Stirling Silliphant: The Fingers of God

by Nat Segaloff

  In fact, Silliphant’s pilot script is so specific that it calls for just the kind of theme that Riddle would write. An inspection of his teleplays for the series reveals that he was, in essence, directing the show on paper, not just the music, but tone, verisimilitude, and sometimes even the street corner.

  “Frequently, when I was writing episodes for Route 66 at the rate of one every nine days,” he said, “I would shorthand the exposition by telling the director to, for example, ‘give us a three-minute fight here, which makes the fight in Shane look like a Girl Scout dance.’” It was clear from the start that he was in charge. At the front of his pilot script, which was subtitled “The Wolf Tree,” (which aired on October 7, 1960, as “Black November”), is a list of “don’ts” that he wanted the series to observe:

  1. No smoking or displays of any type of tobacco product.

  2. No use of matches or mechanical lighters.

  3. No use of beer or alcoholic beverages of any kind.

  4. No drunkenness.

  5. No shaving or display of shaving equipment.

  6. No derogatory treatment of food or food products, household appliances, or automobiles.

  7. When such props are required, no use of identifiable brand features of any food, drug, or appliance products, either on labels or in peculiarity or uniqueness of shape or design.

  Although some of these cautions were ultimately ignored, they show the producers’ awareness that the series had to appeal to sponsors as well as viewers, not only during its network run but later in syndication, and they didn’t want to drive away any potential advertisers with conflicts of interest.

  One of the most surprising discoveries in the pilot script is that Buz and Tod aren’t driving a Corvette: their wheels are described only as “a sports car.” And although many people recall the car as being red, the series was shot in black and white, so there’s no way to tell it was actually brown.

  Running slightly longer, at seventy-eight pages, than usual hour-long teleplays, which usually go between fifty-eight and sixty-four pages, “The Wolf Tree” had the task of not only establishing the main characters but also setting their motivation and milieu. Here Silliphant is clever; only after Buz gets into a brawl is it revealed that he has a roughneck heritage (even though Tod is the one who gets battered most of the time), and not until page thirty-two is it noted that Tod’s father gave him his car before he died. The rest is left to considerable development and occasional revelation in succeeding episodes.

  Like Naked City, Route 66 was filmed on location. Unlike Naked City, however, Route 66’s locations spanned the contiguous 48 states and Canada. The places and people (many credited at the end of the episodes in which they appear) offered the kind of detail that a writer stuck in LA could never know. For “Child of a Night,” set in Georgia, which aired January 3, 1964, from a teleplay dated two months earlier on November 9, 1963, (which gives some indication of how close to airdate they were shooting), Silliphant includes a page thirty-three note to associate producer Sam Manners, “I found this road out Victory Drive, out toward Bonaventure Cemetery on the way to Fort Pulaski…” In a note on page 55 in “A Cage in Search of a Bird,” involving a flashback sequence in modern-day Denver (written June 3, 1963, and airing on a leisurely November 29, 1963, thanks to summer reruns), he again asks Manners:

  Now, Sam, comes the trick of the century. If you can manage to clear this vital traffic area of today’s Denver for one magnificent shot of a 1930 Buick — alone — traveling across the Civic Center — with the Capitol in the b.g. — you deserve an Emmy for Creative Management. If you can’t, then, as soon as Julie says, “… up toward the Capitol,” we cut out of shot, in any event…

  In this script, as in others, Silliphant establishes location by describing camera moves (“a long tracking shot from high, high up, starting at the golden dome of the State Capitol, then panning over to Broadway, where we pick up the tiny speck, which is the Corvette…”) and even calls for close-ups, two-shots, and angles favoring one character in the frame. This is precisely the thing that modern screenwriting gurus caution their students never to do, but it was the way that Route 66 kept the visions of its creators intact regardless of how many directors worked on the show. [82]

  The real trick in writing a series is keeping the main characters interesting enough to hold the audience, deep enough to challenge the actors, and consistent enough to sustain the germ of the show. Revealing too much too soon blows the show’s wad; being too vague makes it frustrating. Silliphant cleverly meets this task by dropping hints about Tod’s, Buz’s, and Linc’s past whenever they meet a new character who inspires a revelation. “It comes to me now that, with all the places I’ve been, I still haven’t found a place where I’d like to wake up every morning for the rest of my life,” confesses Tod in “A Cage in Search of a Bird,” which is a particularly rich show. In “Like This it Means Father...Like This — Bitter...Like This — Tiger” (written November 24, 1963; aired January 17, 1964), it is revealed that Linc spent time in Saigon and learned Chinese. And so on, layer by layer, week by week. The proof of these decisions can be found in the finished shows, and a selection of them reveals the alchemy that made Route 66 the testament of its times.

