Noir Television: Naked City | Michael McGreevey

good evening and welcome to the Billy Wilder theater home of public programs for the UCLA film and television archive my name is Mark wiggley John H mitchill television curator for the archive thank you for joining us for Noir TV Naked City co-presented by the film Noir Foundation woo before we begin as a land grant institution the film and television archive at UCLA would like to acknowledge our presence on the traditional ancestral and unseated territory of the gabino and tongva peoples we are humbled to do work in this community we would like to thank all that made tonight's screening possible archive screenings in the Wilder are free thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor and we are grateful for their support and tonight's screening was made possible by the John H Mitchell television programming endowment please give these tremendous supporters a round of applause we are extremely fortunate to have two special guests with us tonight first off is the king of Venus Michael McGreevy is an actor producer writer and director with an illustrious decades long career in film and television and to read a complete list of his incredible credits would keep us here all night so I'm going to give you the reader digest version his professional career began at age seven appearing in the girl most like with Jane Powell he has starred alongside Kirk Douglas Robert Mitchum Sally Field David nien Richard Woodmark and Lena horn just to name a few for children of the 70s he was immortalized starring opposite Kurt Russell in a series of Disney movies including the computerware tennis shoes and now you see them now you don't directed by archive friend Robert Butler and on TV he has appeared on shows ranging from route66 to parks and wreck his first professional writing assignment was a collaboration with his father Emy and wga Laurel Award winner John mccreey with on the telefilm Ruby and Oswald and Michael's writing producing and directing career includes The Waltons with Earl Hammer Jr palmertown with Alex Haley and Norman Lear TV's Fame and many many others and last but not least Michael turns in a riveting performance tonight as the king of Venus in the ex excellent Naked City episode will scream first tonight so thank you Michael for being [Applause] here after Michael's episode screens he will take the stage for your Q&A moderated by our other esteemed guest way in the back film and television historian Alan K roie Allan is a charter director and treasurer of the film Noir Foundation spearheading the preservation and restoration of Noir Classics and obscurities a documentarian and producer he is also the author of Michael CZ a life in film and Charles mcra Phil Noir tough guy Allan is an invaluable friend and collaborator to the archives thank you Alan for being being [Applause] here following the Q&A there will be a brief intermission then stick around for our second episode of naked C City starring icon Diane Carroll and uh John Magna who you might remember as Dill from tequila mockberg and we'll also have a brief bonus feature courtesy of Jamie Matts and the television Academy and deep in the program a commercial that Noir fans won't want to miss so stick around for that thank you I'm going to go ahead and label the episodes I've selected for screening tonight as humanist Noir ahead of its time Naked City remains a uniquely psychologically complex police drama an approach cultivated by the series extremely gifted story gurus future Academy Award winning winner Sterling Sant and future wga Laurel award recipient Howard Rodman Mr Rodman's Sons writers Howard and Adam excellent writers in their own right are with us tonight and thank you for joining us this screening is a tribute to your father's work lastly both episodes we are viewing tonight were penned by writers that were blacklisted Arnold Manoff credited here under pseudonym Joel Carpenter and Abram eskins and we honor them as well there are eight yeah there are eight million stories in the Naked City here's one of them enjoy and stay seated for the Q&A directly after there's so much to say these programs I could have stood up here and talked for an hour I'm going to let Alan and Michael do that um but stick around and you won't regret it thank you those of you curious I am auditioning as a stand in for the remake of Lady of Shanghai playing the Edward Sloan part Michael that was great wasn't he terrific remind me ever to piss you off yeah I'm a tough guy uh it's funny it's taking me six years to get that Applause for that performance you know when you do television and film yeah you never know that's right that's right well in this case uh it it's such a it's such a good show and it's with such a consequential show uh and I know they did a lot of the interior supposedly over in gold medal studios in the Bronx which was used to be biograph by DW Griffith and Buster