Variety (November 1954)

*4 TELEVISION REVIEWS Wednesday, November 17, .1954 AMERICA IN THE MAKING With Prof. Robert Iglehart, Prof. Bayrd Still, Albert Christ-Janer Producer:. Warren Kraetzer Director: Lewis Freedman 30 Mins., Sat., 1:30 p.m. WCRS-TV, New York It inay take lots of. failures, but one of these days both broadcast- and educators going to realize- that they can’t transplant th ordinary college, lecturer to television and expect the public to watch and listen to him. There are exceptions, course, in the. persons of showmen like Dr, Frank ■ Baxter,'who by. their, innate talents implant interest in l’lieir subject , but these: are lew . and. far; bet\v '"Certainly, Profs, Robert Inglchart arid Bayrd Still- and Albert Christ- Janer;don’t fall into .that, category.. These are the three scholars who; conduct ‘‘America in the Making,’.’ an “illumination of. history through arts<’ as Christ-Janer put it; being produced by WCBS-TV in conjunc- tion yyith N. Y., U,, the Mctropoli : tan Museum of Art and the Educa- tional Television & Radio Center. The title is self-explanatory and the illumination is provided by the three lecturers and props from the Museum’s. American Wing. On the surface, a highly agreeably; arid in-; teliigent, idea, this visual pr senta- ti'on of early. American -h-istdry,. liu.lt the key pitfall encountered is the unfortunate fad that the emphasis', seemed less. the visual' in the. preem than on the oral encumber- inents of th three lecturers, •And lecturers they are; Christ.-. Janer, a member, of N. Y. TJ.’s ed- ucational arid, research planning staff, is ail-round emcee and. gels in some lecturing licks of his own, including a bit of rather annoying name-dropping. Prof. Ingle hart is chairman of the' Dept, of Art. Edu- cation at the school, and Prof. Still Is a professor of American history. Their cbmmehtafy, backed by maps, photographs, household , ob- jects arid the complete interior Of a 17th Century New England home, possibly: might have provided some insight into the thesis that • early American culture was merely Eu- ropean culture transplanted, but It’s questionable whether they had muell of an audience to hear it. It’s not a question of sugar-coat; ing a bittev pill, this business of educational telecasting. The ordi- nary dial-twister has far more right to turn off this type of show than the college student who cuts his boring lectures or who instead catnaps during them. Arid- with three gents like this N. Y. U. trio, the absentee rate would probably find a high level: If educational television is to succeed, it’s got to be more than a' stiff and dull lec- ture, and it’s got to be presented by people who can inform In a pleasant , and interesting way, in- stead of a merely i pedestrian one. After all, the ordinary viewer, or even the circle of highly intel- ligent viewers, have the option of switching their dial, and unless the subject matter is presented in an interesting manner, they're go- ing to switch. “America in the Making.” despite its tie-in with the Museum, is verbose and stiff, and until there’s a change, it’s not likely to attract much audience or •altenti Chan. iHMMfUt n tt ttt tir - » » »♦ » ♦ »» » » »44 ♦ »» ♦ ♦♦♦ ♦ ♦ » > ♦+♦ MAKE A MATCH With Oliver Wakefield, guests - Producer: Michael Pym Writer: Rick Matthews 30 Mins., Sat., 7 p.m. Sustaining CBS-TV, from Montreal Oliver Wakefield,- w.k. nitory comic now a Montreal resident, monitors Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s new panel qiiizzer., “Make A Match” in which, a. panel tries to pick married couples from thiiee. unidentified males and three femmes. Panel comprises a married w man, single" 'woman, married man, unmarried man,. Show caught (6) had; as panelists Gerald Fitzf gerald, columnist of the Montreal Gazette; Mrs. Barbara Carswell, housewife; BUI.. Petty, staffer with radio station CFCF, and Dell Sher- man. advertising agency staffer. Panel questioned men and women to try to match them, with Wake- field m re referee than emcee, -j Show moved slowly with notice- able lack of sparkle. This might be expected of the panel but not of Wakefield, whose nitery stanza has always been clicko. Apparently tire comic depends oh script for inspiration and is lost when laced with