Elisabeth Grace Foley

Historical Fiction Author

Favorite TV Episode Blogathon: The Virginian, “Siege”

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When I heard about the Favorite TV Episode Blogathon being hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts, an event focusing on single episodes of classic television, it sounded to me like the perfect opportunity to write about an episode of my favorite TV Western, The Virginian, something I’d occasionally thought about doing before. The choice of episode was an easy one: an entry from the show’s second season, “Siege.”

“Siege” features a device often used by Western series when they wanted a change of scenery: sending one of the regular characters off on a journey, where adventure will most certainly befall. In this case it’s Trampas (Doug McClure), who, after striking it rich in an all-night poker game, decides to go back to the little town of Logan, New Mexico, where he spent some time several years before, to pay off the debts he left behind and visit some old friends. He’s particularly looking forward to seeing Carole (Elinor Donahue), a girl he once courted before her disapproving brother, banker Duke Logan (Philip Carey) ran him out of town—but finds that Carole is now happily married to the new town marshal, Brett Cole (Ron Hayes).

Now with no reason to stay longer, Trampas heads out of town to visit some former employers before going back to Medicine Bow—but his trip takes a darker turn when he finds the elderly couple have been robbed and murdered by marauding Comancheros. Tracking down and capturing the killers, he brings them back to Logan, where the authorities seem strangely reluctant to imprison or try the men.

The situation as explained by Duke, along with Trampas’ friend Charlie Sanchez, the amiable Mexican hotelkeeper (Nestor Paiva) is that the Comancheros essentially run a protection racket in Logan—they are allowed the run of the town so long as they mostly behave themselves, and the townspeople can’t lift a hand against them under threat of what the Comancheros would do if they did. Since the murders took place outside the town limits, the only way the killers can be tried is if Trampas stays to press charges. Comanchero leader Lopez (Joseph Campanella) wants his men released or else, and Duke, determined to pacify Lopez, puts all the pressure he can on Trampas to drop the charges and leave—persuading his sister Carole, whom he has convinced to share his views, to use her influence with Trampas to the same effect. But meanwhile, Trampas’ determination to see justice done is having its effect on Brett, who has slowly awakened to a sense of his duty as town marshal and is now also determined to back Trampas, much to his brother-in-law’s anger and his wife’s dismay.

Much as I like the usual episodes of The Virginian set around Medicine Bow and Shiloh Ranch, “Siege” is a favorite because of its engrossing plot—which, as it gradually builds to its suspenseful climax, becomes a clever variation on the High Noon-style stand for justice—and its overall high quality. The guest cast is excellent, and the script by Don Mullally is perhaps the best thing about it, filled with practical and moral conflicts for multiple characters and keen, layered dialogue that fits together like pieces of a puzzle. “Siege” has an almost cinematic feel; a self-contained story running an hour and a quarter (the running time of the show was 90 minutes with commercials, the first Western TV series of that length), it’s very like a compact Western movie. Whether as a standout entry in a good series, or a stand-alone Western for fans of the genre, it’s definitely worth watching.

O. Henry’s Full House (1952)

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I’ve wanted to see this movie for several years, and the other night I finally settled down and watched it. I went into it with only moderate expectations—literary adaptations, you know—but I was pleasantly surprised; I really loved it! It is actually five separate short films, each based on one of O. Henry’s most famous stories, linked together by segments with John Steinbeck narrating some background on O. Henry’s life and writing. For me, as someone who has read the Complete Works cover to cover and never tires of recommending them, watching the camera pan over the familiar titles of the collections on the spines of beautiful leather-bound copies and listening to Steinbeck talk about the stories I’ve loved so much was lovely in itself. (For the curious, the little introductory scene, in which O. Henry—his face never seen in the shadows of a prison cell—overhears a remark by another prisoner and writes it down, was actually drawn from his story “What You Want.”) The individual adaptations are very well done, considering that so much of what is couched in crisp, humorous narration on the page has to be conveyed visually and through dialogue. The settings of the stories are opened up and moved around a bit, but the spirit of the original is maintained.
The set begins with “The Cop and the Anthem,” in which park-bench bum Soapy (Charles Laughton), determined to spend the cold winter months comfortably in jail, repeatedly and unsuccessfully tries to get himself arrested, with comic results. The script gives him a sort of sidekick in another tramp (David Wayne) who tags after him, in order that Soapy may explain his schemes for the benefit of the audience; and his personality is that of a decayed gentleman with a florid vocabulary incongruous beside his ragged appearance, providing the opportunity to work a lot of that narrative humor into the dialogue. Very well done, and Laughton’s performance, particularly in the climactic scene, is spot-on.