Keaton and all of that but there were a lot of shots that were not that were in apartment building where sh you were in the B there yeah for about four days wow yeah and and I think where the the rooftop stuff most of it m is where l Mama is now on oh really yeah on I think Fourth Street East Fourth Street uh and uh so yeah it it you it you really were in New York yeah uh that that that whole atmosphere was wonderful and for a kid from North Hollywood uh it was a a weird experience uh now was this was this a gig you were pretty well established by this time was this a gig your agent got or how did that work I had on uh a Route 66 with the Herby Leonard uh and with the same director David lri uh and uh I I remember I was just called in to meet with herb um Maran DH who was a wonderful casting director on both uh nak naked City and rout 66 um I was cast uh so I just had to meet with herb and um that was a I I remember that meeting he was really a neat guy uh and treated me uh like all of these adults I'll talk about that later but um they they they treated me as an equal you were an actor yeah which was really unusual as a as a kid actor I had always been sort of used to being oh good boy you know and say your lines go to your room yeah and all of these adults in in in the herb Leonard uh atmosphere uh treated you as an equal uh as did Jack Warden yeah that did you have any rehearsal did you just get the script and go right into that which is I read the script on the plane uh it had been there had been quite a few rewrites I guess and uh um so I was given the final fin script when I was flying to New York and I remember thinking this is really damn good I was 12 years old but I knew a good script when I read it and uh uh that one line every actor uh hopes for a line like the king of Venus will take care of you yeah uh and I remember thinking this is going to be really good I didn't know it was Jack Warden until I got there on the first day and I had never never met or worked with Jack before and uh that was uh probably one of the best experiences of my life wow really yeah both professionally because he was such a good giving actor and personally he uh I really liked him and uh well he he seems like an impossible guy not to like yeah absolutely and you know the two characters uh uh watching it again tonight um you know it it's uh it's the the Sinatra song Here's to the losers you know for me uh these two losers being thrown together and uh and Jack knew that instinctively uh and U the director was you know David and I had done rout 66 we did a black saddle uh episode we later did an arrest and trial together I I worked really well with David L rich but Jack a lot of that stuff was improvised all the the fighting right and you really I mean that that fight where he tied you up and gaged you you guys were really into it I mean it was violent I remember remember that um I was doing the fake fighting mhm and Jack said kid go after me you know and I said well I don't want to hurt you and and he said don't worry you're not going to hurt me and when we broke the lamp that was not planned uh so they used that one tape because we did break the lamp uh yeah he he was very um the whole thing with with the fighting he had been a boxer in the service uh so he really knew about that stuff well he was he was a tough kid from New York New Jersey he he came up the he came up the hard way he saved my life uh we were we were down in the bowy and I was walking from I guess the Set uh to the U the trailers mhm uh to change wardrobe I no I didn't really change wardrobe in this thing but I was walking to the trailers and some bum picked me up and was running off with me oh my God yeah and I I I was so shocked by it I didn't I didn't scream or do anything yeah but he was running he was running right past the trailers and thank God Ja Jack warden came out and went I don't think this doesn't look right this isn't in the script he went and stopped the guy who dropped me and ran off so he actually in real life he saved my life too so I I I also liked your scenes with Barbara Baxley I mean it was almost like you know at one point are are you your mom's analyst I mean it was it was it was really good and and I think you two had something going special it's interesting um my mom was there my mom my career I I only realized this years later that I had one of the best directors uh ever uh living in my own home because she would rehearse with me the night before and give me direction and most of the time it was better Direction than I ever got on on the set I hate to say that but uh and she was there for that scene and I was not doing it well and she went to David we knew David well because we had worked together so much so she knew David low Rich too and and she's John Rich's brother right yeah absolutely yeah John Rich who did all the sitcoms and uh yeah that's a brother combination and uh she went to David and