Variety (March 1957)

WecliieB^ay, March 27, X957 TELEVISION KEVIEWS 33 , TWO FOR THE MONEY V^ith Sam LavMUMMt, MUion De 'Lufff 0^c^> wate ' producer-dlreotor: Ira Skntch 30 Mins., Sat., 10:3# pjn. Sustainiaa • CBS-TVi from New York “Two for the-Money,” which has been off CBS alnce last summer, returhed last we^ki to- replace the ill-fated “You’re On Your Own’ quizzer, which I'asted.for a scant 13- 'week cycle. As of the moment, with “New York Confidential” Blated for the Saturday: 10:30 time period, come Septisimlj^r, “Money” is somewhat in the .position of a filler show for . the remainder of the spring and - Summer, :but un¬ derstood CBS vis -pushing this one for a. sale and'it's conceivable that it may be around in-thfr fall in an- /Other' slot.' ,^ The Goodson-Todnaan package returns in essentially the-same for¬ mat, but jvith. Sam Leverison, who did the show' for a couple of sum¬ mers, in as permanent emcee.. Levenson’s a cinch for the title of television's most genial emcee. Apart from the. .*lw*X3rgP^ S p.-routine, he's got a, flair for j ringing the wanpth and humor out of his guests, or at-least getting them, to make a remark that sets him up for an anecdote. Result is a genuinely good- humored show in which the quiz gimmick is subsidiary to the Lev- ensonism, which is;aU to the good. Producer-director Ira \Skutch set up the guests for the pteem. care¬ fully, with a retiring Army colonel, his wife and seven ’ adopted chil¬ dren; as one team of entrants, and Vic Damone'i .kid sister and a Bamone fan club officer as the other with Damonc sneaking in as surprising guest. The screening paid off in terms'of a couple of interesting and entertalaning ses¬ sions. Preem tended to be son^ewhat on the rough side insofar as pacing was concerned, but that appeared to be a matter, that will shake down in a couple of weeks. Clian. Foreign TV Reviews AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE. With John RoDlnson, Peter Wyn- garde, Clive Morton, JIU Dixon, Jessica Speneer, Tony Sympson, Tom' Ciiddle, Brian Franklin,. Anthoiiy Wilson, Edward For¬ syth, ' John Salew, Reginald Marsh, Jnlla Chester, Malcolm W'atson, Michael Ely, George Ricarde, Joanna Glam Arthur Miller verslon- of Henrik Ibsen play Adaptation: Elspeth Cochrane Producer-Director: Silvio Nariz- zano 90 Mins., Wed. 8 p.m. Granada TV, from Manchester Arthur Miller's versfon of Ib¬ sen’s complex political play did nothing but good for the .transla¬ tion English speaking peoples.have become accustom^ to: In l^e 90 'minutes, playing time, the pace never faltered from one which, was crlsD and tense. Miller’s treatment of the play, which tells of a small Norwegian coastal town governed by an expansion crazed council, headed by a Mayor prepared to endanger the lives of thousands of visitors who will use the newly- erected spring baths, even though, his brother, the medical officer of healths has proved that they are polluted, is. one full, of imderstand,- ing. Producer-director Silvio Nar- izzano deserves full marks for his work. The sets were imaginative and realistic, and camerji. work was on an edual par. Outstanding member of the cast was John Robinson, who played the doctor. His p^ormance In this difficult role whiA varied be¬ tween pathos, humor and frustra¬ tion. was excellent. He was well supported by Clive Morton as the Mayor and Peter ^Wyngarde. who played Hovstad, editor of a circu¬ lation .‘seeking^ newspaper. B.ary,. THE BIGGEST THIEF IN TOWN With Bernaril Braden, Carl Ber¬ nard, Jerry Storin, Fred J<diii80n, ; Evelyn Boberta, Joy Rodgers, Neil McCaUnm, George Street,. Deiiis McCanhy, Timothy Grey, Keith Marsh Writer: Dalton Tnunbo 60 Mins., Thnrs. 8 p,in. Associate Television; from London ‘ Presented'" Id' tho. Assdciat^ Television “TeloVisioh Playhouse” | series, Dalton TrUmbo’s macabre comedy was one long laugh from tfeginnliig to eftdi Bernerd Braden, who played the leid in the .London stage production five . veers ago, J wa.«! at home in' nls irdle is Bert Hutchins the small tovm under- ! taker who triei^ lo Increase hls^ business l>y ' iH^ng.