In “The Clarion Call,” police detective Barney Woods (Dale Robertson) recognizes that a recent murder and robbery was committed by a former friend of his, Johnny Kernan (Richard Widmark)—but since he owes Kernan a long-standing debt of a thousand dollars, he can’t bring himself to arrest him until matters are squared between them. This one is well-scripted too, and I liked Robertson as the detective, but Widmark noisily overplays the eccentricity and nastiness of his character, coming close to spoiling the effect. The moments where he is more restrained allow you to pay more attention to the story.

“The Last Leaf,” in my opinion, is the pièce de résistance of the film. The story of a despairing young girl ill with pneumonia (Anne Baxter), who becomes convinced that when the last leaves fall from the nearly-bare vine outside her window, she will die too, is one of O. Henry’s most emotional on the page, and the film version does it wonderful justice. The script gives it extra depth, I think, by making the two girls sisters and giving Joanna (Baxter) a failed romance as part of the reason for her despair. The performances by all three key characters, including elder sister Sue (Jean Peters) and the girls’ upstairs neighbor, irascible old painter Behrmann (Gregory Ratoff), are excellent, and the final scene is just as beautiful as in the story. Bring along a handkerchief for this one.

“The Ransom of Red Chief,” is, unfortunately, the weakest of the bunch, though based on one of O. Henry’s most famous tales, in which two hapless con-men  (Fred Allen and Oscar Levant) kidnap a small boy and wind up driven to their wits’ end by his antics. The dialogue is clever enough, but the pacing is very flat—it doesn’t have the same snappy hilarity as the story, with the two men reduced to exhaustion by the end. I think part of the problem is that both Allen and Levant play it with a kind of deadpan humor; I liked Allen’s performance, but thought it would have been better if he’d had a more goofy or excitable partner-in-crime to play off. Lee Aaker is just right as “Red Chief,” but his part seemed small compared to the story. (I understand that this segment was actually dropped for the first theatrical release; I can understand why.)

And finally we have “The Gift of the Magi.” You all know this one. The famed Christmas story of a young couple (Jeanne Crain and Farley Granger) trying to find a way to buy Christmas presents for each other, in spite of having very little money, is given a very sweet and faithful adaptation—again, using the dialogue and a scene with the couple looking in shop windows to expand the background of the characters. You might want to save a corner of your handkerchief from “The Last Leaf”—it’s a lovely way to end the film.

One of the things I loved best about O. Henry’s Full House is the period-correct atmosphere: the Edwardian-era clothing and hairstyles are excellent, much better than one usually sees in a film like this; the setting of old New York City with its brownstones and shop-window displays and the rattling and roaring of the elevated trains is brought to life wonderfully. Besides the original music by Alfred Newman, the score is filled with old popular songs, hymns and Christmas carols, adding to the old-fashioned feel (you can hear “After the Ball” playing in the background of the short scene with Marilyn Monroe in “The Cop and the Anthem”). It’d make a great holiday-season film, I think, considering that three of the five stories have a wintry setting and the final one winds up at Christmas!

Of course you know I’m going to finish by recommending the original stories. Viewers who already love O. Henry will probably enjoy this film most, but I think even those not yet acquainted with him will probably like it too. It’s available on DVD and on Amazon Instant Video.

Fairytale Blogathon: First Love (1939)

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A few months ago, while preparing for the launch of my own little fairytale retelling, I stumbled across the news of an upcoming movie blogathon on fairytales in film. It seemed like a wonderful opportunity to revisit and spruce up my review of one of my favorite movies, which also happens to be a Cinderella retelling, 1939’s First Love. So here it is, as my entry for the Fairytale Blogathon hosted by Movies, Silently.

