Guilty Bystander (1950)

Guilty Bystander may be the most noirish film noir I have seen so far. The filmmakers decided to shoot the film on location in New York City, and that decision certainly helped them achieve a gritty verisimilitude, in spite of using actors in the leading roles who were well known in 1950. The griminess felt real, even from the viewer’s seat.

Guilty Bystander is available for free online. Click here to watch it at the Internet Archive. If you would like to watch the film with Spanish subtitles, click here.

But on-location shooting wasn’t the only reason Guilty Bystander is so noirish. The two main characters, Max and Georgia Thursday, are flawed in very noir ways. Max Thursday (played by Zachary Scott) is a disgraced police detective who was suspended from the force because he shot Red Folger after drinking on the job; a newspaper reporter discovered the facts and published them, forcing Max’s boss, Captain Mark Tonetti, to suspend him. Max turns to the bottle to console himself, and it isn’t long before he leaves his marriage to Georgia (played by Fay Emerson) to live in the Riverview Hotel, a flophouse near the Brooklyn Bridge, where he lives and scrapes out a living as its house detective.

(This article about Guilty Bystander contains spoilers.)

All this information is part of Max’s backstory, which viewers learn as the film progresses. The narrative actually begins with Georgia Thursday looking for her husband one evening because she is desperate for help finding their young son Jeff. She arrives at the Riverview Hotel, obviously alarmed at the living conditions. She cannot help herself from wiping her fingers when she touches a banister. Georgia has to rouse her husband from a drunken stupor to convince him to help her. The only clue she has about Jeff’s disappearance is a note in which her brother Fred Mace claims to be going on an errand and taking Jeff with him. They were supposed to be back by dinner, but that was more than twenty-four hours ago.

Max Thursday is not such a dedicated drunkard that he isn’t moved by his wife’s distress and the plight of their son. Neither he nor Georgia seem to care too much about Fred, except that his involvement just makes the alarm they feel even more pronounced. Max may be a disgraced police detective, but he jumps into the investigation knowing that he still has the skills and wherewithal to do some good. Both parents can feel some relief knowing that Max is on the case.

But Max isn’t exactly a gentleman. Yes, he loves his wife and son, and he would do anything to protect both of them. But that is actually part of his problem. He is not above telling Angel, one of the leads he is following in his investigation, that he and she should move to Florida and live on the beach for the rest of their lives. To make his act more convincing, he kisses her passionately (enough) while they are on their way to find his brother-in-law. He promises Angel the world because he wants her to lead him to Fred. He will tell her anything as long as he can find Fred and thus his son.

And just in case viewers aren’t convinced that Max Thursday is a heel, he tries to save himself when two thugs show up at the bottom of a staircase by shoving Angel down into them and running up the stairs. By this point, Angel is distraught because she knows she has been taken in by yet another creep. In fact, I was sure that the two thugs would kill her and Max, but no. She runs off shrieking about her close call with death and the betrayal by Max. After all of this, I could still root for Max because I was really rooting for Jeff. Without Max, Jeff could be gone forever, and without his quest for Jeff, Max would be nothing but a corrupt cop who got what he deserved.

And to say that Max is vital to the investigation is not an understatement. The police are on the case, but they do have other priorities, and his wife Georgia does nothing to help, other than showing up at the start of the film and asking Max to get involved. And yet she is not exactly the sweet woman waiting at home for her husband to get his work done. Later in his investigation, when Max returns to her apartment with a gunshot wound in his upper arm, she tends to it expertly enough to extract the bullet.

Max threatens to stop investigating. He cannot even carry a gun anymore since his suspension and so he cannot defend himself. He believes that is how he was wounded in the first place. He knows that he drinks too much and has the shakes, which would affect his aim. When Max feels that he will never find Jeff, Georgia hurls angry statements at him such as “You haven’t gone as far as you can until you’re dead,” “If you haven’t got a gun, go without one,” and “You can’t walk, crawl. But you’re going to bring Jeff back.” Her arguments about Max continuing his investigation have their intended effect: Max is apparently susceptible to a bit of emotional manipulation. Why should Georgia care what happens to Max as long as their son is safe?

