Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Tuesday's Overlooked TV: The Edge of Night

I make no secret of the fact that I like soap operas. When Livia and I were dating and then newly married, she got me started watching one called RYAN'S HOPE. Several of the actors who appeared on it went on to bigger (but not necessarily better) things. I also watched GENERAL HOSPITAL for a good while, during its action/adventure phase which saw plotlines like a weather-controlling machine that would allow the resident bad guys to take over the world and a villain who was the reincarnation of Alexander the Great (or at least thought he was). This was also the period that spawned the whole Luke and Laura frenzy that culminated in their wedding. Along the way, although I never watched it on a regular basis, I saw enough bits and pieces of the recently departed ALL MY CHILDREN to know who most of the characters were.

My all-time favorite daytime soap opera, though, is one that might have held some appeal for some of you reading this: THE EDGE OF NIGHT. Other soaps were primarily doctor shows or lawyer shows. THE EDGE OF NIGHT, from beginning to end, was the mystery soap opera, the show where cops and district attorneys and crooks and murderers were the main characters, not supporting roles. That emphasis goes all the way back to its origins, when Proctor & Gamble tried to create a soap opera based on Erle Stanley Gardner's iconic Perry Mason, only to be unable to reach a deal. So they just created their own version, centered around attorney Mike Karr instead of Mason.

I don't know all the history of the series, but by the time I was watching it, mystery novelist and Edgar winner Henry Slesar had been hired at the head writer, and he continued in that job for many, many years, often writing almost every episode with assistance from only one or two staff writers. The plots tended to move a little faster than on most soaps, and there was nearly always an unsolved murder or two driving the action. And action there was, with a minimum of sitting around talking. The characters were almost always in motion. The cast expanded to bring in more doctor characters, but hospital scenes were more than balanced out by smoky, jazzy moments in the local watering hole, the Blue Moon Café, run by the somewhat shady Johnny Dallas. And if you were lucky, at the end of an episode you got the full-length version of the show's theme song, which had a definite noirish, wet-streets feel to it.

I watched THE EDGE OF NIGHT for about ten years and never failed to enjoy it. I didn't figure out many of Slesar's well-plotted mysteries, either. Then, fairly abruptly, the show reinvented itself. Slesar either quit or was let go, and was replaced as head writer by Lee Sheldon, who kept some of the cops vs. mobsters plots but opened up the scope and turned it into a globe-trotting series of international intrigue. The plots got more over-the-top, including an epic swordfight between the private eye who had become the hero of the series, Sky Whitney, and the bad guy who was going to, yes, take over the world with the help of some Rube Goldberg machine. It was all pretty silly, even by soap opera standards, but somehow it worked and I really enjoyed it.

Then, even though ABC was still broadcasting the show (it had started out on CBS), the local ABC affiliate stopped carrying it in order to schedule something else, I don't remember what it was. That bothered me, but the proverbial writing was already on the wall and ABC cancelled THE EDGE OF NIGHT entirely a few months later. It ended, appropriately enough, with the mysterious disappearance of several of the characters.

This was all a long time ago. You can still find a few clips from THE EDGE OF NIGHT on YouTube, but soaps don't translate well to DVDs so I doubt if we'll ever see more than that. You can tell from my comments and how much I recall about it that I was very fond of the series, and I hope a few of you remember it as well. I've been known to say somewhat facetiously that everything I know about plotting, I learned from soap operas and comic books. For good or bad, there's probably some truth to that.


17 comments:

Jerry House said...

And among Sleasar's great novels is one based on the soap opera.

pattinase (abbott) said...

I watched Ryan's Hope too and one of the actors who played Frank Ryan is now on Dexter. He's gottan a lot older, have we?

Todd Mason said...

FWIW, James, there are exactly two network daytime soaps that have gone into syndicated repeats (iinm), albeit neither is actively syndicated now nor have they been for decades: DARK SHADOWS and THE EDGE OF NIGHT. Says something about the audience and the continuing appeal.

James Reasoner said...

It's nice to know that one of the Ryan boys is still working. Kate Mulgrew, who went on to play Captain Janeway on STAR TREK: VOYAGER, was playing feisty young reporter Mary Ryan when I started watching that show. It was pretty good for a few years but eventually turned into a creative mess that ran off most of the viewers.

