Girl on the Run

"Girl on the Run" is a 1958 private detective film starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Erin O'Brien and Edd Byrnes. It is in truth, although not legal fact, based on characters and situations created by writer Roy Huggins in a series of 1940s novels and novellas. It was aired on ABC as the pilot for "77 Sunset Strip" after an initial, brief theatrical release in the Caribbean.

This trip to the Caribbean was legally significant. Huggins' claim to the characters and situations of "77 Sunset Strip" was strong, since he had created them in a series of 1940s novels and novellas. But his relationship to this, the first episode of the upcoming series, was comparatively weaker. Marion Hargrove, and not Huggins, had written the script and called it "Girl on the Run". Since he had been writing under an episodic television contract, Hargrove had no rights to the series whatsoever. By releasing the project theatrically under the episode title, Warner emphasized Hargrove's contribution at Huggins' expense. When it was thereafter aired on television, it was not legally the debut of a new series, but the television premiere of a theatrical film. This made it possible for Warner to argue that the resulting television series was based on the film, which he wholly owned, rather than Huggins' literary work. [http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=%22Archive+of+American+Television+Interview+with+Roy+Huggins%22&page=1&lv=1 Huggins interview at American Archive of Television.] ]

Beyond the creator rights struggle, the film is also important for allowing one of its guest stars to graduate to the regular cast. In "Girl", Edd Byrnes played a vicious killer, Kevin Smiley, who compulsively combed his hair. When the youth audience reacted favorably to his performance, he was given a new, recurring character to play in the series proper. In "Sunset", Byrnes became "Kookie," a comically hep carhop—who also compulsively combed his hair. Because of the narrative improability of a killer becoming a trusted ally of Stu Bailey, Byrne's appearance in "Girl on the Run" was addressed directly in the series proper. At the beginning of the episode which followed "Girl", Zimbalist broke the fourth wall with the announcement: quote|We previewed this show, and because Edd Byrnes was such a hit we decided that Kookie and his comb had to be in our series. So this week, we'll just forget that in the pilot he went off to prison to be executed. [ [http://www.tvparty.com/77.html "77 Sunset Strip" at tvparty.com] ] |from the pre-credit sequence for the episode "Lovely Lady, Pity Me"

The film also featured the talents of singer/actress Erin O'Brien. Her singing performance as a singer required no dubbing; she appeared as a featured solo singer on six episodes of "The Steve Allen Show" during this same period.

Cast

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Stuart Bailey
Erin O'Brien as Kathy Allen/Karen Shay
Edd Byrnes as Kevin Smiley
Barton MacLane as Francis J. Brannigan
Ray Teal as Harper

External links

* [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1814078786067513650&q=Roy+Huggins&total=20&start=10&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=1 Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television Interview]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051661/ "Girl on the Run"] at the Internet Movie Database

References