Smitty is the proprietor of the Riverview Hotel, where Max lives, and she helps Max with his investigation by providing information. Her position running the flophouse makes her privy to gossip and pertinent information, but she also encourages Max to drink whenever she can. Sometimes he gives in, which adds to the complexity of his investigation and brings him back to the attention of the police and Tonetti, his former boss. Max was the last person to see one of his leads, Doctor Elder, before Elder was found murdered. Max is a strong suspect given his background on the police force and the fact that he accepted Elder’s offer of alcohol when they met. Tonetti wants Max to leave the investigation of his son’s disappearance to the police force, but he lets Max go, his prime suspect in Elder’s murder, for lack of concrete evidence against him.

The search for his son leads Max to a smuggling ring that deals in guns and illegal drugs—and murder. Doctor Elder is his first lead, and the alcohol that the doctor convinces Max to drink tastes a bit like licorice. Audiences in 1950 must have known what Max was referring to when he mentioned the taste of licorice because no other mention is made of this substance, so I did a little research. The alcohol was probably absinthe, and Wikipedia offers a lot of information about it, including bans on its production and consumption. (Click here to read more; scroll down to the subsection called “Bans” if you want that information specifically.) Thus, Max probably guessed right away that Doctor Elder dealt in illegal substances, and 1950 audiences probably would have guessed the same.

The only false note in the film was the ending. Max is suddenly cleaned up and dressed in a suit, and he and Georgia arrive to find Jeff safe and sound, just as Fred Mace had told Max he would be. The happy family walk away down the street together. There is even a moment when the little boy struggles out of Faye Emerson’s arms and reaches his arms up to Zachary Scott to be picked up and held. It’s a charming moment that I think had more to do with the little boy (no credit line for Jeff) and Zachary Scott than it did with Jeff and Max Thursday. In fact, I wondered if the little boy was related to Scott or possibly his own son. But “charming” is hardly a way to describe Guilty Bystander overall. It’s the ending that everyone wants, to be sure. But it comes with no transition, no explanation about Max’s seemingly sudden transformation. The ending felt tacked on, or maybe any intervening scenes had been cut for the sake of brevity.

Guilty Bystander has only recently been restored and made available for viewing. I found this information courtesy of Eddie Muller and his discussion of the film for the program Noir Alley at Turner Classic Movie (TCM). Click here for the YouTube version of Muller’s introduction to the film, which includes lots of information about the writers of the novel that the film is based on and the film’s producers. Muller’s outro (click here) provides more information about the restoration of this film.

In spite of all his flaws, Max is determined to find his son. And Zachary Scott is perfect in this role. I have always been a fan of Scott’s, and I always look forward to seeing a film with Scott in any role, lead or supporting. His performance in Guilty Bystander does not disappoint. It’s a great story, too. The happy ending may not match the rest of the story, but the rest of the story and Zachary Scott’s performance are the reasons to see Guilty Bystander.

April 20, 1950, release date  •  Directed by Joseph Lerner  •  Screenplay by Don Ettlinger  •  Based on the novel Guilty Bystander by Wade Miller  •  Music by Dimitri Tiomkin  •  Edited by Geraldine Lerner  •  Cinematography by Gerald Hirschfield, Russell Harlan

Zachary Scott as Max Thursday  •  Faye Emerson as Georgia Thursday  •  Mary Boland as Smitty  •  Sam Levene as Captain Mark Tonetti  •  J. Edward Bromberg as Otto Varkas  •  Kay Medford as Angel  •  Jed Prouty as Dr. Elder  •  Harry Landers as Bert  •  Dennis Patrick as Fred Mace, Georgia’s brother  •  Ray Julian as Johnny  •  Elliot Sullivan as Stitch Olivera  •  Garney Wilson as Harvey  •  Donald Novis as Detective Johnson  •  Jesse White as the man in the bar  •  Scott Landers as Shaunessy, the police officer in the jail cell  •  Lester Lonergran as the coroner  •  Lou Herbert as a police detective

Distributed by Film Classics  •  Produced by Edmund L. Dorfmann Productions, Laurel Films, New York Film Associates

 

