MYSTERY GUEST: E.G. Marshall PANEL: Arlene Francis, Robert Q. Lewis, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf ---------------------------------------- New Facebook group for WML! / 728471287199862
E. G. Marshall’s inscrutable expressions were a real hoot! Love his Bernard Shaw’s response (Pygmalion) to the question: “Is it a western type series?” “Not Bloody Likely.”
Gotta say, Dorothy nailed the ski instructor plenty quick! And Robert Q. Lewis nailed the pretzel lady even faster. BTW the pretzel lady is wearing a dress similar to something Dorothy wore in the late fifties, early sixties.
Miss Austria was a lovely young woman. Gloria Mackh did not place in the top 15. The top 15 contestants must have been out of this world gorgeous. I loved E.G. Marshall in 12 Angry Men. Thanks for the video.
The panel thought that "hey, look at what we did with the first two; we're gonna demolish our way through the rest of the show". Not Bloody likely. It is so much fun to see the crew thoroughly perplexed, especially when the MG is so well known.
As did I. I think I discovered Radio Mystery on KMOX in the early 1970s at the age of 8 - one of the things that led me into acting. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered him in 12 Angry Men - still one of my favorite movies
Gigi Mackh's family owned the hotel in Austria where The Beatles filmed "Help!", during March 1965. Photos of her with the Fab Four are at: truthaboutthebeatlesgirls.tumblr.com/post/79309032493/gloria-mackh-and-the-beatles-in-obertauern
John annoyingly wanted to give away Miss Gigi Mackh's line because he knew the panel would otherwise have difficulty figuring her line out and he didn't want the show to run over.
The hand-lettering of E G Marshall's label tends to indicate that he was a last-minute selection for mystery guest. Whoever thought of him at the last minute was a genius. One of the funniest mystery guests of that period. It footnotes to the Fredric March 1954 mystery guest appearance. Both were highly distinguished dramatic actors of stage and screen (and in EG's case "The Defenders") who did such funny voices that they utterly bambozzled the panel. I have laughed for years remembering from earlier postings "Not bloody likely" and "No, but I wish I had." LOL triumph.
I concur on your observations of E. G. Marshall's excellence as a mystery guest. This appearance was one of the clips that was on the NorbertR33 channel, now of blessed memory. Unfortunately, though, instead of the grammatical "No, but I wish I had been" he made the less felicitous comment, "No, but I wish I was". However, an excellent performance even so. Many other guests were discovered while scrupulously and deliberately limiting themselves to answering questions with a simple yes and no. Marshall was able to stump the panel completely while holding a conversation.
romeman01 soulierinvestments What's also fun about E.G. Marshall's mystery guest appearance here is that he was clearly enjoying stumping the panel and did not mind their confusion one bit. Many mystery guests would start to get nervous if they were not guessed after a while and would begin to drop their disguised voices a bit or even give hints of a sort in an effort to make sure the panel would guess them. It's a pleasure to see a mystery guest clearly delighting in confusing the panel and not being the least bit insecure about not being guessed!
@@keithmarkman617 but was he innocent though....Juror number 8 just persuaded everyone the prosecution case was flawed...... As Juror 6 said to him "suppose you talk us all out of this and the kid really DID knife his father" My favourite line from my favourite film
@@dlamiss that’s not the point though the theme of the movie is establishing reasonable doubt and whether he was guilty or not isn’t at all the point for all we know he COULD HAVE been guilty but the evidence wasn’t strong enough to convict him
@@mohammedashian8094 Lets be honest though in its unlikely one man would talk 11 others round in just 90 minutes as the film was shot in virtual real time and enough holes could be picked in the evidence put forward by Juror number 8 not least the knife incident which would have almost certainly meant a mistrial but hey its hollywood and it still remains remains my favourite film
@@dlamiss didn’t expect you to reply and yeah it’s a tiny bit of a stretch but it’s not IMPOSSIBLE to convince 11 other jurors it depends on how silver tongued he is and it’s one of few movies that I like to call perfectly flawless
vbacs - I just love watching these reruns. I have thought about it and I cannot imagine anyone capable of appearing either as a panelist or moderator except the late Alex Trebek.
This has got to be one of the most entertaining shows of all, especially with Robert Q. Lewis and t the pretzel maker and then the panel's poor performance about the mystery guest. "He's either a doctor, a lawyer, or a dog?"
The mention of the "hit record" from the mystery guest (for poetry, not pop music) made them take leave of their senses. Ordinarily, after Arlen's comment above, the panelists would have tried to narrow down whether the guest played a lawyer or a doctor. Then, having established that the guest played a lawyer, they would have selected between E.G. Marshall and Raymond Burr (who both played lawyers on shows aired by CBS). But they abandoned such tried-and-true question approaches.
E,G, Marshall seemed to play a lot of characters who were hard, but rational and fair. I don't understand why he gave a "no" when asked if he was a theatre actor. He had a very successful stint on Broadway early in his career, and later in the 1970s
I can’t help but think of him as For Example Marshall. Childish of me! Heard his voice a lot when I listened to The CBS Radio Mystery Theater in the Seventies: he was the presenter. Very good at providing just a touch of creepiness!