As the film opens, orphaned Connie Harding (Deanna Durbin) has finished boarding school and is sent to live with her wealthy relatives, the Clintons, in New York City. She quickly falls into the position of a typical poor relation—often overlooked, fetching and carrying, and generally living in the shadow of her pretty but spoiled cousin Barbara (Helen Parrish), society belle and the darling of magazine photographers. Her scatterbrained, astrology-obsessed aunt (Leatrice Joy) and supremely lazy cousin Walter (Lewis Howard) aren’t much help either. Uncle Jim (Eugene Pallette), a man of few words, is only visible ducking between his workplace and his study when the coast is clear, seemingly making it his object in life to spend as little time in his family’s company as possible—and it’s hard to blame him. But Connie quickly endears herself to the household staff (Charles Coleman, Mary Treen and Lucille Ward), who become her firm friends and allies.

Prince Charming enters the picture in the form of Ted Drake (Robert Stack, in his film debut), an eligible young man whose attention Barbara is bent on monopolizing. After an awkwardly comic first meeting on the grounds of a country club while employed as her scheming cousin’s go-between, Connie is smitten too, and sets her heart on attending a ball hosted by Ted’s parents. Barbara, by no means welcoming competition, does everything possible to prevent her from getting there, but Connie’s friends the servants pitch in to see that she has a suitable dress, and conspire with the cook’s policeman brother (Frank Jenks) to keep the rest of her relatives from getting to the ball before midnight so she’ll have a little time to enjoy herself. (One of my favorite lines in the film comes here from Coleman, the perennial movie butler: “You will have an escort of six white bikes, miss!”) Though the ball proves to be a dream come true, the stroke of midnight of course heralds disaster…and it’s up to Connie’s old schoolteacher and friend, the grim-faced Miss Wiggins (Kathleen Howard) to play fairy godmother and try to mend the situation with the help of a silver slipper.

First Love seems to be a relatively obscure movie today, even among classic film fans. At the time of its release it was a big affair, for Deanna Durbin was Universal’s wildly popular singing star, and a flutter of publicity whirled around the movie because it contained her first screen kiss. Perhaps the rather generic and unimpressive title has something to do with its slipping from view—one source says it was originally supposed to be called Cinderella 1939, which would at least have been a bit more descriptive of the story! But it’s such a clever, charming adaptation of the Cinderella story, I still wonder that it’s not better known. The script is sprightly and humorous, filled with amusing scenes—the frustrated Clintons delayed by the laid-back policeman on their way to the ball; Barbara and her so-called friend (June Storey) sweetly trading barbs about each other’s clothes and dispositions; and the hilarious climactic scene where Pallette’s Uncle Jim finally blows his top and lets his family have it.

The whole cast is good, but I was particularly impressed by Helen Parrish as the spoiled Barbara—I’d seen her before playing such sweet, naïve characters, her performance here seemed that much better! She played the “mean girl” to Deanna Durbin’s heroine in a couple of films, but off-screen they were good friends; Parrish was a bridesmaid at Durbin’s first wedding. They eventually got to play sisters in Three Smart Girls Grow Up, the sequel to Deanna Durbin’s first film.

Though the setting is contemporary 1930s all the way, there are a couple little touches that remind us of the fairytale background. A moment where Connie’s reflection in the mirror unexpectedly answers her back might be magic…and then it might just be her imagination. And a lovely special-effects moment comes when Connie and Ted are dancing at the ball, as the other dancers momentarily fade away to leave them waltzing alone to the dreamy strains of a melody from Johann Strauss’ “Roses From the South,” one of my very favorite waltzes. As in any Durbin film, there’s some wonderful music—a spirited rendition of “Amapola,” a medley of Strauss waltzes for the ball scene, and finally, Puccini’s “Un bel di” (sung in English), in a wonderfully out-of-context performance that suits its new usage beautifully.


First Love is available as an individual DVD which seems to be currently out of print, and also as part of a Deanna Durbin box set DVD with five other movies. You can click here to see more film stills and behind-the-scenes clippings and trivia at the Deanna Durbin Devotees fansite (all pictures in this post courtesy of the same page).