Variety (November 1954)

SO TELEVISION REVIEWS P^RIEfY Wednesday, November 3, 1054 ♦ MMtMM * * M# ♦ Ml >% M ^ f M M ♦ ♦ ♦ ^ | M t M M ent t » ♦ ♦ ♦ t »4 ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ » »4 ♦»» » , ♦ > ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ 4 ♦ f ♦ 4 4 ♦♦♦ > »*♦••»♦♦♦♦♦ 44-44 + 4444444 + 4 »♦ * + *+4 + 4 4 4 4 ♦ ILONA MASSEY SHOW With Irving Fields Trio, Phil Foster Producer-Writer: George Paley Director: Pat Fay 80 Mins., Mon. 8 p.m. EASTERN WINE CO; WARD, New York (Ben B. Bliss Co.) Ilona Massey, the Hungarian actress, coupled with.Irving Fields Trio, seems like an. incongruous combination, but it would be palat- able for i 5-minute dosages. Iri a half-hour segment; the johnny- One-note aspect . q£ the layout is stretched to the point of monotony. General pattern of the show has I i song by Miss Massey, and a. se- ection by the Fields trio. There ate breaks for Chateau Martin' wine commercials and one inter- view, initial guest being Phil Fos- ter. Latter is an engaging guy even when he isn’t showing his best material. His briefie wasn’t hurt by the intruding questions of Miss. Massey. Miss Massey, onetime fUmster, still has a spOrty-looking chassis and looks well. Her voice is in the contralto register, but she misses projecting the sultry feeling, prob- ably by her lack of warmth. Fields, backed by ba£S and drum, plays a fullbodied piano. His se- lection of tunes Wasn’t of the best on the initial show. His striving lor musical ostentation such as was evidenced with his playing of ■’Slaughter on Tenth Ave.” didn’t give* him the best showcasing. Other times showed him to better advantage. Jose. MUSIC At JACKPOT With Paul Brenner, Cece Blake, Sandy Evans, Iris Lynn, The . Nocturnes, Jay. Stanley Trio Director: Bob Horan 60 Mins.; Mop.-thru-Fri./ 1 p.m. Participating WATV, Newark . WATV’s “Musical Jackpot” com- bines average but plentiful music- variety with the telephone quiz game. The 1 to 2 p.m. casing, while not top entertainment, has enough diversity arid, brightness to hold its own against the competition. ... Between phone call givaways based on elementary musical puz- zlers, . emcee. Paul Brenner turns things over to one of his large-for- a-local-afternoon - show entourage. Songs are handled by so-so pop thrush Cece Blake, misplaced coloratura Iris Lynrt and crooner Sandy Evans, The instrumental chores are done [by The Nocturnes, a foursome that also throws in ah Italb vocal fillip now arid again, and the Jay Stanley Trio. The latter two groups have enough on. the ball to compensate for the urider par singing. The importance of this afternoon show is not in. the; music, itself, however. Rather, it’s the imagina- tive production that goes with it that keeps the show alive and mov-. lng. Brenner has been part of the WATV picture before. It-was never noticed until “Jackpot” that the longtime gabber had a split per- sonality. During his queries-by- Ameche he is warm and genuine for a .time, then he lapses into the oozy phrasing of his less talented cohorts. In the Monday (18) session caught fie made overly much, for. example, of the modest string of . prizes offered for the right answer. Art. DuM Shifts ’Please’ To Fri. As Sponsor Bait One of the stumbling blocks to the sale of “One Minute Please” lias been the limited station lineup, Its; current Tuesday at 9 slotting gives it the advantage of the pre- ' Ce.ding. Bishop Sheen and “Studio 57” stanzas, but a move to Friday, at 9:30 has bee ft decided upon,, thus giving the show a chance to pick up in the vici ity of 10 more stations. The jockeying will put the' panel casing between. Pharmaceu- tical’s “The Stranger” and the Old Gold-Lentlieric VGhance of a Life- time.”,In Tuesdays .at-9; there were 16 outlets in the “Minute” string. It was felt that the lineup, would never be increased while the show remained a sustainer because there were no - network sponsored shows afterwards. Therefore, it’s hoped that ’.