a solid 30 minutes of ad lib necessity. Production is sriiooth, camera work adequate, but a lot more preparation by Wakefield would give the session the lift it badly needs. Improvement in pac- ing would add plenty viewers to those who already watch it While awaiting the Jackie Gleason show at 8 p.m. Gorin . A seven-day intermission can serve as an advantageous breather for both producer and consumer. Parti of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” on “Robert Montgomery Presents” (NBC-TV, Nov. 8) could very nearly be classified as ; an elongated preface. to Part II (15). The initial entry had its moments of high 'pathos and low buffoonery a la the Parisian Middle Ages as conceived by Victor Hugo; but there’s much loo much to estab-1 lisli in this “unreal” pomp and., cir.-' cumstancer arid it’s questionable, whether. the small screen, is equal to the burden of accommodating this sweeping -pageant with its tv. cast of about 80, peopled in arid around sets of huge/dimensions Skillful iy wrought by Soiatu Syr- jala, with special praise for the tow ring cathedral. Past Monday’s concluder played it more swiftly, what, with the “riiaterial”—the tremendous climax and the leadup thereof, with the assault on* Notre Dame alter the royal order removing it as a place of sanctuary, and the Hunchback’s tr.agic defeat-—a sort of “Old Man. arid the Sea” with switches. This was no ton Chaney or Charles Laughton iri a personal, pyrotech- nical spree, but Robert Ellenstein’s Quasimodo was superb even under its truncated form . (an acrobat doubling on. the .bellringing ropes, by .th .way, in deft transitions). The point has been advanced that: . Quasimodo’s classic facial, ugliness had .been softened for video . purposes, blit : surely the deformation, self-pity and the gib- berish wailing were sufficient save for the Ultra sadists. A much more damning ease can be made for turning Bramweli Fletcher’s arch- deacon into an orthodox saintly character, in a reverse from Hugo, and this, is severe indictment. If it were , necessary to bring about such radical alteration to suit the Polly annas Of the medium, the play were better, left to gather more dust on the shelf. Norman Felton’s work on . the staging, was cut. out for. hjrii. There was a tendency toward confused grouping even unto such cluttering and interference that the cameras Were often hard put to centralize the key action; But iri general it was a valiant job, complemented by the costumes, apparently pains- takingly researched by Jane Bur- roughs. The casting was excellent in the\ overall, especially so in the Poet of Hurd Hatfield and. the Phoebus of Scott Forbes, and in the sharp portraits of Celia Lipton as Esmeralda and the Colombe of Mary Sinclair, With their lush looks squaring the romantic divi- sion. Other fine portrayals were the Beggar Clopin of Tim Duggan* the Provost of Fred Worlock (the trial, scenes, provided some rich comedy stemming, of course, from the jurist’s deafness),, the Paris Executioner of Janies Milhollin and the' innkeeper of Ronald Daw- son. A word also for the makeup fashioned by Robert O’Bradovitch. The reaf tv story lay in the fact that the Lucky Strike-JohnsOri’s VVax stanza elected tb tackle a work of such heroic proportions. It did not fully ring the bell and was perhaps too passionate toward pageantry with inevitable detri- ment to the'delineation of the key rohv; but. it was a grand design, done on a grand scale and, as such, a credit to the producers and to the 'transplanter, Alvin Sapinsley. Trait. vblved little guesswork; other$*| were more obscure,. arid Bernstein had to make assuriiptions. on their places in the, Work. But all these insertions were accompanied by Bernstein's commentary, on wily they were finally . discarded. And all his commentary led to a better understanding of. why the, sym- phony is so grbat. Nor was it all an aural lecture. He used facsimi- les of the manuscripts to demons strate the many changes made by Beethoven in what he described as an ■‘agonizing” effort toward per-.