^ a |12;000 bronze.' casket ’he""ho^ 10 Sril at- - a prqfitt to thO ■ big time undc^-1 take's. In'neajrt>Y .Denver ;;arhen. the-: locfi! millionaire, who’a^.et death^j • ; (Continued‘On^pago id) '' * Tele Follow-Up Comment »-» 404-04 4 < playhouse 90 Whatever possessed CBS-TV’s “Playhouse 90” to tackle the Perle Mesta story in the first, place will probably remain one of those Rip¬ leys for which tv has long been famous—and hardly to Its credit. True,, the network grabbed itself some enviable newspaper'^ space when it announced the show last summer, but it might have been the better part of wisdom to have subsequently dropped the .whole idea. Perhaps the paeting of Shir¬ ley Booth to play the Mesta role sparked the network’s enthusiasm, but as things turned out-the “Host- est With the Mostes’.”'as it came off last Thursday night will hardly redound to Miss Booth’s everlast¬ ing glory* In fact the sooner,it’s forgotten the better. The cloyingly slow-moving un¬ veiling of the life of Mrs, MeSta, hpr ^Idhood frustrations, love life and the Washington segment made' for a tedious story that was both trite and unmoving. No se^- crets were revealed to disclose how an international hostess wins, her laurels. And her parties seemea as dull. as any in Centerville, USA. Having the script hew to the bio¬ graphical ■ sketch of Perle Mesta sadly handicapped Miss Booth. None of her warinth, individuality or abtindant talents were given a break, with: result that her per¬ formance was one dimensional .and came out as a ^ reading of rather dreary dialog. Hedda Hopper. Shepperd Strud- wick, et al were equally cnn>eshed in the ■ undramatic trivia. Rose. Jack Benny Show Maurice Chevalier has been mak¬ ing f§ii’ly frequent appearances, on U.S. video via filmed displays. Re¬ cently, the Gallic . chanteur did a Parisian travelog in which he had virtually a whole hour to himself on NBC. He made another t^ed appearance Sunday (25) with Jack Benny on his regular CBS-TV- show, which was filmed in Paris last summer. ' . Despite the expensive presence of Chevalier on this session, the Benny show really never got off the ground. The entire program seemed like a routine venture in which neither Benny, Mary Living¬ ston nor Chevalier were used to best advantage.. Extent * of ' the imagination used in the pr.esenta- tlon of Chevalier, was having him get uf> to do a turn on a nltery floor, and Chevalier delivered with Ills usual style and aplomb. Benny’s travels abroad, as de¬ picted on this particular episode, : comprised constant battles between Benny and society in anx attempt to separate the comic from a por¬ tion of his bankroll. There were some good situations as a result of this gag which frequently paid off in the laugh department. Chev¬ alier went along with this ' gag. I affably for several sides of dialog, but a personality of Chevalier’s magnitude should have gotten [some lines far removed from the Lusual Benny routine. Jose. The Chevy Show There’s a sunny and refreshing quality to Dinah Shore’s work that makes an hour’s tv outing with her skip by at a happy pace. It was demonstrated once again Friday (22) via “The Chevy Show” stanza on NBC-TV. In addition- to the warm and winning, hostess, production, broad¬ cast in color and black-and-white, was topgrade all the way. Pro¬ ducer-director Bob Banner tied it all up into a bright and extremely likeable musical package. He sur¬ rounded his star with Pat Boone, Shirley. MacLaine and Dan Dailey and they all come through in., top form. With Boone; Miss Shore ducted “Butterfly,” with Miss MacLaine, there was -a- happy takeoff of I “Young Love” to a, cha-cha beat and ^vith the whole mob, there vWas a spirited treatment of “Drop a Name," a special material number out of the cxirrent Broadway tuner “Bells Are Ringing.” > Among the other pleasantries were Miss Shore’s solo on “These Foolish Things,” Boone’s workover of “Why, Baby, Why,” Dailey’s hoofing sequence and Miss Mac- Laine’s spoof of “The Dance of the Seven Veils.” ^ Gros. 