''M Squad'' is an American
crime drama
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...
television series
A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite television, satellite, or cable television, cable, excluding breaking news, television adverti ...
that ran from 1957 to 1960 on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
. It was produced by
Lee Marvin
Lee Marvin (born Lamont Waltman Marvin Jr.; February 19, 1924August 29, 1987) was an American film and television actor. Known for his bass voice and premature white hair, he is best remembered for playing hardboiled "tough guy" characters. Alt ...
's Latimer Productions and
Revue Studios
Universal Television LLC (abbreviated as UTV) is an American television production company that is a subsidiary of Universal Studio Group, a division of Comcast's NBCUniversal. It serves as the network television production arm of NBC; a predec ...
. Its main
sponsor was the
Pall Mall cigarette
A cigarette is a narrow cylinder containing a combustible material, typically tobacco, that is rolled into thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end, causing it to smolder; the resulting smoke is orally inhaled via the opp ...
brand; Lee Marvin, the program's star, appeared in its
commercials during many episodes. Alternate sponsors were
General Electric
General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...
(GE),
Hazel Bishop
Hazel Gladys Bishop (August 17, 1906 – December 5, 1998) was an American chemist and the founder of the cosmetics company Hazel Bishop, Inc. She was the inventor of the first long-lasting lipstick.
Early life
Bishop was born in Hoboken, New J ...
and
Bulova
Bulova is an American timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 and has been owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate Citizen Watch Co. since 2008. The company makes watches, clocks and accessories, and it is based in New York ...
watches.
Synopsis
Set in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
, the show starred Marvin as Detective Lieutenant Frank Ballinger, a member of "M Squad", a special unit of the
Chicago Police
The Chicago Police Department (CPD) is the municipal law enforcement agency of the U.S. city of Chicago, Illinois, under the jurisdiction of the City Council. It is the second-largest municipal police department in the United States, behind t ...
, assisting other units in battling organized crime, corruption and violent crimes citywide.
Paul Newlan
Paul Emory Newlan (June 29, 1903 – November 23, 1973) was an American film and TV character actor from Plattsmouth, Nebraska. He was best known for his role as Captain Grey on the NBC police series ''M Squad'' and for his roles in films incl ...
co-starred as his boss, Captain Grey. Although Marvin had been appearing in feature films since 1951, it was this series that made him a star, and he later went on to an even bigger film career afterward.
Nelson Case
Nelson Case (February 3, 1910 – March 23, 1976) was an American radio and television announcer.
Case was the son of Walter and Ethel Case. His father was a newspaperman, and his mother was a driving force in the Long Beach Community Players. He ...
was the announcer. The popularity of ''M Squad'' was proven in the ratings wars by the
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
network choosing a Friday night time slot opposite
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert Sinatra (; December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998) was an American singer and actor. Nicknamed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Chairman of the Board" and later called "Ol' Blue Eyes", Sinatra was one of the most popular ...
's
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
variety show in the fall of 1957 and
Phil Silvers
Phil Silvers (born Phillip Silver; May 11, 1911 – November 1, 1985) was an American entertainer and comedic actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah". His career as a professional entertainer spanned nearly sixty years. Silvers achieved major popu ...
' long running
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
comedy, ''
Sgt. Bilko'', in 1958. Both series were eventually cancelled.
Episodes
Guest stars
*
Roscoe Ates
Roscoe Blevel Ates (January 20, 1895 – March 1, 1962) was an American vaudeville performer, actor of stage and screen, comedian and musician who primarily featured in western films and television. He was best known as western character S ...
*
Joanna Barnes
Joanna Barnes (November 15, 1934 – April 29, 2022) was an American actress and writer.
Early life and education
Barnes was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the eldest daughter of John Pindar Barnes and Alice Weston Mutch. She had two younger ...
