TV Guide (December 11, 1953)

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scratched up by a black panther,” Hall says, “and when a mountain lion got loose on the set one day, that was that.” While not of Academy stature and budgeted at only $13,000 to $15,000 per picture (the I Love Lucy budget runs about $35,000), Ramar has caught on with remarkable speed. The show was in the black just nine months after the first episode was filmed and is now selling so fast Hall has trouble keeping up with the monthly reports. A sideline activity also is catching on, with kids beginning to cotton to Ramar than he ever did as a motion picture star, Hall is as enthusiastic as a young pup bver the potentialities of TV. “The pictures I made will never make another dime for me,” he says, “but Ramar has all the earmarks of being a gilt-edged annuity. Fur¬ thermore, I’m my own boss, working for myself.” He works, too. When Ramar is in production, the schedule calls for no less than three films per week, un¬ heard of even in Hollywood’s most frantic annals. With 39 pictures com¬ pleted and another batch of 13 started White Witch Doctor: Hall, whose role is based on medicine, heloinq a native. the Ramar pith helmets and other jungle accoutrements being marketed under the Arrow Productions banner. Hall is a little fearful, however, of the negative possibilities inherent in an African plaything called a bold. An authentic jungle weapon, it con¬ sists of a long leather thong with a lethal-sized rock tied to each end. Properly handled, it has a nasty way of twining itself around a man’s neck and bopping him over the head at one and the same time. “We’re defin¬ itely not marketing THAT one,” Hall says. Now making more money with in November, the immediate goal is 104. “After that,” Hall says, “we’ll just keep turning ’em out as long as there is a demand for them. A Los Angeles and a Philadelphia station are already paying for them on a five-a-week basis.” When not tramping about the re¬ constructed jungle at Eagle-Lion Studios, Hall takes to swimming, div¬ ing and hunting to keep in shape. He and his wife, singing star Frances Langford, recently celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary, something of a land-mark in a town not noted for such staid goings on.