Lately some of the movies made for cable are better than many of the movies made for the big screen. Good movies in that medium go back years. It’s where Steven Spielberg got started. But who remembered that they went back as far as the 1950s? The DVD release of NBC’s 1959 movie What Makes Sammy Run? reminds us of the great ambitions of early television in the years when big ideas strained against the technical limitations of a nascent medium.
Despite the stentorian voice at the onset declaiming, “Presented by Crest,” What Makes Sammy Run? was not intended for the entire family but was an adult drama with mature themes. Adapted by Budd Schulberg from his own novel, Sammy concerns an ambitious Jew from the slums of New York, Sam Gluck, determined to make his way up the ladder and out to Hollywood. But Gluck was no Horatio Alger hero. A cunning sociopath and predator in a Darwinian universe, Gluck was damaged by the rough school of his broken childhood. He was a poster boy for the developmental influence of environment and may also have stood for all that was wrong with mid-20th century America. In the early 21st century he could have been an investment banker.
Sammy’s impressive cast was headed by Tony-winner Larry Blyden as Gluck and Golden Globe-winner John Forsythe as his inadvertent mentor. Hampered for contemporary eyes by the spectral black and white of early TV, the production was claustrophobic, shot on the quick but with good actors and a smart script. WhatMakes Sammy Run? is historically interesting. It’s also one old movie that begs to be remade, whether by Hollywood or HBO.
