The Roaring Twenties
1960 - United StatesSet in New York City in the roaring 1920's this adventure series starred Rex Reason and Donald May as two hard hitting reporters for the New York Daily Record, who tried to discover the big scoops of the day by infiltrating the underworld and exposing the crime bosses who were running the city during the Prohibition era.
The Roaring Twenties tried to recapture the action, humour, the music and the razzle-dazzle that was so typical of that turbulent era in US history, with daring exploits, Park Avenue scandals, jazz, dance marathons, flappers, speakeasies and bootleggers. Or at least that's how its makers, Warner Brothers, described it at the time. The main characters were Scott Norris and Pat Garrison, who were often aided as well as hindered by cub reporter Chris Higbee (Gary Vinson) and Charleston Club singer Delaware 'Pinky' Pinkham (Dorothy Provine).
Most of the shows sparkle came from its dance routines and use of authentic newsreel footage from the era it depicted. A dinner jacket and wig once used by Al Jolson were altered to fit Dorothy Provine for one particular musical number and on one occasion a supporting player discovered, on examining the inside label of a suit he was wearing, that it had been worn by James Cagney 22 years earlier in a full-length film called...The Roaring Twenties.
Published on January 25th, 2019. Written by Noel Onely (2000) for Television Heaven.