'Odyaiey How. a foreign-made documen¬ tary can be presented with telling Impact on American . was de¬ monstrated Sunday (24) when “Odyssey” on CBS-TV offered Arthur ^nl^t’i adaptation, of the French clal;t(c, “Farfeblque.’’ 'J’he; .filth depicts'tb6 passage of the sea-; sons,. th6. cycle of me and death; on ‘"a • French .farm. It'# jgood en¬ tertainment, though “Odyssey” ap-^ parently meant it to apply more as an ethnic study. In any case, knight’s script and editing trimmed off only the edges, leaving the core of the film un¬ touched and undamaged. . He had a narrator tell the story, end Luis van Rooteii speak as the "grand¬ father., who lived on the Farrebique farm all his life and died there. Thrown in, too, \vas a conversa¬ tion between Charles Colllngwood and Dr. Pierre-Martin, a French anthropologist, who testified to the fact that conditions depicted were still true in a certain region of France. The beauty of “Farrebique” was its simplicity, and Knight happily didn’t inteipose too many “learned observations” to detract from the story the picture had tfi tell. In fact, the scripting very capably matched the poetic tone of parts of .the film, and^ their interlacing of the narrator’s and the grandfa¬ ther’s voices was effectively han¬ dled. “Farrebique,” part of which showed up- rather dark on the screen, had about it a feeling •of genuiness, whether In the peasants’ faces as they discussed local af¬ fairs in the pub over a glass of wine, in the shot of a rabbit hot¬ footing it across a snowy field, or the moving dignity of the funeral. It communicated the wonder of springtime and the loneliness of farmlife. “Odyssey” not only came up with ari enjoyable and Informative hour, it also demonstrated what skill and 'affection for the subject can do to make 'll foreign subject palatable on the air. Hlft Climax Payola, a phase of the music biz which everybody believes to be a fact but which nobody seems to be able to prove, came under dra¬ matic. scrutiny on the CBS-'TV “Climax” series last Thursday night (21) in a play titled “Let It Be Me.” Although the dramatics in the Eileen and Robert Mason Pollack script were .somewhat weak, the sociology was frank and accurate. ^ At the center of this modern Tin Pan. Alley yarn was Eddie Albert, a corrupt artists & repertoire chief of an up-arid-coming independent label. His “taking” price for re¬ cording a song was set in the script at around $3,()<)0, a price tag which corresponds to the actual goss^'i in the music biz when the subject of ' a&r payola is brought. As Albert L put it in the play, an a&r man is I only- as big as his last hit and he I gotta take all he can get when he can get'it. Also in the yarn was a ma^inal publisher who has mortgaged his whole catalog and is now banking on a single hit to pull him out of a whole. His ultimate suicide when Albert is tmable to deliver the top artist for his tune also could have happened in the aictual music biz. In fact; some¬ thing similar to this suicide did occur a few years ago. But despite the documentary realism of some of the yarn, the whole stanza failed to make much of a dramatic point. Maureen O’Sullivan, as the aSet man's wife, was a woebegone creature whose climactic, speech to her husband about faith, in the future was maudlin. Jill Corey, who plugged I one tune, “Let It:Be Me” on the! show, was convincing in the role of the hottest disk artist while Steve Forrest, as an honest a&r staffer who Is shocked to find out that his boss is on the take, carried off the naivete convincingly. At the windup. Albert is cured of the payola habit and he pre¬ sumably lived a poor, but honest life thereafter. Herm. Kraft Television ’Theatre Irish actor Edward" Mulhare, who moved into the Broadway limelight as regular replacement and* subsequent successor to “My Fair Lady” costar Rex Harrison, isn’t . sitting around waiting to go op in the musical.