Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1957)

REVIEWS Continued from page 16 NIGHTTIME WSAZ-TV DELIVERS 1000 HOMES BETWEEN 7:30 and 10:30 P. M. FOR $1.30 The second station's cost per thousand homes is $2.39 84% Higher The third station's cost per thousand homes is $5.42 317% Higher AND ANYTIME WSAZ-TV delivers ONE THIRD more total homes than both other Huntington-Charleston Stations COMBINED Source: June 1957 ARB All figures based on 260-time frequency HUNTINGTON-CHARLESTON, W. VA. M.M.O. ETETWOISiK Affiliated wilh Radio Slalions WSAZ, Huntington 4 WKAZ. Charleston LAWRENCE H. ROGERS, PRESIDENT Represented by The Katz Agency CALL YOUR KATZ MAN Page 124 • October 7; 1957 ing and entertaining. It was not always exciting. In explaining America and her music to Mr. Harrison at one point in the show, Miss Channing said, "We got everything we got from everybody — and made it our own." Perhaps "Crescendo's" problem was the impossibility of giving all that "everything" to everybody at one time. Production costs: $450,000-$500,000 Sponsored by Du Pont through BBDO on CBS-TV, Sun. (once a month), 9-10:30 p.m. EDT. Started Sept. 30 Executive producer: Richard Lewine; producer: Paul Gregory; director: Bill Colleran; writers: Peter Ustinov and Leslie Stevens; musical director: Paul Weston; choral director: Norman LuhofJ; choreographer: Eugene Loring; scenic designer: Paul Barnes; costume designer: Saul Bolasni Stars: Rex Harrison, Julie Andrews, Stanley Hollaway, Louis Armstrong, Eddy Arnold, Diahahn Carroll, Benny Goodman, Mahalia Jackson, Sonny James, Stubby Kaye, Peggy Lee, Lizzie Miles, Carol Channing, Turk Murphy, Dinah Washington THE GEORGE GOBEL SHOW & THE EDDIE FISHER SHOW Some say it's not a season for comedians on tv. But the new alternate-week, hour format looks like the best break for George Gobel (and the viewer, too) for some time. There's more excitement in the new show than in last season's half-hour series. Jeff Donnell as the star's wife has been liberated from aprons and dustmops and launched as a comic singer. The master gets to do his stand-up bits unfettered by a mandatory "situation" and spelled by guest acts. Much of the Gobel opener was a satire on several facets of the tv trade — color, sales presentations, survey methods (energetically handled by interviewers Tommy Noonan and Pete Marshall) and spectacular shows. The point at times may have been more obvious to the trade than to Viewer Doe, but the bits were in themselves funny enough to succeed without satire. On the Eddie Fisher opener, the hour was full of songs, including numbers in which the singer teamed up with wife Debbie and on another occasion with Mr. Gobel. Producer Mike Todd was on hand, too, with a few sequences only mildly amusing. But as a musical counterpart to the alternate week's comedy antics, last" Tuesday's Fisher program was a nice change of pace. The idea of having Mr. Gobel and Eddie Fisher appear as guests on each other's shows should whet audience appetites in a complementary way. From the sparkle of the openers in this tandem series, it appears as if Saturday night television had better look to its laurels. There's quite a Saturday feeling about this Tuesday show. Production costs: $80,000 Sponsored in color on NBC-TV, Tuesday, 8-9 p.m. EDT by Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co. through McCann-Erickson, Whirlpool Corp. and RCA, both through Kenyon & Eckhardt. Reviewed Sept. 24 and Oct. 1 Producer-director: Allen Handley (Gobel); producer: Julie Styne (Fisher); director: Barry Shear (Fisher) THE COURT OF LAST RESORT On May 23, 1935, a man known as Gordon Wallace was implicated in the murder of a trucking racketeer "somewhere in New England" and on the flimsy evidence of a vengeful widow (whose husband was killed earlier on that racketeer's order) was sentenced to life imprisonment. Twenty-two years later Mr. Wallace (a fictional name) attempted suicide in the prison shoe repair shop and by this desperate act attracted the merciful attention of the Court of Last Resort, a body of seven crime detection experts dedicated to the release of wrongfully-convicted felons. Before the program ended, their legal and detecting spadework reversed the sentence and freed Gordon Wallace. The Wallace case has, like the others to be aired, already appeared in Argosy magazine, and while the tv version was considerably removed from the actual magazine "case" (which took place in Detroit during the bootleg era), the initial episode showed considerable merit. Founded in 1948 by mystery writer Erie Stanley Gardner and Argosy Publisher Harry Steeger, the Court is dedicated to the proposition that the real court of last resort is "the people." It is hoped that the series will rally public support to the selfless work of these seven individuals, and well it might — and should. (Mr. Gardner recalled last week that over the past nine years he had spent some $25,000, non-reimbursable) . Naturally, it is somewhat hard to digest what could amount to over three years of work into a scant 30 minutes, but producer Elliott Lewis (of radio's The Clock and Suspense fame) is an old hand at coming up with plausible, taut and professionallyexecuted plays. Truth, especially in radio-tv dramatizations, has been particularly prone to perversion through purported "fictionalization" ("all places, names and dates have been changed to protect the innocent," ad nauseum) but the people behind this new tv series have carefully avoided hoking up material that is exciting enough by itself. They, as well as the makers of Old Gold cigarettes (who can't honestly claim to sponsor the series as "a public service" but who do admit their "happiness" to be associated with the programs) ought to be commended for bringing the court's exciting work to the attention of millions of nonArgosy readers. Production costs: Approximately $35,000 Sponsored by P. Lorillard Co. (Old Gold), through Lennen & Newell, on NBC-TV, Fri. 8-8:30 p.m. EDT. Premiered Oct. 4 Executive producer: Jules C. Goldstone; producer: Elliott Lewis; director (on initial show): John Meredyth Lucas; film editor: Sherman Todd; script editors: Sherman Todd and Anthony Ellis; packaged by Walden Productions Inc. in association with Paisano Productions, Hollywood Broadcasting • Telecasting