King Lear
Omnibus

Welles in the storm.

Peter Brook’s initial stab, a miniature study for television. Elizabethan gear, sets that serve the turn.

“Subplot” ruthlessly abated as unnecessary, mirroring the mirror.

Incidental music by Virgil Thomson. Live production, continuous thanks to the “subscribers”.

The camera floats and wanders though the mad scene (Micheal MacLiammoir as Poor Tom, Alan Badel the Fool), then cuts to another.

An inspired reading. The finest Lear extant, by its nature little-known though millions saw it broadcast.

Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll
The Untouchables

He lies in wait for Dutch Schultz’s right-hand man Lefty, kidnaps him and has him write a ransom note. The amount is fixed at $100,000, exactly the amount wagered by Schultz in the Kentucky Derby on a horse called Enchantment, the favorite (the bet is made in the Winter Book at Tijuana, from New York).

As soon as Lefty has written the note, Coll plugs him with a silencered pistol, and keeps on plugging him. The body is stuffed into a closet and found four days later, too soon for the ransom to be paid.

Coll kidnaps Enchantment. Ransom is paid, the horse is found unharmed. Coll has a new scheme to break Schultz. Leaving the favorite in the race to boost the odds, he bets the $50,000 ransom on Dream Prince and plans to shoot Enchantment during the race. McCullough shows how it’s done during a brief racetrack conversation between Schultz and Ness, they part and the camera tracks swiftly forward to the rear window of a Trans Global Newsreel van to show Coll’s fat henchman inside eating a candy bar, and behind him a gagged cameraman.

Coll is above Churchill Downs on the press gallery with a newsreel camera and a .30-06. He’s arrested, Dream Prince wins.