By 1962, Crosby had his own production company, which had produced Breaking Point and Ben Casey, the latter airing on Tuesdays on ABC. I'm not sure if he had negotiated to try to acquire the rights to Going My Way, but had he done so, there is no guarantee it would've fared any better than it did.
As it was, the series was given to sitcom producers Joe Connolly & Bob Mosher (Leave it to Beaver, Calvin & The Colonel), but Going My Way wasn't a Kayro-Vue production, unlike their other series. Revue cast Gene Kelly in Crosby's role as Father O'Malley, with Leo G. Carroll (ex-Topper) as Father Fitzgibbon. Dick York, two years away from Bewitched, was cast as Tom Colwell, a boyhood pal of O'Malley's who ran a neighborhood youth center. York had been established as a character actor who'd appeared in "Inherit The Wind" and The Twilight Zone, among his pre-Bewitched credits.
Like Calvin, Going My Way lasted just 1 season, airing in back of Revue stablemate Wagon Train, with the last 1/3 of Virginian airing opposite the first half of Way. The primary competition, however, came from CBS' Beverly Hillbillies.
Let's take a look at the episode, "Hear No Evil". Richard Long guests as a hearing-impaired attorney. James Doohan makes a brief appearance as an attendant.
Even though this lasted just the one season, with 30 episodes, I wonder if Universal would let it out of the vaults and let some cabler take a chance on it.
No rating.
3 comments:
Potted History Time:
Some time in the early '50s, MCA, which owned Revue Productions, made the outright purchase from Paramount Pictures of its entire film library, for purposes of syndication to television.
You'll note that when old Paramount releases appear on TV (or these days on DVD), they're introduced by Universal's present-day globe logo, before the '30s Paramount mountain appears.
Apparently, MCA's purchase of the old films (EMKA was probably a shell company that MCA controlled) included remake and TV rights to the properties - hence Going My Way, The Virginian, and more than a few other series - and pilots - from Revue during this period.
One of those pilots was for a TV version of Double Indemnity, with Jack Kelly and Broderick Crawford, that aired on Kraft Mystery Theatre around this same time (it didn't sell, but that's another story ...).
The Going My Way series is available on DVD from Timeless Media - just so you know.
Quickie Follow-up:
Just watched the episode.
I guess you didn't notice that Richard Long's wife was played by Ellen McRae.
"McRae" was what she called herself before she married Mr. Burstyn.
... which is yet another story ...
Didn't put two and two together on that one, Mike. Didn't know Ellen Burstyn's career started before the 70's. Thanks.
EMKA appears to be an acronym of some kind. Any idea what it stood for, if at all?
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