Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146449 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-11-23
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 30 minutes

Customer Reviews

A Glimpse of the Still Funny Past
Dennis O'Keefe was one of my favorite actors when I was a kid, so seeing this made me immediately buy it. O'Keefe was a man's man who could do classic noir like T-Men and Raw Deal, horror like The Leopard Man, and then be very funny in farces like Getting Gertie's Garter, Up in Mabel's Room, and Brewster's Millions (the 1945 version). In this show he's not the goofy young husband or irresponsible heir, but a widower with a 10- or 11-year-old son. For 1959, the show is both advanced, in dividing plots pretty evenly between home and workplace, and dated, since the situations available to comedy writers 45 years ago have been used a lot since then. O'Keefe plays Hal Towne, a New York columnist somewhat patterned after Walter Winchell or Earl Wilson - today it would be Liz Smith. There are 4 episodes on the disc, and they're all good with strong laughs in each one. I liked best the one where Hal tries to help a struggling actress by giving her mentions in his column, but neglects to tell her that he has decided to change her name from Gretchen Clayhipple. However, the episode with the elderly counterfeiters in Hal's apartment building runs a close second. The DVD shows Hope Emerson with O'Keefe, but the supporting cast also includes Eddie Ryder and Eloise Hardt, all three memorable from the shows of those days.