Save the Tiger (1973): Jack Lemmon Gets Lost in a B Movie Universe

Jack Lemmon is great in his dramatic role of Harry Stoner, aka Cuban Pete, in Save the Tiger, a low-budget neo-noir with a script that Lemmon liked so much he agreed to work for scale so that he could be part of it. It is the story of a little more than twenty-four consequential hours in the life of Stoner, president of a garment company called Capri Casuals, Inc., and his business partner and accountant Phil Greene. The title comes from Stoner’s chance meeting on a street in Los Angeles (L.A.) with a conservation activist, who is trying to collect signatures for a petition to save the tiger. The implication is that, in the early 1970s, middle-class U.S. businessmen who served in World War II needed help—and badly—like tigers facing extinction.

Stoner definitely needs help. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because of his service in the war, which is revealed in his flashbacks, nightmares, and ability to lose himself in daydreams about the past and about baseball that worry his wife and, occasionally, his business partner. He is becoming increasingly desperate to keep his company afloat. Even though his clothing line is snapped up by store buyers, he is still having trouble raising enough money to put the clothing line into production for another season, and he worries about paying his many employees. A lot is at stake.

Harry Stoner has his faults. He spends too much money on himself (and on others, so he is generous, too), and he is willing to commit criminal activity like fraud and arson to solve his financial worries. And yet he is still sympathetic. Who doesn’t want to make family and friends happy? Who hasn’t had financial worries? Who hasn’t reminisced about a past that seems more appealing with every passing day that troubles mount?

Stoner isn’t just a nice guy with troubles, however; he makes bad choices that he justifies to himself easily. He deserves to succeed and have his slice of the American dream because he has sacrificed so much for his country. His business partner and friend Phil Greene presents some opposing arguments. Viewers get to see how easily Stoner’s life turns into a noir narrative that could have been filmed in black and white in the immediate postwar period of the late 1940s and 1950s.

The film starts quietly with a solo trumpeter playing soft jazz (“I Can’t Get Started”) on the soundtrack. When the opening credits and the song end, the film cuts to a shot of flowers in a field (on Mulholland Drive, according to the DVD commentary), then it pans up to a shot of the L.A. skyline. Then it cuts to a shot of a large suburban home with a built-in pool and morning fog rising lazily over the scene. Now viewers hear birds chirping and a dog barking two or three times in the distance.

Everything is flowers and peace (note the period references!) until the film cuts to Harry Stoner, who is in bed groaning and yelling in his sleep until he awakens, clutching his pillow and gasping for air. He has just suffered another nightmare. His alarm goes off, and for a few seconds, he has trouble adjusting to his surroundings. As he starts his day, his wife Janet tells him that he screamed in his sleep for the second time that week. She wants him to see a doctor.

In the bathroom, they talk about their daughter Audrey, who is attending school in Switzerland. Harry wants to visit her, but Janet doesn’t even answer his proposal. She keeps insisting that Audrey is better off in Switzerland because teenagers take drugs in the high school bathrooms in L.A. She wants to protect her daughter from city violence and drugs generally. She tells her husband that Europe is more civilized. She doesn’t even notice the irony of her comment: her husband fought in Europe during World War II trying to bring it back from total destruction.

On his way to work driving a large Lincoln Continental (the tank-like version from the 1970s, of course), Harry picks up a hitchhiker, Myra, who states that she rides back and forth on Sunset Strip all day. She compliments Harry’s suit, then asks him if he would like to have sex with her. Harry declines Myra’s offer, although he does chuckle about it.

Myra’s compliment about Harry’s suit seems to be a running gag in a film that is not a comedy by any means. In the DVD audio commentary by the director John G. Avildsen and screenwriter Steve Shagan, I learned that the suit was tailor-made for Jack Lemmon. They mention that it was a good investment because Lemmon wears it in the role of Harry Stoner for almost the entire film.

Harry Stoner arrives at a garment factory that is already in full work mode, with seamstresses at sewing machines and models getting ready for the annual fashion show later that same day. Harry is greeted by an argument between Rico, a young designer, and Meyer, an old man who is the best cutter in the business (a relationship that illustrates the generation gap, a popular phrase in the 1970s). Neither appreciates the other, and Harry needs to smooth things between them because he needs them both. (When Harry arrives at the management offices, the receptionist greets him with a compliment about his suit, as does an employee that he passes in the hallway on the way to his office. Harry’s response to both: “Passatti, Italian silk.”)

