TV Guide (December 11, 1954)

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No question of money: Jock Benny, Joy Lansing, left. Jeon Willes in $70,000 GE film. pened to change the once despised stepchild of show business into a re¬ spected member of the family? To begin with—and contrary not only to predictions but to premature statements of “fact”—television has been the salvation of the motion pic¬ ture industry, not its ruination. The overwhelming competition, which was supposed to have sounded the death knell of the movies, has actually im¬ proved the picture playing at your neighborhood theater. TV, by offering something new and different, has forced the motion pictime people out of their monopolistic complacency and back to the creative work that made the industry great in the first place. Television itself, over the past two years, has settled down to a recog¬ nizable pattern. It has acquired stabil¬ ity. It knows the direction in which it ◄ Familiar faces in 'Face Is Familiar': Jack Benny, Benny Rubin in top budget film. is traveling, if not the ultimate goal. Stars who once felt, rightly or wrongly, that TV was beneath their dignity, now admit it has attained a respectable level. Money, too, has been an important factor. TV today is not only willing but financially able to pay the kind of money the bigger name stars de¬ mand. GE Theater, the CBS show with which I am so delighted to be asso¬ ciated, budgeted one of its recent films, “The Face Is Familiar,” at no less than $70,000. That’s an almost unheard-of figure, even today. Two years ago, a reasonably good half- hour TV film could be made for $18,000 or $20,000. Many of today’s top-rated shows cost in Ae neighbor¬ hood of $30,000-$35,000. “The Face Is Familiar” starred Jack Benny, who does not—and most cer¬ tainly should not—work for peanuts. Its cast included such familiar names as Otto Kruger and Benny Rubin. Its 5