Mr. Lucky (TV series)
| Mr. Lucky | |
|---|---|
 The Complete Series DVD cover | |
| Created by | Blake Edwards, based on a story by Milton Holmes |
| Starring | John Vivyan Ross Martin Pippa Scott Tom Brown |
| Opening theme | "Theme From 'Mr. Lucky'" |
| Composer | Henry Mancini |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 34 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Gordon Oliver |
| Producer | Jack Arnold |
| Running time | 30 Minutes |
| Production company | Spartan Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | CBS |
| Release | October 24, 1959 – June 18, 1960 |
Mr. Lucky is a CBS adventure/drama television series that aired from 1959 to 1960 with repeats until September 3. Blake Edwards developed the program as a retooling of his Willie Dante character from Four Star Playhouse, in which the role was played by studio boss Dick Powell. In the 1960–1961 television season, Howard Duff assumed the role of Willie Dante in the NBC adventure/drama series Dante. John Vivyan played "Lucky", not "Dante".
Mr. Edwards directed and co-wrote the first episode of Mr. Lucky, and the credits of the first eighteen episodes included the text, "Entire production supervised by Blake Edwards." Jack Arnold (director of Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and It Came from Outer Space) produced the show and directed fifteen of the thirty-four episodes.
Henry Mancini's smooth theme music for the show reached Number 21 in the US singles charts. He released two successful LP's based on the show, Mr. Lucky and Mr. Lucky Goes Latin.
Cast and format
John Vivyan played the title character Mr. Lucky. Ross Martin portrayed Andamo. Pippa Scott had a recurring role as Maggie Shank-Rutherford, Lucky's girlfriend. Tom Brown also had a recurring role, as Lieutenant Rovacs of the city police.
Mr. Lucky is an honest professional gambler with extraordinary luck. He carries a pocket watch whose chimes play the first five notes of the Mr. Lucky theme music. He and Andamo operate a floating casino aboard a luxury yacht anchored outside an American port city. (The yacht in reality was the Alamo, a 148-foot yacht owned by former Compton, California mayor Col. C.S. Smith, publisher of the now-defunct Herald American Newspaper chain.) Their business brings them into contact with numerous criminals and people hiding from criminals. This continues even after Lucky changes their business to a floating restaurant (see "Format change" below).
The website "TV Obscurities" indicates that Mr. Lucky's actual name was never identified in the series.[1] The episode "Aces Back to Back" reveals that Lucky is a veteran of the United States Navy, and in the episode "Odyssey of Hate", he demonstrates that he still knows how to manipulate an M-1 rifle.
The end credits state that Mr. Lucky was "Based on an Original Story: 'Bundles for Freedom' by Milton Holmes." This story was also the basis of the 1943 motion picture Mr. Lucky, starring Cary Grant. The film and the television series had little in common beside the title and the suave nature of the lead characters.
The first episode of the series, "The Magnificent Bribe", begins with Lucky and Andamo running a successful casino in Andamo's homeland, the island nation of Chobolobo (the name is not mentioned until the second episode). To stay in business, they must pay a weekly bribe of $1000 to the country's corrupt president (Nehemiah Persoff). They lose everything because of Andamo's revolutionary activities: he uses Lucky's yacht, the Fortuna, to smuggle guns to the revolutionaries, and he helps a beautiful female assassin (Ziva Rodann) get into position to kill the president. The episode ends with Lucky and Andamo escaping in a small boat with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
In the second episode, "They Shall Not Pass", Lucky and Andamo arrive by freighter in an unnamed American port city. Lucky wins enough money in a crap game to buy another yacht and a truck full of gambling equipment. He renames the yacht Fortuna II (pronounced "Fortuna the Second"), and anchors her outside the three-mile limit to operate as a floating casino.
The city where Lucky and Andamo operate is never mentioned by name, and various episodes give conflicting clues as to its identity. The city's marked police cars (black and white 1959 Plymouth four-door sedans) are marked simply "POLICE", not with the city's name or seal.
Mr. Lucky drives a 1960 Chrysler New Yorker convertible.
Format change
Beginning with the February 6, 1960 episode ("The Brain Picker"), Lucky changed his business from a floating casino to a floating restaurant. This was done by order of the show's sponsor, Lever Brothers, due mainly to the 1950s quiz show scandals. Dwight Whitney wrote about the format change in the following week's issue of TV Guide:
"The Fumigated Air: Lever Bros. came up with a puzzling decision last week. It decided that soap and gambling don't mix. As the sponsor of one of the year's two big hits, Mr. Lucky (the other being Dennis the Menace), the powers-that-be sent down orders that the celebrated television character played by John Vivyan would henceforth have to be made respectabilized. Almost immediately Lucky turned up running a restaurant instead of gambling aboard his ship. By so ordering it seemed that the soap company was taking a big gamble itself. By taking the bite out of the character, it was running a very real risk of transforming one of the season's big hits into a big flop, to say nothing of fumigating the air so thoroughly that even soap suds might seem astringent after that."[2]
Cancellation
Despite the fact that the show was one of the highest-rated new series of the 1959-1960 season, being ranked 21st among programs with a 24.4 average household share,[3] Lever Brothers (and alternate sponsor Brown & Williamson) cancelled their sponsorship at the end of the season. CBS could not find other sponsors to replace them, and finally cancelled the series. John Vivyan believed the program was pulled in order to give up its Saturday time slot, as a favor to Jack Benny, to a new drama in the fall of 1960, Checkmate, which was produced by Benny's company, JaMco Productions.
