The Roaring 20's

As the Western genre began to decline, the main beneficiary was the private eye genre. Warner Bros. Already spawned a hit with "77 Sunset Strip" which premiered in 1958. That success led to Warner Bros. Taking that template, putting together a similar ensemble cast, and setting the new shows in places like Miami, Hawaii, and New Orleans...much like recent shows like CSI and NCIS did with their respective franchises.

In 1959, two new series premiered, with a theme of law enforcement taking action against Depression-era gangsters. NBC's little-known "The Lawless Years", which lasted for a season and a half, was based on the memoirs of New York police detective Barney Ruditsky. Over on ABC, the memoirs of Eliot Ness became "The Untouchables".

So Warner Bros. Took the setting of these two gangster shows and applied their formula of two or three male leads and a singer, with the result being "The Roaring 20s". Unlike WB's other private-eye shows which had one character for comic relief, popular trends from the era provided a break from the crimefighting. (A 1961 ABC show from 20th Century Fox, "Margie", was a sitcom about an adolescent girl in the 20s.)

But I give that history to set up the review. The strength of "The Roaring 20s" was jointly in the writing and the characters, but also in its ability to capture the fun spirit of that era to avoid the noirish feel of "The Untouchables". We will probably not see it on DVD due to the weekly musical numbers provided by Dorothy Provine, another strength of the show.

Television came late to us in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia): in 1960. We waited forever for it, getting our TV sets way ahead of the first broadcasts (we got a Murphy set), and then watching the Indian test pattern forever! But when it did arrive, besides Highway Patrol, The Honeymooners, The Rag Trade, Fury, Dr. Kildare, 77 Sunset Strip, Zed Cars, The Terrific Adventures of the Terrible Ten, the Adventures of Robin Hood, and many others ... was one of my favourites: THE ROARING TWENTIES.

I particularly loved the musical intro ending with the 1920's model motor flying over a shed and landing with a splat and a cloud of dust. I was mesmerized by the show. Dorothy Provine was all the rage in 1960 as a result of that. I remember the papers following her around the world, and reading of her arriving to adoring crowds in Rio de Janeiro and Paris. The show also spurned a 1920's revival in fashion and attitude. Great fun!

Years later when I was living in Sydney, Australia in the early 70s, I managed to find a copy of the soundtrack to the television series. I still have that album, and occasionally I play it.

Would love to see this series out on DVD ... no one has ever heard of it here in Amsterdam !

I too fondly remember the Roaring 20's and had a serious pre-teen crush on Dorothy Provine for many years. As far as I know, the series is not available on video disc or tape. So far the only way I have found to obtain copies (few and far between)of this great series was from sellers on Ebay, who had videotaped the series from re-runs in their local area. It appears that the tapes I purchased were 4th or 5th generation tapes and thus the quality was not as great as I would have liked, but nevertheless, all the copies I purchased, except one, were watchable, and brought back some great memories. Compared to the TV standards of today, these old series are somewhat lacking in story lines and excitement, but Miss Provine's singing is just as entertaining today as it was in the 1960's. That being said, if this great old series did become available for purchase, I would probably be first in line at the checkout counter.

One hundred years ago was the 1920s, and that, in a way, is as odd a time in American history as the one we're living through, in 2024. The United States caved to a special interest group, the religious right, and chose to institute Prohibition. That meant that nobody in the country was drinking alcohol. Noooooo. Never. And that's where we meet the players on this show.

It's clear that ABC, the network that ran this series, was attempting to capitalize on another show it debuted the previous season: "The Untouchables." The stories of Eliot Ness and his "G Men" busting up racketeering and other methods of organized crime was an instant success and so they came back with this entry, a little softer and a little sweeter.

Rather than focusing on the Feds in Chicago, the interest was a handful of journalists for the various NYC newspapers, who were covering the stories of how the law was fighting the mob and trying to snuff out the baddies. Donald May and Rex Reason played a couple of these news hounds on the trail of some headlines.

Dorothy Provine was a flapper and a triple threat, singing, dancing and acting all as part of her duties in the cabaret where she performed. In fact, the show was one of the first to have a companion soundtrack with music featured from the series on an LP.

Speaking of, the musical director for the series was a guy named Alexander Courage, who eventually would go on to help with music cues and the title theme for a very different series, "Star Trek," just a few years later.

New York plays a part because we had to get a look into the speakeasys where people sipped their bathtub gin and the other interesting hobbies people had at the time. It's funny, human nature is so predictable. If you make something illegal, or unavailable, it only seems to make people want to do it more. And the rise of organized crime occurred specifically because of the government's actions. Something to think about for OUR 20s.

I don't mean to say they were humanizing any criminals shown in the process of this series, but the point is that we're looking at the concept of Prohibition from the 1960s, well after it was ended and after it was clear that it was one of the worst ideas that ever was. So, really, nobody was as bad as all that, if the politicians had never chosen to institute it.

Once and for all, forget the other series speaking of the same period, thirties or late twenties. Yes, in this show ROARING TWENTIES, you also have from time to time gangsters and machine guns, but not necessarily. You also have dramas and comedies as well, without any gun shots or femmes fatales...But always a very good cabaret and burlesque atmosphere, so close to the one you had in those days. It's mostly an atmosphere show, with pretty good performances: acting and directing. Robert Altman gave the best episodes of the whole show, such as stories in DANCE MARATHON and PRAIRIE FLOWER episodes. Tremendous pieces of work, believe me. So, don't Watch this series with the same expectations as you could have after seeing UNTOUCHABLES or any other series speaking of the thirties. That's all I wanted to say about this unfortunately rare and underrated show.