Bizarre Facts About 'DOA'

Video Transcript

"Now for nineteen fifties "DOA" starring Edmond O'Bryan and Pamela Britton. But first a trivia question for you. Let me extricate it from its paper prison. The question: what does the term DOA represent? Now the prize, the only prize for the correct answer, one pat on the back that you'll have to administer to yourself. Now certainly a heck of a lot better than slap on the belly with a wet trout, isn't it? And is that your answer? Dead on arrival, right! Too darned easy! Now "DOA" actually was shot in San Francisco and Los Angeles. It starred Edmond O'Bryan as an accountant who had notarized the sale of the rare Earth element Iridium, ten thousand dollars worth that had been stolen. And he's been marked for murder. Now it turns out that he was given a slow acting poison and only had a day or two to live to find the man who murdered him. But superb acting, he certainly deserved an Academy Award for this performance. He did get one in nineteen fifty-three for "The Barefoot Contessa" for the best supporting actor, but this was by far his best role. Now a number of the scenes were shot in Los Angeles at the Bradbury building known for its' beautiful ornamental work. Turns out that in eighteen ninety-two the architect George Wineman was offered the commission for that, but he refused it because he was too busy. But one night while he and his wife were working a Ouija board trying to make contact with his dead brother Mark, who had passed away six years before, they received a message that said 'take that commission, it will make you famous'. He acted on that, and he did indeed become a very famous architect, even though the building is named for Bradbury and not Wineman. Interestingly sci-fi and horror guru Forrest Ackerman is the grandson of George Wineman and has that original communication from beyond the grave. How about that?"