Saturday, March 2, 2013

"The Big Candy Story" / "The Candy Store Robberies"


This is the city! 

And a fraction of our usual helicopter swing around city hall.


What's Joe's monologue this week?

Money, and how to get it. Working, borrowing, winning, etc.





When you steal it, that's when Joe and Bill go to work.








Virginia Gregg! Working at the candy store.

OK Back to the office.


(My favorite captain, Art Gilmore.)





Giving word to the press.



Hey! Policewoman Dorothy Miller! Welcome back.



Whelp, nevermind. Radio call.


Rachelle Candies, Waldin The Friendly Store - Prescriptions - DRUGS


G.E. Grant and Co.


Strolling down the backlot, probably New York Street at Universal city.


Flowers



Tons of extras!





Red Cross billboard?





Staking out the "Wishire Boulevard" location.






Following a trail of blood drops to Skid Row!


Miles Beauty College


Rex Hotel 
Rooms 75c. and up
Weekly Monthly Rates


We'd expect a shady hotel to have some multicolored light bulbs, but not this one. It's TOO shady!




Later in season one, they'll roust cop killers in this same room:


Driving back to PAB sequence:



Hi, Virginia Gregg!



First line-up in the series.


"Your left, number four, your left." Alfred Shelley is playing Al Vietti in the lower left corner. 




These two decided to work the entire chain any time they needed money.
They didn't know that the stores were being staked out or anything because they both were illiterate.


Hey! Policewoman Dorothy Miller! Bill set Joe up with "a real nice girl" alright. 

Will they? Won't they?


Well, these two go to pris, that's for sure.



Claude Thibodeau
and
George Watson
Now serving their sentences in the state prison, San Quentin, California.


Starred

Jack Webb as Sergeant Joe Friday
Harry Morgan as Officer Bill Gannon
Merry Anders as Policewoman Dorothy Miller
Art Gilmore as Captain Mert Howe
Virginia Gregg as Mrs. Jean Hardy
Austin Green as Claude Thibodeau
David Bond as George Watson
Don Stewart as Officer Carl Goldman
Alfred Shelly as Sergeant Al Vietti
John McCann as Officer No. 2
Dan Currie as Officer No. 1
Vince Howard as Officer Bondi

Art Direction - Russell Kimball
Set Decor - John McCarthy & Ralph Sylos
Written by Robert C. Dennis

Aired 9 March 1967

On this day, Josef Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Allilueva, defected to the west by way of the US Embassy in India. She also married architect William Wesley Peters in 1970. He was a devotee of Frank Lloyd Wright. How much more American can you get? (They were divorced by Season two of "Emergency!")
The Supremes were topping the charts with "Love is Here and Now You're Gone". What a bizarre song. The spoken word bits by Diana Ross are pretty neat, though.

10 comments:

  1. That groovy radio is a Hallicrafters - not sure of the model. The "h" on the speakers is a dead giveaway. Did you know that celebrated industrial designer Raymond Loewy once designed a model for them? Well, he did. Anyway, that radio seems a bit old for 1967. Get some new equipment, LAPD!

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    1. The radio is a Hallicrafters S-20R, built about 1946-55. A General Short wave band receiver. Interesting that Hallicrafters apparently never made a version with the wood trim finish pictured. I have to wonder how that happened on the show, as the original finish for this radio was a gray metal cabinet.

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  2. I love the "shady looking" Rex Hotel. I remember seeing these "flop houses" as a kid, but I never see them anymore; I guess the real estate is just too valuable to justify these types of places anymore.

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    1. Funny thing about the "Flophouses" of that era. While they were cheap and got the downtrodden out of the weather, the cities nationwide were updating their building codes and decided that such inexpensive accommodations had to go. They did not have individual bathrooms, the rooms were too small, not up to current fire code.

      So in essence, they wiped out a popular lodging option for people of few means, and put them out on the street. Although they were flea traps at best, they did get people off the street, and offered a warm bed.

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  3. Can we discuss pronouncing “Rachelle” like “Rachel?” Every other time I’ve seen that name, it rhymed with Michelle.

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  4. Pretty sure it's not "giving word to the press." If I recall correctly, those are the officers assigned to the stake-outs.

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  5. Only time the boys wore trench coats in this incarnation. Of the series.

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    Replies
    1. Indeed! Astute observation. Can't believe I didn't realize that.

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    2. Oh! That must have been why there was that kinda weird, fairly self-conscious, long tracking shot from where Friday and Gannon get out of their car in front of the candy store and walk all the way down to the alley in a group with the other officers, to show off the trench coats!

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  6. "The Candy Story", or "Joe comes up with a creative way to pronounce the word 'Rachelle'", or is that a creative way to spell the word "Rachael"?

    Let that be a lesson kids: don't let illiteracy hamper your candy store crime sprees. Learn to read!

    Those two candy store robbers are so amiable and helpful. I just want to hug them, give them lots of "Rachael's" candy and then send them on their way.

    They sure spent a lot of time of the whole "Bill fixing up Joe with Police Lady Dorothy" plot point for that relationship to go absolutely nowhere throughout the run of the series.

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