Bart Maverick Gets My Vote! :)

Hello!

Since today is Election Day in the U.S., a look at Jack Kelly's Maverick episode "The People's Friend" is in order. Below are some vintage newspaper ads which publicized the episode when it originally aired in 1960. Enjoy! :) 



"FAVORITE SON? MAVERICK - Pappy's boy Bart gets nominated for state senator--as a reform candidate. Poker, romance and other pleasures appear taboo--but trouble's a running mate on the ticket!"

 

"Give up poker for politics? It seems next to impossible, but see the reformed Bart Maverick in a campaign story rich in comedy and cutthroats."

 

 

 

BONUS IMAGE:

 

JK and Merry Anders in "The People's Friend", courtesy of the Internet Movie Database:

 



Three Days of "Night" Pt. III

And finally, the U.S. pressbook for The Night Holds Terror:

It contains 16 oversized pages of newspaper ads, blurbs and suggested publicity campaigns for the film.

The campaigns--like the ads--play upon the audience's fear of being victimized by juvenile delinquents and other criminals. The intro page states:

"'NIGHT' HOLDS SHOWMANSHIP--Title and theme of The Night Holds Terror make the film an exploitation 'natural' in this time of increasing headline concern with juvenile delinquency and crime. The Night Holds Terror can hit your town like a ton of shocks, if you pave the way through showmanship aimed at newspapers, radio/TV, public officials...and every citizen for whom The Night Holds Terror today!"

Some of the suggested campaigns include: creating safety posters which incorporate the film's title into slogans including "Beware! The Night Holds Terror!" and "Don't Stop for Hitch-Hikers--The Night Holds Terror!"; persuading local merchants to offer crime deterrents such as locks, police whistles, alarms, door chains, window bars, etc., and then having them advertise, "The Night Holds Terror, But Not For Our Customers!"; and holding an essay contest seeking the best answer to the question "If a Stranger Walked Into Your House With a Loaded Gun, What Would You Do?" (Run!)

Theatre owners were also advised to make the "pointing gun-hand" artwork (as shown on the pressbook cover above) the focal point of their lobby displays for The Night Holds Terror. "When blown-up and cut-out", the artwork is "a shocker for your inner theatre lobby", the pressbook explains. The image could also be printed on cards placed on the sidewalk to direct patrons into the theatre and be used to cover door panels, overhead boards and stair risers in the lobby.

Then, there are the spine-tingling newspaper ads:

 

 

 

And the provocative posters:

(Moviegoers were probably "Terror"-fied before they even saw the picture!)

The pressbook also contains some blurbs about the actors, including a nice write-up about Jack Kelly:

 

Well, that wraps up our look at pressbooks for The Night Holds Terror. Please stay tuned for much more about JK in TDS! :)

Three Days of "Night" Pt. II :)

Happy Monday!

Presenting an Italian pressbook for The Night Holds Terror:

I've actually had it for a little while and have shared the cover in TDS before. Here's the first inside page with a synopsis titled "Una notte senza fine" ("An endless night"):

 

The next page displays stills from the film (the text at the top translates as "Hours of uncertainty and a sudden decision"):

 



Please stay tuned for one more pressbook from The Night Holds Terror.

Three Days of "Night" :)

Hello!

Three different pressbooks for The Night Holds Terror recently joined the Kellection and I'm here to share them with you in TDS.

First up: a French-language pressbook which screams the film's title (Nuit De Terreur) on its vivid yellow and white cover. Jack Kelly and his co-star Vince Edwards are pictured in a spooky illustration:

 

The next two images show the inside of the pressbook:

 

 

Finally, here's the back cover, which shows examples of posters and hair-raising phrases to use when publicizing the film such as "Vous aussi vous pourriez vivre cette...Nuit de Terreur!" ("You, too, could live this...Night of Terror!"):

 



Please stay tuned for a look at another pressbook for The Night Holds Terror.

Let's Celebrate! :)

Hello Everyone!

As we celebrate the 91st anniversary of Jack Kelly's birth today, let's look back 40 years to another celebration:

 

I'm sure we've all seen this photo. It's sometimes identified as being from When the West Was Fun, the reunion of TV western stars which originally aired in 1979. However, this gallery of greats (L-R Hugh O'Brian, Chuck Connors, Clint Walker, John Wayne, David Carradine, Clayton Moore, Michael Ansara and JK) was actually gathered for the ABC television network's celebration of its 25th anniversary in 1978.

 

 

Here's a photo you may not have seen before. It's the same group in more contemporary garb:

 

 

The caption on the reverse of the photo reads: "The Old West lives again when eight great Western stars join the party on 'ABC's Silver Anniversary Celebration', a four-hour gala, airing on the ABC Television Network, Sunday, Feb. 5 (7:00-11:00 pm ET). The classic Westerners from ABC's past and present are (foreground, 1. to r.) Hugh O'Brian, Chuck Connors, John Wayne, Clayton Moore, (background, l. to r.) Clint Walker, David Carradine, Michael Ansara and Jack Kelly."

 

I found a remarkable clip with "the Duke" from the ABC anniversary special which features scenes from the network's most popular westerns and ends by showing how the preceding photos came to be:

 

 



And, here are a couple of close-ups of our birthday boy:

Happy Birthday, JK!

"And don't forget your carrot cake!" :)

 

A Maverick in the Queen City - Pt. III

Hi!