@@sg-yq8pm Arlene Francis was said to be on radio or television five days a week at the same time she was on WML. She was also in many plays. She lived to be over 90 years of age. I've read a comment here and there about her "drinking" and wonder where people get their infomation and WHY they have to mention it at all. To me she was GREAT
Since many commenters note that they were unfamiliar with EG Marshall, one of the performances of his that I remember was in Woody Allen's first serious film, "Interiors."
Enregardant - That may be. However, Dorothy and Arlene, as the regular female panelists whenever they sat in that last seat toward the audience almost always watched the contestants walk offstage because in that direction lay danger. The guests were walking past cameramen with their dollies, rigs and wiring plus the director, etc. So I believe their penchant for doing this was the two of them being a bit maternally concerned that other folks got offstage without a problem. It did happen nearly all the time when one of them was in the last seat to our left.
I have to agree with John Daly - and disagree with E.G. Marshall - that E.G. Marshall was, indeed, well-known as a theatre actor. His Broadway career began in January of 1942, when he played Humphrey Crocker in Samson Raphaelson's play "Jason" (directed by George Abbott), and it continued steadily over the years with roles in "The Skin of Our Teeth" (original Broadway run), a revival of "The Petrified Forest," "Jacobowsky and the Colonel," "Beggars Are Coming To Town," "Woman Bites Dog," "The Iceman Cometh" (he played Willie Oban), "Six O'Clock Theatre," "Hope's The Thing," "The Gambler," "The Crucible" (he played Rev. John Hale), "Red Roses For Me," "Waiting For Godot" (as Vladimir), and "The Gang's All Here." He would later appear in the late 1967/early 1968 Broadway revival of "The Little Foxes," as a replacement in "Plaza Suite," in the revue "Nash at Nine" (June 1972 to May 1973), as a replacement in "The Gin Game," and finally playing the title role in Circle in the Square Theatre's production of Ibsen's "John Gabriel Borkman," which ran for 61 performances from mid-December 1980 to early February 1981.
E.G. Marshall played Vladimir in the original Broadway production of Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot," opposite Bert Lahr. Lahr had opened in the original American premiere of the role in Miami the year before, with the preposterously ill-suited Tom Ewell in the role of Vladmiir. The Miami production was such a disaster that the Broadway opening was delayed for a year.
Having two comics in it overbalanced the Miami production towards slapstick, trying to get more laughs out of the crosstalk. EG was the very opposite of a vaudevillian and contrasted better with Lahr. However the lesson was learned too well; when Beckett saw a later staging he said 'But you left out all the jokes!' He loved comics such as Laurel and Hardy, the patron saints of 'En Attendant Godot'.
@gcjerryusc I visited a Virginia Plantation where the tour guide referred to it as "The War of Yankee Aggression." She wasn't smiling. I believe she also referred to the slaves as "servants."
Dorothy referring to "a long hair". A reference to classical musicians, apparently. I haven't heard that term for many, many years. In my youth, there was a popular musician named "Professor Longhair", but he played jazz and blues music, from memory.
In many of these WML clips, I noticed that both Dorothy Killgallen and Martin Gabel have the bad habit of removing their blindfolds before the name of the mystery guest is revealed to them. The panel should wait until the person's name is revealed to them.
I think it was the same guy who whistled when Mrs. Quinlan walked in, before him. He got a few laughs the first time. Probably thought he'd try it again. As the teacher used to say at school, "I think we have a comedian up the back of the room."
A very rare episode - in fact I personally cannot think of another -- where the panel knocks off the front two contestants with two questioners. Each. I blame the production staff for not presenting the second contestant as Mrs X, given that her name was associated with a product. Thank heaven E G Marshall’ sequence went long. If not, the producers might have had to call upon Q to do song and dance to fill up the back end.
I have thought about this periodically (this is one of the clips on my channel and I enjoy watching it for the delightfulness of the disaster and the shock of Robert Q. Lewis over backing into the guest's occupation on the first question). Another way they could have handled this appearance was to have her sign in under her maiden name and have John Daly say, "We are not going to give you her married name at this time, because we feel it might reveal too much." She could still say Wyomissing, to throw them off a bit. That part was probably a good idea under all scenarios.
Your product being discovered first question on WML is good for business. It says that your product is well known. It is certainly better for business than having Bennett Cerf diss your product at the end of the show.
I also noted that this episode was opposite the typical proceedings where the panel will struggle with at least one of the non-celebrity challengers and guess the Mystery Guest rather quickly. The only thing at all typical about the game play was running out of time with the fourth challenger. So much for my thoughts after the second challenger that they would have an awfully long time to fill after the MG segment or perhaps a really long interview with same.
I wonder which theatre in Highland Park was the venue for the production of "Bells Are Ringing," in which Robert Q. Lewis was co-starring as Jeff Moss (or did he play Sandor?). It certainly wasn't at Ravinia Park. Maybe it was the Highland Park Theatre, on Central Street.