- ■ A couple of weeks ago he gave tt sampling of his performance in the tuner on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night CBS- TV stanza and last Wednesday (20) played it straight as star of “Night of'the Plague” on “Kraft Television Theatre.” Mulhare showed up well on the hour-long drama. That, however, is about* all the commendation the snow warrants. Initial indications that the Lester Powell script, might develop into an Interesting meller fell flat. The basic situation had substance, but the progression , df events were somewhat confusing and' lacking in credibility. Powell had some bitter com¬ ments to make on the invasion of personal rights brought on by the tightening of security measures. These .were brought Into play xs a British pathologist, portrayed by Mulhare, resisted his government’s attempts to get him to turn over info on producing a deadly germ culture. In the end, though, he gave in rather than take a chance on having the process fall into the hands of enemy agents. The cast contributed little in the way of punching up the proceed¬ ings. The performances were gen¬ erally uninspired and the frequent muffing of lines didn’t help either. Jess. Omnibus If last Sunday’s (24) ABC-TV edition of “Omnibus” had been car¬ ried in New Bedford, Mass., in 1893, the then 33-year-old Lizzie Borden would probably have been found guilty of the hatchet slaying (Continued on page 46) Those Interviews Rosie Dolly seems to be on a p.a. kick, first on Mike Wallace’s “Nightbeat” (DuMont) teeveer and later on Barry- Gray’s WMCA- AM’er. Somehow the surviving half of the Dolly Sisters, already glorified in celluloid in one of those George Jessel bloplx at 20th- Fox, permitted herself to be boxed Into the*fcbld, somewhat cruel ■ camera eye of the image orthicon, so far as the y^deo Interview was concerned. If it was a trailer for her blog It’S apparenHy far in advance because, admittedly, her memoirs are still in the think stage.' Miss Dolly, a legendary name of the 1920s, could not have endeared herself with the Yank bourgeoisie of the “plane now, pay later”^ category. No doubt that some such bewildered Americans, ^ of middle-income class; making their Installment-plan tourist trips, ' do^ behave in the manner she alleges, but this didn’t jibe with her own humble beginnings. She was proud of the fact that she and ''Jennie—-in the heyday, of their billing their first handles came out Yancsi and Hoszika--came to Brooklyn with nothing from their native Hungary. Wallace sought to remind her of this, nor did she duck the issue. But seeming^ her patience with gauche behavior¬ ism .of franc-conscious American tourists isn’t as tolerant. Wallace could have done something more with Colymbia Records’ adcr topper Mitch Miller than did the Ehtertainment Press Confer¬ ence (Al Morgan, Harriet Van Home and Bill Stem). Miller ducked a lot on the payola issue but was vigorous in his displeasure with the record arrangement copyists. Had the trio been as pre¬ pared as Wallace is usually some Interesting inside stuff could have-been evolved. As it is. Miller bested'hlg three inquisitors on an Issue that is a big common denominator with the public in light of the astronomical totals that pop platters now rack up. Mil¬ ler’s “r don’t know If that is going on” could have been a different thlng-<inder a more •skillful Q. & A. And It need not have been the almosi antagoniailc yp^ stance that Bill Stern assumed. Miss Van Home seemed somewhat esoteric with her questions on the re- - ligioso song" aspects. Morgan tried to stay with payoUr cut-lhs and the intra-trade angles but the bearded obolsi-a&t exec took the play sway.' ' " There are now any number of “behind the scenes of show busi¬ ness” variety programs. They dot the dlals^ both ty and AM. The payoff, of course, is the commercial for whatever is belng^ plugged. But-the sum-total end-result is a constant dilution of the vafues and the illusions thet come with professional ehow business.' If this keeps’up the public msy yet turn back td films because Hdlly: wood, for all its j^st penchant fot dishing its inside stuff in Fiib- lie, at least gives them a jloSsy pSekege of thoroughly‘eveliiited -entertainment^ sens the auxiliary end incidental plug*;' ' -Abel. MEMO THE MAGNIFICENT With Dr. Frank Baxter, Richard Carlson, Sterling