  It is impossible to comment on all seventy-three episodes that Stirling Silliphant wrote; numerous books and fansites address the series with insight and passion. For now, some of the more notable entries — gleaned from conversations with Silliphant and the pleasure of multiple screenings — include (caution: spoilers):

  “Black November” (pilot airdate: October 7, 1960): Seeking a shortcut back to the main highway, Buz and Tod are stranded with a broken axle in a small Mississippi town. Their presence sets off a melt-down involving Caleb Garth (Everett Sloane), the man who owns everything and everybody; his haunted son, Paul (Keir Dullea); a storeowner, Jim Slade (Whit Bissell); Slade’s terrified daughter, Jenny (Patty McCormack); and various townspeople, all of whom seem to have something to hide. They do: the town’s deadly secret is that, years ago, Garth murdered a German youth as payback for his own son’s death in World War II, and then killed the preacher who tried to protect the German. It all took place under a huge wolf tree whose shade has kept everything beneath it from flourishing. Once the truth is out, the tree is felled, the Corvette gets its axle fixed, and Tod and Buz hit the road again.

  Blessed with a superb cast that also includes Malcolm Atterbury and George Kennedy, shot by Ernesto Caparros (who also shot The Miracle Worker), and rich with such production values as crane shots and night photography, this episode does a great deal of heavy narrative lifting. Philip Leacock’s controlled direction of Silliphant’s detailed script allows the fine cast to flourish. Casting note: Silliphant and Leonard hired Dullea instead another newcomer named Robert Redford.

  “A Month of Sundays” (airdate: September 22, 1961). Broadway star Arline Simms (Anne Francis) has returned to her hometown of Butte, Montana, to die. At first cold and distant, she slowly warms up as Buz pursues her, yet refuses his marriage proposal without telling him why. When Tod learns of her illness, he urges Arline to marry Buz anyway. She does, but collapses shortly after the ceremony and dies, exhorting, “I was alive! I really was alive!” as Buz cries in anguish.

  Francis delivers a solid performance that ranges from bitchy and angry to warm and sensitive, and director Arthur Hiller encourages openness from all the actors. Among dialogue gems is Tod’s advice to Arline, “Only when we lose our fear of death can we defeat it — and we can make every hour of our existence really count.”

  “Birdcage on My Foot” (airdate: October 13, 1961): When Tod and Buz see Arnie (Robert Duvall) trying to steal the Corvette, they want to press charges, but, when they realize that he is a drug addict, they try to intervene in his recovery.

  Saying that Robert Duvall is a fearless actor is like saying that water is wet, and in this early role he sidesteps the cliché mannerisms of movie junkies and shows a vulnerability that bind
s the entire episode together. Elliot Silverstein’s unflinching direction allows Milner and Maharis to step up to Duvall’s level.

  “The Newborn” (airdate: May 5, 1961): Frank Ivy (Albert Dekker) holds a pregnant Indian girl, Kawna (Arline Sax), hostage so she can deliver his dead son’s child on his property, after which he intends to keep her from seeing the baby again. When she escapes Ivy’s grasp, Tod and Buz find themselves her custodian and must deliver her child in the middle of nowhere. Kawna dies, and Tod and Buz turn the baby over to her tribe as Ivy fumes.

  Cited (above) by Silliphant as the victim of CBS censorship, “The Newborn” — which also features Robert Duvall as a psychotic ranch hand bent on killing Tod and Buz — not only lacks a coherent childbirth sequence, but Duvall’s accidental death happens as the camera pans away carelessly rather than discretely. Arthur Hiller coaches Dekker into a stern, clenched performance. Contrary to Silliphant’s recollection, the show (seen on Columbia House video) runs to full length.

