Television digest with electronic reports (Jan-Dec 1959)

16 AUGUST 3, 1959 READYING THE REPLACEMENTS: Virtually every Hollywood telefilm production company is currently busy on projects to present to sponsors & agencies for Nov. & Dec. While it’s not unusual for them to have some pilots or presentations available for the winter, there’s an unprecedented rate of activity now going on in Hollywood in this area. Producers & executives we’ve talked to make it clear they expect a sizable number of cancellations of telefilm shows at year’s end — and they want to be ready with potential replacements — instead of being caught short as in past seasons. Part & parcel of this picture is the comparatively new thinking expressed by most top executives that “There is no selling season; you can sell all year around.” Network executives, who too vividly recall being caught short with a sudden mid-season cancellation and the necessity of having to substitute a mediocre last-minute program, share this attitude. Aside from the vast number of unsold pilots (last spring’s TV hangover), there’ll be many new projects — some presentations, some pilots, some with multiple episodes ready (like Chertok-MCA’s Johnny Midnight series). While some projects are well known, there’s considerable secrecy regarding others — to avoid stirring up action by competitors. Revue Productions will have a minimum of 4 properties to offer any sponsor caught short with a low-rated series next winter: Roadblock, Johnny Guitar, The Miss & the Missile and Johnny Midnight. Revue pres. Taft Schreiber tells us his company is working on various other projects, but declines to go into detail now. Four Star Films will have available almost 10 unsold pilots plus a new 60-min. pilot, Miehael Shayne, which it will produce with NBC financing. Screen Gems will have a number of unsold pilots available as replacements. MGM-TV, with its 7 pilots remaining from last spring, is working on several new properties for year’s end, we’re told by production chief Richard Maibaum. Desilu Productions v.p. Martin Leeds informs our Hollywood bureau that his company will have several pilots available from last spring, and that 3 of these are already close to deals for year-end production starts. Leeds expects Laffite & You’re Only Young Twice to sell to networks, and The Man Nobody Knows to go into syndication for NTA. A merger of Screen Directors Guild of America and the Radio & TV Directors Guild appears imminent, following adoption of a merger proposal by boards of directors of the 2 groups. Membership of each guild must ratify the board recommendations. There are 1155 members in SDG and 889 in RTDG. The new organization, which would be known as Directors Guild of America, would have jurisdiction over directors in movies, TV film, live TV, video tape and radio. The new guild would be a national organization, with offices in Hollywood and N.Y., headquartering on the Coast. SDG pres. Frank Capra would be pres, of DGA; RTDG pres. Mike Kane would be exec. v.p. Screen Actors Guild collected a record total of $499,211.25 in telefilm residuals for members during June. Total amount collected by SAG since December 1953 exceeds $10 million, according to Guild exec. secy. John L. Dales. The figures do not inlude residuals for telefilm commercials or payments for post-1948 movies sold to TV. Early ‘Casualty’ Season: Although the new TV season doesn’t begin until the fall, it’s an early casualty year for producers of telefilm series, with at least 4 already either taken off shows or quitting series. Latest to go is Warner Bros.’ Roy Huggins, assigned to produce low-budget exploitation movies after having produced Mave^'ick, Cheyenne and the first 77 Sunset Strip. Huggins is on “layoff” at WB, which means he won’t be paid any salary until he’s back in favor. Huggins told us “I’ve been trying to get out of my contract for some time. They came up with this idea of my doing feature films. However, when my first feature was postponed, they wanted to put me on Maverick and several other shows. I told them I would do it only if it could be done the way I wanted, and I didn’t even want any screen credit for my work. The studio still didn’t see it, and put me on layoff. Meanwhile, I’ve received offers from other companies to produce movies and/or TV.” In another producer hassle, Stanley Roberts left the Betty Hutton series, Goldie, on which he was producer, after a dispute with Miss Hutton over the content of the series. Roberts tells us “we had a difference of opinion regarding the approach and concept of the series.” The producer, who turned out the pilot, retains a 25% interest. Goodson-Todman replaced William Froug as producer of its Philip Marlow series, naming Gene Wang the new producer. Wang is changing the format so that the series will be more a whodunit than a private eye show. United Artists TV & Meridian productions took Allen Rivkin off as producer of its Trouble Shooters series (Keenan Wynn), naming Frank P. Rosenberg. Tape Warning Sounded: Taking what he termed “a calm look at tape” in an open letter mailed last week to 2000 top TV executives, pres. Robert L. Lawrence of the N.Y. film commercial firm that bears his name predicted that a wholesale agency plunge into video tape now would produce a “torrent of dull & insipid commercials.” Tape, he feels, “cannot match film’s unlimited technological capacities” with its “top directors, cameramen, scenic designers and editors.” The real place for tape, he added, is in the realm of “the simple, unsophisticated, ordinary, ‘stand-up’ type” of commercial, usually live & constituting “less than 20% of all commercials on the air.” Lawrence challenged tape’s much-heralded cost savings over film, saying that economies in taped spots come “only if they can be shot and completed in a few hours” and by “surrendering film’s absolute control.” As for tape’s rapidity of production and playback, he asked pointedly: “Who needs instant commercials, any more than we need instant ideas?” Although he feels that tape may overthrow the “fairly promising stability” of the commercial film field, Lawrence stated that “when tape becomes the thoroughly plastic medium that film is, we will use tape.” The en-masse production of taped commercials, he added, will be practicable “probably within a year.” Latest executive talent hunt in the telefilm field is being made by CBS Films to find a replacement for production v.p. Les Harris, who’s leaving to join ITC. Merle S. Jones, pres, of CBS stations div., and Sam Cook Digges, administrative v.p. of CBS Films, are heading the search, and will be in Hollywood this week talking to “several top production executives,” CBS tells us.