Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Kolchak: The Night Stalker

Star Trek Catspaw 50th Episode Celebration

Trekker treat!

Roy Bjellquist and I will celebrate the 50th episode of “Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner” – and round out an all-television weekend (which began on Friday with an exhaustive discussion of the cult series “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”) – with a conversation about the classic “Star Trek” Halloween episode, “Catspaw.”

In this seventh installment of “Star Trek” Season Two, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to a mysterious planet wreathed in fog, to encounter witches, a haunted castle, a black cat, a warlock, a “transmuter,” and a couple of very unsettling puppets. Robert Bloch, author of “Psycho,” adapted the teleplay from his 1957 story “Broomstick Ride.” He also happens to give Spock some pretty good one-liners.

Set phasers for 50! I hope you’ll be able to join us in raising a glass of Romulan ale to the 50th episode of Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner, live-streamed on Facebook, this Sunday evening at 7:00 EDT.

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner/

“Bones… Is that you?”

October 18, 2020
Kolchak Night Stalker Music Trek

Consider that night stalked! Simon Oakland, who played Tony Vincenzo, Kolchak’s long-suffering editor, was also a concert violinist, and composer Jerry Fielding, while blacklisted, filled his time, pleasantly enough, jamming with a young Johnny Williams. Even in the realm of the unexplained and the supernatural, music makes the world go ‘round.

Here’s Roy Bjellquist and my leisurely ramble through sinister after-dark Chicago, a nostalgic exploration of “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” (1974-75).

Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner is live-streamed on Facebook every Friday and Sunday at 7 pm EDT. Tomorrow night, we’ll revisit the classic “Star Trek” Halloween episode “Catspaw.” Energize!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner/

October 17, 2020
Kolchak The Night Stalker Revisited

Uh oh. It’s looks like Kolchak’s in for it again.

Over the course of 20 weekly installments, intrepid reporter Carl Kolchak pounded the sewers and back-alleys of after-dark Chicago, in search of the unutterable truths that would keep his stories off the wire. The supernatural. The extraterrestrial. The experimental. The redacted.

Darren McGavin donned the trademark raffia hat, rumpled linen suit, and white sneakers, in “Kolchak: The Night Stalker” (1974-75). Armed only with a Rollei 16 millimeter camera, a Sony recorder, and a rudimentary knowledge of the monster-of-the-week, Kolchak always did what he had to do, though how he managed to hang on to his job and stay out of jail is anyone’s guess.

Roy Bjellquist and I will reminisce about this short-lived, much-loved television series on the next Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner. We’ll be melting buttons into silver bullets, sewing salt into zombies’ mouths, and watching for your comments, as we live-stream on Facebook, this Friday evening at 7:00 EDT!

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner/

October 16, 2020
Invasion of the Body Snatchers Spoiler Review

It occurs to me, I forgot to share this yesterday. It may have been that I was trying to maintain a low profile, so as to evade the pod people.

At any rate, here’s the archived video of Roy and my discussion of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1978). If you’ve not seen the movie, I warn you now that our conversation is rife with spoilers. So be sure you watch the movie first!

We’re going spooky all month long, in a spine-chilling lead-up to Halloween. Here’s the complete schedule:

October 16, “Kolchak: The Night Stalker”

October 18, “Night of the Living Dead” (1968)

October 23, “Soylent Green” (with guest co-host Shari Bethman-Bjellquist)

October 25, “The Devil Rides Out” (a.k.a. “The Devil’s Bride”)

October 30, “Young Frankenstein” (with Michael Rizzo and Marybeth Ritkouski of SciFi Distilled, AND virtual costume party!)

If for nothing else, I thought you might be interested in checking the progress of my Covid beard.

Roy’s Tie-Dye Sci-Fi Corner live-streams on Facebook, Fridays and Sundays at 7 pm EDT. See you on Friday, for the cult-favorite TV series, “Kolchak!”

https://www.facebook.com/roystiedyescificorner/

October 13, 2020
Kolchak’s Secret Past Darren McGavin as Chopin Extra

Does anyone else remember the time Kolchak the Night Stalker met Frederic Chopin?

I always assumed Kolchak was a Slavic name, but here’s photographic evidence that, indeed, he was a student with the famed Polish pianist and composer.

Darren McGavin was hard at work painting scenery at Columbia Pictures in 1945, when he caught wind of auditions being held for a Chopin biopic, titled “A Song to Remember.” Cornel Wilde would play the immortal pianist-composer, and Paul Muni his teacher. McGavin’s role would be so small, he wouldn’t even receive screen credit, but his very casting was momentous, since it would mark his film debut. Once he rinsed the paint out of his brush that day, he never looked back.

He had already clocked countless hours on stage, film, and especially television, by the time he donned the rumpled seersucker and crumpled raffia as Kolchak, muckraker of the macabre, in the early 1970s.

Here, McGavin appears second from the left. Wilde is second from the right, with Muni, center, as Prof. Joseph Elsner.

The great irony, of course, is that “A Song to Remember” is such a generic title that it is easy to forget – or at least to confuse with “Song of Love” (1947, about the Schumanns) and “Song without End” (1960, about Liszt).

Follow the link for McGavin. He’s on the left side of the room, wearing a cap, already a scene-stealer, at one point trying to draw attention to himself by scratching his head with a piece of straw, which he then holds in his mouth. The entire scene lasts a mere 90 seconds.

August 19, 2020

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