said because David said Mike what's going on here I had no idea how to play that scene because I didn't have have a mother like that and I I just I I didn't know what to do and she she went to David and said he's having trouble because he doesn't understand the relationship right and being a good director David uh came to me and said uh this is someone who you love but you don't trust very good and that's why and I watching God on the big screen is really fun to watch watch this stuff uh it really worked um but I had no idea about that relationship and of course Barbara the other problem was off camera you know I met her she hugged me she was this sweet lady and and then suddenly she's screaming at me and slapping me across the face you know uh it was it was a a a hard thing to adjust to for a 12-year-old of course of course well you did come up the hard way uh oh the way just to digress a little bit Mike and I met many years ago when I was writing my book on Charles McGraw and I discovered that Mike was in a movie in 58 or 59 the man in the net with Allan lad and Charles McGraw and so I reached out to Mike and he told me and uh it sounded like one of the most horrible experiences for a young kid to be given to the Tender Mercies Michael CZ yeah but another character actor Charles McGraw if I recall correctly helped you in that very much so and and Charlie was uh a sweet man but I also watched curtiz I think I told you that story yeah totally destroyed Charlie one one day U 47 takes and and he he'd cut CTI would cut in the middle of the take and say cut we have to go again because Charlie doesn't know his lines or Charlie can't act I mean criti as you will know uh you know I later go to UCLA film school and I find out that this guy I hated um directed all my favorite films uh The Adventures of Robin Hood Kaza Blanca uh um the the one with Kagney uh angels with dirty faces Yankee Doodle Dandy D yeah so but yeah no I did have uh Michael CZ scared me so much that I I actually vomited uh and I think you put that in the book I did I did it was too good to leave out uh yeah he was not my David lri at all no not at all he was a very um mean man and and he was near the end and he had he was sick and old and burned out and I understand all that not then but now yeah yeah absolutely uh but uh you know um uh Bob Butler who we were referencing earlier here who was honored here said to me uh one time uh because I had said I want to direct someday and he said well the best piece of advice to give you is you don't have to yell yeah and Bob Butler the sets with Bob Butler you didn't you everybody was happy and we we did good work yeah it's it's a lot easier that yeah and Mr CZ just sort of felt like he had to scream and yell at everybody I I never even as a nine-year-old uh I didn't understand that yeah did you have any interface with some of the regular cast members like Horus McMahon and baver and Paul yeah with with Paul Burke I had uh we spent a couple days together hanging out on the rooftop and we had a couple scenes on the streets and I really like Paul Burke um again he treated me as an equal and and welcome me to the set um Mr McMahon I I met yeah and Harry bellver was a sweetheart I remember him being very kind uh but I didn't really have any scenes with them sure I had the one scene with horor yeah uh when we went to into the hole there um but um McMahon looked like a uh New York Police Department homicide he was sort of scary too yeah yeah yeah he had that he he had that look uh Paul Burke was really nice and uh I mean the main relationship I had obviously was with Jack um because we did so much stuff together but uh and that scene at the end uh where he says I'm not coming back uh yeah I can remember start of feeling that was one of the last things we shot MH and uh that was sort of real for me it was like I'm not going to see Jack again you you felt it yeah yeah it was funny you felt it you felt it yeah yeah the other thing I noticed I just want to add um uh the score uh I mean Nelson R obviously wrote the the original stuff right but Gil Gru I think was his name Gil grow yeah yeah very very good he was he had the The Mickey mavin little yeah well he was he he was the for years he was the house orchestrator at RKO oh really and he he sometimes he got screen credit but most of the time he never got screen credit so all those RKO films like out of the past Blood on the moon all of those Gil grow was the orchestrator for all those things and I guess like so many other people of that era he migrated into television and and did his own composing I guess certainly this episode really I it's the one thing I noticed different watching it this time the big screen helps too uh I've got to give credit to Jack Priestley too um the cinematographer uh I mean the black and white photography well this is this is the Noir look and in fact this show was nominated I think like 13 EMS and it won