*
Charles Bronson
Charles Bronson (born Charles Dennis Buchinsky; November 3, 1921 – August 30, 2003) was an American actor. Known for his "granite features and brawny physique," he gained international fame for his starring roles in action, Western, and war ...
*
Mike Connors
Krekor Ohanian (August 15, 1925 – January 26, 2017), known professionally as Mike Connors, was an American actor best known for playing private detective Joe Mannix in the CBS television series ''Mannix'' from 1967 to 1975, a role which earne ...
*
Russ Conway
Russ Conway, DSM (born Trevor Herbert Stanford; 2 September 1925 – 16 November 2000) was an English popular music pianist and composer. Conway had 20 piano instrumentals in the UK Singles Chart between 1957 and 1963, including two number one ...
*
Walter Coy
Walter Darwin Coy (January 31, 1909 – December 11, 1974) was an American stage, radio, film, and, principally, television actor, arguably most well known as John Wayne's character's brother in ''The Searchers'' (1956).
Early years
Originally ...
*
Whitney Blake
Whitney Blake (born Nancy Ann Whitney; February 20, 1926 – September 28, 2002) was an American film and television actress, director, and producer. She is known for her four seasons portraying Dorothy Baxter, the mother, on the 1960s sitco ...
*
Paul Burke
*
Terry Burnham
Elizabeth Teresa "Terry" Burnham (August 8, 1949 – October 7, 2013) was an American actress, best known for her performance in the '' Twilight Zone'' episode, "Nightmare as a Child."
Life and career
Elizabeth Teresa Burnham was born on August ...
(2 episodes)
*
James Coburn
*
Francis De Sales
Francis de Sales (french: François de Sales; it, Francesco di Sales; 21 August 156728 December 1622) was a Bishop of Geneva and is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church. He became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to ...
*
Angie Dickinson
Angeline Dickinson (née Brown; born September 30, 1931) is an American actress. She began her career on television, appearing in many anthology series during the 1950s, before gaining her breakthrough role in ''Gun the Man Down'' (1956) wit ...
*
Joe Flynn
*
Alan Hale, Jr.
Alan Hale Jr. (born Alan Hale MacKahan; (March 8, 1921 - January 2, 1990) was an American actor and restaurateur. He was the son of actor Alan Hale Sr. His television career spanned four decades, but he was best known for his secondary lead role ...
*
Ron Hayes
Ronald G. Hayes (February 26, 1929 – October 1, 2004) was an American television actor who, as an activist in the environmental movement, worked for the establishment of the first Earth Day, observed on April 22, 1970. He was a member of t ...
*
Werner Klemperer
Werner Klemperer (March 22, 1920 – December 6, 2000) was an American actor. He was known for playing Colonel Wilhelm Klink on the CBS television sitcom ''Hogan's Heroes'', for which he twice won the award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in ...
*
Robert Knapp
*
Tom Laughlin
Thomas Robert Laughlin Jr. (August 10, 1931 – December 12, 2013) was an American actor, director, screenwriter, author, educator, and activist.
Laughlin was best known for his series of ''Billy Jack'' films. He was married to actress D ...
*
Ruta Lee
Ruta Lee (born Ruta Mary Kilmonis; May 30, 1935) is an American actress and dancer who appeared as one of the brides in the musical '' Seven Brides for Seven Brothers''. She had roles in films including Billy Wilder's crime drama '' Witness for ...
*
DeForest Kelley
Jackson DeForest Kelley (January 20, 1920 – June 11, 1999), known to colleagues as "Dee", was an American actor, screenwriter, poet, and singer. He was known for his roles in Westerns and as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the in the televisio ...
*
Nan Leslie
Nanette June Leslie (June 4, 1926 – July 30, 2000) was an American actress. She was known for playing Martha McGivern in the American western television series '' The Californians''.
Life and career
Leslie was born in Los Angeles, Cali ...
*
Dayton Lummis
Dayton Lummis (August 8, 1903 – March 23, 1988) was an American film, television and theatre actor. He was perhaps best known for playing the role of General Douglas MacArthur in the 1955 film ''The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell''. Lummis d ...
