Likely Dabbs' television career with Little House is what most folks
remember of him best for. However, his many other television show
appearances reach far back into the 1950's and into the 100s! of
various shows. I've seen some, (actually very few) of his
TV appearances, and as I find them, I'll post them here even if
its a photo. Shows that really mean something to me will get more
space.
On September 19th, 1952, a new television series was broadcast on ABC.
The very first episode of the Adventures of Superman was titled
Superman on Earth, which provided the viewers the back story of
Superman, played by George Reeves, and how he came to the Planet Earth.
While on earth, Superman disguised himself as Clark Kent, who was
trying to get a job as a reporter at the Daily Planet Newspaper.
Kent felt that if was in a news room environment, he'd be able to
monitor the happenings around town so he could fight crime as he was
meant to do.
Kent's attempt to secure a position at the paper wasn't easy. This is
until Jimmy Olsen (Jack Larson) and Lois Lane (Phyllis Coates) walk
into
Perry White's (John Hamilton) office with a news flash.
A man was seen dangling 1,000 feet above an airstrip from a dirigible -
that man is played by Dabbs Greer!
White sends Olsen and Lane off to cover the story, while Kent persuades
White, that if he can save the man and get his exclusive interview, he
could have a job with the paper. Quickly Kent changes from his
"mild mannered reporter's suit" into Superman and flies off to the
airstrip.
Superman arrives just as the man
loses his grip on the rope and begins to fall to earth! However,
Superman is there and saves him. Dabbs became the very first
person that Superman saves.
Back at the Daily Planet, the man himself can't believe what happened
to him, and Clark gets his job.
The second episode of The Adventures
of Superman that Dabbs appears in was called Five Minutes to Doom. In my
opinion, was the best of the three episodes that Dabbs was in. It
is the story of a
man, Joe Winters (Dabbs) who is on death row for a murder, one he says
he didn't commit.
Our story starts at the State Prison, where Clark and Lois are about to
interview Joe to get his exclusive story, just hours before he's to be
executed.
We find Joe talking to his wife and
son, and all the while trying to
reassure them that they would be all right, and not to worry about what
was about to happen. Again, Dabbs was masterful with his use of
eye and body language to convey his innocence.
When Clark and Lois offer Joe $10,000
to go to his family, for the
story, Joe had to think about it, and then agrees. He knew his
wife and son could really use the money.
And as Joe began his story, both Clark and Lois knew that things
weren't adding up, like they did in the courtroom - that is when Joe
said he couldn't make up, what didn't happen. He couldn't lie
just for the money.
Again you could feel the torment Joe
was going through as an innocent
man. Joe tells Clark and Lois how he discovered that the steel
being used in many big contracts was inferior and was about to blow the
whistle - that's when he got into a fight, and the man he was fighting
was shot by Joe's gun. There where no witnesses. despite
the lack of evidence to suggest otherwise, Clark and Lois vow to help
him and find the real murderer. Joe is uncertain that they could
do
such a thing with only hours to go. Clark reassures Joe, they
would do their very best.
While Joe waited in his cell, Clark,
Lois, Jimmy and Perry White worked
hard on finding the real crook!
Joe continued to wait, and even I was
uncomfortable watching him suffer! Dabbs' portrail of this doomed
man was incredible - the viewer can feel his angst.
With just an hour to go, and a bad
storm, our team finds the evidence they need to prove Joe's innocence,
however, the phone lines are out and the clock is ticking!
Superman reaches the Governor's house
and tells him of the discovery
and asks for a written reprieve for Joe. With it in hand,
Superman flies back to the prison, just as Joe was being strapped into
the electric chair!
In the end, Joe is found innocent and
set free, while the real crook
faces his own ending.
I'd like to thank my friend Jim Nolt
for giving me the opportunity to watch the episodes of the Adventures
of Superman with Dabbs - and others.
The third episode of Superman, that
Dabbs appeared in was called The
Superman Silver Mine. This episode aired on March
10th, 1958. Dabbs plays two roles in this
episode, that of Harrison Pebble and Dan Dobey.
The story picks up when Mr. Pebble meets with Superman at The Daily
Planet to announce his gift to the children's charity.
