The Mike Wallace Interview(s)

April 4, 2008 1:27 PM

"My name is Mike Wallace.The cigarette is Philip Morris." Before there was 60 Minutes, there was The Mike Wallace Interview. Thirty minutes with Steve Allen, Frank Lloyd Wright, Kirk Douglas, Pearl Buck, and Salvador Dali, to name just a few.
posted by steef (16 comments total)

Pearl Buck...a lesson in Nobel ephemera.
posted by OmieWise at 1:50 PM on April 4, 2008

Nice find, steef!
posted by Dizzy at 1:52 PM on April 4, 2008

I'm very excited about this and am seriously looking forward to watching many of them.
posted by briank at 2:30 PM on April 4, 2008

"The logarithm of the curve of cauliflowers" S. Dali
posted by dov3 at 2:41 PM on April 4, 2008

Pearl Buck...a lesson in Nobel ephemera.

Eh, she had one great novel....and she's probably not even the worst (or least significant) writer to receive the award. The Nobels in the hard sciences are much more accurate in consistently rewarding achievement.
posted by mattbucher at 3:09 PM on April 4, 2008

That Frank Lloyd Wright interview is an embarrassment. I never liked Mike Wallace. I think of him as the godfather of "gotcha" journalism that spawned empty shell talking heads like Russert and Matthews.
posted by any major dude at 3:10 PM on April 4, 2008

The Aldous Huxley interview is fresh as ever.
Great find, thank you.
posted by Substrata at 3:22 PM on April 4, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for a nice post, Steef. This stuff first aired when I was too young to appreciate it. Wallace, back then... in white-bread America, was considered a blatantly provocative interviewer who, more often than not, stomped all over the line that separated good taste from bad manners. He had to re-invent his TV persona to do the Sixty Minutes gig.
posted by Huplescat at 3:53 PM on April 4, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I've never much cared for Mike Wallace, either. But I did smoke Phillip Morris for a while, and they were good, smooth, full flavored cigarettes, as I recall.

Wish I had one now, kinda.
posted by paulsc at 3:53 PM on April 4, 2008

I love MeFi. Thanks Steef. =)
posted by ZachsMind at 4:06 PM on April 4, 2008

The Rod Serling was espcially good
posted by timsteil at 4:14 PM on April 4, 2008

I'd forgotten that Steve Allen was essentially the Arsenio Hall of his day. To go up against Ed Sullivan must have seemed the kiss of death. Allen did his best under Wallace's hot lights to appear calm and cool.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:47 PM on April 4, 2008

Mike Wallace was a douchebag before he was even old. Wow. Like father like son.
posted by empath at 5:12 PM on April 4, 2008

Hmph. Ben Hecht, whom I would have loved to have seen interviewed, is transcript only.

Interesting how many of these are now trivia questions, suitable for final Jeopardy. Fun to see Peter Ustinov described as a Boy Wonder.

Which leads us to the next desideratum - Mike Wallace in his Game Show Host days
posted by IndigoJones at 5:13 PM on April 4, 2008

one of my favorite mike wallace interviews was Ayn Rand. Its not in this collection but available in three parts on youtube (1,2,3).
posted by indigoskynet at 6:16 PM on April 4, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

If the interview with Mary Margaret McBride doesn't make you teary-eyed, you're not paying attention. (Wink.)
posted by noway at 6:06 AM on April 5, 2008