JK and Broderick Crawford try to

decipher the plot

of "Shadow of A Man"

 

As promised, here's a humorous look at Jack Kelly's Kraft Mystery Theater episode "Shadow of a Man", penned by Cincinnati Post TV columnist Mary Wood and published on 6/20/1963:

"Kraft Mystery Theater returned to its old summer hour on NBC-TV last night, and, as far as I'm concerned, it certainly lived up to its title. Why poor Ed Begley was left up a creek without a paddle for insuring bridges and viaducts is still a mystery to me.

Is there an insurance man in the house who can explain it?

Until they sprang the bridges and viaducts on me, I had the plot fairly well in hand. It went like this: Handsome Jack Kelly, a former Brother Maverick, rode into a small southern town and started asking questions about the town's leading and most popular citizen, Ed Begley, a successful insurance man. In order to meet lovable old Ed, Jack cozied up to his beautiful daughter, Beverley Owen.

Tain't long before Handsome Jack, who is really an insurance investigator, fell into his own cozy trap. He was smitten with Beverley's charms, which were profuse.

So far, I'm with them--wholeheartedly.

Now comes Brod Crawford, a hard-bitten insurance investigator who is convinced that lovable Ed has absconded with $75,000 of the insurance company's dough. Insurance companies, I'm led to believe, take a dim view of such goings on, no matter how lovable the culprit nor how fine his motives.

Well, it finally was revealed that poor Ed was being blackmailed by his accountant. That I could understand because the accountant had a very shifty eye.

But they completely lost me right after the third commercial, the one for the sandwich loaf made with layers of egg salad, watercress, ham salad and iced with cream cheese. Then you slice it down. Yummy!

Oh yes. They lost me when that hard-nosed Brod found that poor Ed had been insuring bridges and viaducts because he couldn't get insurance on himself. Then poor Ed shot the blackmailing accountant on a lonely road and wounded himself. He lived long enough to run his car over one of those well-insured viaducts and that was that.

Beverley bid a sad farewell to Handsome Jack at the funeral and he rode off with hard-nosed Brod. So much for that promising romance.

But the bridges and the viaducts were never explained to my satisfaction, and I'm beginning not to care anymore."

If you care to watch "Shadow of a Man", here's a link to it.

Please stay tuned for more about Jack Kelly in TDS. :)

A Maverick in the Queen City - Pt.II :)

Howdy!

Jack Kelly revisited Cincinnati in June 1963 while gearing up to star in the musical Can-Can in Dayton, OH.

JK was a guest on the legendary Ruth Lyons' talk show on June 26, 1963. He also gave an insightful interview to the television editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer. Although the onscreen Maverick may not have been the best poker player offscreen, Maverick was still supporting JK with hefty percentage/rerun residual payments. He also had the "side hustle" down pat long before it became a buzz phrase:

 "Maverick's Poor At Cards
by James Devane

As TV's Bart Maverick, Jack Kelly earned his living at the card table. In real life he says he may be the world's 'lousiest' player.

'When we have friends at our house for a poker party, my wife has to bail me out,' he admits. 'She's the card shark of the family.'

At the moment, Mr. Kelly is in Dayton preparing for a singing role in Can Can, which begins a week's run in the city's air-conditioned Memorial Hall on July 2. His pretty wife, a former actress known as May Wynn who has reverted to her real name of Donna Lee, is with him.

'Since we have no children, we do everything together,' Jack says. 'We fly, fish, golf and travel. The only thing we don't do together is sleep late. When we married seven years ago I got my wife to agree to give up her career. So now she stays in bed and I go to work.'

As you probably know, Mr. Kelly's Maverick came to an end more than a year ago, but it's still contributing to his support. With 176 films [B27--? Aren't there only 124 Maverick episodes?] rerunning around the country Jack made approximately $20,000 from the series last year due to a percentage deal plus residual rights.

With this income added to money from summer stock appearances and the used-airplane business he and his wife manage in California, he's been able to wait for the right new TV vehicle to come along.

 He thinks he's found it in 'Double Indemnity', a proposed series about insurance investigators. You may have seen the pilot [B27--Titled 'Shadow of a Man'], which ran experimentally on last week's Kraft Mystery Theater. Broderick Crawford co-starred with Jack in the film.

Kelly admits the pilot's story was poor. 'But the story isn't the important thing in selling a series,' he explains. 'A sponsor wants to know if a series has characters the public will like. They keep viewers dialing in. Sponsors seem to believe the characters Brod and I played have what it takes. I feel pretty confident we'll be on regularly during the 1964-'65 season.'

Jack says making Maverick was a lot of fun. 'We got our work done so we'd have time for gags,' he recalls. 'We had hose fights and Jim Garner, who played Bret, liked to loosen my saddle when I wasn't looking. I'd climb on and down the saddle and me would come in a heap.'

Mr. Kelly would eventually like to go into the hotel and restaurant business. As for acting, he feels he's already a great success from one point of view. 'When I started in movies I was known as Nancy Kelly's brother', he relates, 'but now as my talented sister jokes, she often has to introduce herself as my relation.'"

Of course, Double Indemnity never became a series, although years later JK played a baddie in Banacek, which starred George Peppard as, yep, an insurance investigator.

Please stay tuned for a comical column about "Shadow of a Man" in TDS! :)