  “And the Cat Jumped Over the Moon” (airdate: December 15, 1961): Social Worker Chuck Briner (Milt Kamen) dies when he fails off a rooftop trying to fix a “hit” ordered by Packy (Martin Sheen), the scrappy leader of the Missiles street gang. Packy and his boys are bent on killing Johnny (James Caan) because he left the streets to go with Marva (Susan Silo), whom Packy now deems his property. A game of rooftop chicken between Johnny and Packy ends when Packy blinks and the gang breaks up over his cowardice.

  Youth gangs had captivated TV and movie audiences since The Blackboard Jungle (1955) and West Side Story (1961) but Silliphant, adapting a story by Frank L. Moss, adds the twist of making the bad guy a psychopath. Set in Philadelphia, the rooftop scenes are harrowing and authentic-looking. Silliphant unfolds the story indirectly — the viewer has to play close attention to wrest narrative clues from the action — and Elliott Siverstein keeps it edgy. Notable as Sheen’s first TV role, an early role for Caan, and for the presence of Susan Silo, who later became a highly a respected casting agent. Nelson Riddle’s jazz score is particularly effective.

  “Lizard’s Leg and Owlet’s Wing” (airdate: October 26, 1962): Boris Karloff, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney, Jr. meet at a Chicago motel where Buz and Tod are working. They want to, in Karloff ’s words, “strike out in a new direction: adult horror” for TV, and they test their theory and make-up on unsuspecting women. A Halloween show, this is not just a vehicle for three venerable horror movie stars, it’s a way to take a swipe at television programming executives, and it succeeds at every level.

  Journeyman actor-director Robert Gist gets out of the way of the scenery chewing, and Silliphant covers his bases by writing a script note describing a scene in which Chaney, made up as his trademarked werewolf, frightens a group of secretaries: “Milk them, Bob — with individual coverage of Lila, Beth, and the others — spilling drinks, screaming, fainting, etc.” Martita Hunt, more arch than usual, adds a lovely turn. A splendid example of Silliphant’s ability to write for specific actors when they’re booked to do a show, he describes Lorre as “wearing dark glasses and his lightweight trench coat is up around his ears in the murky manner of a Balkan intelligence operative” and creates such dialogue as, “My boss always says a high voice goes with a low income.”

  “A Lance of Straw” (airdate: October 14, 1960): Passing through Grand Isle, Louisiana, Buz and Tod sign aboard a shrimp boat run by budding feminist Charlotte Duval (Janice Rule) whose jealous suitor, Jean Boussard (Nico Minardis), tries to warn them off. The shrimping is good, but a hurricane intervenes and Charlotte manages to save Jean’s boat. Having proven her proficiency in a man’s world, Charlotte at last accepts Jean’s proposal as Tod and Buz drive on to their next adventure.

  Directed with an eye toward action by Roger Kay, the second episode in the series stresses fighting and a storm at sea on top of the sexual tension unleashed by sultry Rule. At this point the series had not yet gained its form — it rings heavier on plot than character — but it clearly displays its strength in its location settings. [83]

  “Across Walnuts and Wine” (airdate: November 2, 1962): The unexpected arrival of Autumn Ely (Nina Foch) in the Oregon City home of her sister Maggie Carter (Betty Field) and her husband Van (James Dunn) upsets her sullen nephew Mike (Robert Walker, Jr.) who actually owns the house and is in the process of evicting them. Mike is already at odds with the town tough (Dick Theis) for dating Theis’s sister, and it develops that Autumn, who is a teacher as well as a religious zealot, was fired from her job, feels useless, and wants better for Michael.

  Directed crisply by Bert Leonard (the only time he directed for the series), this is a brooding story of shame, isolation, responsibility, and redemption. Buz and Tod serve as narrative catalysts more than story participants, but the balance works as the character drama escalates.

