What Makes Sammy Run?

A time capsule trip back to early TV, though not the earliest TV version
of this ultra-famous Budd Schulberg novel (the name of which, as well as that of its leading character Sammy Glick, are probably better known by today's audiences than is the novel itself), What Makes Sammy Run? was made by NBC television in 1959. It was first dramatized a decade earlier in 1949 as "live" TV and starring Jose Ferrer. The version just released on DVD (in all its grainy, black-and-white charm) features Larry Blyden as the infamous Sammy, a not-so-nice Jewish boy from New York who begins as a copy boy on a Manhattan newspaper and climbs/claws his way up until he's the head of a major movie studio out west.

The story's an old one now, but Schulberg did it, if not first, at least first with a main character who was Jewish. The book was not a popular one in Hollywood -- unsurprising, as many of the studio heads were also not-so-nice, aging Jewish boys. And though the property has been done for TV twice and was also a popular Broadway musical starring Steve Lawrence in the 1960s, no Hollywood movie has yet been made (though a Ben Stiller vehicle came closer). Plenty of unofficial variations have cropped up over the years, however: Swimming with Sharks, anyone? Call someone a Sammy Glick, and it's likely that all present will know exactly what you mean.

The official excuse for Sammy not running in Hollywood has long been that the book is anti-Semitic, but since Schulberg himself is Jewish, this doesn't quite wash. Truthfully, the book is more anti-backstabber -- a breed of which Hollywood is rather heavily populated.

Watching this TV presentation now is interesting in so many ways. The dialog still holds up well, offering some witty, nasty repartee, while the characterizations and situations -- though clichéd through overuse, over decades -- are still rich and real enough to matter. The writer hero (and Sammy's "friend" and helper) is played by John Forsythe; his love interest (though she's initially attracted to Sammy) is essayed by the utterly gorgeous (and so young!) Barbara Rush; David Opatoshu is the head of production, Sidney Fineman, while Sydney Blackmer and Dina Merrill play the studio head and his icy daughter. What makes What Makes Sammy Run? particularly fascinating is the way in which it was produced -- as something approaching live television. Shot on stage sets that mimic everything from a newspaper office to a night club, a living room to the ballroom of a grand hotel, on which the actors perform as if they were as if they were indeed on stage, with only one or two cameras catching the action, as if on the fly, right through -- there are no cuts or edits -- to the end of each scene.

This makes everything "on point," with the actors giving excellent performances capped off by that sense of reality and urgency that comes from any good stage performance. I miss this and wish we saw more of it today on TV, rather than the infinite amount of special effects and the must-have-a-laugh-every-five-seconds scripts with which we're inundated. (George Clooney and Stephen Frears tried a live TV staging of Fail Safe some years back, but it's been a long while even since then.)

The DVD comes with a couple of tempting extras: a half-hour interview with Mr. Schulberg that is fascinating, if long. This fine American writer will be 95 come March 27 and is clearly not in the best of health. He looks to have had a stroke, which makes his speech difficult to get out (subtitles are used here) and also drags a 15-minute interview into a full half-hour. Still, it's worth it. There is also a commentary track using both Barbara Rush and Dina Merrill, who offer their "today" takes on what happened then.

Despite the over-exposed and aging print quality, from which, I suppose, no pristine transfer can be made, it remains a treat to see Sammy running again.