Route 66 filmed five episodes in Cleveland, during the time John Kennedy was president. Characters Tod Stiles, and Buz Murdoch (played by Martin Milner, and George Maharis) travelled the country in a series of Chevy Corvettes (show's sponsor). The bridge supra is officially designated NS1, and called the 'Iron Curtain' by impatient, grumpy boaters and shippers. The bridge was built from 1954 to 1957, and was part of Corp of Engineers plan to replace old bridges. It was fairly new when the filming was done. The other road work concerns freeways. One episode was centered on West 14th, just before the freeway took part of it. In another episode they were putting in a freeway in Mayfield Heights. Because the show used real locations, scenes become historical photographic records of the America of two generations ago, before the new highways created enlarged suburbs, new suburbs, massive urban sprawl, homogeneous buildings, and loss of local color.
Those old enough to remember can see they used Union Terminal, and the Ferro enamel mural is prominent. The New York Central lift bridge was central in two episodes, in both episodes Municipal Stadium is visible. To-day, the neon Indian is in Cleveland's History Museum, next to that same enamel mural created for the 1939 World's Fair. St. Theodosius, and Terminal Tower are very visible. St. Theodosius Russian Orthodox is called St. August, Goodtime II is called Carol Diane II.
They filmed at Euclid Beach amusement park (gone in 1969), Sachsenheim Hall, I-271 is being built in Mayfield Heights where signs for Pick and Pay (a former local supermarket chain), and Golden Gate shopping center are visible. They stayed and filmed at recently built Sahara Motor Hotel (sold, now gone). They showed Jones and Laughlin Steel, which has been absorbed and sold, and that site is now a large shopping center. A forging steel factory, in another part of town fills in for the shooting site. A mansion in Bratenahl is used. Burke Lakefront Airport is seen, as is Edgewater Park, Jim's Steakhouse, and Captain Frank's are in scenes.
Tod jumps into the Cuyahoga to fish out a boy, who craves attention. That river was disgusting, and highly polluted then. The Cuyahoga caught fire several times, the last being a spur for the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. Maharis was to have hepatitis, i wonder if the river had a part.
Sam Manners was a production manager and producer, born in Cleveland as Savino Maneri. He may have been the reason for the Cleveland visits, and perhaps the nearby Kinsman and Youngstown. Rod Steiger plays a philosophical psychopath who has either Maneri's house, or a house on the same street.
• Incident On A Bridge S1, Ep30. 16 Jun. 1961 Russians
• First Class Mouliak S2, Ep5. 20 Oct. 1961 Poles
• Two On The House S2, Ep27. 20 Apr. 1962 wealthy
• Welcome To The Wedding S3, Ep8. 8 Nov. 1962 murderer
• Every Father's Daughter S3, Ep9. 16 Nov. 1962 Serbs
Cleveland was an industrial city with many European ethnicities, many of them Slavonic. Nehemiah Persoff played a Russian, and a Pole. Throughout the series actors play in different episodes as different people, sometimes the same person. One episode has a Russian community (really that would have been Ruthenian [Rusyn, or Carpathian Rus]), another a Polish one, and a Serbian family. The older people speak with accents. Tod and Buz really look at the Poles and Russian Americans as foreign and odd in ways. In the Serbian family, only the father has an accent, and it is light. The Serb is owner of a construction company, and is rich. The Poles, and Russians were poor.
Some times the leads are participants, and sometimes observers. The cinematography is exceedingly good. The series has very literate dialogue, but with some incongruities of plot. A Willow Sunday (Passion or Palm Sunday) procession shown was the sorriest example of one. Inside their homes, no crucifixes, no icons, no religious pictures; with those people, at that time, it would have been impossible. A silly superstition employing a pitchfork as a plot element is news to me.
With the change of jobs, and locations the series compares with Richard Kimble (David Janssen) in the slightly later, but overlapping in time, The Fugitive; the most, recent, best movie Oscar winner, Nomadland, also has people on the move, but they are, old, poor, and desperate. In all of those there is desperation, and a striving for justice.
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POSTSCRIPTUM:
This is my second posting of this. I thought the original was lost, so i reposted it; and since it was "lost", i recreated from an earlier draft. I posted it with an approximate time signature. Then this morning (after 10 am, 15 May) i received this e-mail:
Hello,
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