I think three or four and one of them were for Jack priest for his cinematography he yeah this is what happened to the B film War it migrated into television and he was very uh economic with his lighting and and he was a New Yorker uh I had a couple conversations with Jack he had his two sons working on the uh we were on the camera crew with him which was cool too uh and uh yeah he he used very limited light I mean it was Gordon Willis before Gordon Willis I mean in terms and with black and white stuff and because you know here we are in a basement of some tenement building right how's he going to get light in there you know uh and if you notice it was David Rich always did a lot lot of move move the camera he did he did move the camera yeah and there was it was there was a lot of the dialogue even with the time was realistic I love that little bit with the uh the land lady and telling Paul Burke yeah I I want to know who my husband's sick sick friend is you know and it it it was able to address that subject in an adult way and get under the censorship a I don't know how much like I I said I do remember uh you know it's sad that that uh manof manof Ary manof only gets a Joel Carpenter Credit in this thing it's The Blacklist stuff again but uh I know I just did enough I did a r 66 also I I just knew I could hear and he was a good friend of my father's uh I could hear Sterling Sant in the rewrites you know and uh St Sterling and Howard Senior were the Howard Rodman oh my God great great writers a great television and then went on to do great films yeah there's a funny story about Sterling and Bert Leonard who was a character as you say he started with the adventures of Ren Tintin and Route 66 was actually a spin-off from a naked City episode absolutely so the first year was a half hour and they had had uh James Franciscus and John McIntyre and they were actually reprising the roles from The Naked City movie yeah and then it went to an hour and they re they recast everybody but uh in the movie I think the uh um Mark helinger says at the end there are four million stories in the Naked City but by this time there were 8 million so they changed it and at one point when Sterling Sant who wrote 32 of the first 39 episodes in year one he went to Leonard and he says there's 8 million there's 8 million stories in the Naked City can't we come up with one [ __ ] story for this episode because he was having trouble but uh uh you know Sterling sfant I mean his he was amazingly good and amazingly prolific oh yeah and there was that group they all came out of the the Golden Age including my Father John McGreevy uh and and there was a small group and but they they just basically wrote most of television in the 60s and 70s and and you know a word on Arty manof my uh my late friend Mickey Knox knew already quite well oh really and um he was married to Lee Grant and their daughter is Dina is is still in the business but he um uh he he was a guy with a lot of principles and and did it well and like so many writers like AB palansky he just went to New York and kept on working using fronts and using panim and they Unfortunately they had to do that a terrible terrible period for all of was but actually dnam manof came in when I was uh working on Fame at MGM I was I crossed to the other side I gave up acting and and became a writer and and producer and direct a little bit uh she actually sought me out she was doing something on the lot and uh knew uh one of the actresses on on Fame Valerie lansburg and she came to my office and said you were in something my dad wrote like that and I said really what and she said it was a naked City and I said oh my god um and I didn't know mmhm I thought Joel Carpenter had written that show I didn't know it was cuz it wasn't until later that they were allowed to to give the correct credit on the blacklisted writers well you know the same thing with directors when I first grew up and started watching movie I saw top Cappy as a kid and I thought Jules daon was some French director you know I found that differently particularly when we corresponded oh wow but uh anyway your career I mean we could do uh hours on all the in I know but uh two two two movies in particular uh another movie you were in day of the outlaw with Robert Ryan and you were up in God knows where and a bunch of sow oreg Ben Oregon in a bunch of snow in January yeah yeah and it was it was I was the only person that liked it cuz uh I like snow and I I had been not a lot in North Hollywood as a little kid no as a little kid I was in Connecticut okay when we moved out here to California with my dad um because television moved out here um I missed the snow so suddenly I'm up there in Ben Oregon and the entire cast and crew is complaining about freezing their ass off and I'm loving every minute of it uh that that Burl IES Robert Ryan Tina Louise who was still with us and and my my buddy uh uh Nehemiah POF Nikki