Obscurity factor: 7
Yesterdays post about the 1949 film Flamingo Road with Joan Crawford got me thinking about this series which was on for two seasons starting in 1980. It was NBC's answer to Dynasty and Knott's Landing. The pilot movie covers a lot of the ground covered in the feature film, but expands on it and draws conclusions that make it possible to draw the story out into a series. Some of the characters names are changed and some additional characters have been added. It's also brought up to contemporary times. Look for Stella Stevens as Lute May, owner of the town's honky tonk.
Above is part one of the 2 hour pilot film, uploaded to YouTube by DynastieFR2. The series has yet to be released on DVD.
Obscurity factor: 7 (vaguely remembered, not on DVD, available on YouTube)
I remember this fondly, largely because of my teenaged crush on John Beck. He was sooooo sexy. Looking back, it was kinda cool to see Howard Duff, who'd had a long and varied career in film, TV, stage, and radio; he was Sam Spade on the radio in the 40s! And the other showbiz vets like Kevin McCarthy, Barbara Rush, and Stella Stevens made it interesting. I remember the show got really bizarre and random toward the end, but I recall it was flailing in the ratings and didn't know what to do to improve things, and it finally ended unsatisfactorily. Oh well, I'll always have my memories of John Beck...
ReplyDeleteYes, John Beck was hot, in a clone sort of way... Howard Duff didn't have the menace Sidney Greenstreet had in the film. He was much more of a teddy bear.
ReplyDeleteI forgot that Kevin McCarthy had been the star of the original "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"! Wow...
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