Variety (February 1951)

_ A BiirfCVAItf Wednesday. February 1QS1 Tele up Continued from page *8 against a chance to latch onto some characterization big money for a splurge * Un borses; cards and foulette 5'°i 0 S wTttSSt ’ iflmrd'ertr. But the play feh apart Kchast Sayei.s ana ■ - ._ bl ; j n t j ie final act when the others in Brewer comprised the v !the. cast, including Tom Reynolds, but uninspired cast^Haivej mai j Herbert Nelson, Kathleen Gomegys and Marian Winters, either over- emoted or forgot their lines. l ■ > * NBC-TV’s “Kraft Theatre,” Con- nor the type out of which new stars can be built for video, While he emphasized that he could speak only for his own program, Murray predicted also that any video show Still Jtrying to solve the problem/oF what to do with its “Fight requiring spontaneity will remain Followup” series, which is lined up and ready to roll each Wednesday Filming a show, which j night following the Pabst-sponsored boxing matches, CBS-TV. this week >r NBC’s “Philco TV Playhouse teamed a weak script with so me ® ’ a ! s i s tehtly one of the beUer^dramatlc generally weak . . . was “A Matter of Life and Death, adapted by Abram S. Ginnes from a book by John and Ward Hawkins. Despite the usual smooth Philco production and ^direction. the play failed to build much reaction of 'any kind among viewers. As a re- sult, when it came time for the un- raveling of the yam, the audience wasn’t too much interested either in who was the murderer or the motives for his crime. Qtorv ' shows on video, staged a fine adap- whodunit. i t ation Wednesday night (31) of Harry Brown’s “Sound of Hunting.” Play about a small squad of GIs on the front line in Italy during World War II was presented on Broadway in 1945. TV version, despite its being played against a single set- ting with ail the action taking place off-camera, gave the illusion same time, permitted each member of the cast to establish his char- acterization thoroughly with view- Chico I'—-—- Continued from page 26 Three leads turned in good jobs j £ rs> Credit for the standout show and helped sustain the show for i s due all hands, including adapter the first two acts. Cloris Leachman , Howard Lindsay (no relation was fine as the girl trying to clear | to the playwright), producer-divoc- her fiance of the murder rap and tor Stan Quinn arid the cast. Pat O’Malley registered with a neat j program’s orie drawback Was the overdone characterization of the war correspondent. It seemed i doubtful that a newspaperman, no • matter how sneaky, would squeal to a commanding officer during the war. In addition, his uniform was a shade too bright and spot- less for anyone even “visiting” the Cassino fighting. Joe Di Reda topped the cast with a sock por- in the filming process. [ show a better chance to take the air each wfeek. Murray recalled that it >vds the ! “Followup” is designed to fill the time between the end of ,the Pabst opportunity for top radio talent to .fights, which start at 10 p.m„ and tho-11 p.m.^takeover of the time by appear in films that’first ireated I localstations. Because it’s impossibly to determine in. advance ^how the exodus of AM stars from N. Y. the boxing will last, however, “Followup hw often been confined to L A ’ '“In the old radio days ” to 10 minutes or less and on five nights has not taken the air at all., he said ’ “it meant a lot to a soon- By restricting the emergency fights to four-rounders, CBS hopes to sor to have his stars seen in pic- open U P more time for “Followup’’ and thus have, a better chance of tures, but with television, th’at no • snaring a sponsor for the series, longer holds true. If n TV star j " ^7“ now went up to his sponsor and | Television Adewers in the metropolitan N. Y. area will see an actual said he 'wanted tp go to the Coast j blood donation beihg performed Feb. 26, as part of the Red Cross’ because it would mean . he’d be '.current campaign to line up donors to provide plasma for the fighting seen, as well as heard, by millions ; forces in Korea. Singer Jack Berch, who has his own show on the of people, the sponsor would laugh NBC radio web weekday mornings, has volunteered to be the donor, at him,” with the donation to take place on the “Date in Manhattan” show, CBS comic also noted that the aired from 11 a.iii. to noon cross-the-board on WNBT, key NBC outlet in n. y. • / , ■ On-tHe-alr donation was the idea of indie publicist Jane Kalmus, who obtained the cooperation of WNBT station manager Ted Cott. Show will have a doctor and two nurses in attendance on B6rch to demon- strate visually to viewers that the process is virtually painless. There’s a possibility that N. Y. Mayor Vincent Impellitteri may appear on the show to make a pitch for the extreme necessity of mdre plasma for American GIs. Place “‘rs emigration of many, top TV pro- of scope and reality and-, at the V' v «.a xiai com. tini a nArniitfoH A»r>h nu>mhpi ,; grams and .stars fiom N. Y„ to Hol- lywood would force the