| lection. Arid in the final wrapup; performance of the entire move- ment, Bernstein’s intense batoning was also something fascinating, to behold. Point is, though,^that the treatment of the work could easily be extended into a regular series covering other works, and Bern- ! stein is just the man to do it. Other segments on the show were a Danish-made film on the training of a young ballet dancer, narrated by Susan Strassberg, and a filmed visit by Alan.. Funt to Oberlin College and Denison U. in Ohio for a study of snialLcollege football. Chan, “Studio One” had one of its off nights Monday (15) when •a . mystery nieiler. failed to be either . mysterious or " melodra- matic. Titled. “Let Me Go, Lover,” the play revolved around a confus- ing, and occasionally frantic, plot about a midnight tv disk jockey Who correctly suspects that an escaped convict and his girl friend are using his apartment for a rendezvous. The cast included Joe Maross, as the somewhat too ex- citable jockey; Anthony Ross, as an improbable detective with a taste for Beethoven; Connie Sawyer, as a romantically minded superintendent; four ojt i five addi- tional characters and : one Colum- bia Records’ disk of “Let Me Go, Lover” as sung by Joan Weber. The title tune was woven Into, the yarn arid hence received an un- usually concentrated plug. The best part of the sho\v was the back-of-the-camera stuff on the tv deejay’s job. This was handled with some deft self-ribbing satire. Unfortunately; the main action oc- cui*red outside of the studio- wlthin-a-studio and was conceived in completely routine terms. The play Was adapted by Henry Mis- rock from a Redbook magazine story, “Who’s Been Sitting In My Chair.” Hem, Leonard Bernstein, ne of the more active conductors, and com- ..-Rpsers- iri American, music, emerges as a highly engaging personality in j still ...another medium, television. '! Appearing on Sunday’s (.14) ‘ ( Omr nibus” on. CBS-TV with the. Sym- ph , of the Air (former NBC Symphony), in an analysis, of the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, he did a. highly professional job of commentary, with a poise and glibness that would, turn iriany. a regular per- former a tint of green. More. important, however, was the fact that he opened a . com- pletely new field for television. The tv musical show,.when dealing with serious music, up to now has been merely a concert remote. The field of musical,education,, or music appreciation, has been ignoi’qd, largely because no one up to now has come up with a format J to make it interesting arid enter- taining. Bernstein solved the problem. He took Beethoven’s discarded sketches, And in a fascinating game of guesswork orchestrated and in- serted them into the symphony where he believed they belonged. Some were obviously develop- ments of the basic theme arid in- They’ll do it. every time, those talented moppets, and Donald O’Connor now knows how it feels to have a show stolen from under him. He and his writers put to- gether a whimsy that called on Sharon-Baird, all of eight, to .fall in love with him. Well, what Miss*] Baird did to O’Connor was little short of larceny. When O’Connor wasn't dancing he was stooging for her and this made up, most of the play. For the kiddies it must have been sheer delight and to the elders just as diverting in its fan- tasy form. O’Connor took a long gamble and made it pay off. Aside from Sidney Miller, Gale Bonnie and Joyce Smight, the rest were suh- teeriers. All gifted dancers and precocious thesps, they joined O’Connor in a fast finale at the ice cream shop that would have been a joy at Christmas time, even as it was last Saturday. The kids, especially the Baird tot, took over so completely that, the song shop bit with O'Connor and Miller seemed in the way. The Bing: and Gary song sketch didn’t rouse much interest. This feature is getting a ..little shopworn arid must depend on clever lyrips, which it didn’t.get. Trick sartorial .