(This article about Save the Tiger contains spoilers.)

When Harry arrives in his own office, Phil Greene is on the phone talking about a bank note he cannot meet. When Phil gets off the phone, he and Harry discuss their money problems. Harry asks about the Long Beach factory and whether the insurance policies are all paid up. Then he gives Phil a piece of paper with Charlie Robbins’s phone number on it. Phil is appalled. He already knows from the name that Harry is thinking of torching the Long Beach factory to collect on the insurance. They argue because arson is a line that Phil won’t cross. They have cut what Phil calls “sharp corners” before with creative accounting, but arson he won’t condone. Harry calls Charlie Robbins himself.

Fred Mirrell, one of the buyers in town for the fashion show and the new clothing line, arrives in Harry’s office. He doesn’t go to the hotel where the fashion show will take place because he wants Harry to arrange another “date” with Margo, whom he remembers from the previous year. He and Harry argue because Fred makes this request at the last minute, at a time when all the buyers are in town and Margo is already booked. Harry has to call her himself to beg her to accommodate Fred, even though Margo remembers him, too, from last year and calls him a freak. Thus, Harry is involved in prostitution in addition to fraud and possibly arson. It may involve prosperous businessmen, but it’s prostitution all the same. Phil is quick to point out the moral shortcomings of this illegal activity, too.

With all their differences, especially when it comes to ethics, it is still obvious that Harry and Phil have been good friends for a long time. In fact, Phil’s loyalty may be his own undoing. On their way to lunch in Chinatown, Phil asks for eye drops because his eyes are burning from the L.A. smog. Harry doesn’t have any, but he offers an old joke:

• Harry: “I tell ya, Phil, there’s one wonderful thing about Los Angeles.”

• Phil: “What’s that?”

• Harry: “It’s not Buffalo.”

• Phil: (laughs) “You son of a bitch. You know how many times that I’ve fallen for that?”

Over lunch, Harry tells Phil about his trip the previous year to see the cotton mills in Milan, Italy. From Milan, he flew to Rome and then drove to Anzio to revisit the site where he was wounded and where so many of his friends died in World War II. The beach that he saw soaked with blood during the war is now a resort covered with bikinis, cute little buckets as he puts it. Phil is sympathetic, but he acknowledges that the events from World War II were a long time ago now (almost thirty years in 1973). He uses the occasion to remind Harry about the present and his opinion of using arson to solve their problems.

After lunch, Phil and Harry go to the Belgrave Hotel where the fashion show is about to start and where Fred Mirrell is meeting Margo. Harry gets a call while he and Phil are at the bar: Fred is suffering a heart attack. Harry arrives in the hotel room, panicky and angry that Margo let things go too far, as he puts it. Phil has to remind Harry that they are responsible, and both he and Harry are shaken by the possibility that Fred Mirrell might die because of what they (really Harry) arranged for him.

Harry next has to speak at the fashion show in the hotel. As he starts to introduce the fashion line, he experiences a serious of short flashbacks, which are most likely prompted by seeing Fred Mirrell close to death so recently. In his flashbacks, he sees the dead soldiers he knew as friends sitting in the audience instead of the clothes buyers. The flashbacks appear one after the other, and Harry is overcome with emotion. It’s obvious to everyone in the audience and to his employees behind the scenes that he is troubled. To them, it seems to come out of the blue, but to viewers, it makes more sense because the story is told from Harry’s perspective. Jackie, who introduced Harry Stoner to the fashion show audience, saves him from talking on and on about his war experiences.

Sid Fivush, a mobster, offers to help Capri Casuals with money, that is, a loan with ever-increasing interest rates. He proposes this idea to Phil Greene first, but Harry Stoner intervenes to say that he’ll pass. He doesn’t want anything to do with Sid or his mob tactics. For once the roles are reversed: Harry refuses to get involved with the mob, for obvious reasons of personal danger, but Phil Greene is open to the idea because they would have the money they need without resorting to arson. (Sid compliments Harry’s suit and guesses correctly that it is Passatti, Italian made. He knows his fashion!)

