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Dig A Hole: IRON MAN director dies!

May 29th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Joseph Pevney: Man of Ten Camera Setups

No, not Jon Favreau. That would really be a scoop! We lost Joseph Pevney, the director of the original Iron Man, a 1951 boxing clunker that starred Jeff Chandler as an ambitious coal miner who finds a more lucrative career as a pugilist.

Joseph Pevney, or “Peeny” as this ten-year-old and his friends used to call him whenever his name appeared in The Munsters credits, died May 18 at his home in Palm Desert, according to his wife, Margo. He was 96.

Born September 15, 1911, in New York City, Pevney began his 60-years showbiz career as a boy soprano in vaudeville. Between 1936-46, Pevney acted and directed on Broadway. He made his movie debut playing a killer in 1946’s Nocturne. He acted in three solid film noir (Body and Soul, Thieves Highway and The Street With No Name) before turning to directing with 1950’s Shakedown.

Pevney was a hack from way back and of the 35 features he directed, only a few are worth looking at for some ripe unintentional laughs. Far from her worst vehicles, Foxfire and Female on the Beach showcase Joan Crawford at her butch best. Aside from watching how Pevney managed to keep feuding Dean & Jerry apart during most of Three Ring Circus, it remains the duo’s worst film. Meet Danny Wilson is second rate Sinatra while Tammy and the Bachelor is top drawer Debbie Reynolds.

If I tell you how much I enjoy Man of a Thousand Faces, you must believe me that it’s for all the wrong reasons. Growing up on pan-and-scan TV viewings, Jimmy Cagney’s hydrocephalic anamorphic noggin cried out for Ultra-Panavision 70.

The stuff concerning Lon’s deaf parents has all the compassion and sensitivity of a 1940’s print ad for Aunt Jemimah pancakes.

“All my life, kids tagging after my mother and father, hanging signs, making faces, yelling ‘Hey, Dummy! Hey, Dummy!‘ So proud they could speak they had to be cruel.” (I don’t have a video copy to consult. Don’t need one. Every word and inflection of Cagney’s “dummy” dialog is trapped inside my head.) When his wife Cleva (Dorothy Malone) cautions Lon to keep his voice down out of respect for his parents, Cagney bellows, “They can’t hear you!”

Even Malone joins in the parade of pathos. When contemplating giving birth to a handicapped child, she breaks down crying, “I don’t want to be mother to a dumb thing.” All this and a young Robert Evans playing Irving Thalberg make for a grand guilty pleasure. (On the plus side, it’s photographed in black-and-white ‘Scope by Russell Metty.)

After directing Portrait of a Mobster in 1961, Pevney turned his back on pictures. Or was it the other way around? Turning to the small screen from 1961 to the mid-80s when he retired, Pevney directed numerous TV series including Ben Casey, Bewitched, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, eleven episodes of The Munsters, The Fugitive, Mission: Impossible, Marcus Welby, Bonanza, Adam 12, Fantasy Island and The Rockford Files.

Oh, yeah. He also directed a few episodes of Star Trek, if you go for that sort of thing.

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Filed Under Obituaries

PRESENTING DEAN MARTIN AND JERRY LEWIS: 1952 Promotional Booklet

May 9th, 2008 by Scott Marks

By now some of you must be asking yourselves, “Will he ever run out of Jerry Lewis items to post?”

NEVER!!!

This 16 page booklet was issued just as the boys were making their mark on the movies and it makes for fascinating reading. As my buddy Chuck said, “There’s magic in them thar booklets, big golden nuggets!”

While the text is purely the stuff publicists dreams are made of, it’s surprising how much truth is packed between its pages. There are stories of Jerry’s work as a “drowner” and numerous descriptions of the duo’s legendary off screen antics. Jerry grew a beard for an outdoor photo shoot and when inclement weather threatened to put the kibosh on it, he stapled his facial hair to the floor to ensure an indoor shoot.

Collier’s writer Bill Davidson also gets off some sharp insights into the reason behind the comedy team’s enormous success. “They are closest, perhaps, to the Marx Brothers of the early days, with Lewis, in his more explosive moments, approaching the wild ad-lib exuberance of Groucho and Harpo combined; and Martin resembling Chico and Zeppo.”

The only piece of Lewisiana that I passed on greeted me while standing outside of Jerry’s room at Chicago’s Drake Hotel. Legend has it that Mr. L never wears the same pair of sock twice. The maid’s cart was sitting outside the door and there on top of the pile was a pair of white, lightly soiled crew socks. I contemplated the footwear like a hungry homeless person staring at a turkey dinner, but even in the depths of my fanatical obsession could not bring myself to pocket them. It is a mistake that I lived to regret.

The booklet came to me, as so much of my Lewis collection did, while working at Flashback Collectibles on Clark St. in Chicago. It’s one of the cornerstones of my collection and one that I am delighted to share with you.

Read the entire booklet here.

Links:

Jerry Lewis photos
Dean Martin photos

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