Motion Picture Daily (Oct-Dec 1956)

ft imdav, November 19, 1956 Motion Picture Daily Teleoision Today In Our View f f TlTH this issue TELEVISION TODAY becomes an integral \ 11/ part, each day, of MOTION PICTURE DAILY, offering high1 1 light news of the television field, now more closely related than ever to the area of the motion picture. Thus will be more ^ effectively fulfilled the basic mission and intent of this publication, ' to enable its readers to keep abreast, or even ahead of the developments which most affect this industry and its future, j It becomes more apparent as time goes by that actually, in every practical sense, motion pictures and television are two allied divisions, if you will, of the same single basic industry, the purveying jf entertainment, by means of modern technical devices, to a svide, waiting and willing audience. It is coming more and more io be recognized that there need be no essential conflict between these two divisions, since it has been demonstrated time and time igain since the emergence of the younger medium that the two ill different needs in different fashion and that one may well oenefit the other in many instances. It was thirty years ago last Thursday, November 15, that the arst radio network program was broadcast over NBC, and it was hereafter that the motion picture industry's prophets of doom saw :he end of the screen. Radio has come a long way since— and so pas the motion picture screen. Television has come a long way Bhince its inception comparatively few years ago— and so has the notion picture screen. Important to the intelligent development and progress of any iuch appurtenance to living as television is an informed, articulate md constructive critical appraisal. At the same time, of equal importance in that development is the establishment of sound ■valuations of quality, determined by ballot, and based on com>arative performances across the years. Such is the annual poll of he television writers and editors of American newspapers conlucted by MOTION PICTURE DAILY and TELEVISION TO)AY for "Fame," the audit of personalities in entertainment which iver the years has become a criterion of quality without peer. ( The polling of those editors and writers is currently in progress, L ind in that connection the participants, aside from their votes in ^|[he various categories, have voiced their opinions with respect to Tche medium, citing its shortcomings, suggesting improvement— all n the constructively best interests of the whole medium. On the op| iosite page today an example of that opinion is published, to be folI owed regularly by other comments from the same source. They are offered by the editors in the hope that from their perusal in the xecutive precincts of television will emerge a plan, a notion, a ^ourse of action from which all of television will benefit. That, fter all, must be reckoned our basic responsibility, one to which e dedicate our continued efforts. —Charles S. Aaronson assing in Review J ..-TV's Producers' Showcase prestion of "Jack and the Beancame and went last Monday t I November 12 ) but live televihas yet to prove it can tell a fairy without underrating both chili and adults. There's always ■tiling grotesque about full-grown ■Jj ts playing winsome children. To ' basic (casting) hurdle, writer ,| pn Deutch added another by de1 tg Jack as essentially a plain but : y, mixed-up teeanger whose prob lems were social and perhaps even sexual, which, indeed, is taking liberties with fairyland tradition. If memory serves, the only problems faced by the legendary Jack were a shrewish mother and a barren cupboard. Insult was added to this injury by using the old "dream" gambit. Whereas the legendary Jack faced a real giant, this aging hero simply dreamed it all, suggesting even stranger psychological meaning (symbols, symbols) than perhaps even Miss Deutch had intended to convey. Production-wise, however, this was a beautiful show— sets, costumes and special effects. Jerry Livingston's score, while not always appropriate, was probably ( next to the musical version of "Our Town" ) the best ever written especially for TV. The individual performances reflected the split in the schizoid script. Peggy King was a lovely, fulsomely voluptuous "little" girl; Cyril Bitchard was overwhelmingly fatuous; and Celeste Holm ladylike and out of place. The best of the lot were Billy Gilbert and Leora Dana, both stylish and funny. World in Crisis, CBS-TV Public Affairs presentation Sunday ( November 1 1 ) was a remarkable and moving document on the Hungarian and Near Eastern crises. Produced by Leslie Midgley and directed by Vern Diamond, the special hour-long production, featuring some graphic footage from Hungary as well as some of Ed Morrow's articulate reporting from Israel, took an unequivocal editorial stand on both issues while managing to pose a couple of questions on basic policy which many Americans might prefer to forget. The same network's new Air Power series received its premiere immediately after World in Crisis, with generally uneasy results. This special, one-hour introductory show, leaning heavily on the not very satisfactory You Are There technique, purported to document a Bussian air attack on the U. S. Even if the show hadn't ended with New York being blasted into limbo, it did little to reaffirm one's faith in the very air defense system it set out to praise. In this fan— and very woodenly. The rest of the week was fairly haphazard. Bert Lahr brightened an academic but otherwise uninspired adaptation of Moliere's "School for Wives," written by (of all people) the very astute Walter Kerr, on ABCTV's Omnibus Sunday. Monday night Robert Montgomery represented a kinescope of his 1953 show, "Harvest," starring Dorothy Gish and featuring James Dean. NBC-TV's Kraft show Wednesday took time out to present a check for $50,000 to writer William Noble for his February 22 script, "Snapfinger Creek." The prize must have started typewriters clattering in every draughty garret from Delancey Street to Sunset and Vine. .High, human drama wrought masterfully... Should record very well at the box office." MOTION PICTURE HERALD A Universal-International Picture ... AVAILABLE DEC. 25th