Phil and Harry have to leave the fashion show for their appointment with Charlie Robbins in an adult movie theater. Charlie Robbins will investigate the Long Beach factory, and he asks that Harry and Phil meet him again at 10 a.m. the following morning. (Robbins also compliments Harry’s suit during their brief negotiation.)

Harry returns to the office at Capri Casuals later that night, and Phil Greene tells him that the fashion show was a success. They argue about the arson. They are two small businessmen trying to make payroll and keep their employees working, something both can agree on. But Phil is very upset about the arson and Harry’s ability to rationalize it away. Harry doesn’t want to hear Phil selling America to him because he, too, believed in America, but World War II and postwar life changed all that.

On his way home late at night, Harry sees Myra again hitchhiking and picks her up. She invites him to spend the night at the beach house that she is house-sitting, and he accepts this time. She notices the scars on his back after they sleep together. When he tells her that he got them in Italy, she assumes that he got them in a fistfight. She doesn’t know that the United States fought a war with Italy because she is so young and because history has been revised to make Italy a victim and a U.S. ally, which leaves Harry feeling alone and isolated again. This sequence with Myra shows once again how hard it is for Harry to feel connected to people generally and especially to Myra, who is barely older than his own daughter, a fact he pointed out to Phil Greene earlier in the day when he told him about meeting her.

At the follow-up meeting with Charlie Robbins, Robbins insists that he will not set fire to the Long Beach factory because of the many fire code violations: The insurance company will never pay out because of them. Harry is discouraged and Phil is relieved, but Robbins has an alternate plan to set fire to Siegel’s shirt factory on the first floor. Robbins and Harry complete the deal in the theater lobby, but Harry insists that Robbins keep Phil Greene’s name out of it. (Charlie Robbins doesn’t compliment the suit this time, but he does notice that it is the same one that Harry wore to their meeting the day before.) Harry is still generous: He will protect his friend and business partner.

The DVD audio commentary by director John G. Avildsen and writer Steve Shagan is definitely worth a listen. The two provide a lot of information about the film. Avildsen and Shagan go off topic here and there, but they are good friends it seems, so it is probably inevitable that they would talk about other things besides the film. The following list of some of their points shows that their audio commentary is packed with information:

◊ Lemmon was in Steve Shagan’s mind as he wrote the script, and they were lucky to get him. Lemmon was up for something different from his usual comedic roles. He and Jack Gilford acted in roles that were very different from their previous work.

◊ The film was shot entirely on location. Nothing was shot on a studio lot because it would have been too expensive. The factory scenes were filmed in a real factory, but the offices were built for the film.

◊ The film is a snapshot of America in the 1970s.

◊ The cinematographer made do with the natural lighting that was available as they were shooting.

◊ Jack Lemmon knew how to take his time with the tasks of everyday life. One good example is when he calls Margo to convince her to see the buyer Fred Mirrell.

◊ Steve Shagan wrote the script from anger. He was a World War II veteran, and all the men who fought in the war were now in the middle class getting the short shrift. The president [Richard Nixon] could have been a mob collector.

◊ In the name game scene between Harry Stoner and Myra, Steve Shagan tried to fit everything in about World War II; the Vietnam War; the assassinations of Jack Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and others; and other contemporary topics.

◊ Harry Stoner’s audio flashback on the beach at the beach house is from the winter of 1944 at Anzio, Italy.

◊ Baseball represents the theme of lost innocence in America, especially for Harry Stoner.

◊ The film clip on the television in the bar at the Belgrave Hotel is from a Bogart film. It shows a baseball rolling up to Bogart as he sits on a bench.

◊ Save the Tiger is an old-fashioned film driven by the script and has no special effects. When Harry Stoner sees the dead soldiers during the fashion show for his company, the viewers see them, too. It also has a lot of dialogue: The film has some very long scenes in which the actors deliver several lines.

◊ Jack Lemmon lost himself in the character of Harry Stoner. He inhabited the role and was emotionally drained by it.

