Did someone say Schenectady? On screens big and small, ‘Schenectady’ has appeared often over the years – The Daily Gazette

SCHENECTADY – Actor Henry Hull was one of the first to give Schenectady a cinematic shoutout.

Hull played a journalist in the drama Objective, Burma! of the Second World War of 1945!

The film featured daring wartime exploits: a squad of soldiers parachuted into Japanese-occupied Burma with a mission to locate and blow up a radar station. Escaping Burma becomes the real thing, as the men must return to their base through an enemy-infested jungle.

The film, with Errol Flynn in the lead role, mentions Schenectady, Central Park, Crane Street, Union College and The Gazette. It is currently available on HBO Max; Schenectady’s references can also be seen in a two-minute clip posted to YouTube.

Movie and TV fans have seen and heard Schenectady on their screens in the past. Sometimes the city appears during prime time; other times, Schenectady receives lines in classic and modern films.

REMARK: The Daily Gazette in 2011 ran an article detailing Schenectady’s appearances in pop culture. We were always discovering new ones, and today, with Union College’s connection to The Way We Were on the front page, we’re updating Schenectady’s references in movies and TV shows.

The script’s popularity could be attributed to the strange sounding of the name, or perhaps the creative spellings and fractured pronunciations Schenectady has endured over the years.

Whatever the reasons, the city has a knack for appearing on the pop culture bulletin board.

Here is the proof.

OBJECTIVE, SCHENECTADY!

People can thank Ranald MacDougall for including Schenectadys in Objective, Burma! MacDougall was born in Schenectady in 1915 and remembers his hometown as a screenwriter for the war story.

In the film, journalist Mark Williams (Hull) travels with the detonation team. He asks some of the guys where they’d rather be and strikes up a conversation with Lt. Sid Jacobs (William Prince).

Jacobs talks to the Cannonball Island writer in Central Park, Schenectady. The soldier also says that his father owns a grocery store on Crane Street and adds that he is a graduate of Union College.

Williams says he knows people in Schenectady. My column is syndicated there, The Gazette, he says, telling a surprised Jacobs that his quotes will be printed in his hometown newspaper.

JUDY AND THE Mick

Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney played aspiring singer-actors in 1939’s Babes in Arms, one of several Rooney films in which children staged their own song-and-dance performances.

Judy, as Patsy Barton, decides to visit her mother. Here’s the script the cast followed, with Rooneys Mickey Moran following the elusive Patsy:

Is this the sleeper bus to Schenectady? Moran asks a bus employee. Moran finds his potential girlfriend and learns that she is tied to Schenectady to visit her mother.

The film was made shortly after Garland and Margaret Hamilton completed The Wizard of Oz. Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of Oz, plays a similar role in Babes Without the Broomstick.

PIN PLACEMENT

Schenectady starred in the 2012 crime drama The Place Beyond the Pines with Bradley Cooper and Ryan Gosling. Much of the film was shot in the region; local landmarks and businesses did the final editing.

WELCOME TO EARTH

The 1956 science fiction film Earth vs the Flying Saucers is remembered and respected by some for Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion special effects and spinning saucers invading Earth. The scenes that show the craft crashing into the Washington Monument and into the Union Station train depot remain impressive 66 years later.

Senior scientist Russell Marvin, played by Hugh Marlowe, believes sound waves and electricity stopped the saucers. Call Schenectady and tell them they’re going to need the biggest generator they have! Marvin said.

The call would have been made to General Electric, as GE was then manufacturing generators in Schenectady.

PRONUNCIATION OF DAFFY

Daffy Duck, like fellow Warner Brothers Bugs Bunny and The Road Runner, was a movie star before moving into television. Warners’ cartoon shorts often aired before the main attractions.

In 1952, Daffy tries to sell insurance to a confused Porky Pig in the short film Fool Coverage.

Hello, sir, Daffy said. I represent the Hotfoot Casualty Underwriters Insurance Company of Schenectady.

The duck fumbled the city’s pronunciation, which was probably part of the gag.

IN FIGHTS

The 2005 boxing film Cinderella Man tells the story of Depression-era boxer Jim Braddock. Both in the movie and in real life, Braddock fights Schenectady’s Abe Feldman.