Of course, Superman and the others are quite taken by the charming
millionaire and his very generous offer to donate the self-sustaining
silver mine to the children's charity. Pebble tells everyone that
he even named the mine "The Superman Silver Mine."
Meanwhile across town, crooks, Dan Dobey and his dim whited
sidekick, Boris lament over their run of bad luck. Boris reads
from the newspaper about Pebble's donation. Dan is not
thrilled. Boris mentions that the fellow in the paper looks like
someone familiar...
and once Dan sees the photograph, he starts to think how much he looks
like Pebble, "Of course he looks familiar. He looks just like me
with a moustache..." He begins to hatch a plan.
Dan will assume the identity of Pebble and steal the silver mine!
The two crooks kidnap Harrison Pebble and hide him in a cave with a
door. Boris tells him that he'll stay in the cave until he revels
the whereabout of the silver mine.
Back at The Daily Planet, Clark tells
Lois how good her article on Pebble's donation is. However, he
points out that the location of the mine still hasn't been
mentioned. Lois places a call to Pebble's apartment, only to
reach Dan Dobey who does his best impersonation of the
millionaire. There was something unsettling for Lois - she felt
something was wrong.
Clark brushes it off due to Pebble's
eccentric ways. However, Inspector Henderson (Robert "Bob"
Shayne) has questions about
Pebble's generous offer, and how he resembles Dan Dobey the
crook. He tells
the reporters that Dan has a metal plate in his head and a side kick
named Boris - whom they have no photo of.
Curiosity gets the better Lois, and
she convinces Jimmy to go with her while she pays Mr. Pebble a
visit. Immediately they smell - and see a rat! Jimmy and
Lois are also taken to the cave where the real Mr. Pebble is being held.
Pebble isn't humoured at the news of
what Dan Dobey was up to, and yet he refused to give in and tell the
crooks where the silver mine is located.
Clark is now concerned - the inspector informed him that
Jimmy hadn't gone home the night before. Clark calls for Lois,
and she too is missing. Clark decides to pay Mr. Pebbles a
visit. Dobey is coy. Clark uses his x-ray vision to see the
steal plate in Dobey's skull. He now knows Dobey has Lois, Jimmy
and the real Mr. Pebble, but where?
Superman follows Dobey and Boris to
the cave where he captures the crooks, and rescues this friends.
Everyone is still very curious to
know where the silver mine was located. Pebble laughs and said
had the crooks done more digging instead of what they were doing, they
would have found it. "Right here!" he points tot he ground.
Everyone laughs.
It was great fun to see Dabbs in both the good guy role and the goofy
bad guy role. For another laugh, you should read what he had to say
about the cowboy suits he wore during the making of this episode.
Again a special thank you to Jim Nolt for sharing this episode with me.
Okay, I have to jump right to
the point
here. In the Little House episode, “The Preacher Takes a Wife”
from
season six, we see every range of emotions humanly possible from Dabbs.
Check out the photographs and see for yourself.
The story starts with an older
widowed parishioner, Anna Craig, trying to ask the Reverend to
dinner. She doesn’t quite succeed on her first attempt as her
ride home interrupts their conversation.
We later see Reverend Alden
visiting an old man, Jeremy Tyler who longed to join his late wife for
fear
of dying alone. Of course the Reverend tells Jeremy that he has
to look on the bright side of things and stay positive. However,
we later see that the Reverend had taken the words hard and began to
wonder
if he too one day would die alone.
Fate intervenes and Anna finally
asks the Reverend to dinner. This scene makes me laugh! The
poor man gets all flustered when Anna admits her love for him and he
bolts to the door, only to stop and return for his hat!
Sadly Jeremy dies with the
Reverend at his side, again driving home the words of “dying alone”.
Alden later meets Anna and tells
her that he plans to stay in Walnut Grove so that they can get to know
each other. They look so happy together.
The next scene I love is when
Reverend Alden is asking Charles for advice about marriage. Here
we see that the Reverend is just like any other man - nervous about
“popping the question” to Anna.
It's after he visits Oleson’s
store and Harriet gets in a knot over him looking at wedding rings,
that
she takes it upon herself to tell Anna that she better call off their
relationship or she’ll write to the Reverend’s superiors.
