Most of you know how, over the years, numerous movies have been turned into successful television series, from M*A*S*H to Westworld. And you also know that even more movies have been turned into unsuccessful television series, among them Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Paper Moon, Logan’s Run, Dirty Dancing, and…er, Beyond Westworld. There is, however, a even rarer screen-to-screen translation: TV shows based on films that won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
One might think it would be risky to attempt such an adaptation. And, with the exceptions of In the Heat of the Night and Hannibal, you’d be right. After all, how many folks remember circus master Jack Palance in 1963’s The Greatest Show on Earth, or David Soul stepping into Humphrey Bogart’s role in the 1983 redo of Casablanca? Fun Fact: the latter was the second time Warner Bros. tried to bring Casablanca to the tube, the first coming in 1955 with Charles McGraw as Rick.
One of the more interesting examples of this select group debuted on ABC in October of 1962. Going My Way was an hour-long comedy/drama based on the 1944 Academy Award winner starring Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald. Famed film hoofer Gene Kelly, in his first recurring TV role, took over for Der Bingle as Father Charles “Chuck” O’Malley. A reform-minded Catholic priest, O’Malley was assigned to St. Dominic’s, a New York City church whose fortunes–like its ethnically diverse neighborhood’s–were on the decline. St. Dominic’s aging pastor, Father Fitzgibbon, was played by Leo G. Carroll, of Topper fame. Rounding out the cast were Dick York as Tom Colwell, a boyhood pal of O’Malley’s who ran a local youth center, and Nydia Westman as parish housekeeper Mrs. Featherstone.
As with its ’40s predecessor, much of the show’s drama came from the conflicts which arose between Father O’Malley’s progressive attitudes and the more conservative tone taken by Father Fitzgibbon. O’Malley also had a tendency to get more than a little involved with the lives of his parishioners, from an unhappily married women trying to sabotage her daughter’s wedding to a wife who wants her pro wrestler husband to retire from the ring. Other episodes tackled such topics as juvenile delinquency, gangsters, deafness, and infertility. In an interview, Kelly said that Catholic Church officials wanted them to deal with modern social issues, but the network brass were apprehensive. Fun Fact: the show had two different versions of its opening theme song, but neither one used the movie’s “Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral.”
Produced by Leave It to Beaver co-creator Joe Connelly for Universal’s Revue Studios branch, Going My Way was a pleasant enough example of ’60s family television. Thanks to Kelly’s presence, the show was able to attract an array of big-name guest stars: Anne Francis, Pat O’Brien, Ray Walston, and Jane Wyatt, to name a few. It also featured early turns by Ivan Dixon, George Kennedy, Cloris Leachman, and others. Unfortunately, the series was saddled with a less-than-heavenly timeslot. Airing on Wednesday nights from 8:30-9:30, it ran up against NBC’s The Virginian and CBS’s breakout hit, The Beverly Hillbillies. As a result, ABC closed the doors to St. Dominic’s after one season and 30 episodes.
Two of the show’s stars managed to hit the ground running. 1964 found York up to his ears in magic when he was cast as the original Darrin Stephens in the spellbinding sitcom classic Bewitched, while that same year Carroll co-starred as Mr. Waverly alongside Robert Vaughn and David McCallum in NBC’s hit spy drama The Man from U.N.C.L.E. As for Kelly, his only other foray into series TV was as the host of a 1974 sketch comedy show, The Funny Side, which lasted a mere six episodes.