WEATHER REPORT

In 1955, the weather is always good, Angie Valentine has finished her service in World War II and plans to open an upscale restaurant. When Valentine played by actor Michael Kidd meets his friends 10 years after the war, he runs a restaurant in Schenectady.

CAN YOU SPELL THAT?

The title of the 2008 film Synecdoche, New York is a play on Schenectady.

PUSH DAISY

A gossip Daisy Miller, played by Cybill Shepherd, is in Europe and tells her friend Winterbourne that I like society a lot, I’ve always had a lot of society, I don’t mean just in Schenectady but in New York, I go to New York every winter. I have more friends in New York than in Schenectady.

The 1974 film is based on Henry James’ 1878 short story of the same name. In the book, Daisys’ 10-year-old brother Randolph considers their hometown of Schenectady superior to all of Europe.

THEN MARY!

In Jimmy Cagney’s 1942 film about song and dance man George M. Cohan, Yankee Doodle Dandy often shown around the 4th of July, Schenectady appears in the number So Long Mary. A young woman is escorted to a train by a group of singing admirers. It reminds me of my family, sings Mary, played by Joan Leslie, the day I left Schenectady.

Some references to Schenectady come from TV shows.

FREE TIME

The 1960s version of The Twilight Zone has been hailed as one of the greatest programs in television history. The original series ran from 1959 to 1964; episodes featured sci-fi, horror, fantasy, and surprise endings.

Creator Rod Serling was born in Syracuse, grew up in Binghamton, taught at Ithaca College and maintained ties to upstate New York. Serling has included references to upstate communities and regions throughout the series.

Schenectady did one of the stories for the second season.

On February 24, 1961, fans saw The Odyssey of Flight 33 for the first time. Breaking the sound barrier, an airliner accidentally travels through time.

The flight crew discovers that the geography has changed.

Well, we flew over what should be Schenectady, Albany, points north, said an officer aboard the airliner.

DOMESTIC CALLS

The town didn’t literally appear in the spring of 2011 in an episode of Fox’s then-popular medical drama House. The eccentric Dr. Gregory House has a secret that he’s been at Schenectady for the past four years, where he placed second in a potato gun contest.

On the April 11 broadcast, House is reunited with his friend Dr. Remy Hadley, better known by the odd nickname 13. House kidnaps Hadley from Schenectady for the annual Schenectady Chili Cook-Off and Spud Gun contest. The formidable 13 proves her worth to the old house, she knows how to build a powerful spud gun.

EVERYBODY LOVE SOMEBODY

Singer-actor Dean Martin was well known for his TV gig as an affable, boozy playboy, a gag that helped take his NBC variety show to a nine-year streak from 1965 to 1974.

Comedian Foster Brooks appeared occasionally, and Brooks also poured and drank on stage (the actor had actually been sober since the mid-1960s).

During a broadcast, available on YouTube, Brooks falls on the stage and interrupts Martin and his pianist, Ken Lane.

Have you ever been to Schen-ectady? Brooks asks, barely pronouncing the key word.

No, I’ve never been to Schenectady, Martin replies.

It must have been two other guys, Brooks replies.

STATE OF GRACE

In NBC’s long-running Will & Grace, Debra Messings Grace Adler was raised in Schenectady. Her mother Bobbi, played by Debbie Reynolds, was still living in town when the series ended in 2006.

BANG! ZOOM!

In The Honeymooners, Jackie Gleasons’ classic mid-1950s television series, Ed Norton (Art Carney), the opposite, bursts into a pool hall and greets Ralph Kramden, the Gleasons’ braggadocio. Norton smokes a cigar and explains that Hagerty, one of Norton’s fellow sewer workers, is celebrating: his mother-in-law has returned to Schenectady, he said.

The show has another connection to the city. Joyce Randolph, who played Trixie Norton, worked in Schenectady in 1945. The General Electric Company had built some of its first television production studios in the town.

I mostly remember the lights, which were so harsh, and that terrible black lipstick, Randolph told The New York Times in 1993.

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