THE ROARING 20's – Big Town Blues – 1961
Back in the days where THE UNTOUCHABLES ruled the air waves, there was another series that dealt with the same era, THE ROARING 20's. This series was set in New York and was headlined by Dorothy Provine, as a night –club singer and Donald May as a brash young reporter. The two were always getting involved with various gangsters etc. The series ran for 45 episodes between 1960 and 1962.
This one opens with a car full of musicians tearing down a country road outside Chicago. They are on their way to the next gig. Another car is stopped on the road up ahead. Standing beside said automobile, are several grim looking men with Thompson sub-machine guns. When the musician's car comes up, the men with the Thompsons open up. They riddle the car with rounds till it crashes and bursts into flames.
Six months later, Dorothy Provine, the main act at a swanky New York Club, is approached by Shirley Knight. Knight and Provine are friends from their days in the chorus line years before. Knight is working in a roadhouse outside of New York. She tells Provine, that working at the roadhouse is the best trumpet player Knight has ever heard. Knight would like Provine and her newspaper columnist friend, Donald May, to come hear the man. Maybe May could write a bit in his paper etc.
The following week, Provine and May do pay the club a call. They listen to Peter Breck blow a mean horn. Reporter May says there is something familiar about Breck, but he can't quite place it. He does a bit for his paper and gives Breck a glowing review and compares his playing to a great horn man who had died in a car wreck six months before.
Breck soon calls on the reporter and says the publicity was the last thing he wanted. It seems he is the horn player who everyone believes is dead. Breck had been in the car the gangland types had machine gunned outside Chicago. A mobster, Robert Carricart, has taken a shine to Breck's wife, Karen Steele. Carricart likes an open playing field and ordered a hit on Breck. Breck had however survived the hit. He has been earning a living playing out of the way clubs etc under a false name. He is sure that the newspaper article will bring Carriart's torpedoes a calling.
May tries to make amends by getting Breck a job in a small, out of the public eye, Harlem nightclub. The move is too late and Carricart and his boys come a calling. Throwing a monkey wrench in Carricart'a plans is Miss Steele. She has decided that being a gangster's moll is not all it was cracked up to be. She wants Breck back now that he is alive and still kicking.
When Carricart goes gunning for Breck, Steele steps up and takes the bullets intended for her husband. The Police show and Carricart and his gunsels are soon suffering from a low blood count. Breck can now return to his life. (sans the now dead Steele)
Also in the cast are, Gary Vinson, Meade "Lux" Lewis and Gregory Gay. The episode was directed by television veteran, Robert Sparr. The d of p was Ray Fernstrom.
I had not seen this series since I was a kid, and had completely forgotten about it. I do recall my mother preferred it over my father's choice, THE UNTOUCHABLES. It really deserves a DVD release.
I love the Dorothy Provine character's name, Pinky Pinkham. She is quite good at playing the singer, flapper bit. Most will recall her from her role in, IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. She played Milton Berle's wife.
Back in the days where THE UNTOUCHABLES ruled the air waves, there was another series that dealt with the same era, THE ROARING 20's. This series was set in New York and was headlined by Dorothy Provine, as a night –club singer and Donald May as a brash young reporter. The two were always getting involved with various gangsters etc. The series ran for 45 episodes between 1960 and 1962.
This one opens with a car full of musicians tearing down a country road outside Chicago. They are on their way to the next gig. Another car is stopped on the road up ahead. Standing beside said automobile, are several grim looking men with Thompson sub-machine guns. When the musician's car comes up, the men with the Thompsons open up. They riddle the car with rounds till it crashes and bursts into flames.
Six months later, Dorothy Provine, the main act at a swanky New York Club, is approached by Shirley Knight. Knight and Provine are friends from their days in the chorus line years before. Knight is working in a roadhouse outside of New York. She tells Provine, that working at the roadhouse is the best trumpet player Knight has ever heard. Knight would like Provine and her newspaper columnist friend, Donald May, to come hear the man. Maybe May could write a bit in his paper etc.
The following week, Provine and May do pay the club a call. They listen to Peter Breck blow a mean horn. Reporter May says there is something familiar about Breck, but he can't quite place it. He does a bit for his paper and gives Breck a glowing review and compares his playing to a great horn man who had died in a car wreck six months before.
Breck soon calls on the reporter and says the publicity was the last thing he wanted. It seems he is the horn player who everyone believes is dead. Breck had been in the car the gangland types had machine gunned outside Chicago. A mobster, Robert Carricart, has taken a shine to Breck's wife, Karen Steele. Carricart likes an open playing field and ordered a hit on Breck. Breck had however survived the hit. He has been earning a living playing out of the way clubs etc under a false name. He is sure that the newspaper article will bring Carriart's torpedoes a calling.
May tries to make amends by getting Breck a job in a small, out of the public eye, Harlem nightclub. The move is too late and Carricart and his boys come a calling. Throwing a monkey wrench in Carricart'a plans is Miss Steele. She has decided that being a gangster's moll is not all it was cracked up to be. She wants Breck back now that he is alive and still kicking.
When Carricart goes gunning for Breck, Steele steps up and takes the bullets intended for her husband. The Police show and Carricart and his gunsels are soon suffering from a low blood count. Breck can now return to his life. (sans the now dead Steele)
Also in the cast are, Gary Vinson, Meade "Lux" Lewis and Gregory Gay. The episode was directed by television veteran, Robert Sparr. The d of p was Ray Fernstrom.
I had not seen this series since I was a kid, and had completely forgotten about it. I do recall my mother preferred it over my father's choice, THE UNTOUCHABLES. It really deserves a DVD release.
I love the Dorothy Provine character's name, Pinky Pinkham. She is quite good at playing the singer, flapper bit. Most will recall her from her role in, IT'S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD. She played Milton Berle's wife.