‘The Stranger” hookup will stay With the quizzer right through to “Chance;” giving around 25 sta- tions to the parieler. Kansas City—Station WHB has. brought in John Pearson, from the KOWH roster, Omaha, as program director, filling a niche which has been vacant since the Mid-conti- nent Broadcasting Co., the Storz interests, bought the station from the Cook Paint & Varnish Co. last summer. Jack Benny’s bi-weekly video outing on CBS-TV Sunday (31) was another crackerjack display of sit- uation comedies. As ' usual with Benny, the stanza rolled with per- fect timing of the punchlines, both aural and visual. The only weak Spot during the half-hour was ari extraneous vocal by Eddie : (Roch- ester) Anderson with the Sports- rhen Quartet. Rest of the show was a hoked- up flashback to 1932 when Benny first-met Mary Livingstone, in a de- partment store. All of the trade- marked Benny frailties,. from periny-pinching to self-admiration, were cleverly rung into the script while he played a jazzy, two-bit ro.meo on the make for the May’s, counter saleslady. Actor Sheldon Leonard was rung in for. a couple of lafigbS as a horse tout, but it was Benny who carried the main burden of the script with a good assist from Mary Livingstone. Hem. CBS-TV’s Saturday (30) edition of “Willy,” starring June Havoc as | a smalltown legalite,. had a gen- erally charming quality, above par in relation to ^previous stanza*. Story Was pleasant with Miss Havoc arid Lloyd Corrigan enhanc- ing proceedings with very likeable portrayals. Plot dealing With aft elderly gent accused of theft was in philosophical, vein. Corrigan was cast as the oldster, who at the . age of 65 quits his long- time job arid goes on a spending spree to make up for lost time. After running out of coin, he drifts into Miss Havoc’s town, passes a sporting goods store, gets a yen for a fishing rod in the window, picks shop door’s lock and gets caught in the act; Miss Havoc is assigned to defend him and wins the case after Convincing the judge that the fishing rod symbolized peace and quiet .to. her client, and his caper was not a criminal act. Charles Halton was good as the judge, while Danny Richards Jr. paved the way for some laughs as Miss Havoc’s young nephew. Mary Treen was okay as the kid's j mother. Jess. “United States Steel Hour” on ABC-TV last week (26) got tripped ] up badly on its attempt to give comedy-drama a whirl on the air. The play was “The Fifth Wheel,” an adaptation of the play “Good Housekeeping” by William Mc- Cleery. It was a painful experience, all ‘round; Basic yarn, tying up with elec- tion time, had to do with a college president awakened to the dangers of a political machine and who, upon this realization; is persuaded to enter the race for governor of the state. Since this was obviously not a very original thought, “Fifth Wheel” also threw in the wife who wanted to get her husband into politics and who believed in, searching for the psychological roots of accidents; the fix-it-all political reporter engaged to the president's pretty daughter, etc. , Possibly hindered by Irving Gay- nor Neiman’s stodgy and unimagi- native script, performances were below par With the possible excep- tion of Marjorie Barrett who played the prof’s pretty daughter. If nothing else, at least she looked good. Faye Emerson brought to the part of the wife a self-assured but completely colorless-^and for the most part unfunny-performance. It was an unsatisfactory role from the start, but she . .didn't improve it any. Franchot Tone appeared un- comfortable most of the time, and with good reason. The words put in his mouth didn’t ring true and, even though he’s h capable actor, he top didn’t contribute enough personality to overcome that handi- cap; The biggest disappointment of the evening was Orson Bean as the reporter,. He brought a: nightclub approach to his lines, shouting rather than acting them. If there was humor in “The Fifth Wheel,” it was.largely dependent on him to bring it out. He failed. Margaret Hamilton as the housekeeper did well in a small, part. Ditto Howard; St. John as the political boss. Director Alex Segal in the past has been responsible for some great tv drama. This just wasn’t his night, and possibly he didn’t take, kindly