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June 26 - July 2, 2022 WHATS UP! T11 of those scenes appear to be in near-darkness. Why? A: Short answer: Because of the "noir" in film noir. "Perry Mason" is widely seen as an attempt to translate the film-noir style of big-screen crime dramas (think 1944's "Double Indemnity" or 1941's "The Maltese Falcon") to the small screen. According to film blogger and critic Terence Towles Canote, "Perry Mason" often used "the same techniques as film noir, in- cluding harsh lighting, extensive use of shadows and even low an- gles." "Noir" in this context literally means "dark." Of course, the French film critics who devel- oped the term film noir were mostly referring to themes that were figuratively dark — every character in a classic film noir is either corrupt or cynical or both, and they all seem to do a lot of murdering. However, the film- makers often echoed that meta- phorical darkness through a lit- eral lack of light. The cast of "Perry Mason," most notably its star Raymond Burr ("Rear Window," 1954), had a lot of experience doing big- screen film noirs. The same is also true of the directors and cinematographers. Frank Red- man, the cinematographer for the first four seasons of the show (and therefore the guy with the most say over lighting choices), was behind the camera for a bunch of film noir classics, in- cluding "Conspiracy" (1939) and the landmark classic "Dick Tra- cy" (1945). The dark lighting on "Perry Mason" must have been a style choice, because it certainly wasn't about cost. "Perry Ma- son" was reportedly one of the most expensive shows on TV at the time, with each episode hav- ing a six-figure budget. Q: I recently saw a docu- mentary on TV called "The Kings," about Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns, but wasn't there already one with that title about Muham- mad Ali? Was it a series or something? A: A sport with a history as long as boxing should be able to come up with more metaphors — you're actually thinking of two different documentaries with very similar titles. "The Kings," which aired over four nights last year on Showtime, was indeed about Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns, as well as Ro- berto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard. They were collective- ly known in boxing circles as The Four Kings, because they all fought in the same weight class at the same time and helped revive popular interest in the sport. But before that, in 1996, a fea- ture-length documentary called "When We Were Kings" was re- leased. It received a lot of atten- tion and a best-documentary Oscar for its account of Muham- mad Ali and George Foreman's famous Rumble in the Jungle fight in Zaire (now the Demo- cratic Republic of the Congo). Without diminishing the lega- cy of Duran, Leonard, Hearns and Hagler, if anyone has the right to be dubbed the king of boxing, it's got to be Ali. To this day he remains one of the best- known figures in that — or just about any other — sport. Have a question? Email us at questions@tvtabloid.com. Please include your name and town. Per- sonal replies will not be provided. Advance Pest Control 2 x 2 TAKE 5 Solution on page T23 Use the clues above and beside the grid to fill in the squares BY ADAM THOMLISON TV Media Q: Sometimes on "The Golden Girls," Dorothy says she's from Queens, but sometimes she's from Brooklyn. Which one is it and why does it vary? A: "The Golden Girls" has been rerun so often on so many channels that the chronology is a little foggy, to say the least, and so it's easy not to notice the fact that it's only in the show's pilot that she says she's from Queens. (The pilot epi- sode is the one produced for the network as proof of a con- cept. If the network likes it, it typically orders a whole sea- son.) That timing means the net- work can ask for alterations to the show's formula, but the changes are usually small enough that the network fig- ures it can get away with airing the existing pilot and continu- ing the story from there with the minor tweaks in place. Dor- othy's hometown was one of those tweaks. NBC switched it from Queens to Brooklyn, presum- ably hoping viewers wouldn't notice, and few have (so kudos to you and your sharp ears). The network execs never of- fered an explanation for why they asked for the change, however. Did they figure Brooklyn was more famous than Queens in the rest of America? (They certainly weren't thinking of the interna- tional audience at this point, even though the show would soon become a global hit.) Maybe they thought Brooklyn seemed more Italian (Doro- thy's Italian heritage was a huge part of her character) or that its streets just seemed a little meaner (Dorothy was the tough city girl of the group, and Brooklyn had a tougher reputa- tion at the time). We may never know. It's also not the only change that was made after the pilot. Most notably, the first episode included a whole other central character — a flamboyantly gay cook named Coco, who had dis- appeared without a trace by the next episode. Q: They used some out- door scenes in the original "Perry Mason" series, but the overwhelming majority Bea Arthur from "The Golden Girls" HOLLYWOOD Q&A www.advancepestcontrolnwa.com Family Owned, Competitively Priced, Quality Service Since 1981 Rogers 479-636-5590 Springdale 479-756-1788 Eureka Springs 479-253-8967 PEST CONTROL TERMITE FERTILIZATION WEED CONTROL PRE-EMERGENTS