I get a lot of e-mails from people asking me about television shows, made-for-TV movies or miniseries they remember from years or decades past. I try to answer each question as best I can. Every now and then I like to dig through my inbox and pull out a few choice e-mails to answer here at Television Obscurities for everyone to read. Keep reading for today's questions and answers.
I have it stuck in my cerebral matter that there was a videotaped television movie about a successful black man who returns to the ghetto where he grew up. The movie was entitled "Man in the Middle" and featured a young Morgan Freeman as a street hustler. I guess the time period as anywhere from 1968 to 1972....DOES ANYONE REMEMBER THIS TV MOVIE???
-Amy
Amy was close with the title. It was called "Caught in the Middle" and aired locally in New York City on WCBS-TV on Wednesday, December 16th, 1970 from 7:30-9PM. The station commissioned Gordon Watkins to write and produce the drama. Here's a brief summary from the day's television listings in The New York Times:
Drama, taped on location in Harlem, about the frustrations of a welfare worker torn between urgent needs of the community and limitations imposed on him by rules and regulates. The cast is headed by Lawrence Cook, Morgan Freeman, Dorothi Fox, Camille Yarbrough [sic]. [1]
Lawrence Cook starred as William "Bear" Walker, the aforementioned welfare worker who returned to the ghetto where he grew up in the hopes of doing some good. Fred Ferretti, in a lengthy review published December 17th, called the drama an anomaly, "less than professional as a structured dramatic piece, it is, nevertheless, shot through with brutal, raw strength. On paper it is a badly drawn play, but on videotape last night it charted with considerable success and honesty, to me, the why of black rage." Ferretti praised the cast:
Dorothi Fox as the cynical Mrs. Thomas who has slept around some is excellent, as is Camille Yarborough as the young mother of a brain-damaged, illegitimate child, who might, in some other time, have loved Bear Walker. Lawrence Cook as Bear grew in intenisity as the play progressed, with his final desperate assault on the police both dramatically believable and incredibly chilling. But to me, Morgan Freeman as Cuz towered as the silk-suited operator who sold his soul and subsequently his people, his neighborhood and finally his friend, Bear.
Ferretti also liked the look of the drama, writing that "the play looks, even feels, as if it were breaking news, or a documentary." It was videotaped in Harlem over the course of ten days in May of 1970. This location shooting, said Ferretti, added "a dimension to the play that would be lost in a studio production." The first 25 minutes of "Caught in the Middle" can be viewed at YouTube:
Hopefully the remaining hour of "Caught in the Middle" also exists somewhere. I wonder if Morgan Freeman has a copy.
Works Cited:
WCBS-TV had guts at the time to schedule this kind of videotaped drama instead of taking the network's usual line-up of "THE GLEN CAMPBELL GOODTIME HOUR" and "THE BEVERLY HILLBILLIES". Today, they don't even care...
I believe the complete version of "Caught in the Middle" exists, but 'tvdays.com' cannot present it for various reasons. And I'm sure Morgan Freeman would like to forget he ever appeared in it, much less have a videotape or kinescoped copy [like the one presented here] in his possession. He tends to dismiss his earlier TV work, especially "THE ELECTRIC COMPANY".
You'll also never hear him speak about his days in the late 80's NBC daytime soap ANOTHER WORLD
Exactly, 'pBob'.
Never despise "small beginnings", Mr. Freeman. Films like "Caught in the Middle"afforded you an opportunity for employment ( a sheer blessing for a Black actor in 1970), and experience in making a film. Most folks can accept that actors improve as their body of experience becomes broader. If you felt that this film, or your acting was substandard, you have to take in the context of when it happened and what tools where at your disposal at the time.