James Reasoner said...

I didn't know THE EDGE OF NIGHT had ever been syndicated. I remember watching DARK SHADOWS in syndication, though. It'll be interesting to see if ONE LIFE TO LIVE and ALL MY CHILDREN can achieve any sort of success as web-only series.

Charles Gramlich said...

I vaguely remember this. Mostly for the title, which I liked. I'm not sure my mom watched it or not. She always watched "The Secret Storm."

Mike Doran said...

Here's how far back I go with Edge Of Night:
As a kid in the early '60s, my brother and I did our homework while our mother watched John Larkin as Mike Karr and Larry Hagman as his young partner Ed Gibson. (Hagman's hair back then was a wonder of the world.) One of the villains back then was played by Logan Ramsey, who was only in his early '40s but played much older.
I followed EON off and on for years afterward; the soap magazines enabled me to kep track of what was going on.
Forward to 1981, when I got my first VCR; I started following EON again in earnest, and continued right to the end. Three Mike Karrs later, and Ann Flood was still playing Nancy Karr.
Guest stars like Frank Gorshin, Alfred Drake, Amanda Blake, and Dick Cavett as Moe Eberhardt, a shadowy underworld figure (Cavett's homage to Henry Daniell).
If you ask me, I could write a book ...
... and if I don't stop now, I probably will.

James Reasoner said...

Mike,
You write the book and I'll read it, that's for sure. One thing that gave EON its crossover appeal was its late afternoon time slot. Kids home from school and people already home from work could watch it.

Cap'n Bob said...

I feel like I've entered the Bizarro universe.

James Reasoner said...

That's because you have, Cap'n.

Todd Mason said...

You know, even though eventually it led to them not supporting it, ABC kinda knew what they were doing with slotting both DARK SHADOWS and THE EDGE OF NIGHT in those afternoon slots...EDGE was famous in soap circles for skewing male in audience Hugely in comparison to all other network soaps (MARY HARTMAN, MARY HARTMAN might've challenged it eventually there).

Brent McKee said...

What happened with your local station is what happened with a lot of local stations. The show aired quite late in the day, and increasingly affiliates wanted that time period for more lucrative (for them) syndicated shows like Jerry Springer. By 1984 only 62% of ABC affiliates were carrying the show, and another 24 affiliates were planning to drop it in 1985. The show was owned by Proctor and Gamble and even though ABC offered to move the show to an earlier time slot, P&G couldn't afford to keep producing the show and pulled the plug.

BTW, Sky Whitney was more of a Jonathon Hart type than a private eye. He did his private detecting with his wife Raven Whitney during the times when he wasn't managing the Whitney Family fortune.

Damn, I loved and miss that show.

Mike Doran said...

How many of you watched the imbedded video, and then watched all the others that popped up at the end?
One memory after another, going back to the '60s and before.
And if I did write that book I referred to before, it would end up the size of the Metropolitan Chicago phone directory.
(And with almost as many words.)

Anonymous said...

It was the New Moon Cafe, not Blue Moon.

James Reasoner said...

Thanks! My memory isn't what it once was. I'm not sure it ever was . . .

Anonymous said...

The Edge of Night and Search for Tomorrow were repeated on USA NETWORK in the late 80's. BET aired GENERATIONS. Sci-fi Channel aired Dark Shadows and PASSIONS (for a short time) The CBN soap ANOTHER LIFE was syndicated to the Christian Channels. Ans Soapnet had RYAN'S HOPE and Another World. AW they showed the 1987-91 episodes and RH 1975-81. then back to 75. Romance channel (now WE had Peyton Place .
There was an attempt to get the DOCTORS on Hallmark. I had an email convo with someone from the company who owns it. The problem is with 260 A YEAR the cost to transfer the Film to something that can be played on the new digital TV or even DVD is $50,000 for 1 show. With soaps having 260 a year the cost is too much.

Anonymous said...

Little late to the party, but I was feeling nostalgic and remembering watching the show with my grandma, who got me hooked. The storyline that hooked me was what I refer to as “The Molly Sherwood “ night, which went on for about two weeks and introduced my 16 year old self to more twists than I’d ever seen before, especially the sight of Raven standing at the top of the stairs when Molly came running up after messing up April Scott.
How do I remember these names?? Holy cow!! 😂