Attempted revivals
Blake Edwards developed a Mr. Lucky movie for Paramount in the mid-1960s to follow his big screen adaptation of Peter Gunn for the studio. The failure of the film Gunn saw the project's abandonment. Aaron Spelling and Blake Edwards later teamed to develop a movie of the week in 1980, Casino, starring Mike Connors as a similar gambler character. Edwards developed another Mr. Lucky revival for New World Television in the late 1980s to follow his Peter Gunn revival for the studio. When the latter project failed to be picked up as a weekly series, New World pulled the plug on Mr. Lucky.
Episode list
| Episode # | Episode title | Original airdate |
|---|---|---|
| 1-1 | "The Magnificent Bribe" (pilot) | October 24, 1959 |
| 1-2 | "They Shall Not Pass" | October 31, 1959 |
| 1-3 | "Bugsy" (with Clegg Hoyt as Pudge) | November 7, 1959 |
| 1-4 | "The Money Game" | November 14, 1959 |
| 1-5 | "That Stands For Pool" | November 21, 1959 |
| 1-6 | "My Little Gray Home" | November 28, 1959 |
| 1-7 | "The Gordon Caper" | December 5, 1959 |
| 1-8 | "Little Miss Wow" (Guest Starring Yvonne Craig) | December 12, 1959 |
| 1-9 | "A Business Measure" | December 19, 1959 |
| 1-10 | "Hijacked" | December 26, 1959 |
| 1-11 | "Aces Back To Back" | January 2, 1960 |
| 1-12 | "Maggie the Witness" | January 9, 1960 |
| 1-13 | "The Two Million Dollar Window" | January 16, 1960 |
| 1-14 | "The Leadville Kid Gang" | January 23, 1960 |
| 1-15 | "The Sour Milk Fund" | January 30, 1960 |
| 1-16 | "The Brain Picker" | February 6, 1960 |
| 1-17 | "The Last Laugh" | February 13, 1960 |
| 1-18 | "The Parolee" | February 20, 1960 |
| 1-19 | "The Tax Man" | February 27, 1960 |
| 1-20 | "The Gladiators" with Kent Taylor | March 5, 1960 |
| 1-21 | "Big Squeeze" | March 12, 1960 |
| 1-22 | "Cold Deck" | March 19, 1960 |
| 1-23 | "His Maiden Voyage" | March 26, 1960 |
| 1-24 | "I Bet Your Life" | April 2, 1960 |
| 1-25 | "Hair of the Dog" | April 9, 1960 |
| 1-26 | "Vote the Bullet" | April 16, 1960 |
| 1-27 | "Hit and Run" | April 23, 1960 |
| 1-28 | "Taking A Chance" | April 30, 1960 |
| 1-29 | "Last Journey" (with Clegg Hoyt as Pudge and Ann McCrea as Deena) | May 14, 1960 |
| 1-30 | "Operation Fortuna" (Guest Starring Jack Nicholson) | May 21, 1960 |
| 1-31 | "Stacked Deck" | May 28, 1960 |
| 1-32 | "Odyssey Of Hate" | June 4, 1960 |
| 1-33 | "Dangerous Lady" | June 11, 1960 |
| 1-34 | "Election Bet" | June 18, 1960 |
DVD release
On October 16, 2012, Timeless Media Group released Mr. Lucky - The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. The 4-disc set features all 34 episodes of the series, and a bonus CD featuring Henry Mancini's soundtrack.[4]
References
- ^ "Television Obscurities - Mr. Lucky". TVobscurities.com. Retrieved January 29, 2009.
- ^ Whitney, Dwight. "Television Diary", TV Guide Vol. 8, No. 7; February 13, 1960; Issue #359, page A-3
- ^ The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946-Present. Ballantine Books. 2003. p. 1458. ISBN 0-345-45542-8.
- ^ "Mr. Lucky - TMG Announces 'The Complete Series' for Release on DVD".
External links
- American drama television series
- 1959 American television series debuts
- 1960 American television series endings
- 1950s American television series
- 1960s American television series
- CBS network shows
- Television shows set in California
- Black-and-white television programs
- Television programs based on films
- English-language television programming