I love this show. I got it online, have all the discs. Oh man how hilarious to hear people say "Daddy" and "Mommy" and not refer to their parents. I roar at how trendy (at that time) the writer's felt the older people should speak to relate to the young beatnicks. It would be like hearing Magnum PI saying "Totally bitchin', dude!" But I like it, and love Cassavetes, even though he hams on occassion.
"faith is for nuns and amateurs" ham tyler
I just got done transferring to CD an LP soundtrack of Elmer Bernstein's jazz scores for this show.
It was my first exposure to this show so I came here and looked up this title to find out the story behind the show and the music.
I fully agree with you about the painfully dated lingo -almost as bad a West Side Story!
"If you don't know the answer -change the question."
You do realize that today's supposedly "edgy" slang will be just as laughable to another generation 40 years down the line?
Why not simply enjoy the hepcat lingo as a window into another time, another way of life?
True enough, BUT, in films such as this and West Side Story, the slang is so obviously forced, so blatant in its display that it instantly dates the picture.
A picture like Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow, for example, even pokes fun at the teen lingo of the times and offers a primer for the uneducated.
Today's hip, urban street slang is not so "forced" as it was in earlier teen-targeted films, but to be sure, films that are commercially aimed solely and specifically at the urban teen audiences will age the worst worst -remember such epics as the Kid-n-Play House Party series? The roller disco serries? Hell, ANY film with disco at its core!
Then I look back at "edgy" films of the early 30's that included fast-talking, wise-cracking female leads and realise how the more things change, the more they stay the same (check out Glenda Farrell in Mystery of the Wax Museum).
"If you don't know the answer -change the question."
the voice overs were sometimes very dated like when he was referring to the beat generation and what they liked ugh
Cassavetes does ham sometimes but this role wasnt really suited to his acting abilities which transcended this rather flat character; some of the dialogue he had to say was pretty bad as well
but the whole thing has its great charm and Cassa is the epitome of male cool
No Justice Just Us
death jamm, you really didn't like the narrations by john? i thought they were terrific, and added so much to the show. they were only 'dated' because this show took place in the 60's.
hi, my name is carleen...i'm harmless.
I agree. I actually liked the narrations, especially over the filmed outdoor NYC locations that were sprinkled throughout the episodes.
You could tell some of the "street" locations were filmed on a Hollywood back lot, though. Probably all of the interiors as well.
Still, I thought it was hipper than PETER GUNN or M SQUAD. And yeah, I thought Cassavetes hammed some of the dialog as well.
Cassavetes was a very "hot" performer, not just in STACCATO. I suggest you look at EDGE OF THE CITY or THE DIRTY DOZEN. I think he was a little too edgy for TV audiences of the time. In the Xmas show, at the end he breaks character and says "Merry Christmas, everyone" to the viewers. It's disconcerting, as opposed to Ozzie Nelson or Robert Young doing the same thing.
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Hey daddy-o of course the lingo is dated, it was in the 50s, ya dig? Later baby!!!
shareRight? I don't find the "lingo" forced one bit and also think Cassavettes played Johnny perfectly. To criticize or poke fun if the "lingo" seems silly, pointed and kinda ignorant. I find the lingo as another character of the series and to ignore such phrases as "daddio" would be disingenuous. I don't know what one could possibly expect from a late fifties/early sixties jazz specific program but anything other than what was used would have come off as playing to the masses. This series owned that whole jazz lifestyle, for better or worse, regardless of how the "squares" might think it's beneath them.
shareI always hate it when people are dismissive about a show being "dated."
This show preserves, rather remarkably, a specific rather short moment in time-- and that includes the way people used to speak.
What really annoys me is when a film is made today as a "period piece" and the characters use anachronistic terms that didn't exist back then.
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Never say never...
It actually holds up tremendously well imo.
I know what you mean about dated but rather this feels evocative of the period rather than a fake dated representation of the period.
Cassavetes is an absolute marvel in this series imo, insanely charismatic.