This next scene we see the
Reverend meeting Anna in a park. He’s ready to ask for her hand
and she tells him they can no longer see each other.
You can see it in his eyes (oh, those eyes) how devastated he is which
leads him on a path of almost self destruction, which you can see by
his facial and body language in the following scenes.
Harriet did send for Alden’s
superior and thankfully for the Reverend, Dean Harmon and Harriet were
at one time going to marry (don't ask me why!). It was Dean
Harmon that persuaded Harriet to drop the charges she made against
Alden.
And hooray! They did marry!
On a sad note: Iris Korn
who played Anna died shortly after making that episode, and that is why
you
never see her again, even though there are some references in future
episodes
of her.
Another
episode of Little House I enjoy is “Faith Healer”. This
particular episode has Dabbs take the Reverend Alden’s character into
an almost dark place, which as the viewer is uncomfortable to watch at
times as he comes across very bitter.
The story starts with the arrival of Reverend Danforth, who
was asked to visit Walnut Grove, by Harriet Oleson.
At first the Reverend Alden is interested in the man’s evangelistic
gatherings, and attend one only to see Danforth “healing” the lame
and blind. Alden is in awe. Many others are spellbound -
but for Charles, something wasn’t quite right.
It is again through Dabbs’ great facial expressions and his
eyes, that we find the truth - Alden is jealous of Danforth’s
abilities,
not only to heal, but to gather such huge worshipers. Alden
beings to doubt himself as a minister of God.
The Reverend’s doubt is deepened when only a hand full of his most
loyal friends appear in Church, and as a good man tried to make
the best of the situation.
What I haven’t mentioned until now, even Doc Baker is wondering about
Danforth’s healing capabilities after he appears to save a young boy,
only to have him die later. Danforth has all the “heavenly”
answers and his flock continues to grow.
We see a side of Alden that we never have seen before when Danforth
asks to share the church and Alden outrightly refuses to do so. Alden
is now down to a few people in his congregation. He knows the end
is near for his stay in Walnut Grove.
Good hearted Charles is beside himself and tries to convince Alden
otherwise about sharing the Church with Danforth. Alden’s “No,”
took Charles back and once Alden admitted it was his pride that stood
in the way, Alden quietly dismisses himself and says he’ll leave Walnut
Grove on Saturday. Charles was determined more than ever to prove
that Danforth is a fraud.
On an out of town business trip, Charles finds Danforth and
his so-called- healed friends wowing another crowd. Charles now
realizes what’s going on and races back to Walnut Grove to tell Alden
what he’d learned.
In the end, Alden gets his congregation back and even learned that he
was never going to be the faith healer that Danforth appeared to be.
Contempt with his little congregation, he found he enjoyed it
more than being the “fire and brimstone” preacher he thought he’d
be.
"Waterfront: Stand by all
Stations" (1955)
Waterfront was a television series
that ran from 1953
to 1956 and starred Preston Foster. It was about a tugboat (the
Cheryl Ann) and it's captain, John. In the episode "Stand by
all Stations" Dabbs plays Phil Harvey, the dispatch agent for the
company
that owns the "Cheryl Ann". Phil is seen at the beginning of
the episode as a dedicated man to his job and to his wife.
However,
life seems overwhelming for Phil as we learn that his wife is ill.
Phil is copping fairly well, until his wife has a panic attack about
her scheduled operation the following day. This is where
Phil fails to notify Captain John of the change in routes due to U.S.
Navel manoeuvres. This leads the Cheryl Ann directly into the
path
of a submarine which is badly damaged in the collision and sinks.
Phil, still worried about his wife and her operation tries to hide the
fact that he was negligent and the blame for the accident falls on
Captain John's shoulders. However, the good captain feels
there is more to the story and knows Phil is responsible – and must
have good reason for his actions.
In the end, the sub and all aboard are rescued and Phil confesses what
he had done out of fear for his wife's life.
It is again that Dabbs fills the camera, so-to-say. Even when he
isn’t speaking, his eyes, face and body are saying it all. You
could see the inter torment he was suffering as he tried to hide
the facts about the communication mishap.
Again a thank you goes to Jim Nolt, who sent me this copy of Waterfront. Also, check the
letters that Jim and Dabbs shared to get Dabbs’ take on "Stand By All Stations"
.