Noir Television: “Johnny Staccato—Directed by John Cassavetes” | Brian Light

i'm mark wigley john h mitchell television curator for the archive thank you all for coming i want to begin by acknowledging that as an academic institution ucla library and the staff of the ucla film and television archive understand our responsibility our responsibility to acknowledge the gabriellino tonga peoples as the traditional land caretakers of tovangar consistent with ucla's commitment to equity diversity and inclusion we believe that understanding the historical and current experiences of indigenous people helps inform the work we do and we are humbled to do work in this community thank you for coming tonight for film noir television johnny staccato directed by john cassavetes co-presented by our esteemed partner the film noir foundation with special guest brian light tonight's screening is made possible by the john h mitchell television programming endowment and all of the screenings at the billy wilder all the archive screens at the billy walter theater are free admission thanks to a generous gift from an anonymous donor and we'd also like to thank our dear friends at nbc universal for authorizing the screening so let's give all those people a hand really quick it's a lot of people to think tonight we will screen three episodes of the 1959 60 television series johnny staccardo and these episodes were directed by series star cinema pioneer john cassavetes the archive holds two sets of 16 millimeter prints and this was a show that was produced on 35 but the archive holds two 16 millimeter two sets of 16 millimeter prints of the johnny staccato series one from its original first run on nbc and the second set from its summer rebroadcast on abc and what we are viewing tonight is a digitized mix of the best of those two prints and while you might notice that these original 16 millimeter prints have some image and sound imperfections we are pleased to share these original broadcast elements with you which includes some original commercials from the abc run um and to introduce the episodes we are very fortunate to have brian light with us brian is the showrunner for the noir city hollywood film festival and has contributed program notes for numerous los angeles county county museum of art film series including the naked city newark new york noir and neorealism 2012 a kubrick odyssey and animating the subconscious he is also the author of the essential article accentuate the negative johnny staccato sketch the blues published in film noir foundation's noir city magazine to which brian frequently contributes he's also a avid film poster collector and co-curator of the current film poster exhibition at cal state united university northridge and on your way out you can grab some really lovely illustrated brochures for that exhibition and with that i'll invite brian on the stage to introduce tonight's program [Laughter] welcome first i'd like to thank mark and the ucla film and television archive for inviting me to introduce this evening's program and my colleagues at the film noir foundation for their support as mark mentioned he has selected three of the five episodes directed by cassavetes and i'm looking forward to revisiting these episodes this time on the big screen in the late 1950s richard berg was a highly successful television writer and producer with over a dozen original dramas to his credit on shows such as studio one and playhouse 90. jennings lange the head of production at universal pictures had approached burke to see if he could persuade cassavetes to star in a television series featuring a private detective lang obviously wanted to cash in on the success of peter gunn berg eventually accepted on condition that the protagonist be a jazz pianist to moonlights as a detective and that he produced the series himself he chose the terse musical title for the show staccato lang told berg he didn't care how he developed a private deck as long as he got cassavetes on board at this stage of his career cassavetes had uh re-shot two-thirds of his first film shadows but he had not edited the new footage and though he had already appeared in uh over a dozen tv shows he initially turned down the offer because he felt that the corporate sponsorship behind the show was an affront to his artistic integrity however his wife jenna rowlands uh had not only terminated her mgm contract but she was also three months pregnant and so he uh he realized that this gig would earn him enough money to wipe out his debts and finish his film shadows once on board he used his leading man leverage to actually oust berg and bring in his old friend and casting agent everett chambers to produce the series and run much-needed interference with the network executives the show is set in waldo's a fictional greenwich village nightclub which also served as the de facto office for staccato who routinely checked his gun and coat with the hatchet girl waldow was played by the veteran italian actor eduardo cianelli in addition to the dramatic theme music composed by the great elmer bernstein the cream of west coast jazz musicians such as red norvo barney kessel shelley mann and a young johnny williams soon to become john williams the oscar-winning composer appeared in various episodes the interiors of the show shot on the hollywood soundstage were effectively blended with second unit exteriors shot in new york utilizing many recognizable locations all over manhattan with staccato supplying the voice over uh which pro which provided the show with a gritty naked city realism cassavetes quickly became invested in the show using it as a training ground to refine his acting hone his script writing and burnish his directorial chops the episodes were initially farmed out to studio staff writers like richard carr but actually cassavetes and chambers did extensive rewrites on many of the episodes and early in the series he upended the conventional peter gunn format taking the show into playhouse 90 territory by focusing more on character observation and moral ambiguity elements that he would develop further in his later films the first episode evil stars alexander scorby as a preacher on the grift lloyd carrigan delivers a vivid performance as brother thomas and elisha cook jr is captivating as a skid row rum dumb and revolving door reformer the second episode knight of japanese is a briskly paced with a pulsating score frank dakova is menacing as the counterfeiting kingpin morris bachmann has a field day as a jive talking janitor and frank london who appeared in six episodes is staccato's go-to stoolie the third episode solomon arguably the best episode in the series opens with staccato meeting up with the famed criminal lawyer played by elisha cook jr who is defending his client played by cloris leachman who was accused of murdering her wealthy husband this is an abstract three character set piece constructed like a two-act play with striking expressionistic lighting supplied by cinematographer benjamin klein who also shot the 1945 film noir classic detour and throughout the series the show tackled difficult uh topics such as ptsd suicide heroin addiction homosexuality and black market babies after about a dozen episodes the network attempted to soften the grim tone of the show by adding johnny to the title and re-shooting the opening sequence depicting staccato as a more stereotypical detective which was precisely the image that cassavetti strove to avoid this led to friction which continued to escalate between cassavetes and the sponsors particularly the rj reynolds tobacco company and he he expressed that sponsor interference had approached a new level of artistic agony and uh he felt that if he didn't maintain more creative control over the show that he would make all the parties so unhappy that they would release him from his contract and that's exactly what happened he was released from his contract after completing only 27 of his contracted 39th episodes concluding the show in march of 1960 uh the show was picked up for summer reruns by abc and later that year it became a hit on the bbc uh in a 1971 playboy interview cassavetes reflected on the the abrupt ending for the series and expressing that it wasn't until he started to criticize the pub the sponsors publicly that they let him leave and then he added and i quote i can be a despicable person and uh with that i want to thank you all for coming and i hope you enjoy john cassavetes in staccato [Applause]