We love Turner Classic Movies. Sure, they run a lot of the same films over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Any time I get the urge to watch Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, I can either go downstairs and get my DVD of it or just turn on TCM where there's around a 1-in-3 chance of it being on. Nevertheless, in those odd moments when it's not, a lot of interesting things are. Every so often, someone at TCM creeps into the metaphorical vaults and hauls out some lost treasure.
Next week, they're running one of the worst movies I ever saw and later in the month, they're making up for it with one of the best…and neither one has been easy to see, lo these many years. One — the bad one — wasn't even easy to see when it was current. It's called Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title, and it stars half the cast of The Dick Van Dyke Show: Morey Amsterdam, Rose Marie and Richard Deacon. Made around the time that great series was ending, the film was produced and co-written by Mr. Amsterdam, whose Human Joke Machine capabilities weren't working so well that month. On the plus side though, he did manage to arrange surprise cameo appearances by a number of his friends, including Danny Thomas, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, Carl Reiner, Irene Ryan, Forrest Tucker and Moe Howard.
You know the old joke, "This movie wasn't released…it escaped"? This one didn't even escape. As far as I know, it never played most of the major cities in this country. I'm pretty sure it never appeared on any Los Angeles theater screen. I saw it in 1966 when my parents and I were vacationing in Pismo Beach, a nice beachside town which is about 200 miles north of Los Angeles. We had nothing to do one afternoon so we went into town and it was playing on a bargain-priced double-bill with the James Coburn film, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? One thing I recall that did not bode well for Don't Worry… being a cinema classic: The posters for it that were on display outside were not printed. They were hand-lettered, apparently by some local sign-painting company.
The one time I met Rose Marie, I asked her about the film and from her reaction, I'd obviously touched a very sore spot. She said something about how when it was announced that The Dick Van Dyke Show was shutting down after its fifth season, she turned to Morey and said, "Well, what are we going to do now?" And Morey said not to worry. He had these friends who had financing and he had an idea for a movie…and I'm guessing it did not lead to a new line of work for the two of them, or much cash.
It's an awful movie but like some awful movies, it's enjoyable in a way. The cameo bits are all pretty good, and it's fun just to watch some of those actors — including supporting players like Henry Corden — performing, even when they're trapped in weak material. The plot, which you suffer through waiting for the cameos, has something to do with Morey and Rose Marie, who work in a diner run by Deacon, getting mixed up with spies who are looking for a defecting cosmonaut. I'm suggesting you tape or TiVo the thing but not that you try to watch it all the way through in real time. This is the kind of movie for which they invented the Fast Forward button.
Still, I'm glad I saw it in '66 in Pismo Beach, even though I couldn't skip ahead in that theater. I'm glad I saw it because for many years, my friend Leonard Maltin hadn't. This is close to humanly impossible since Leonard has seen every movie ever made. Name the most obscure Monogram one-reeler travelogue ever made and Leonard's not only seen it, he's written about it in one of his books. For many years, the one thing I could lord over him was that I'd seen this one movie that had eluded him…and it was a movie with a Stooge appearance, no less. And lord it over him, I did…until a few years ago when it inexplicably turned up on the TCM schedule. I caught it in mid-broadcast by accident and immediately phoned Leonard who said, "I'm watching it now and it's everything you said it was…and less." In Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, he gives it a rating of "BOMB," which isn't fair but it's the lowest rating he has.
Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title runs on Turner Classic Movies on Wednesday, January 10 at 9:30 AM Eastern Time. Perhaps to make up for it, later in the month they're running one of my favorite good movies, Billy Wilder's The Big Carnival, also known as Ace in the Hole and couple other names. This may be the first time it's been on TV in decades and I'll tell you about it when we get closer to the date. In the meantime — and sad to say — you missed this month's airing of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. It was on yesterday morning.