FILM BRAKE: EMERGENCY!

 

I believe it is safe to say this is the only series that involves two composers of two different Route 66 themes. Nelson Riddle wrote the theme for Emergency! and for the previous decade's hit show, Route 66. Emergency! cast member, Bobby Troup, wrote the hit song, Get Your Kicks On Route 66, famously recorded by Nat King Cole. 

This American television medical drama from Mark VII Limited and Universal Television is aimed to be more realistic than the two previous decades of medical shows, centering on the new field of emergency medical system (EMS) paramedics. Famous for his insistence on realism and not theatrics, it was created and produced by Jack Webb along with Robert Cinader. Additional creative credit went to Harold Jack Bloom. Pioneering EMS innovator, James O. Page, served as a technical advisor, always on the set to make sure everything was authentic. Resisting the comparison to modern medical dramas, the show still remains an impressive display of intelligent production, with money well-spent where it counted. 

The earliest episodes were on shaky ground with sometimes stiff and cliched performances, delivering the occasional clipped banter or tight closeups ala Dragnet. The show hit its stride by the third season, not focusing so much on interpersonal relationships, but the seamless blend of action, drama, and comedy (best showcased at Station 51). Yet it never ranked in the Nielson top 25. Networks were having a problem with 1970s action shows blended with comedy. Emergency! was not Medical Center any more than Jim Rockford was Steve McGarrett of Hawaii Five-O. Loyal viewers kept the hour-long show running from January 1972 until May 1977. After the regular series ended, there were six two-hour television movies produced during 1978-79 as the seventh season in an attempt to bring closure to the series. See "Notes" below.

Unlike many action dramas today with multiple plots, Emergency! fans' attention span was most impressive. The show only had two areas of interest: the rescue and the hospital. If an area of heavy brush needed clearing in order to access a crashed automobile "placed" in a ravine, the production filmed a bulldozer clearing the brush. It was mesmerizing at the time, sending the message that rescues can be tedious and with potential danger. Though both lead actors underwent some paramedic training for their roles at Station 51, arrival to film an "emergency scene" sometimes offered the unexpected. Some ad-libbing was inevitable to make their characters believable. The producers were able to balance out their budget despite the high cost of the rescue scenes. On the other side of the coin, the hospital scenes were inexpensive to shoot. With the back and forth locations during an episode, they were able to split the cost for each episode. 

 

Anyone binge-watching today may find a few emergencies a bit too extended with repetitive, four-note, bass guitar licks or flutes in the background that made it seem even longer. The repeated footage of the rescue vehicles leaving the station or in transit will also be obvious, with certain neighborhoods apparently having more than their share of emergencies. Automobile accidents are obviously staged using "pre-crashed" vehicles. Crash stunts were not the point, it was how the paramedics coordinated their efforts with the hospital. The show evolved to include more spectacular 1970s-style pyro-technics, and the paramedics were involved in some exhausting stunts, using few or expertly hidden stuntmen. As a general rule, if you could not see their faces, it was stuntmen. 

The producers used fictitious names for the stationhouse and hospital, yet not all the actors were fictitious. A few were employed by the Los Angeles fire and police departments and used their real names. The balance of lead and supporting actors in the series can be found at the link below. Though Randolph Mantooth (Johhny Gage) and Kevin Tighe (Roy DeSoto) had prior credits, this was their first lead roles -- both seemingly appearing out of nowhere. These lead characters are a huge factor in making this series successful. Gage is a self-absorbed, die-hard single guy while DeSoto is married with children and has been in the paramedic program longer than his partner. These ordinary-looking guys tease, argue, and get on each other's nerves like brothers, and it is this partnership (they are best friends in real life) that makes the series memorable. There is not a situation or subject that Gage is not an "expert." He will have ideas about moonlighting on his off days for extra cash or butting in to resolve everyone's personal dilemmas to the amusement or ire of DeSoto and the firemen because he rarely knows what he is talking about. As per Barney Fife's earlier precedent, Mantooth's character became the breakout star of the show.

Notes: The series used a variation of Riddle's theme during some emergency runs. Beginning with the third season, big band composer and arranger, Billy May, came aboard to provide the show's incidental music with a jazzy, brassy, 1970s-style driving rhythm during emergency runs. Other times, his music is simply overbearing and highly repetitious. On the "B-side" is Gerald Fried's score for the last two movies. His music themes rarely fit a given scene as if he never saw a single frame from the movie. When it is not silly, much of the music is totally out of sync with the visuals.

Aside from the movie about the paramedic's retrospective of memorable rescues, there is no commonality between the movies and the series. The movies have lost their timeliness and are best bypassed today. Station 51 is nowhere to be found and the complete hospital cast only appears in the first movie. Gage and DeSoto become secondary cast members as they travel to observe paramedics in a couple other cities on the west coast, with a new cast that is dangerously close to amateurs. Perhaps the producers were thinking that watching any paramedics will be just as good. 

For more detail on the series, including the memorabilia and vehicles now in the Smithsonian Institution collection, visit HERE.