Jonathan Kidd | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past! This Thursdays, I will be reviewing Alexander The Great, which was filmed in 1963 but didn’t air on CBS until 1968. The show can be found on YouTube!

This week, we take a look at William Shatner and Adam West in Alexander The Great, a pilot that never became a series.

Episode 1.1 “Alexander The Great”

(Dir by Phil Karlson, originally aired on January 26th, 1968)

Greek leader Alexander the Great (a very blonde William Shatner) is determined to defeat the forces of King Darius and conquer all of Persia. But, before he can fight his latest battle, he has to rescue his kidnapped best friend Cleander (Adam West), calm the nerves of his mentor Antigonus (Joseph Cotten), and deal with two insubordinate generals (John Cassavetes and Simon Oakland). Only then will Alexander be ready to defeat the fearsome, beheading-obsessed Persian general, Memmon (Cliff Osmond, wearing a truly horrifying wig and fake beard).

This hour-long episode features a lot of talking, a lot of scheming, and one good battle scene. Unfortunately, that good battle scenes becomes a lot less impressive once you discover that it was lifted from the 1959 film, The Giant of Marathon. As for the scheming, it’s not really a surprise when the generals plays by Cassavetes and Oakland reveal that they’re planning on assassinating Alexander during the battle. Both characters are so obviously villainous that their very presence amongst the ranks will lead most viewers to doubt whether Alexander is truly the tactical genius that everyone seems to think he is.

For most viewers, the main appeal of Alexander the Great will be the chance to see William Shatner and Adam West playing best friends. This pilot was made before Shatner was cast as Captain Kirk and West as Batman. While West gives a relatively sober performance as Cleander, Shatner shows that he had all of his famous acting tics long before he boarded the Enterprise. Shatner delivers every line as if he’s expecting to be handed an Emmy at any moment. The halting cadence is present. The overly dramatic punctuation is present. The habit of telegraphing every line and emotion by moving his head is present. This is the type of performance that feels more like William Shatner imitating himself than actually trying to play a character. Today, we’re all used to William Shatner poking fun at his reputation so it’s always a bit jarring to watch something like Alexander the Great and see just how seriously Shatner used to take himself.

Alexander the Great ends with Alexander achieving victory over both Memmon and his own duplicitous generals. He buries Antigonous, who was earlier murdered by the mutineers. And then, with a big smile on his face, Alexander hopes on his horse and rides off with Cleander and his surviving generals. Watching Shatner riding his horse, it becomes obvious that, had this pilot become a show, it would have been a western that just happened to take place in ancient Greece and which featured togas and mini-skirts instead of chaps and hats.

This pilot was shot in 1963 but it was rejected by the network and shelved. In 1968, when West was Batman and Shatner was Kirk, the pilot was taken out of storage and aired as an episode of an anthology show. Needless to say, it didn’t lead to a series. Adam West later poked fun at the pilot in his autobiography, saying that it was the greatest waste of an hour ever made. I think West was a bit too hard on the pilot. It’s not terrible as much as it’s just bland. No production featuring not only Shatner and West but also Joseph Cotten, Simon Oakland, and John Cassavetes has a right to be this mild.

One does wonder how, if the pilot had become a series, it would have deal with Alexander eventually drinking himself to death. Imagine what Shatner and West could have done with that!

First released in 1968, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band is an old school Disney family film that almost feels like a rather mean-spirited parody of an old school Disney family film. The songs are forgettable, the film has a cheap made-for-TV look to it, and the whole thing feels a bit too manufactured to produce any sort of genuine emotion.

That said, it’s memorable for two reasons. First off, it may be the only film ever made that centers on the presidential election of 1888. In the Dakota territories, the citizens wait to see whether or not Democrat Grover Cleveland will be reelected or whether he’ll be defeated by Republican Benjamin Harrison. Those who support the Dakotas joining the Union as one state hope to see Cleveland returned to the White House. Those who favor the creation of a North and South Dakota hope that Benjamin Harrison will win the election, allowing for four new Republican senators to be sent to Washington.

Confederate veteran Renssaeler “Grandpa” Brown (Walter Brennan) supports the Democrats and he’s got his family singing songs to promote the cause of Grover Cleveland. Grandpa’s son, Calvin (Buddy Ebsen), is a Republican who still has no problem performing at the Democratic Convention because he, much like his children, is a born performer. His oldest son, Sidney (Kurt Russell, who was 16 at the time of filming), is not old enough to vote but I imagine he’d probably vote for the Republican ticket because he’s Kurt Russell and it’s hard to imagine Kurt voting for a Democrat. The other children want to keep both Grandpa and their father happy. Meanwhile, daughter Alice (Lesley Ann Warren) has fallen in love with newspaper editor, Joe Carder (a very bland John Davidson). Joe’s a Republican and supports Benjamin Harrison. Grandpa’s not happy but really Grandpa should just mind his own darn business. At least, that’s my take on it. (Also, I gave up cursing for Lent.)

On the one hand, the Bowman sisters are pretty evenly split politically, with two voting for the Democrats and the other two tending to vote Republican so I could definitely relate to the idea of a family that didn’t always agree on politics At the same time, this film’s premise means that there are a lot of songs about Benjamin and Grover Cleveland in this film and they’re about as memorable and exciting as you would expect a bunch of songs about two of America’s forgotten presidents to be. If you learn anything about the election of 1888 from this film, you’ll learn that Cleveland’s full name was Stephen Grover Cleveland. You might also note that, for all the talk about how the country have never been as divided as it is today, people were saying the exact same thing in 1888.

The other thing that makes this otherwise forgettable film stand-out is that it features the film debut of Goldie Hawn, who appears as a Republican dancer in the film’s climax. This was not only Hawn’s debut but it was also the first film that she made with Kurt Russell. That said, don’t panic. Hawn was 22 to Kurt’s 16 when she made this film but the two of them didn’t become a couple until they met again in 1983, while filming Swing Shift. I read an interview with Kurt where, when asked whether he noticed Goldie Hawn in her film debut, he said that he did but he didn’t even think of talking to her because, “I didn’t even have a car.”

Fortunately, everything worked out in the end. Benjamin Harrison vanquished Grover Cleveland (though Grover returned in 1892, becoming the first of two president to serve non-consecutive terms) and, after their second film together, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn are together to this day.