I have loved Save the Tiger since the first time that I saw it, and that was in a movie theater. But did I see it when it was first released? I’m not so sure. Maybe the film was rereleased to theaters after Jack Lemmon won his Academy Award for Best Actor in 1974 and that was when I saw it. I remember having to convince my mother to see Save the Tiger, an R-rated film. How did I ever manage that! Save the Tiger was a financial failure at the box office, so I guess I was one of the few people to see it in the theater. It’s too bad more people didn’t see it originally, but thanks to modern technology, now everyone can enjoy it.

This article about Save the Tiger is my entry for the Third Annual Favorite Stars in B Movies Blogathon, hosted by Brian at filmsfrombeyond.com. Click on each day (each is a link) below for a day-by-day list of links to participants’ blogs. The list is updated each day of the blogathon, from March 28 to March 30, as follows:

Day 1, March 28, 2025

Day 2, March 29,2025

Day 3, March 30, 2025

February 14, 1973, release date  •  Directed by John G. Avildsen  •  Screenplay by Steve Shagan  •  Based on the novel Save the Tiger by Steve Shagan  •  Music by Marvin Hamlisch  •  Edited by David Bretherton  •  Cinematography by James Crabe

Jack Lemmon as Harry Stoner (aka Cuban Pete)  •  Jack Gilford as Phil Greene  •  Laurie Heineman as Myra  •  Norman Burton as Fred Mirrell  •  Patricia Smith as Janet Stoner  •  Thayer David as Charlie Robbins  •  William Hansen as Meyer, the cutter  •  Harvey Jason as Rico, the designer  •  Lin Von Linden as Ula  •  Lara Parker as Margo  •  Janina as Dusty  •  Eloise Hardt as Jackie, the fashion show announcer  •  Ned Glass as Sid Fivush  •  Pearl Shear as the cashier  •  Biff Elliot as the “save the tiger” petitioner  •  Ben Freedman as the taxi driver  •  Madeline Lee as Ida, the receptionist at Capri Casuals

Distributed by Paramount Pictures Corporation  •  Produced by Filmways, Inc., Jalem Productions, Inc., Cirandhina Productions, Inc.

The Dick Van Dyke Show: The “Big Max Calvada” Episode (November 20, 1963) Is Film Noir Played for Laughs

I have to be honest: I have always enjoyed every episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. But I picked the “Big Max Calvada” episode for the Eleventh Annual Favorite TV Show Blogathon because it’s a humorous tribute to film noir. And it is a favorite of mine, just like all the episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show!

Nothing about this 1960s sitcom is the least bit noir. But “Big Max Calvada” is one episode that plays film noir for laughs. Carl Reiner, the series creator, and Sheldon Leonard, the series producer, created a very funny homage to film noir. The episode is also a humorous send-up of Sheldon Leonard’s many roles in film noir in which he played gangsters and other ne’er-do-wells before turning to television and producing.

“Big Max Calvada” starts with television writers Robert (Rob) Petrie, Buddy Sorrell (“That’s with two l’s”), and Sally Rogers trying to come up with a new idea for The Alan Brady Show, the television variety show that they write material for. They are interrupted by a phone call from Marge, the office receptionist, who announces that Maxwell Calvada has arrived to see Rob. Rob has no idea who he is, so he tells Marge to have Calvada wait.

The writers try to go back to work, but Buddy wants to know why the name Maxwell Calvada sounds so familiar. The three of them start speculating: Is Calvada on television? Does he work for the government? No, Buddy says, he is Big Max Calvada, the man who was on the witness stand recently because he was being prosecuted by the federal government for his role in organized crime. Rob immediately regrets making Calvada wait. He rushes to the office door and opens it to look for Calvada, but he is already standing outside the door, waiting with his assistant, Bernard.

(This article about the television episode “Big Max Calvada,” from The Dick Van Dyke Show, contains a few spoilers.)

Calvada is very familiar with Rob’s, Sally’s, and Buddy’s writing. He is an admirer of their work, which explains why he is at their office. He wants them to write a nightclub act for his nephew Kenny Dexter. They try to come up with every possible reason why they cannot accept Calvada’s offer: They have a job writing for Alan Brady, they have a contract that they cannot break, they don’t have time to take on another job. Calvada has an answer for all of them: Money is no object, Alan Brady already knows Calvada and will be happy to accommodate him, Calvada will give them two weeks instead of one to write Kenny’s act.

