Eddie Brandt's Saturday Matinee and My Search for a Vintage Video

My husband Edward, asked, "What does a social worker do?"

It was March of 1963, we were living in Manhattan and he had just received an offer to write an episode for a new television series called 'East Side/West Side' starring George C. Scott. 

I made a list of dramatic subjects involving social workers.  He looked it over and chose one (unfit Mother) as the basis for his teleplay and titled it "The Sinner."  We outlined the story together and he wrote the draft in two days. 

The central character was a young woman named Layna Harris—a prostitute who had a baby she adored. Layna was a high school dropout who continued to ply her trade -- the only profession she knew.  The baby's father and family contacted the authorities to try to have the baby taken away under the guise of proclaiming her an unfit Mother. 

George C. Scott had tremendous input into the show and insisted that social workers cannot solve most of society's problems -- sometimes they win a shallow victory but most of the time they lose the battle.  His stance clashed with that of James T.Aubrey (head of CBS Television at the time) and the CBS affiliates in the south refused to carry the show Monday nights at 10 p.m.

In any case, the final scene of the episode would show Neil Brock (Scott's character) entering Layna's apartment with the authority given to remove the child.  It was a heart-breaking scene and needless to add that all our relatives and friends called us in tears after the show. 

It was the premiere episode of the series which was doomed in the ratings by the fact that a huge part of the CBS viewing audience were denied the opportunity to view it. 

The search for a copy of 'The Sinner' brought me to Eddie Brandt's.  While I was not successful in my search for the one show I managed to find some of Edward's other shows out of about 400-plus hours of television he had written and/or produced.

Eddie Brandt's is the gold standard of all video rental stores.  They have over 80,000 VHS tapes and 19,000 DVDs -- single copies only.  Eddie died last year at the age of 90 but his devoted wife Claire continues to run the super operation with the help of Tony and Alex.  They have a gigantic collection of old photographs for sale as well.  Craig has featured the store in North Hollywood Patch several times already.  He may have told us about the fact that Eddie and Claire met at Hanna Barbera Studios when she was a budding animator and Eddie was their established star writer.  The two got along famously and came to the realization that the animation business was headed overseas (back in the 1960s). 

In a real-life case of 'Yours, Mine and Ours' Claire and Eddie who both had children from previous marriages, tied the knot and had children of their own.  They managed to have 40-plus years of happiness together and Claire treasures the very first Western movie they bought which began their enterprise so many years ago.  Claire receives calls constantly from actors who are doing remakes of old films who want to view the original. 

If it's not at Eddie Brandt's you may never be able to find it.