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Anita Ekberg and Charles McGraw led off Warners’ ‘Casablanca’ series.
turning out just good, average shows. They have contributed little creative imagination.”
The majors, however, are taking criticism of their TV product in stride.
“Our main problem,” says Otto Lang, executive producer of The 20th Century-Fox Hour, “is the shortage of story material and the pressure of the time element to meet air dates. We never approached TV with the idea that it would be easy. We have approached it with the greatest concern. It is very difficult to merge expediency and economy with artistic integrity, or whatever you wish to call it.”
Lang points out that a movie producer can take six months to develop a script from a story, whereas the TV producer has minutes. “But I hope,” he adds, “I will never come to the point of accepting the script just for the sake of having one.” He adds further, a trifle sadly, “We have a lot to learn, I guess.”
Over at M-G-M, executive producer Les Petersen makes the same admis
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sion. “We’re constantly experimenting to see what can be done to help,” he says cheerfully. “Why, we’ve learned that a hilarious scene from a movie is suddenly not very funny when seen by just two or three people in a living room. So we’ve been experimenting with laugh tracks. And it hasn’t been easy to learn how to lead into and out of the commercials, either. We're changing all the time. Every department in this whole studio is knocking itself out to help. They all seem to have the TV bug.”
Petersen is quick, too, to say he
George Murphy and ‘Little Leo’ boost M-G-M feature films on M-G-M Parade.
never felt TV would be easy. “I respect anyone,” he says flatly, “who can get so much as the title and the credits on the air in time.”
While Warners is answering all queries with “No comment,” the evidence seems to indicate that the major studios, while not having bitten off more than they can chew, have at least found the chewing much more complicated than they had envisioned. Artistic teeth accustomed to a leisurely diet of creamed chicken, as it were, have to adjust to the demands of a fast-broiled steak.—Dan Jenkins