to the material on hand. His usual deft a fid clever touch was. absent except in one or two scenes. If tv wants to make peo- ple laugh, it’ll have to do a lot better than “The Fifth Wheel.” Hift. If Ed Sullivan isn’t careful, his Sunday night. CBS-TV outing will begin to be called “the plug of the ■ * * * \ / « | town.” On last Sunday’s stanza (31), the Lincoln-Mercury sponsors shared the plugs with- the late Graiftland Rice’s forthcoming tome, “The Tumult and the Shout- ing,” New York’s Copacabana and Persian Room and the recently re- leased Otto Preminger pic, “Car- men Jottes.” The plugging attack would have been okay, though, if there was enough entertainment on tap to compensate for the dull stretches; Unfortunately, Sullivan counted too heavily on film clips arid celebs in the aud for his entertain- ment values—arid it just wasn’t there; The hour was a rambling affair, loosely knit and. without [ much punch; There was plenty of good intent in Sullivan’s salute to “Grant” but his execution was faulty; He read ,. passages from the book erringly and the clips of past sports events seemed interminable, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. did an okay recita- tion of Rice’s “Ghosts of the Ar- gonrie” and Bert Lahr and Alan Carney offered a pleasant breather in a mild baseball sketch. Iji the arid for. bows were Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Earl Sande, Gene I Sarazen, “Doc” Blanchard, Johnny Weissmuller and Notre Dame’s “Four Horsemen,” whom Rice immortalized. Stars [in the au- dience are no substitute for per- formers on the stage. Also in the .film clip-plug department was a brief scene from “Carmen Jones” with Dorothy Dandridge. The singer was in the arid to take her bow, too. Carrying the. load for the. “live” end of the show was Nat (King) [Cole. Crooner, who is currently i appearing at the; Copa, opened the [hour handsomely with renditions of “I’m In Love,” “Smile” arid | “Hajji Baba.” He returned at the close with a nifty, workover of “Lover Come Back To Me.” Gene- vieve, the French chantoosie now at the Persian Room, rushed through a couple of Gallic tunes and Andrfr Segovia was given only two numbers to display his deft guitarmanship. Both could have stayed longer. The commercial pitches by Sul- livan and Julia Meade were in the usual top form.. Gros. • I “American Inventory,” which has undergone a change in pro- ducers with Robert Wald replacing William Hoddap, now has changed its format, presenting live dramatic shows designed to get/the public service angle across with iriore im- pact. Example of. the new format was its NBC-TV presentation last Sunday (31), with an interesting yarn with an offbeat ..ending about an allegedly crooked civic organi- zation. : . Show had Staa'ts Cotsworth as a reporter investigating a business- man’s charge that a civic organiza- tion run by one man was trying to pressure all. those who opposed it and ari eventual aim of putting its leader into the mayor’s, seat, with the attendant hints of graft and corruption; Cotsworth pro- ceeds to investigate, and discovers it was the complainant who was in the wrong and that he had near- ly ruined the do-good efforts of the civic group by false accusa- tions. Gene Hurley script tended to be all black or all white, but an ex- cellent performance by Robert Ellenstein as the suspect- civic leader gave more subtlety to the story. Cotsworth was good as . the reporter, ditto Matt Crowley as his editor, ..while Edwin Jerome was iiripressive as the real heavy. Ellen Demming- did a fine job as Ellen- stein’s upstanding wife. Ed King’s direction kept the story moving quickly and built strongly for the trick ending. Idea of the new forriiat is to avoid the cut-and-duied educational approach but to present the same message more palatable style. While this particular segment man- aged to get across the point — namely, that the individual citizen can help his community, arid him- self by concerted action^r-there’s such a thing as oversiriiplifying, and this is what happened in this case. The sugar pill was a little top thickly