Noted: Robert Q Lewis' name seems to be omitted on most of the title descriptions as a guest panelist. Everyone else is noted, like Martin Gabel, Tony Randall, and Joey Bishop. Any reason, or a dislike of the man?
@@sandrageorge3488 He said he has a personal dislike for Robert. And that totally petty, unprofessional answer is his only justification. Disgraceful and inexcusable!
Incredible, but the first few questions of Arlene showed clearly, that she got either hinds what to ask or what the profession of the bridge painter was. Even given that this show aired before my birth I'm somehow disappointed.
I was curious about your statement and so I looked up the info. Here it is, for anyone else who might be interested... truthaboutthebeatlesgirls.tumblr.com/post/79309032493/gloria-mackh-and-the-beatles-in-obertauern
AND ROBERT Q. LEWIS. Dammit, why do you insist on leaving him out of the headline, just because you personally don't like him? How disgracefully petty of you!
Strange....that's exactly what I was thinking, so I scanned the comments to see if it was just me, or if someone else thought the same thing, So....maybe she was......?
Arlene sounds a little sloshed here, which would happen occasionally. But she still keeps it all together. PS: What is a "long hair" in DK's reference? I don't understand.
"Long hair" was old fashioned slang for serious forms of art, most often with respect to music. Classical music was "long hair" music, as opposed to popular music.
I think the term partly comes because the classical composers (and many of the orchestra conductors had "long" hair (as opposed to the crew cuts that were in vogue in the 50s both with teens and with the popular singers in rock.
Don't feel sorry for Mrs. Quinlan because Robert Q. Lewis made the connection to pretzels from her name and place. While the Quinlan family made all the money from the invention of the pretzel twisting machine, the inventor of the machine was actually Harrison S. Gipe of Reading, Pa.., assignor of the patent to Quinlan Pretzel Company, Inc., Reading, Pa. If WMY were a classier show, the producers would have invited Mr. Gipe as the guest, not Mrs. Quinlan. But the producers probably took a payoff from the Quinlan family, providing their pretzel company with some cheap advertising. That's how things worked in the Geritol Age of scams--and they still work that way today.
Robbi496 All of us women were thin like that back then. I can think of only 3 fat People in my high school class of 300. This was before the US govt started telling us to quit eating fat. People cut back on farm eating more sugar, and look what the population looks like now. Not a 100% cause and effect, of course, but likely a factor.
No. Long haired dates back to the early 19th century to early 20th century referring to classical musicians such as composers like Mozart, Beethoven or Liszt or even orchestra conductors who grew their long. For a perfect illustration see the Bugs Bunny Looney Tunes 1949 episode, appropriately called "Long-haired Hare." In it Bugs gets revenge on a loud mouthed opera singer by putting on a long haired wig and pretending to be the orchestra conductor "Leopold."
+dcdete Anyone who uses a Bugs Bunny cartoon to help illustrate the meaning of "long hair music" deserves a thumbs up. The term also shows that what goes around comes around. The hairstyles of The Beatles and other musicians who followed them with even longer hair weren't so revolutionary after all, despite all the hand-wringing of my parents' generation.
Daniel Fronc - NO. This is a term for classical musicians that is several centuries old now because musicians in days of yore had long hair. So she meant some sort of classical, orchestral, chamber music performer, composer, lyricist. The chaps in Rock'n'Roll were more or less copycats of long ago musical artists.
he never stops, does he? :( he could have at LEAST given her a CHANCE to play the game before flipping over those stupid cards. She wasn't even on a MINUTE!
E. G. Marshall was part of the cast of one of the Ironside episodes, happily officially available at no charge at IMBD www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2967470105/?ref_=tt_ov_vi . I definitely remember him in TV commercials for some product or other, probably in the early 1970s, but what it was I don't recall. "This is E. G. Marshall ..."
Jeff Vaughn By remarkable coincidence, just as I'm reading your new comment on this thread about E.G. Marshall, I'm listening to a CBS Radio Mystery Theater episode starring Arlene! :) (E.G. Marshall was the longtime host of the series.)
What the hell is wrong with Dorothy yes we all know she's very bright but she has to understand this is a fun show, yes we want to see if the line is guessed but we want to have some fun in the process. Party pooper.
Bennett Cerf had this to say in an interview: " I'll tell you about Dorothy on this. Arlene and I and Fred when he was with us, and Steve when he was with us, would rather get a laugh than a yes. Hams that we were, we loved to get laughs. We would deliberately ask silly questions. wanted to get the correct answer. She was dogged and persistent and, like a district attorney, she went plowing doggedly ahead. That was why she was the villain of the show. To the public she was the villain."
@@jackkomisar458 - It seemed to me that Dorothy had a lot of fun on the show. Most people seemed to admire her ability to home in on the correct answer. And I seriously doubt that Arlene got any hints about the contestants' lines.
@@shirleyrombough8173 I don't view her as a villain. But that is what Bennett Cerf said in his Columbia Oral History interview, which you can read online. He didn't say where he got the idea that Dorothy was viewed as a villain. Maybe it was from his mail. Maybe it was from things his friends said to him. Bennett said he personally liked Dorothy, though he disagreed with her politics.
