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In a rather ailing mood Friday night, I sat around at
home-which can be a very dangerous thing to do if you're not
ued to such a traumatic experience. So, grabbing the TV Guide
and curling up with an appropriate beverage for the occasion, I
flicked on the television set.
By some quirk of fate, it just happened to be 7:30 p.m., and
by the same quirk, the television dial had been left on an NBC
station. So, when the picture cleared I found myself looking at an
animated figure of a snake growing heads right and left. Now, I
don't know if this is a reflection of my personality or what, but
tor some reason this captured my fancy.
OPENING the TV Guide I saw that the program was an NBC
World Premiere Movie called "Ellery Queen: Don't Look Behind
You," a pilot for a possible Ellery Queen series next fall. As you
can guess, the show was a mystery-thriller.
The animated snake, it seems, only took the screen after its
human counterpart in the show-called Hydra-had committed a
murder. Each hea thus signified a murder.
Some quick background on the show finds English mystery
writer, criminologist, and amateur sleuth Ellery Queen (Peter
Lawford) in New York City. There, by hook and by crook, he is
convinced he should help his aged American uncle (Harry
Morgan), an Inspector for NYPD, find the Hydra, who has
strangled five people to date (males with blue cords, females with
pink). After Ellery enters the case, the murderer wipes out two
more people.
TO MAKE a long story short, after much clever deduction and
a certain amount of good luck, the Hydra is captured and found
to be the mentally mixed-up wife of a
gynecologist-turned-psychiatrist. The victims were all ex-babies
her husband had delivered. .
Sounds exciting doesn't it?-Well, the strange thing is, it was
exciting. True, there were some bad parts, but overall the show
was well handled.
E G Marshal as the gynecologist-turned-psychiatnst and
Lawford and Morgan were all good. Minor characters Sergeant
Velie (Bill Zuckert) and a TV interviewer (Bob Hastings) also
turned in pleasing performances.
I DONT MEAN to sound like a male chauvinist, but it was the
female characterizations that were disappointing. Stefanie Powers
as the romantic lead for Lawford was really poor. She just can t
seem to shake the stigma of The Girl from U.N.C.L.t. of a
(blessed) many seasons ago.
Coleen Gray, as the Hydra, is not given much exposure in
which to develop a character until the end of the show. As a
result she seems to be made of cardboard.
THE REAL winners in the show are the script writers and the
camera men The script writers wrote one of the best
mystery-suspense-detective scripts to appear on television in a
long time. However, this may be partly explained because the
script was adapted from a 1949 Ellery Queen noval "Cat of Many
Tails." The camera men were responsible for some extremely fine
location photography of New York City.
Lawford did come off with some "cuteish" dialogue, but if the
script writers watch this and keep the intricate, detailed plot and
the excellent location photography working for the show, there is
every reason to believe Ellery Queen could be an exciting show to
watch next fall.
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"King of Rock and Roll". . .Chuck Berry turns the audience on in a Fillmore
style concert Friday night at Pershing Municipal Auditorium.
Oates-Hollywood's new antihero
by Martin Kasindorf
Newsweek Feature Service
In the unromantic, antihero
movies of the past decade,
character, roles have proved to
be the surest ticket to stardom.
The process has produced Lee
Marvin, George Kennedy, Jack
Nicholson and now Warren
Oates.
Warren Oates? The face is
familiar, as well it ought to be
after some 14 years under a
Stetson on television and
movje screens. And the name
he was christened with back in
Kentucky 42 years ago soom
will be familiar, too. His
brilliant performance as a
wandering motorist in
Two-Lane Blacktop and his
memorable role as Peter
Fonda's sidekick in Hired Hand
have assured that.
"The character man has the
conflicts which carry the
significant part of the drama,"
Oates explains, "so the man
who plays it well is going to
move on." But the moving,
until this year, was slow.
"I started playing the fourth
heavy back on the horse-the
nutty son who was quiet and
brooding and would suddenly
explode," Oates says of his
roles in the Have Gun, Will
Travel and Stoney Burke TV
series. "Ot course, if you got
the chance to explode and had
good motivations, you had a
shot at being the third heavy.