what a what a lovely guy he was yeah I worked with Nikki several times after that too and uh we just lost him uh he had a good 100 Year 102 102 he called me uh two years ago I had a blood clot and I'm going to the office he said Allan you didn't call me for my birthday and are you okay so I said well I'm going in this doctor's office I'll call you back he said are you okay are you all right and I said fine I'll call you back I went in there laughing and the woman behind the desk says what's why are you laughing I said I just had a 101y old man reassure me about my health Nikki was Nikki was special he was yeah that whole cast up there all those Jack Lambert you know all all the villains right and the my main memory uh was David Nelson was in it U true too was one of his uh few uh roles off the the Azie and Harriet Show and uh I love David and the first night we get up there and we're in the bend Inn and uh I'm trying to go to sleep because I got to get up at 5:30 the next morning and go act and uh all night long outside these girls screaming Ricky Ricky but it was David Ricky Nelson had come up to be with his brother and the girls found out every girl in Ben Oregon found out and and stood out in the street all night long screaming Ricky uh and I said later to Ricky Nelson thanks a lot you know I didn't get any sleep because of you um but the the other uh thing I remember was Mr dth Andre dth who who was at that point I thought every director was a Hungarian uh Ro guy with a heavy because I worked with CZ and then I worked with dth and dth on top of that had a eye patch and looked like a pirate and uh but he was the exact opposite yeah of my CTI at least to me yeah and he was so sweet and uh it it renewed my faith in in and Hungarian directors I guess but yeah day of the outlaw um my other favorite moment on that was in the bend in my mom who was overweight and I got into the elevator which was in this old hotel and bur Lives who probably weighed 450 lounds got on with us and the doors closed and we pushed the button and the thing went and we both all of us looked at one another and IV pushed the door open stepped out and said sorry my lady the elevator is yours like that to my mom he was a Trippy guy I also remember we we were there for Thanksgiving and these crazy character actors instead of having a turkey dinner we were in the high school they made a spaghetti banquet Lambert and Elijah cook and Dab's GRE all those crazy guys and and uh they we had a spaghetti dinner and and bur lives got up and did about a half hour uh singing and Ricky Nelson got up and did about a half hour too that kept everyone in yeah it was pretty cool and the way west you got to you got to you got to is funny the way west was also part of it in fact about half of it was filmed in Ben Oregon oh really yeah we started in Eugene and that was in 1966 the summer of 66 which was exactly eight my friends I I gave them it was eight years later and uh I had a weird experience with Robert Mitchum uh doing a scene on we I was on my mule and he was on his horse and we had a tracking shot across this Prairie and for some reason I was having trouble with the dialogue and so I would blow it and we'd have to turn around and and go all the way back across the Prairie and the camera truck the Big Crane would have to go all the way back and and I did this two or three times and Mitchum finally said to me he said what the hell is wrong with you hos he called me host and I said I don't know I feel weird I feel a weird feeling like I've been here before well years later just a couple years ago uh if you look at the credit on day of the outlaw my credit on the screen Nikki POF and Robert Ryan are riding towards this town right if you look at the scene between Mitchum and I nine years later in the summer same place we're in the exact same SP spot wow as Nikki and and Robert Ryan well you had some first with Robert Ryan did you did you not I was telling yeah I I smoked my first marijuana cigarette with with Robin Mitchum and uh I've never had any sense of course uh none of us have and I I remember it was it was so cool he had somebody would would roll his his marijuana cigarettes they were like real cigarettes and you had them in a you know a regular pouch and really good good quality uh and I came home from that shoot and made the mistake of telling my parents that I had smoked marijuana with Robert Mitchum and my father went through the roof you know telling me what are you doing that's illegal it's awful you know what are you doing and I I was telling Allan you know 45 years later in the old people home with my my father he's telling all his friends bragging about the fact that I that he said Mike smoked marijuana with Robert Mitchum times they have changed Robert Mitchum was as you will know because your book uh it really goes into him pretty well but he's still an enigma I was always fascinated by him um I had a lot