Swing (Jan-Dec 1953)

Record Details:

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THE CREAM OF CROSBY 205 But, Doctor, You Must Go On! U/^AVALCADE of America" is more V-> or less dedicated to the glorification of America's heroes, of the American dream. This, of course, is a splendid intention but then television, like Hell, is paved with good intentions not all of which work out very well. After eighteen years on radio, "Cavalcade"' has now invaded television where in all likelihood it will continue forever. There is a lot of material. I've heard quite a passel of "Cavalcades" on radio and seen a few on television. A pattern emerges which is clearly indestructible and almost unassailable. In the opening scene, a man is discov[ered at his microscope. The door opens land in comes the scientist's best friend, lalso in white smock. "Six more cases, Bill," he says, slumping into a chair. "And we're no nearer a solution than we were ]two years ago when we started the work." The scientist pushes the microscope away and paces a bit, muttering: "Ah, I'm sick of it all! Just death, death and more death! I'm sick of the sight of death! I'm ready to give it all up and go back to New York and marry the rich widow Wenceslas and settle down to a prosperous practice on Park Avenue. That, I am." "But, doctor, you can't do that! We must go on. And on. And on." (A little "Go on" music here, professor.) But young Julius is still mutinous until the girl — a nurse, of course, comes on the scene. She has a dedicated look in her eye and is also kind, competent, neat, trustworthy, brainy, lissome and staggeringly beautiful. Also, unselfish, unstinting, and blond. And dedicated. "Why does a beautiful girl like you work in a charnel house like this?" asks Julius. "Why? Why? Why?" "I must," she says simply. So he hangs around, still grumbling, while more patients die of yellow fever. And eventually he comes down with it, too. Then she casts herself into the breach and volunteers as a human guinea pig, thrusts her arm under a mosquito, comes down with the disease and dies in her doctor's arms. That gives him the resolution to go on. And on. This simplified version of the American success story is followed fairly faithfully week in and week out. At the man's elbow, there invariably stands a woman and just as he is about to give the whole thing up, she spurs him on. And on. Eventually he invents the waterwheel or revolutionizes double entry bookkeeping or discovers electricity. While in sympathy with this raking over of reasonably authentic and usually obscure pages of American history, I get mighty tired of the black and white characterization and the sort of predestined plots. In any works of this kind, you get what I can only describe as the Fate-HasBrushed-Against-Me type of acting. That is, an actor stares off into space and, when his cynical chum tells him there have always been maggots in beef, he says: "Well, maybe there won't always be." And he goes on to discover refrigeration. This sort of thing, which I like to think of as "Maybe there won't always be" gambit, was followed faithfully in the last "Cavalcade" to pass my stricken gaze. On this one the young dedicated girl, her eyes aglow with hindsight, declared, "Maybe he won't always be a common tailor." She was right, too, as the women always are in these things. She taught him to read and write and he grew up to be Andrew Johnson, seventeenth President of the United States. She had to cuff him into it, of course. There was a bad moment there when he wanted to quit it all and go back to Tennessee. The fact that he was also the only President to be impeached and missed conviction by only one vote was, of course, omitted entirely. American heroes are pure hero on "Cavalcade." The films are usually well produced and reasonably well acted, though. "Cavalcade," too, is a pretty nice show and would be a lot better if they occasionally injected a spark of humor. And an even better one if the actors could avoid the self-consciousness of genius. But then it's awfully hard to get an actor, who is acutely conscious of being Benjamin Franklin, to relax and act human.