agencies to expand their offices on the Coast, “since the sponsors always have wanted to keep their stars close to home.” As a result, Murray said, it’s ' doubtful that tpe agencies would be willing to spend the hun- dreds of thousands of dollars for that expansion, when they coiild program’just as good shows from N. Y. since then, with the thespers de- veloping their individual person- alities, have strengthened the stanza, Marx said, and its Nielsen rating has climbed to a 17.4 Once a.show has found its style, ironed out the kinks and built cast and crew into a smoothly working unit, Marx feels, it represents an investment of considerable coin. For that reason he expects. “Col- lege Bowl” to pick up another bankvoller after it ends its cycle for Pharma-Craft and American Safety Razor, March 26. “I guess the show is pretty good now,” he said, “because sometimes ^members of the Friars watch me now instead of wrestling. Groucho, Harpo, Gummo and Zeppo like it, too. I know, because I call them every Week.” “Groucho,” he confided, “gave j me some advice before J started, j You got to get a good writer, he told- me, You can’t miss if you got | a good writer. Comparing TV with his previous work, Chico recalled, “I used to think I, worked hard in Broadway shows and in Hollywood. This wasn’t true. It was duck soup. “The toughest part of TV is learning scripts. I have to memo- rize 30 pages a week. I think even Sid Caesar must be finding it hard because he’s doing those satires of silent films in pantomime. Maybe it saves material. Anyway, one nice thing about video is that you have your nights off—except that I have to spend my nights at home studying lines. So I never get home after 3 a,m.” tfayal of the apparently lazy GI who came; through when the chips were down. (Sam Levene originat- ed the role on Broadway), Biff Elliott was good as the nervous soldier and Ralph Meeker scored as the tough sergeant. Linwoqd McCarthy, as another sergeant*ahff Stewart Bradley, as the captain with. whom he’d gone,- to. college, were standout, particularly-in -the scene where they defined’the play’s basic theme..... Robert . McQuade turned in a neat job $s another GI and Philip Carlyle. managed to make a villain of the correspond- ent. CBS Summer Shows Continued from page 27 other commitments of the talent in- volved, though, may dictate a change in that plan- Current spon- sors of the radio shows are to have first refusal fights at bankrolling them on video and, as far as pos- sible, the same talent and writers be tted. It.wiUJbe necessary, Comprehensive survey of the employment situation in video is con- tained in a new book, “Oppbrtunities in Television,” published by Vocational Guidance Manuals. Tome is by Jo Ranson, publicity director of WMGM, N. Y„ and Dick Pack, program director of WNEW, N. Y., who also collabed on “Opportunities in Radio” for the guidance; series. Volume is in two editions, paper-bound for students and cloth for distribution in bookstores by Grosset & Dunlap. iful volume quotes extensively and frankly from authorities in the field and covers the gamut of jobs, including acting, writing, di- recting. engineering, production facilities, sales, promotion, research, agencies, programming and servicing. It includes a full bibliography, list of tele stations, NBC’s complete job inventory, glossary and an outline of operations at typical small outlets. Ken Murray Continued from p$ge £1 able to TV. Morebvef,' said, these film .performers, if they do a single 6how in N. Y„"ean write off the entire cost of thigif. .the east as necessary expenses on : their income tax Teturns, '■'*'<$. , As far as the “wealth, of talent”: that otherwise is usually attributed to Hollywood, Murray ayferfed that “Ted Mack has as much good talent on his ‘Amateur Hour* Show in at month as I’ve evey seen in Holly- wood in a year.” Comic pointed out that the opportunity to get a job in films lures, to the Coast mostly pr^ty girls arid tyro dra- matic thesps. But, he pointed out, this is not the type of talent that is needed for*a TV variety <show which Arnaz will play an orch lead- er and Miss Ball his wife who is a frustrated singer, Preview of the series starring Mi$s Davie,was com- pleted several. ifceekS;. Ago on the Coast. Web had. pjanned to follow that “with kinescope auditiofi biity ^according to Ackerman, the^ preyfowMooked so v good: "that, he .7 hrbhglit t®tli. [him to.N. to. ‘ pitch, 'to * ^^h^ v;pbtemial sponsors.;; Marked improvement in the quality of CBS kinescope shows from the Coast, which has been noted by many viewers, is attributed by the web to several factors, chief of which is a change in set design and ... . ........ .. . . lighting recently instituted after a special study Of the problem. In however, to,recast *Husbatidf V be-j addition, CBS is .utilizing’ a special type of material for its settings, cause Miss Ball, starring in the ; which gives a three-dimensional effect to the sets when transcribed on radio version, is to be teamed with , ^ or , . . ! CBS execs also pointed out that they are employing new 35m re^ Latter program is being set up as [cording equipment and that they project the negative directly into the a situation comedy with music, in ! cameras, instead of first making up positive prints for transmission. Currently, the Burns & Allen and Alan Young shows are fed to the east via kine, but the web has a number of others in preparation for next summer and fall. —------ Jerry Fairbanks* New York studio on Tuesday (13) starts lensing part of a TV film commercial for Pepsi-Cola, via Blow agency, with the remainder of the footage to be shot in Fairbanks' Hollywood studio. Shooting is being split between the coasts to meet the client’s casting requirements, as some of the talent wanted is in the east. Integration Of 'the footage and processing will be handled on the Coast. Fairbanks* Gotham branch, which this week enters its fourth year, has enabled the pic producer to meet a variety of problems. “Bigelow Theatre,” which is filmed on the Coast (minus commercials) with the multicam system, is spliced with Bigelow commercials, which are because of proximity to execs of the sponsor and agency. Your Top TV Sales opportunity Continued from page 27! prbbiem on “open days’* for a sta- tion carrying baseball. WBKB/expects no resistance to the tiepin deal^om. cU^Qts.a^ipuS'. 16 grib Onto’ the ' Cubs’ games," which for the past four years ; they’ve been televised have proved ; a potent audience grabber. It’s ' claimed nine bankrollers are jock- eying for the two-ply package. Indie, which is constantly seek- ing new devices to ring the cash register, has also invaded the “Help Wanted” field Heretofore considered the sole province of the newspaper classified sections. Next Sunday (11) WBKB is launching a “Help Wanted” quarter-hour show designed for the man-hungry plants and factories in the Chi area. Such companies as • XL S. Steel; Armours and Swift have already bought spots on the show to adver- tise their skilled manpower needs. Reba Tassell, young actress who was screen-tested by both 20th-Fox and Samuel Goldwyn on the basis of a single appearance in a CBS-TV : “Studio One” program, has three more CBS video shows coming up. ■ One of these is on “Big Town” March 2, in which her life will be drama- tized and in which she may play herself. Actress has also been set for the only femme role in an adaptation on “Studio One” Feb. 26 of “Strange Land,” story of World War II penned by CBS newscaster Ned Calmer. She has also pacted for a role on “Big Town” tomorrow night (Thurs.). ■■■■■■■ ■ ■ Channel 7 Wilmington, Del In the Market which has highest income per family in the country. Loyalty Quiz Continued from page 23 also hiring an attorney, one of i whostf chief functions will be working in this sphere. Signifi- cance Of the move is that if CBS fires a director for failure to sign the quiz, as it did two weeks ago With an office worker who was not a n>ember of any union, it will have to face RTDG opposition. San Antonio—Ernie Hall, former announcer and director for KEYL, has joined the announcing staff of WOAI and WOAI-TV. NBC -TV-AFFUtMi [- N V AN - ' A T i A ■ i (, H Represented by ROBERT MEEKER ASSOCIATES New York Los Angeles San Francisco Chicago Chi Rate Hikes Continued from page 26 their heavier log of web shows are [making much of the point that the rate boosts are only logical reflec- tions of 'the Steady upbeat in the size of the video audience as indi- cated in set circulation figures. Tile brace of indie plants, how- ever, which are more heavily de- pendent upon local advertisers are giving some: thought to the possi-. bility of the medium getting too ex- pensive for the little guy. With the current local negotiations with Television Authority certain to re- sult in increased, talent' costs, there’s some speculation going on as to just what point in the tele rate escalator will the law of di- minishing returns take effect, ' $5,000 for One Year w ...■•> I ..... to on Agency in Radio and TV My present gross Income as a free lance writer in this field averaged $17,500 *i v j ar a . per , ot *» vears.. It's still averaging that; but frankly, I'm i tired of being called to the phoite oii. Mondays and * script thet doesn't have to be good, but hps to be Tuesday. For a change I wanttotfo the^ellingor eliminate the necessity for it. offering)' mv service* as a combination Production Supervisor 01 .Voor for $12,500. You get the extra five year, S *lt^costs 3fS n proven talent and ability for free. If there's a second that*^w»?«° r sn^n/^«*'»Kl V0 A b ®® n IP the business f fir fifteen years, minus four and rvV wKtkl " 1 ve , 90t sovoi’ol years to go before hit 35, documVnt?rles d Far 7. t .i»h2r fr 5 , 3 n ,d shows apd whodunits, to .comedy and write and I'll answer « eta ls ' including executive experience, fust. 151 West 44th Vl* kJw York 0 *" N. 1 y! 5 ” *"*■ "♦ |MY ,9 . Bok V ' H ”’ Varl * ,, '