The Name of the Game (TV series)

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The Name of the Game was a television series that ran for seventy-six episodes of 90 minutes each on NBC, filmed from 1968 to 1971. The series rotated between three characters working in a magazine empire: a crusading reporter with "People Magazine" (Anthony Franciosa, billed as Tony Franciosa, before there actually was a People Magazine in real life), the sophisticated publisher (Gene Barry), and a crime journalist (Robert Stack).

Perhaps the most striking episode was literally a science fiction nightmare called "L.A. 2017," directed by a very young Steven Spielberg from a Philip Wylie story, in which Gene Barry is hunted down in a lethally polluted Los Angeles of the future, where the populace has been driven back to the caves, living in underground bunkers to avoid the pollution. Shooting in 1971, Spielberg managed a lot on a comparatively low budget, using odd shots and compelling camera angles to put across Wylie's harrowing story of a fascist government run by psychiatrists.

The series maintained a high budget for television and strived for a movie feel, which it often attained. Later in the series, Franciosa was fired and his rotation was taken by various characters played by different actors, including Peter Falk, Robert Culp, Robert Wagner, and Darren McGavin, all leads in earlier or later series themselves.

Appealing 22-year-old newcomer Susan Saint James was arguably the series' anchoring star, however, since she played an editorial assistant who appeared in practically every episode, regardless of which leading actor helmed it, and was the common thread that made the show feel more or less like a series instead of an anthology. Franciosa, Barry, and Stack crossed over into each others' shows on a frustratingly limited basis, and all three leads never appeared on screen at the same time. Franciosa supposedly sometimes refused even to pose for publicity stills with Barry and Stack.

The series was based on a TV-movie that was incredibly heavily publicized by the network at the time as the first one ever, but that honor technically belongs to a much earlier TV-movie pilot of 77 Sunset Strip. Called Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966), the TV-movie version featured Franciosa as the lead, a fact that he reportedly never forgot, and won monstrously smashing ratings, making a series inevitable. The ratings were really almost a foregone conclusion, though, since the network ballyhooed the film to a literally unprecedented degree before the broadcast as the first "World Premiere" during a time when there were only three commercial networks and three or four available television channels in most cities.

[edit] Cast

Jeff Dillon — Anthony Franciosa (billed as Tony Franciosa; first and second seasons) ( 3 episodes 3rd season before being fired.)
Glenn Howard — Gene Barry
Dan Farrell — Robert Stack
Peggy Maxwell — Susan Saint James
Paul Tyler — Robert Culp (third season)
Lewis Corbett — Peter Falk (third season)
David Corey — Robert Wagner (third season)
Sam Hardy — Darren McGavin (2nd season 1 episode only)
Joe Sample — Ben Murphy (supporting role)
Ross Craig — Mark Miller (supporting role)
Sandy Hill — Cliff Potts (first season; supporting role)