Broadcasting Telecasting (Oct-Dec 1963)

THE 3gmt SUN WMAR Show Exhilarates By DONALD KDIKLEY HP HE best documentary study of narcotics addiction I have ever seen was presented on WMAR-TV last Wednesday. It also set a new high in every phase of production for the station, which has made some good ones in the past year. The first of a three-part study of the subject, it dealt with the problem from the point-of-view of one victim. The second will be on the relationship between the addicts and the law and what is being done by the authorities. The final one will discuss efforts to find a cure, and more satisfactory ways of providing help for those who need it. The staff responsible for it scored an achievement which is extremely rare in television; indeed, I can think of only a very few factual programs in which it was noted. That is, they found a way to build the opening film around a real-life person, willing to brave the stigma which is the heroin user's lot. She talked freely about herself and a period of misery which began sixteen years ago, when she was 12 years old. Tremendous Impact This gave the story a human quality and an impact which go beyond the power of words to describe. But this was only one of many assets. Technically, it was brilliant, an adjective which may be used only once in a while in reference to locally produced documentaries. Everything meshed — the production by Bob Cochrane, the script by George Gipe, the photography by Charles Purcell, the direction by Janet Covington, the narration by Don Bruchey. Part Of Pattern They were fortunate as well as enterprising in their discovery of a young woman who was able to tell her own story, largely in her own words, in an articulate but simple, sincere manner. She didn't learn to talk this way in school; she was a high school drop-out. She was taught mostly during periods of confinement in the Maryland Institute For Women. She has three children, not shown, of course, in the film. She displayed, without coaching or rehearsing, a surprisingly thorough comprehension of the nature of the drug habit and its consequences. Her story was set off by concise statements of facts about the problem as it affects Baltimore, and the whole pattern, of which she is an individual part. Also, there was a most remarkable kind of counterpoint in Mr. Purcell's photography, which deserves special mention. His camera, with liberal use of close-ups of inanimate objects as well as faces, told a complementary story about the various environments in which the young woman has lived — home, jail, the streets and alleys, stores. One of the most remarkable things about the film is that the sound track alone would be absorbing on radio, and the pictorial background, would be fascinating, if shown by itself with a few subtitles. Both would profit from a fine musical score by Glenn Bunch, which stressed the changing moods without being obtrusive. If Parts II and III, to follow on dates not yet announced, maintain this standard, Drug Addiction will be in strong contention for whatever prizes are offered in the documentary field this season. The Octopus . . . and the Addict" Another in a series of documentary programs produced in the public interest by the WMAR TV editorial projects team. In Maryland Most People Watch WMAR-TV TELEVISION PARK, BALTIMORE 12, MD. Represented Nationally by THE KATZ AGENCY, INC. BROADCASTING, November 11, 1963 29