*
Tyler McVey
William Tyler McVey (February 14, 1912 – July 4, 2003) was an American character actor of film and television.
Early years
McVey was born Bay City, Michigan, to William David McVey and his wife, the former Jessie Arvilla Tyler. His moth ...
*
Walter Maslow
Walter Maslow (born January 16, 1928) is an American film, stage and television actor.
Life and career
Maslow was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 16, 1928. After high school, he served for two years in the United States Navy, performin ...
*
Carole Mathews
Carole Mathews (born Jean Deifel, also credited as Jeanne Francis; September 13, 1920 – November 6, 2014) was an American film and television actress.
Early years
Born in Montgomery, Illinois, near Chicago, Mathews lived with her grandmothe ...
*
Joyce Meadows
Joyce Meadows, born Joyce Johanna Burger (born April 13, 1933) is a Canadian-American film and television actress.
Life and career
Meadows was born in Arrowwood, Alberta, moving with her family to Montana and then California. She worked as a ...
*
Sid Melton
Sidney Meltzer (May 22, 1917 – November 2, 2011), known professionally as Sid Melton, was an American actor. He played the roles of incompetent carpenter Alf Monroe in the CBS sitcom '' Green Acres'' and Uncle Charlie Halper, proprietor ...
*
John Mitchum
John Mitchum (September 6, 1919 – November 29, 2001) was an American actor from the 1940s to the 1970s in film and television. The younger brother of the actor Robert Mitchum, he was credited as Jack Mitchum early in his career.
Early years ...
*
Ed Nelson
Edwin Stafford Nelson (December 21, 1928 – August 9, 2014) was an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Michael Rossi in the television series '' Peyton Place''.
Nelson appeared in episodes of many TV programs, more than 50 mov ...
*
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy (; March 26, 1931 – February 27, 2015) was an American actor, famed for playing Spock in the ''Star Trek'' franchise for almost 50 years. This includes originating Spock in the original ''Star Trek'' series in 1966, then ...
*
J. Pat O'Malley
*
Michael Pataki
Michael Pataki (January 16, 1938 – April 15, 2010) was an American actor.
Early life
Pataki was born in Youngstown, Ohio. His parents were Hungarians. He was the youngest of three children - one older brother and one older sister. He atten ...
*
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon Reynolds Jr. (February 11, 1936 – September 6, 2018) was an American actor, considered a sex symbol and icon of 1970s American popular culture.
Reynolds first rose to prominence when he starred in television series such as ' ...
*
Don Rickles
Donald Jay Rickles (May 8, 1926 – April 6, 2017) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known primarily for his insult comedy. His film roles include ''Run Silent, Run Deep'' (1958) with Clark Gable, Carl Reiner's '' Enter La ...
*
Janice Rule
Mary Janice Rule (August 15, 1931 – October 17, 2003) was an American actress and psychotherapist, earning her PhD while still acting, then acting occasionally while working in her new profession.
Early life
Rule was born in Norwood, Ohio, to ...
*
Barbara Stuart
*
Mary Treen
Mary Treen (born Mary Louise Summers, March 27, 1907 – July 20, 1989) was an American film and television actress. A minor actress for much of her career, she managed to secure a plain, unassuming niche for herself in the Hollywood of the 1 ...
*
H. M. Wynant
H. M. Wynant (born Chaim Winant; February 12, 1927) is an American film and television actor.
Biography
Wynant was born in Detroit, Michigan. He made his feature film debut as an Indian in Samuel Fuller's ''Run of the Arrow'' (1957). In the ...
*
Rose Marie
Rose Marie (born Rose Marie Mazzetta; August 15, 1923 – December 28, 2017) was an American actress, singer, comedian, and vaudeville performer with a career ultimately spanning nine decades, which included film, radio, records, theater, night ...