coated. Chan. “Colgate Comedy Hour” on Sun- day (31) over NBC-TV essayed a route familiar to the circuit house vaude stages in an era when intact shows .were hot travelers. But this was better, in a sense, because the turns were of a more' standard genre; good acts all and no viewer complaint on thjB entertainment score—but does the good old beat- en path make a tv show? Stand- ardization can have a deadening effect when [the trims have gone to *1 4 | J / V the video trough too frequently to provide spark. This is said with due regard for theindividual' ef- forts,. namely Paul Winchell and inventive alter-ego Jerry Mahoney; Connee Boswell, whose maturity is bringing, greater warmth and feel- ing into her pipings; Don Cornell, a jukebox scorer, who also is capable of interesting the more adult crowd; the ubiquitous Bor- rah Mirievitch Harmonica Rascals with Johnny Puleo; arid Giselle & Francois Szoriy, a toe twain who, if they are ifbt the best around In their line, will do until One jury- man alters his verdict. There was Terry Moore, too, in her teledebut, serving as femcee with a~ greater predilection for niulti-changes in the gown dept, (very, very snazzy) than for her intro chores, which did not over- burden the bikini-famed film ac- tress to begin with. She’s cute. Period. Winchell A Mahoney were in., okay form in several Spots, once with Support of Cornell and Miss Moore, and that pill-passing trans- plantation of “ventro voice*’ rou- tine is a goodie, even in reprise; Couple of good vocals pepped rip the Winchell, larder with his fresh dummy. ^ Miss Boswell, coming on as self- styled “Grandma Moses of the-Gal Singers,” belted away at a special medley of evergreens with snappy lyrics and wound with a fine brace, “If I Give My Heart to You,'"her current Decca hotcaker, arid a hopped-up “This Can’t, Be Love.” Cornell fired away ait “Supposin’ ” and bestseller “Hold My Hand;” The Minevitch-sans-Borrah Rascals tackled a pair in their nutty capers, but didn’t seem right as show’s winder-upper despite ' the sock panto of Johnny-rin-the-spot- Puleo. Szoriys were way up there in the ballet sector, topping with the femme’s sizzling spinning top. A1 Goodman’s, showbacking was firstrate. s Trau. Foreign TV Review _.MM TALL STORY CLUB , With Robert MacDermot, Kathleen Meewick, Donald Smith, Barbara Mullen, Douglas Duff Director; Brian Tester 30 Mins., Tuesv 9:45 p.m.. BBC-TV, London Chosen by [Public vote from a series of panel games devised by viewers, . “Tail Story Club” has been given a seasonal tryout and its future will be dependent on subsequent reaction. The winning idea was submitted by George Margo, a local actor who; was re- cently in the Coliseum production of “Guys & Dolls,” hut apart froiri receiving a screen credit he takes no part in the actual presentation. - There’s nothing startling or ’ - triguing about this new panel game; on the contrary it’s, mild arid innocuous and moderately en- tertaining. The idea is simple enough. . Each of the panel mem- bers, tells a story, and is then quizzed as to whether the yarn, is fact or fiction. Before the lights go down the story tellers give the answer. Obviously, the. entertainment from the program derives from the story tellers and, in the program reviewed, they put up a good show- ing. But four short stories, whether true or a figment of the imagina- tion, don’t have the same participa- tion value; as the more* familiar quiz parlor games which continue to be so successful. The program gives little scopq for chairman Robert MacDermot beyond -doing the formal introductory honors. Brian Tesler’s direction is simple arid straightforward.. Myro. ADVENTISTS’ 574G FOR RADIO-TV SHOWS Washington, Nov. Importance attached to radio arid tv by organized religion was under- scored here last week when the Seventh-Day Adventists voted an appropriation of $574,000 for broadcasting. Amount included $114,000 for the church's weekly tv program, “Faith for Today,” (ABC), and $460,000 for produc- tion of weekly radio programs on more than 300 stations in foreign countries. Relatively small in numbers, the Adventists