■effects aren’t enough to corhpen- sate for the time it consumes. Tlief re so.many clever young- sters around like Sharon Baird and Ricky Vera that: they would- seem a perfect teaming with a surround- ing of moppets for one big Xmas show. This would be tv’s gift to the little believers. Helm. ■! names as Leo Durocher, Bob Lemmon, Fred Haney and umpire “Beans” Reardon. Action, took place in the Giarits’ dugout during the last World Series game at Cleveland' and in a courtroom where Benny, as. Giants’ captain .Alvin Dark, is tried for taking over command of. the game from Du- rocher, The premise, had promise but the script lacked, a sustained attack. It was. scattered with several hits, mostly in the infield, and there were no long drives , tb ring up a big score. Benny’s top comedy-thesping tal- ents 'were in evidence throughout and Durocher played his “Lip” tag to the hilt. The others, all in the uniform of their trade, added little more than window dressing, The Lucky Strike plugs were neatly Integrated into the script. Gros: Mischa Elman, the violin vir- tuoso, as special guest on “I’ve Got A Secret,” over CBS-TV last Wed- nesday (10) night, appeared a somewhat historical jam session with moderator Garry. Moore dou- bling on drums, and Skiteh Hen- derson,: accordion, Mitch Miller; oboe; and Morey. Amsterdam, bass viol, coming from the wrings. El- man’s “secret” was his first public performance that night, as a pian- ist, . on which instrument he has been tutoring himself. He did a neat job on the black-arid-whites with “Tea For Two,” in a manner that would make a sprightly re- cording—if Columbia’s a&r chief- tain Miller .hasn’t already thought ■of.it/ Abel. T.\ comedy writers seem en- chanted with the “you’ve seen the •pictlure—now see the parody” idea. Jack Benny’s scripting quar- tet (Sain Perrin, George Balzari, Milt JOsefsberg and John Tacka- berry) took Herman Wouk’s “Caine Mutiny.” out of the briny and into a baseball dugout for Jack Benny's CBS-TV excursion Sunday <141. “Colgate Comedy Hour” on the rival NBC-TV preceded Benny by a couple, of months with a satiric workover of “Caine Mutiny,” For the Benny outing, the yarn was retagged “Tbe Giant Mutiny” and was cast with such baseball Sometimes Ed Sullivan’s ‘.‘Toast of the Town” is torn between the demands of entertainment and the video version of boxoffice, that is ratings. Too frequently; the ap- pearance of names doesn't offer the desired entertainment quota. It’s generally the. case of the headliner’s appearances in the fllmclips. Ori Sunday’s (14); exhibit, the ftlmsters Van Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor spoke a few lines prior to the pro- jection of. a scene firom “The Last Time I Saw Paris.” Presumably, it wasn’t one of the best scenes in the show. This segment took a healthy slice out of Sullivan’s time budget, Subsequent acts had to be cut down to the bone, and this gener- ally happens to. turns near the end of the show. On this session, it made the audience conscious of the fact that a lot of cute young- sters from various cities, who got the Seventeen mag' doll awards, couldn’t even get a fair shake be- fore the cameras. The Harlem Globetrotters got only the briefest time with their trick passing, which happens to be one of the best features of. this highly: en- tertaining hoop aggregation,. One of the best segments, of the show was the one In which Richard Hearne (Mr. Pastry) appeared. His wrestling with a bass-tuba w.as a rollicking affair that encompassed a bit of well-regulated slapstick. A top bit of singing on this show was by Rosanna Carter;, a new- comer who is zooming along in operatic ranks. She did an aria from “La BohemC” with a bare at- tic as the setting. She was too finely garbed and too elegantly be- jeweled to carry out her character, but her rendition was topnotch. Another singing turn was by Elaine Stritch who dipped into “You Took Advantage, of Me.” It seemed, to be slotted in. the wrong spot, arid thus didn’t attain its full value. • ' 'V . • Julius LaRosa seems to be im- proving steadily. He’s getting to carry in ore authority and assur- ance. His two numbers hit a: fa- vorable; impression. The Mask & Whig Club of the U; of Pennsylva- nian put on a tango number. These football-built characters, in drag made a good.Imprint. The^Fa'rias scored with their balancing aero. Jose . . Last Sunday (14) CBS-TV’s “The Search-’ lit out on folk tunes in the Arkansas Ozarks with mixed re- sults—mixed because too much of this particular stanza in the filmed educational series seemed con- trived, and not too. subtly so. It was a case of too much writing in the script when, a more spontane- ous approach was indicated. The one Impressive “new. face” worthy of reprise as a Dr. Frank Baxter counterpart