BREAKFAST
79
-k Eggs
Bacon or Sausage
Buttermilk pancakes or toast
7-1 1 a.m.
Every Monday thru Friday
Thelirternational
House of Pancake
We'll be closed on Thanksgiving
15th K 'Q' Streets
Q3s
And if you did that well you
got to be the second heavy."
Oates brought to the parts
an impassive frontiersman kind
of face (a long jaw, horsy
teeth, sun-crinkled eyes)-and a
Kentucky twang they even
marvel at in Louisville. He also
brought years of dedication to
his craft that earned him a
reputation as an actor's actor
and, eventually, $150,000 a
year.
They didn't bring him fame,
though, or any of the roles he
really wanted. "I was always
cast as a hillbilly or a rowdy
cowboy," Oates says of those
years. "Most sophisticated
producers and directors are not
interested in that idiom. They
don't notice anybody in that
kind of work. It's beneath
'em."
Two-Lane Blacktop has
changed all of that and
directors are talking about
Oates as a new Humphrey
Bogart. In the movie, he drives
an orange sports car across the
country, picking up hitchhikers
and creating a new fantasy
character for himself to fit his
jstimatc of what each rider
vants to hear.
Reviewers have called it the
performance of his career, and
some have suggested the
character of GTO is not unlike
Oates himself.
For Oates's happiest hours
are spent driving around the
Southwest in a camper built on
a Chevy truck frame with a
254-horsepower engine.
There's beer in an ice chest, a
horned cow's skull on the
dashboard and Bach playing on
cassettes. Vickery, his blonde
second wife of a few years, and
his children (Jennifer, 10, and
Tammy, 7) usually are along.
But GTO, Oates, insits, is an
immoral character, while his
own strong personal morality is
"still influenced by the
Southern Baptism of my
boyhood."
Oates was born in Depoy,
Ky., a coal-field town, and
spent his adolescence in
Louisville. From high school,
he drifted into the Marines and
after his discharge entered the
University of Louisville. There,
he got involved in student
drama, playing (what else?) a
hillbilly moonshiner.
"Acting," he recalls, "gave
me some identity." He left
college in 1954, sold his car
and went to New York to take
acting lessons. To support
himself, he got a job as a
coat-checker at the "21"
restaurant and eventually he
started getting small roles on
TV.
When TV production
shifted to Hollywood in 1957,
Oates headed west. Within
three weeks he had a job-the
fourth heavy on
horseback-and he has been
working steadily ever since.
Oates' transition from
fourth to first heavy came
when his TV work caught the
eye of Sam Peckinpah who
signed him for his acclaimed
Ride the High Country, Major
Dundee and The Wild Bunch.
These films, in turn,
attracted the attention of
Hollywood's talented
shoestring producer-directors
and he kept up a feverish
schedule putting the Oates in
oatcrs.
"Three years ago," he notes.
"I did five films back to back."
He got into brawls on location
"which started at precisely
9:30 on Saturday night." He
had a big house with a
swimming pool-and a broken
marriage. "It took me about
nine months," he says, "to
figure out that was nowhere."
Then cam Two-Lane
Blacktop and Hired Hand and,
best of all, Peter Fonda's
recent offer to let him direct a
picture to be called The Land
of the Prickly Pear.
"I'm not satisfied with just
acting now," Oates said
recently at the tiny (smaller
than the swimming pool) pool
house in Laurel Canyon he
shares with Vickery. "I want to
direct. I want to construct
films that cover lengths of
time, that would make you
understand a period of history
as you understand a man's
life."
Success is still a matter of
wonderment. "Vickery and I,"
he smiles, "we talk about all
this, and the thing I keep
saying is, 'Woohh!' "
Now Posters
Marvelous
New
Display
at the
NEBRASKA
BOOKSTORE
1135
'R'ST.
PAGE 6
THE DAILY UEBRASKAN
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1971