are [riot small finan- cially. Through a per capita “tithe” of $181 paid by members last year, the offerings of the' church ex- ceeded $60,000,000. i > w BURNS’ CHUCKWAGON With Rhythm Pals (4), Lorraine McAllister, Pat Kirkpatrick, Don Francks, Barney Potts, Wallie Peters' Producer: Mario Prizqfc 30 Mins., Wed., 10)30 p.m. BURNS & CO. CBC-TV, from Vancouver (James Lovick) Oater-style video musical, Burns’ Chuckwagori is the first comnierr cial web show to originate in the Vancouver (iCBUT) studios of the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. It’s based on a radio Chuckwagon show also bankrolled' by the packing, company and follows the same format but with considerably ripped, impact on video. Show operated at a lilting pace, fast enough to keep it alive but smooth, enough to avoid jerki frenzy. It’s a well-knit session with generally socko performances by all members of. the cast. Chuckwagon reaches the easter CBC-TV web by telefilm and open-, ing program (27) was badly marred by poor sound recordfrig and film quality.. Camera work was some of the best CBC lensers have done, but much of it was lost through weak processing. The n.s.g. re- cording damaged dialog: and- most of the lines were completely lost. The music reproduction was some- what better but high potes broke and scratched. Ranch atmosphere was kept realistic with ho shots longer than semi-cldseup and. the setting re- stricted but effective. Barney Potts, playing the chuckwagon cook, handled so-so comic material adequately.. Others chanted, with little verbal, material, all of ;them with good pipes. Don Francks, male soloist, wearing cowboy, garb naturally, oloed with ‘“Empty Saddles” and sang with the Rhythm Pals, a quartet using both instruments and pipes to strong effect. . Lorraine McAllister, cute blond looker with standout ty personality; and Pat • Kirkpatrick, svelte brunet glamor gal who would fit better into a ppsh salon set than a cow country range, worked solo and in duet. Guest on this session was Wallie Peters .who E layed a medley of standards on anjo. Tunes were generally western arid folk, With one or two pops, Rhythm Pals singing “Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Cowboys and Jndiaris,” others; gal duo canarying “Shine On Harvest Moon,” Pat Kirkpatrick’s solo was “Tomorrow Is A Lovely Day.” Productions was slick and with improved recording and film quali- ty, future Chuckwagon shows could make.it CBC-TV’s top musi- cal series. ~ Gorin. GOP, Dems mSSSS Continued from page. 25 —^ in. his official capacity. But the free time, offer also had the effect of riding the GOP in on the gravy train, with the Republicans and Democrats dividing up the 8 to 9 p.m. Saturday tv slot equally, (For the GOP at 8, simulcast ad- dresses of Atty. Gen. Brownell, Welfare Secretary Ovetta Culp Hobby, and Bertha Adkins, assis- tant to the national chairman; for the Demos at .8:30, Adlai E. Stev4 enson,, with 10:30 allotted for radio.) (Vice President Nixon tried to get into the “tit-for-tat” act by suggesting to NBC that he follow Stevenson, and he was considerably distressed when he learned that the web felt that granting of Saturday time to Administration spokesmen was deemed sufficient in the “free”-f6r-all. NBC pfexy Weaver issued a statement. explaining his network's position;) .Stanton’s oversized comrriuriique to Mitchell was precedental in at least one particular. He lined up the slots that CBS had allotted ‘in the past two months” (radio, and tW to talks by the President, the Vice-president or members of his Cabinet; then he Submitted a similar listing for the Democrats covering the v two months preced- ing the 1.950 elections, the last off- year congressional Selection period, when Harry S. Truman was Presi- dent. Beginning Sept. 1 and end- ing Nov. 1, the gratis time to the then Administration [more than tripled that awarded the GOP dramatis personae during the pre- election period. However, the Res- publicaq, lineup as' given by Stan- ton dated from Sept. 26 and spanned the period to Oct. 25, ' whereas the Demos’ time covered exactly two months.