was Mary Celestia Parler, a breezy, birdlike, bespec- tacled slip, of a woman who’s prof of English and director of folklore research at the Unlv. of Arkansas, which aided the web in sniffing (Continued on page 42) THAT'S MY DAD With George Grim Producer-writer: Grim Directors: William Garin, John Degan 15 Mins.; Sat., 5:30 p.m. CLOVERLEAF DAIRIES KSTP-TV, Minneapolis Here's an offbeat youngster show, arid a good one, too. It has sure-fire elements that give it a strong adult as well as kid appeals There are the father-son relation- ship, Interesting and at times ex- citing silent, films revealing the dad at work, and also both son and father facing the lenses; With George Grim:; KSTP-TV per- sonality, ait the program’s throttle, the show moves fast and pleas- ingly. Each week the show introduces a different son and his father; The child is interviewed by Grim about dad and the emcee provides th narrative accompanying the film that has been especially shot by the station to picture pater in the per- formance of his livelihood duties. At the end the father also appears. This particular father was a traf- fic police sergeant in a local .sub- urb and the camera followed him on a typical day as lie reported at the police station for orders and then cruised in his squad car on the lookout fop traffic law violators arid suspicious characters. Keeping up a running fire of gab as the movie unreels' and explaining the action when necessary, Grim, with his friendly, winning approach built to order for juveniles, riiade many pertinent observations cal- culated .to create in. youngsters respect for the law and police and pride in their dads. Emphasizing the police “make it safe for all of us” and that they’re “men of courage who risk their lives in doing so,” . Grim elicited from the severi-year old youth sit- ting next to him that the boy wants to, follow in dad's, footsteps. The film’s climax had the father “ap- prehending” and questioning a pre- tended speeder. Commercials . seemed over long, but maybe the kids need a lot of selling. Also, they were ingenious- ly and interestingly conceived on film and Grim is adept in handling them,. Rees , DON WILLIAMS SHOW With Barbara Rettig, Jess Carter, Hank Needham Orcli (5), others. Producer; Jack Jacobson Director: Marian Gange 60 Mtns.; Mon.-thru-Frl., 4 p.m. Participating- WHIO-TV, Dayton (Tri-State) Successor to the Wendy Barrio Show, this series has for its top personality Don Williams; bespec- tacled young puppeteer anr emcee. He was. Miss Barry’s assistant for the nine months of her reign, which terminated abruptly, ana carries on in a businesslike, manner, Moderate.late afternoon fare for the housewife; there’s a variety of music, singing, guest entertainers, reading of fan mail, spotlighting of the femme audience, and .plugs by representatives of civic goings on. Series feeds to the Tri-State Net- work’s WKRC-TV, Cincinnati, and WTV'N-TV, Columbus, which send fans in buses one day a week to the originating studios, in Dayton. Williams gets along nicely 'with members of the audjence. Barbara Rettig and Jess Carter are pleasing vocalists and the Hank Needham instrumental quintet, swings in modern trend. Ori the show caught a Hawaiian combo guested. An- nouncement of the woman singer- dancer sounded like Momi Ki. KolV PROGRAM SEMINAR Dick Pack, recently installed as national program manager for the. Westinghouse Broadcasting Co; has called a three-day program seminar , for the program chiefs of all five Westinghouse radio stations. Ses- sions, covering Westinghouse pro- gramming as well as that of other stations, start today (Wed,) at the Hotel New Weston In N. Y. ^ • Sessions; will be opened by Westinghouse Broadcasting prexy Chris J. Witting with an analysis Of the chain’s' programming patf terri. Next up will be taped sam- ples of their own and other pro- grams, to be followed tomorrow (Thurs.) by music programming talks and news,! educational and public service program huddles. Pack will handle the deejay talk, while Gordon Hawkins, WBC edu- cational director handles pubserv- ice shows and WRCA-TV, N. Y. news Ac special events chief Bill Berns, NBC commentator John* Wingate and KYW, Philadelphi news director John Raleigh handle their specialties. •