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.

INTENT TO KILL (1958)

This is a pretty effective, yet unbelievable melodrama/thriller directed by Jack Cardiff, the famed cinematographer—more effective than the paid assassins in the film. Shot during a cold, snowy season in Montreal, the movie opens with a climactic score (over a blaring ambulance siren) yet it is only the first two minutes of the film. Perhaps not that particular as it anticipates what is ahead. One expects something drastic to happen at any moment but the only “excitement” is the quiet and careful deboarding of a South American president, Herbert Lom, who has been transported to Montreal for personal safety and special surgery on his potentially fatal cranial blood clot. Having previously survived an assassination attempt, the fire escape outside his window makes him nervous and requests a move to another room. A nice touch in the film’s early going as who knows what goes up or down those steps all hours of the day or night. To help comfort him, he asks a nurse to bring him his statue of the "patron saint of assassination."

Lom’s political opponents have hired hitmen, Warren Stevens, John Crawford and Peter Arne to kill Lom for good. They are taking orders from Lom’s personal aide, a detail unknown to him. Crawford and Arne do not get along. Stevens has to bring the hammer down on Crawford for his attitude and his absences for drinking and womanizing. Arne, a former doctor, is to administer a needle full of air into Lom’s vein. Stevens’ scouting made him aware of Lom’s move to another room but Arne knows nothing of the move until he is informed after killing the wrong patient.

Mixed into this assassination plot are surgeon, Richard Todd, and his nagging, self-centered wife, Catherine Boyle, who has arranged for him to take a high-paying position back in London. The high-paying part is of special interest to her. Todd has no interest except in fellow doctor, Betsy Drake, once again with near comatose acting. Judging by Boyle’s effective, irritating performance, most viewers might feel Todd deserves better. Meanwhile, the personal aide is hoping for a future with Lom’s beautiful wife once he has been dispatched.

As Lom recovers, he comes to the conclusion that the two may be romantically involved or plotting to kill him. The hitmen, determined not to lose their payoff, become even more incompetent leading to confrontations in the hospital. Arne tries once again to needle Lom but a detective asks him to identify himself. Arne loses his cool but never has any from the start. Todd volunteers as a lookout at the stairway entrance and Drake joins him. Crawford shows and threatens Drake at gunpoint to vouch for Arne. She stumbles over a question from the detective answering, “He...he is...doctor...watch out!” The detective falls from Arne’s bullet. What is funny are the gunshots which sound like cap pistols. The film takes a nosedive after the bad sound effects and never recovers. Unlike Lom. Arne gets a bullet in return and when Crawford enters the hall, he sends Arne to "an emergency room in the sky" by shooting him a few times. Nice knowin’ ya, bub.

Todd tangles with Crawford, who leaps down a flight of stairs in swashbuckling form as Dr. Peter Blood might do. Their struggle crashes both through a window and they fall to the pavement below. Crawford is spared spinal surgery but is arrested. Todd has surgery to remove a Crawford bullet.

As confusion and chaos rage in the hospital, Stevens assumes the role of an authoritarian figure, ordering nurses and orderlies around. Very official. It gets him access to Lom's unguarded room to perform a quick hit. Barely inside the room, he discovers Lom knows how to use that statue in a manner he could never have anticipated.

Note: It is a decent enough, if forgettable film, with competent performances. I can forgive Lom’s dull performance owing to his brain surgery. Alexander Knox possesses his role as the chief surgeon and wise counsel. Stevens stays cool and calm despite being a failure at the boss level. In an odd Todd closing prior to his surgery, Drake leans over next to his face and quietly whispers, 'Breathe Deeply,' as if referencing an alternate British title. One could spend some time debating why that line ends the film.