And in case they still have any doubts, Calvada has already taken the time to find out all he can about the friends and family of his “associates,” including Rob’s lovely wife Laura and their son Ritchie. To emphasize his point, he picks up Rob’s photo of Ritchie and then slams it face down on the writers’ desk. Rob, Sally, and Buddy agree: They will write the act for Kenny.

Kenny Dexter is a teenager with no talent. The only person who seems to be a fan is Bernard, who never once cracks a smile but insists, on more than one occasion, that “the kid breaks me up.” Kenny desperately wants to go into show business, and his Uncle Max does what he can to help, including hiring the best comedy writers and booking a night at the Diamond Club, the top nightspot in New York City. The pressure is already on Rob, Buddy, and Sally. To make matters worse, Kenny cannot tell a joke or sing. Kenny’s aunt (Max’s wife, “Mrs. Calvada”) is the only one who says what everyone else is thinking: “He stinks.”

The three writers try to make the best of it. They don’t want to anger Big Max Calvada because they fear the consequences, and Calvada is very intimidating. He threatens Rob’s family; he schedules his nephew’s night at the Diamond Club by arranging for the scheduled performer to be conveniently sick for that one night. When Kenny starts singing at his nightclub debut, Calvada leans across the table and, in front of Rob, Laura (Rob’s wife), Buddy, Sally, and Mrs. Calvada, asks Bernard in an ominous stage whisper to make a note about speaking to Kenny’s voice teacher.

Kenny Dexter’s nightclub performance is a flop, and this disaster leads to a last meeting between the Alan Brady Show writers and Big Max Calvada. Calvada takes over the office of the Diamond Club’s owner and shuts the door on him, then asks Rob, Buddy, and Sally to sit while the faithful Bernard stays on hand to take notes. It’s the last act, the final showdown.

Big Max Calvada and his direct and implied threats are the source of great anxiety for Rob, Sally, and Buddy. Their reactions in each instance, including the last act, are the source of humor and laughs for viewers. Sheldon Leonard doesn’t have to be funny at all. He plays Big Max Calvada straight, much like he would have played a gangster in film noir.

But The Dick Van Dyke Show is a sitcom; it goes without saying that Rob and his cowriters will get out of trouble without a gun being fired or any bullets flying. But how that happens is a surprising and humorous twist that I won’t divulge here. And Sheldon Leonard is the one to deliver it—without stepping out of character. It's a clever resolution, and, as I recall, I didn’t see it coming the first time that I saw “Big Max Calvada.”

That first viewing was a long time ago, when I didn’t know what film noir was and had never heard of Sheldon Leonard or his contribution to noir. I don’t remember anymore how surprised I was by the ending of “Big Max Calvada.” I have seen the “Big Max Calvada” episode (really all the episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show) dozens of times since then. What I do know is that I still laugh as though I have never seen each episode before.

This article about the The Dick Van Dyke Show episode “Big Max Calvada” is my entry for the Eleventh Annual Favorite TV Show Episode Blogathon hosted by Terry at A Shroud of Thoughts. Click here for the complete list of blogathon participants and links to their blogs. The list is updated each day of the blogathon, from March 21 to March 23, 2025.

November 20, 1963, broadcast date  •  Season 3, Episode 9; Episode 71 of the series overall  •  Directed by Jerry Paris  •  Written by Bill Persky, Sam Denoff  •  Edited by Bud Molin  •  Cinematography by Robert De Grasse  •  Opening theme song by Earle Hagen  •  Series created by Carl Reiner

Dick Van Dyke as Robert Petrie  •  Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie  •  Rose Marie as Sally Rogers  •  Morey Amsterdam as Buddy Sorrell  •  Sheldon Leonard as Maxwell Calvada  •  Arthur Batinides as Bernard  •  Jack Larson as Kenny Dexter  •  Sue Casey as Sylvia Calvada  •  Johnny Silver as the waiter  •  Tiny Brauer as Louie, owner of the Diamond Club

Produced by Calvada Productions  •  Broadcast by CBS