All language subtitles for Spielberg Completist MARCUS WELBY, M.D. The Daredevil Gesture (1970).en

after his night gallery pilot starring

Joan Crawford aired in 1969 Steven

Spielberg suddenly found himself

unemployable nobody at Universal wanted

to hire a 22 year old kid to direct

their television episodes and since

Spielberg literally could not get a job

Sid Sheinberg allowed him to take a year

off and write his own scripts a year

went by and soon the offers to direct

for television came back again and in

1970 when Spielberg was 23 his first

assignment after such a long absence was

the daredevil gesture an episode of

Marcus Welby MD now Marcus Welby MD was

hardly Spielberg's kind of show but he

had to prove to Sid Sheinberg that he

could be a journeyman director which

meant shooting the script as written and

just letting the actors do their thing

don't try to be an auteur don't go over

schedule and shoot a lot of artsy

experimental nonsense just shoot what

you need do a good job and when it's

over move on to the next show and that's

exactly what he did unlike his night

gallery pilot where the characters were

all cranky older people

the daredevil gesture is about a young

person the late Frank Webb plays a weary

high school teenager who's secretly a

hemophiliac and is afraid to tell his

friends about it this leads occasionally

some effecting scenes where you see

Larry suffering and you do feel sorry

for him although the ending is a little

predictable you kind of know that Larry

is gonna go into superhero mode during

the forbidden field trip and he's gonna

save another kid's life and that's

eventually gonna lead to the other kids

thinking that Larry is a pretty cool kid

in spite of his illness yeah it's it's a

nice little happy ending but again it's

very predictable and contrived Spielberg

has commented that since Robert Young

who plays dr. Welby already knew the

character he was never gonna think of

directing him but that he was still a

nice and supportive actor on the set

it's interesting to find out that in

real life Robert Young was a suicidal

alcoholic you wouldn't know that from

watching this show

where he projects enormous charisma his

partner on the show is played by James

Brolin whom Spielberg would later

reunite with on catch me if you can the

most interesting thing about the

daredevil gesture is at the character of

a whale he bears some similarities to

Spielberg himself his parents are

divorced and at his last school kids

were always bullying him Spielberg was

also bullied as a child and he too felt

miserable after his own parents were

divorced so some of that empathy shows

in the finished episode particularly in

Frank Webb's performance in fact Frank

Webb like Spielberg was a graduate of

Phoenix Arcadia High School I'm curious

to know if that was just a coincidence

or if it played any part in his getting

cast while doing research I found out

that Webb retired from acting shortly

after appearing on this show only to

then be killed in a car accident at the

age of 26

what a terrible tragedy for a young man

was so much talent his performance might

even be the best thing in the whole

episode the daredevil gesture isn't what

you call great television but for what

it is it's fine if you are Spielberg

complete it's like I am it's worth

seeing at least ones

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