  “Somehow It Gets to Be Tomorrow” (airdate: February 15, 1963): Driving through Corpus Christi, Texas, a solo Tod is latched onto by a conniving orphan, Joby Paxton (Roger Mobley, the go-to child actor in the 1960s), who wants Tod to help him and his annoying kid sister, Susie (Leslye Hunter), escape their foster home with social worker Evan Corelli (Martin Balsam) in pursuit. More specifically, they want Tod to be their adoptive father.

  A wise script, part bleeding heart and part hard truth, it touches all the emotional bases in honest ways. The engaging Balsam may spout aphorisms (“You know, Stiles, there’s a saving grace about a dilemma: you can’t get tossed on more than two horns”) and teach gentle lessons, but in the end reality wins out and nobody gets off easily in this bold, downbeat episode directed by David Lowell Rich.

  “The Stone Guest” (airdate: November 8, 1963): Cited elsewhere by Silliphant.

  “Kiss the Maiden, All Forlorn” (airdate: April 13, 1962) Fugitive embezzler Charles Clayton (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) returns to America to see his daughter, attracting the law and involving Tod and Buz in a kidnapping (by Michael Tolan, Elena Verdugo) contrived to throw the police (James Brown, who starred in Bert Leonard’s Rin-Tin-Tin TV series) and press (Walter Hill) off the scent. He cannot understand why his daughter, Bonnie (Zina Bethune), is becoming a postulate nun.

  Silliphant admitted that he wrote the show to work through his concern over his daughter Dayle’s decision to go to convent. It’s an emotionally complex script, starting with Fairbanks, who is no crook with a heart of gold but a cynic who even tries to buy off Mother Superior (Beatrice Straight). [84] Is Bonnie atoning for her father’s sins? Or does she indeed have the calling? It’s Fairbanks’s show, and his scenes with Bethune will tear your heart out. In the end, it’s Silliphant’s understanding that makes it ring true. Once again, Tod and Buz are mostly along for the ride.

  “Between Hello and Goodbye” (airdate: May 11, 1962): Tod gets involved with a troubled woman, Chris (Susan Oliver), not knowing that the destructive blonde is a dual personality with her repressed, dark-haired sister, Clair.

  Although the condition is obvious to anyone who had seen The Three Faces of Eve (1957) or read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Silliphant and director David Lowell Rich do an effective juggling act that gives Oliver a vivid showcase for her character’s psychosis. One especially riveting scene has Chris launch a tirade about the social and financial pressures that befall married couples (given the torment building in Silliphant’s own marriage, it’s a doubly remarkable scene). But because the words came from a mentally ill person, nobody noticed its subversiveness.

  “A Fury Slinging Flame” (airdate: December 30, 1960): Scientist Mark Christopher (Leslie Nielsen) leads a community of families into Carlsbad Caverns, California with every intention of living there until World War III, which he says will start in two days, subsides. Tod and Buz are drawn in because Christopher gave them his house trailer en route, and a newspaper science reporter, Paula Shay (Fay Spain), latches onto the story as the press gathers to await zero hour.

  The Cold War comes to prime time the same year that Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev sank the Paris summit peace t
alks, U.S. flyer Francis Gary Powers was shot down during a spy mission over Russia, and John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon for the Presidency. Although America wouldn’t start building home fallout shelters until the October, 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, this episode reflected the public’s growing nuclear paranoia. Director Elliot Silverstein objectively keeps a lid on what could have become farce, and Nielsen relishes a prolonged monologue that’s a model of controlled insanity. James Brown appears as the stern park ranger trying to quell the whirlwind. Actual reporters Larry Barbier, Bill Fiset, Marlin Haines and Bob Lardine appear in publicity-inspired cameos. The title comes from a poem by Tennyson. Spoiler Alert: The world didn’t end.

  “Mon Petit Chou” (airdate: November 24, 1961): Lee Marvin appears as Ryan (ID’d as “Glenn Ryan”) who is so possessive of the French cabaret singer, Perette Dijon (Macha Meril), whom he is building into a star, that he refuses to see that she loves him. Moreover, he won’t admit that he loves her (he was devastated when his previous protégé jilted him). Only when Tod beats the stuffing out of him does he accept the truth and turn his pain into affection.