of scenes with Bob I had worked with his brother years before that John on Riverboat a series called Riverboat so John and and Bob you know I spent a lot of time with them when we were on location uh off camera and uh Bob MIT was I still can't figure him out I me where I think about him he was brilliant MH uh he had a photographic memory MH he'd come into a scene and look at the script once yeah Jan Jane Greer told me the same thing when they were doing out of the pass he'd comeing in the morning hung over makeup and he'd say what are the lyrics he pick up this lycs thec what the lyrics he'd sit there read it once toss it aside and it was there and be absolutely brilliant yeah on top of it so um but we got along well and he was very very kind to me uh in a lot lot of ways um so but uh he uh I don't think anybody was ever got totally close to Bob Mitchum is what I would think I think he he he protected himself he I had a friend near the end before he got real sick went up and my friend had someone that had been I think a script girl or something that knew him well and they went to the builtmore up there near Santa Barbara and uh you know uh the guy came and uh he said what do you want and mum says I'll have the usual and my friend says well I'll have whatever Bob wants has so they put two tumblers of water down and my friend picks it up and it's pure vodka and he said and he drank like three three of those during lunch with to no effect and he said where I screwed up was I made this comment hey you haven't been feeling well shouldn't you take it a little little easy on the booze and that was yeah that was he he said I've lived my life a certain way and no producer director wife or effing author is going to tell me what I can or cannot do and I said that kind of killed the book thing totally yeah yeah that sounds like Mitch yeah yeah he he was um only when he drank too much um he I mean he would he'd be fine most of the time with the alcohol but I saw him a couple times uh where he he was really mean really mean to people and yeah um you know that's uh but he he was but a great actor a a smart really smart well read wrote poetry sang uh he composed an oratorio that was performed at uh the Hollywood Bowl under anonymously uh really I did not know this yeah John told me that John Mitchum told me that uh I dated his daughter uh just couple times U Trina and uh I went this was not the house in mono it was when they still lived in Belair right I went to pick her up MH and I was let in and just off the main heart I I looked to my left and there was this big big uh Library you know one of those twostory libraries with the the ladder and the all the books and so I was waiting for Trina and just sort of checking out the books in the library and she came in she said I'm sorry I made you wait and I said that's okay I said wow what a great Library yeah and she said this is my dad's yeah he's read everything in here yeah yeah and uh you know he wouldn't let anybody know something like that but he was incredibly R yeah yeah so what were your feelings when you look as you look back on your career and I mean you've done uh the uh I know at the top it was mentioned the Ruby and Oswalt thing you did with your dad I know you're rightfully very proud of that the stuff with Kurt Russell uh all the stuff you've done both in front and behind the camera what what were your thoughts when you and and how long had it been since you had seen this this episode well yeah I hadn't seen I hadn't seen this for years I deliberately watched it about a week ago sure sure so I'd be ready for this uh but it was much much more fun watching it Absol um uh you know I guess my initial thought is I'm still here and everybody's gone but it's only because I was so young uh you know it's sad that all these people uh are no longer with us I would love to have had Jack sitting here with us because he would have given giving us even more insight into the Steve Lo character um I can remember him at one time we were having lunch together this just came to me now and he just went into a a spiel about his character for me it was about about his character and and what what I should know as my character about him and that's the way Jack was he would just sort of he made it easy but he he'd do it without you know uh any trouble but he that probably added to our relationship I think in on film well I'll tell you Michael um Jack's not here and they're all gone but you're still with us and I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed this and I think the audience have enjoyed this put it together for Michael McGreevy please thank you Michael thank you and the next the next uh the next episode with Diane Carroll uh Abram guiney another blacklisted writer was uh another writer of of this show and this is another tremendous episode so I hope you stick around and thank you for coming out tonight and thank Michael again thank you