than the average movie kid. And she sure could scream. That "water bed" that she was trussed in, apparently for the whole night, didn't look too comfortable. I think Ann could have used the 'the gun just went off' defense. She had it in her pocket and could have claimed she just didn't realize what was going to happen. I forgot to mention one of my favorite Hitchcock villains, Tom Helmore, who played the cad, though not a murderous one as he did in Vertigo. I would put SOTW in C+/B- territory.

From a strictly green eye shade, bottom line perspective, Madonna's career follows a pattern of many other long time performers. Looking at album sales alone, they start out either with a few early albums that don't sell all that well and they have a big breakthrough or they are big from the start, like Madonna. Then they reach a peak and gradually sell fewer albums. Madonna's recent albums have been gold where ten or fifteen years ago they were multi- platinum. That's showbiz.

I got two intros too, wherein we learn that l'il Gigi had already appeared in 150 movies before this one or something like that. Not worried about the outro, that's what Wiki's for. I was just happy they showed a movie I had never seen before. As the movie went on I was wondering if Gigi could have seen anything in the time frame of the murder, sort of like the nurse not hearing CFK say rosebud because she came in after he said it. I'll have to pay attention to that if SOTW shows up again. And I was glad we didn't have to spend the last hour of the movie watching mommy endlessly interviewing Gigi about what happened that night. Ann Sothern did the same thing so many dumb criminals do in movies. Instead of staying away she goes about sticking her nose in and trying all kinds of schemes that will only incriminate her further. And even for Hollywood the sudden ending was pretty contrived. Ann just happens to turn on the outdoor light illuminating that huge wall so the kiddie will suddenly grok onto what happened. Whatever. And I'm happy that the maid quit domestic service and married Ward Cleaver. All in all a fairly entertaining flick with some good moments and scenes that hang together well, though far short of a classic.