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.

Tags: 3 RING CIRCUS, Dean Martin, Director, IRON MAN, James Cagney, Jerry Lewis, Joseph Pevney, josephpevney, MAN OF 1000 FACES, MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES, Martin and Lewis, Martin Lewis, Obituary, STAR TREK, THE MUNSTERS, THREE RING CIRCUS

Filed Under Obituaries

THE MUNSTERS 1964 Card Game by Milton Bradley

March 15th, 2008 by Scott Marks

“Like most typical Americans, the famous TV Munster family - LILY, HERMAN and GRANDPA MUNSTER enjoy playing the game and they feel sure you will too. It’s an easy-to-learn, fast playing card game of action and suspense for the entire family.”

You don’t know the meaning of suspense until you’ve played this game!

Milton Bradley spared all expenses for this one: 42 playing cards, a paper sheet playing “board” and 8 plastic playing pieces (not shown). All artistic thought went into the design of the box.

Even though one of the two actresses to play Marilyn is shown on the box, she and Butch Patrick were cut out of the merchandising arrangement.