DVD review: “Route 66: The Complete Series”

No more piecemeal releases. No more half-baked formatting. Shout! Factory has released all four seasons of the acclaimed “Route 66” television drama of the early 1960s, and they all come in one well-conceived package, in stores tomorrow.

The guts of “Route 66: The Complete Series”: It’s a box set of 24 DVDs, inside four cases divvied up for each of the show’s seasons. It includes a disc of special features, including a Corvette documentary, a 1990 television panel with many of “Route 66’s” principals, and vintage commercials.

The box set was produced by Shout! Factory, which purchased the rights from Roxbury Entertainment last year. Roxbury released the show’s first three years in  half- and full-season increments, but never the fourth and final season. Shout! Factory dispensed with this approach, and is making “Route 66’s” run available in one fell swoop.

Also, Roxbury made the ill-advised decision of letterboxing parts of Season 2, cutting off the top and bottom of images. “Route 66” fans will be pleased to know that all the episodes produced by Shout! Factory are displayed in a full-screen 1:33 ratio.

The manufacturer’s suggested retail price is $129.99, but it can be found for $99.99, including Shout! Factory itself.

“Route 66” co-starred George Maharis and Martin Milner as Buz Murdock and Tod Stiles, a couple of pals drifting around America in a Chevy Corvette (Glenn Corbett as Linc Case filled in during the final third of the show’s run when Maharis became ill). The show became notable for Oscar-winning writer Stirling Silliphant’s smart scripts and its on-location shooting. “Route 66” is widely regarded as one of the best television dramas of the 1960s.

“Route 66” also hired a lot of up-and-coming actors, including Robert Duvall, Burt Reynolds, Cloris Leachmann, James Caan, Lee Marvin, Leslie Nielsen, Martin Sheen, Robert Redford, Ron Howard, Suzanne Pleshette, Walter Matthau, Ed Asner, Rod Steiger, and William Shatner.

I didn’t have nearly enough time to watch all 116 episodes with my advance copy of “Route 66: The Complete Series” (such a feat would have required nearly four days of nonstop viewing). Instead, I viewed a smattering of the series’ most acclaimed episodes:

• “Lizard’s Leg & Owlet’s Wing” — This whimsical episode featured horror-film veterans Lon Chaney Jr., Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre. It included Chaney in werewolf and mummy makeup, and Karloff donning his Frankenstein Monster getup for the first time in a quarter-century.
• “The Thin White Line” — Tod literally freaks out after accidentally drinking a beer laced with an LSD-like drug. It was one of Milner’s most-praised performances.
• “Birdcage on My Foot” — While helping Tod detox a heroin addict portrayed by a young Robert Duvall, Buz dramatically reveals that he once was an addict himself.
• “Good Night Sweet Blues” — Todd and Buz try to fulfill the wishes of a dying singer, portrayed by Ethel Waters, to reunite her old jazz band. Waters was nominated for an Emmy — the first such honor for a black actress.
• “Even Stones Have Eyes” — Buz is temporarily blinded during a construction accident and falls in love with a fellow student at a school for the blind. Maharis later said it was one of his favorite episodes.
• “I’m Here to Kill a King” — This is the infamous “lost” episode scheduled to air only a week after President Kennedy’s assassination. The intricate conspiracy plot to kill a visiting Saudi king prompted CBS to pull the episode. (It later aired in syndication.)

My observations from those shows:

• Maharis and Milner provided a good balance with their divergent personalities. Maharis was a street-tough heart-throb who was wound too tight, while Milner took on more of an aw-shucks attitude.
• “Route 66” was subtly informed by Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” and the Beat Generation, and foresaw restlessness and social activism arising in the late 1960s.
• A script by Silliphant absolutely is worth watching for dialogue alone. And “Route 66’s” writing was way ahead of the curve when it came to social issues (drug addiction, racism, religious extremism).
• The show’s on-location shooting provided a welcome dose of realism. Some of “Route 66’s” melodramatic moments have become dated, but its “voodoo of location” remains compelling even now.

It’s apparent Shout! Factory was unable to secure all the original film in remastering “Route 66” to DVD. One episode, “A Fury Slinging Flame,” contains a disclaimer that it was taken from “best available sources” — a syndicated version that had a few minutes edited from it.

On the whole, however, “Route 66: The Complete Series” looks sharp and clean. You can even count Milner’s freckles on close-ups.

On the special-features disc, the 45-minute discussion panel at the 1990 William S. Paley Television Festival — featuring Maharis, executive producer Herbert G. Leonard, casting director Marion Dougherty, director Arthur Hiller and director Elliott Silverstein — reveals fascinating tidbits about the show. Leonard said “Route 66” often got crosswise with CBS censors, but Chevrolet’s strong support smoothed things over. Only one scene wasn’t shot during the show’s entire run — Jim Crow laws in Florida prevented the filming of an interracial scene at a kitchen table.

Because of the logistical challenges of shooting on location, actors and film crews for “Route 66” sometimes worked seven days a week. And when filming wrapped, Leonard said he parked himself in the editing room from after dinnertime to 9 a.m. the next day to make sure deadlines were met.

And here’s something Leonard revealed that boggles the mind — Robert Redford screen-tested for what eventually became Milner’s role. Redford was rejected because he was deemed too young.

The 25-minute film “Great Cars: Corvette,” which originally aired on PBS in 2004, delves into the fascinating history of the fabled sports car. The Corvette came out of postwar prosperity, Streamline Moderne design, and the MG sports car. And it’s hard to believe now, but the first Corvettes of the 1950s contained an anemic six cylinders.

The disc also includes commercials by Chevrolet, Bayer aspirin, and Milk of Magnesia that aired during “Route 66’s” run.

Highly recommended.