Holloway Producer-Director-Writer: Frank Capra Animation: Shamus Culhane Studios Ino. 60 Mins., Wed. (20), 9 p.m. BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM CBS-TV (color film) (N. W, Ayer) If “Hemo” wasn’t magnificent, it was fascinating, but why quibble? The secohd in the^ science series by Frank Capra and sponsored by Bell Telephone was an imaginative study of the heart and circulation put into completely comprehensi¬ ble terms. The complexity of the .subject was made to appear so elementary that there was a quick¬ ly opened shade of suspicion that Capra was oversimplifying, but the humor and the respect for the matter at hand more than kept the 60-minute stanza *from being con¬ descending.. [ In making education palatable, Capra, who directed, produced and wrote (with the help of several consulting scientists), employed Dr. Frank (Shakespeare) Baxter and actor Richard Carlson. Baxter, as “Dr. Research,”; and Carlson, as. “Writer,” engaged, in a colloquy with Hemo, their blood symbol, and other animated characters. The wonderful injection of another cartoon character, “Professor Ana¬ tomy,” to delineate the function of the heart In terms of. living rooms with one-way entrances and exits, was entirely typical of the ingenious things- that Capra devis¬ ed to make his subject clear. This' business of bringing a full quota of entertainment Into educa¬ tion is fast becoming a higlily- polished video art. Capra did it with “Our Mr. Sun” in November, and Walt Disney has done it a few times of late, in his “Disneyland” yarns, on. “Our Friend the Atom” and “Man,In Flight." In all these Instances, the producers mixed fact and fancy in wholesome and inter¬ esting—more, exciting—amounts. Art. SHARILAND With Shari Lewis Co-producers: John Fengler, Bill Ratcliff . -Director: Hugh McPhilltps Write; Lan O'Kun 60 Mins., Sat., 8 a.m. WRCA-TV, N.Y, Shari Lewis, the comely young lady with a bundleful of talents and tricks for the- kiddies, has shifted her stand, from WPIX, N.Y., to the New York NBC flag¬ ship. Her stint now is a full hour instead of 30 minutes. On Saturday (23), she and her amiable puppets, Lambehop and Charlie Horse, performed well. Other ingredients' of the show consisted of a song or two, a story, some chitchat with children, and a “betcha” trick. Lan O’Kun who supplies some of the o'riginal ma¬ terial, as well as doing the music and lyrics for Shari's songs, shows some original imagination and wit. Miss Lewis is a winning, comfort¬ able performer. After an inventive opening with the puppets,, show, bogged down somewhat initially with Miss Lewis’ seemingly forcing talk. Apparently, additional* sparkle is needed for an even 60 minutes of entertain¬ ment. But the potential is there and' should be realized as show goes along. Camera work could have been more adept in avoiding Miss Lewis’ fillers as she worked the. puppets, (jamera, picking up such details, spoils the Illusion. More songs also might be helpful. Headliner and her puppets are winners vocalizing. As to the puppets, Miss Lewi* and witer O’Kun could add an¬ other dimension to Lambehop, Charlie Horse and Wing-Ding via piojecling eiqptional qualities. Right now, they are in the main only smart and clever. In one skit. Miss Lewis had Lambehop stricken with sadness by Charlie Horse. That skit was the best. Horo. CONFESSION With Jack 'Wyatt, guest* Producer: Wyatt Director: Patrick Fay Writer: Jim Boltz so Mins.; Frl. (15). 10 p.m. WESTON CARPETS. COOK’S MODERN HOMES KRLD-TV, DaUaa (Wyatt k Bearden) This highly successful tv seg¬ ment, which started a year ago. pulls no punches. Indicative of drawing power of such an offbeat show Is its February-Pulse rating of 24, just short I of the top 1$ showe, network and local,, in this area-^and a ohe-polnt gain over the last. survey. ‘ Last week the Dallas county district attorney (a frequent panel member on thf’ show) swarded producer Wyatt a plaque and certificstt of merit “in rMognltipn of outstanding publio service in shedding th# lignt of community uhdSivtandlBg^ on the (Oehtinuisd on p^e 4g)