Music
The
theme music
Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at so ...
for the first season was composed by
Stanley Wilson,
who won the
1959 Grammy Award for the Best Soundtrack Album and Background Score from Motion Picture or Television. In the second and third seasons, the new theme was composed by
Count Basie
William James "Count" Basie (; August 21, 1904 – April 26, 1984) was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. In 1935, he formed the Count Basie Orchestra, and in 1936 took them to Chicago for a long engagement and the ...
.
A
soundtrack
A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...
album, ''Music from M Squad'', with liner notes by Lee Marvin, was released by
RCA Victor
RCA Records is an American record label currently owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America. It is one of Sony Music's four flagship labels, alongside RCA's former long-time rival Columbia Records; also Aris ...
Records in 1959 during the last season of the show.
Notes
In episode "The Jumper", an officer was depicted taking bribes. This prompted
Richard J. Daley
Richard Joseph Daley (May 15, 1902 – December 20, 1976) was an American politician who served as the Mayor of Chicago from 1955 and the chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party Central Committee from 1953 until his death. He has been cal ...
, the
Mayor of Chicago
The mayor of Chicago is the chief executive of city government in Chicago, Illinois, the third-largest city in the United States. The mayor is responsible for the administration and management of various city departments, submits proposals and r ...
at the time, to discourage motion picture and television location filming in Chicago for the rest of his administration (1955-1976). (He made an exception for the 1975
John Wayne
Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films made during Hollywood's Gol ...
film ''
Brannigan'', because of Daley's personal admiration for Wayne.) ''
The Blues Brothers
The Blues Brothers are an American blues and soul revivalist band founded in 1978 by comedians Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as part of a musical sketch on ''Saturday Night Live''. Belushi and Aykroyd fronted the band, in character, respective ...
'', released in 1980, marked the reversal of the policy under then-mayor
Jane Byrne
Jane Margaret Byrne (née Burke; May 24, 1933November 14, 2014) was an American politician who was the first woman to be elected mayor of a major city in the United States. She served as the 50th Mayor of Chicago from April 16, 1979, until April ...
.
Lee Marvin as Lt. Frank Ballinger carried two
Colt Cobra
The Colt Cobra is a lightweight, aluminum-framed, double-action short-barrelled revolver, not to be confused with the Colt King Cobra. The Cobra was chambered in .38 Special, .38 Colt New Police, .32 Colt New Police, and .22 LR. It holds six ...
snub nosed revolvers, the lightweight variant of Colt's "Detective's Special" revolver, which was popular with detectives at the time. Lt. Ballinger was the first T.V. police detective, of any note, to carry a backup revolver. The second Cobra revolver was carried in a more concealed position than the other.
A novel was published in 1962, ''M Squad: The Chicago Cop Killer, '' by David Saunders. It was published by
Belmont Books
Belmont Books, also known as Belmont Productions, was an American publisher of genre fiction paperback originals founded in 1960. It specialized in science fiction, horror fiction, horror and fantasy, with titles appearing from 1961 through 1971. T ...
, New York.
Home media
Timeless Media Group
Shout! Factory is an American home video and music company founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases include previously released feature films, classic and contemporary television series, animation, live music, and comedy ...
released ''M Squad: The Complete Series'' on DVD in the Region 1 on November 11, 2008. This release has been discontinued and is out of print.
On November 4, 2014, Timeless Media re-released the complete series on DVD in a new 16-disc special edition collection that contains an entire disc of bonus content.
See also
* ''
Police Squad!
''Police Squad!'' is an American television crime comedy series that was broadcast on the ABC network in 1982. It was created by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker, starring Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin. A spoof of police procedu ...
''
References
External links
* {{IMDb title, id=0050035, title=M Squad
1957 American television series debuts
1960 American television series endings
1950s American crime drama television series
1960s American crime drama television series
Black-and-white American television shows
Fictional portrayals of the Chicago Police Department
NBC original programming
Television series by Universal Television
Television shows set in Chicago