Variety (November 1957)

Wednesday^ November 13/1957 RADIO-TELEVISION S3 I iiu iiiv i ti jnvvv i m . v in + 4- \ ‘Kraft BeatreV Dog Day “There is no bitchiness like show bitchiness" was the line on last Wednesday’s (6) NBC-TV “Kraft Theatre-" that sdt some viewers and tradesters back on their heels, not because it might be vulgar but because of its audacity. The word “bitch," in other than a pure canine context, was never delivered, to anybody's recollec¬ tion, on a tv network show before. Actress Betsy Palmer delivered the line in George Harmon Coxe's story, “The Category Is Murder.” She was describing, for all intents and purposes, the people who populated the make- believe tv quiz stanza on which she was the assistant producer. An NBC continuity man said later that “we cautioned them, (at J. Walter Thompson agency, which produces “Kraft”) on the re¬ action they might receive.-But the agency maintained that the ex-, ^pression was used in an adult program in a- context that had certain important character delineation values.” The same executive explained that the mystery drama drew only 23 telephone calls after the show as a result of “bitchiness,” but-he allowed that once the show is .seen throughout the midwest and other points less “sophisticated” than New York there might be considerable mail._’_'__ NBCs Xmas AM-TV-Lecture Circuit For Newsmen In From flobal Posts In order to take full advantage 4- of the 15-day U. S.- visits of its key foreign correspondents for its first year-end tv wrapup, NBC News is scheduling five 15-min¬ ute special shows the week of Dec. 30 to give each of the newsmen a ’ chance to expound in detail on his area. ' ■Network has taken over the . H;15 to 11:30 p.m. period on Dec. 30 through Jan. 3 and will spot¬ light one or more of its corre¬ spondents on each of those nights in a q. and a r session, with the other correspondents feeding the questions. Newsmen participating in the shows Will be Joseph C. Harsch, London; Irving R. Levine, Moscow; Frank* Bourgholtzer,' Vi¬ enna; Ed Newman, Rome; Welles Hangen, Cairo; lief Eid, Paris, and Jim Robinson, Tokyo. Correspondents will begin ar- • riving about Christmas time for • the year-end special, “Projection '58,” slated for 'Dec. 29. Apart from that and the 11:15 strip the following week, they’ve all been booked for at least one lecture apiece, plus a couple of group ap¬ pearances. Bourgholtzer starts the lecture swing Jan, 2 before ’ the Rotary Club’ in Cleveland; Levine speaks to the World Affairs _ Council in Dallas Jan.' 6; same . day, Newman talks to the Eco¬ nomics Club of Detroit, Robinson to the World Affairs Council in .Los Angeles and Eid at. Interna- tional House in New* Orleans. On Jan. 7, Bourgholtzer hits Buffalo ■ and the Foreign Policy J (Continued on page "48) WGAW Nixes TV 0( Awards Fete Hollywood, Nov. 12. Screenwriters - board of Writers Guild of America West has voted against - any televising of its an¬ nual awards dinner the early part next yOar, and insofar as a pro¬ posed spec for NBC Is concerned, passed that issue back to the coun¬ cil. Recommendation for a spec along certain specified lines was made, also the suggestion jny such program should be up to the coun¬ cil, that |t should also be “com¬ mensurate: with the writers’ dig¬ nity.”. ^ Actually, the screenwriters ex¬ pressed strong sentiment not only against ty-ing their annual bash but against staging the spec. Writ¬ ers did, however, express interest in a filmed anthology series which would be produced by the guild. WGAW had obtained from NBC an extension of time to develop the project. Council takes the* matter up this week, but the screen • board nix appears to have doomed the project WGAW would have received $25,000 If it staged such a show for the web—assuming any format of such a spec met with the nework’s approval. None has been submitted yet. ,* 0 . .,, - ., } . Sputnik Embry-o Baltimore, Nov. 12. Engineers at radio station WITH here were able to get the Sputnik II signal dearly enough at 12:13 p.m. Wednes¬ day (6) to put right on the air during the “Bob Forster Show.” “As far as we know, it is the first time it has been done directly on the air from the satellite as it passed over (Bal¬ timore.),” says station veepee R. C. Embry. How Much Is A Rating Worth? To NBC TV 300G NBC-TV’s super-duper General Motors two 7 hour spec on Nov. 17 Is expected to wind up costing tbe network somewhere in the neigh¬ borhood of $30(M)00. The all-staf layout, with Kirk Douglas as the emcee, probably out-marquees any previous presentation on NBC, or apy other network for that matter —but at a price. Getting* June Allyson to join the cast (she’ll do a scene from “Our Town”) alone totes Up to a $50,000 talent rap. But NBC .figures she’s good for at least three ad¬ ditional rating points and.considers it a good buy. Similarly, right down the line (Dinah Shore, Dean Martin, Perry Como, et al) the fees are off the “bigger than ever”* shelf.- General Motors, it’s understood, is forking over in excess of $750,"' 000 time-and-talent for the two-hour Sunday night display. But NBC, in going after the mostest, has, it’s reported, topped the figure by at least $300,000. Helen Deutsch’s fee alone as writer is said to be “monu¬ mental.” s CBS-TV’s‘Wait’ll Next Yr.’ On Lehnd Hayward Specs; 2 in ’58-’59 and 3 Later Leland Hayward htis referred his first spectacul* commitment to CBS-TV for another year. Producer will do two specs during the 1958-59 season, thus making up for the one he’ll miss this year. He’s contracted to deliver one spec a year for five years,' so that next season’s efforts will represent a doubling-up to make good for thijf year’s outsizer. , Hayward had panned on doing a year-end special for the web in late December, but the project, which bore the tentative title of “What a Yeaf,” fell through. One reason was that he didn’t have enough time to prepare the show. Another, iPs understood, was the unavailability of Mary Martin for the spec. Hayward wanted, to pair Miss Martin and.Ethel Merman for a reprise of their Ford 50th ‘appf gfjla, of a few' years hack, pm, UNIONS. RIVALRY. LOCALE By LEONARD TRATJBE New York has been made the headshrinking patsy vis-a-vis its “lost place” in live television pro¬ gramming. The decline actually started just about four years ago, during the then mayoral’y election, wlien Mayor Robert Wagner issued cam¬ paign statements through his ra¬ dio tv adviser that became a key headline to wit, “Save TV In New York.” As things turned out, It fibw becomes not only the then strategic question of “saving tv In New York” but “saving New York for tv.” By reflection, the 1953 situation was only vaguely sympto¬ matic. The City of New York is only a contributing factor—perhaps a small one—to the obvious decline and possible eventual fall of live video in the bigtown, though close students of the situation note that while the decline is “in being” and cannot be stopped now or even be¬ fore another season rolls arotfnd, there will be no. “fall.” At the same time, they are of the opinion that there will be more inroads on Gotham as the origination point before an eventual comeback that is “sure to come.” Five ‘Fingers’ Many television observers, par¬ tisan and otherwise, present these reasons, though not necessarily in the order named, for New York’s nearly cataclysmic descent as a base for live ne'.work program¬ ming: (1) Payola. Too much money¬ changing at the tv temple. Too many “deals” of the quid pro quo variety, carried on among net¬ works in terms of certain of their high, low and non-brass with or without the subject being initiated by advertising agencies, ad man¬ agers (for sponsors), independent and “tied up” packagers and “Cali¬ fornia here I come” or “California %ere I am" protagonists, antagon¬ ists, defenders and “10 percent¬ ers,” latter representing the tal¬ ent agencies. The “payola for a plug” techni¬ que has also been switched from one coast to the other, wVh N.Y. now claiming that its hands are clean but not adding that its muttering has an overtone In that the thiev¬ ery practice has merely been transferred from one locale to an¬ other. It’s the ancient “muscling in” practice 3,000 miles removed, and N.Y. Would like to work that side of the street again for an en¬ core af‘er the hullabaloo has gone into quietus. Unions Sc The Public (2) Unions. These are consid¬ ered a “softer touch” on the Coast. The current struggle between the Radio-Television Directors Guild and National Assn, of Broadcast Employees A Technicians, result¬ ing late -last week in an RDTG picket line at the network pegged on a claimed NBC lockout theme, only served'to bring to Intra-trade as .well as public notice a bad sit¬ uation and possible featherbed¬ ding within a segment of union ranks, with privilege and preroga¬ tive, “common practice” and other quasi-technical arguments held in No. 1 esteem above public con¬ venience, - public necessity and public weal. (3) Competition. “Big movies” and big local shows, the latter for New York’s “mass classes” even if not in the straight mass viewing category, have tended to give many of the town’s erstwhile “network” habit-tuners a different slant when it comes to disciplining their time at the sets. Gotham is becoming more and more a “late tuner” town and perhaps the biggest lecture and forum platform in the world; when this is set against the on¬ rush of IF’s (“idiot fascination”) shows in the good category; plus (Continued iompaga 52) ■» Brainstorm Outshines the Stars; TV’s Name Worship OK for Sardi Set But Leaves U.S.A. in Void: Saudek 4- If television is to survive as a That’* All, ‘Brothers’ Audrey Gellin, script editor at Talent Associates, took off on a vacation the other week, and while she was away TA topper David Siisskind had oc¬ casion to call her on business. During the conversation, he asked her what she was doing. “Getting in some reading,” she replied. “What are you reading?” he asked. “ 'The Brothers Karama¬ zov'.” “What are you wasting your time on that for? Metro’s already got it.” ‘Suspense’in An Encore on Film; CBS-TV is reactivating “Sus¬ pense” after a four-year hiatus, and has named Leo Davis to produce the show as his first assignment un¬ der a new five-year staff producer contract. Show will be done on film and shot in New York, with a pilot due t-6 he completed in time for the selling season next spring: Davis, who used to write for the old live “Suspense” when Martin Manulis was the producer, checked into CBS Monday (11) and has only begun to assemble a staff and work out a concept for the show. The former script editor of “Omni¬ bus,” Davis has been associate pro¬ ducer of “You Are There” and “General Electric Theatre,” pro¬ ducer of the GE show and associate producer of “Producers’ Show¬ case.” Though no staff, cast and timing has been set on the show, one thing has been decided. Series will be filmed at Hi Brown’s 26th St. stu¬ dios in Manhattan, where the web leases one stage and currently has the Phil Silvers show in produc¬ tion. CBS Radio Insures Bing’s Xmas ‘Sing,’ Sells ‘Carol,’ lores 2506 in Other Biz CBS Radio has sold its “Christ¬ mas Sing With Bing” special for the third year in a row, and in ad¬ dition has come up with another Yuletide special in the form of a sale on the late Lionel Barrymore’s reading of “A Christmas Carol.” healthy medium and “grow its own roots,” It’s got to start relying less on “name-dropping” and more on creative ideas. Robert Saudek, the veteran “Omnibus” producer, already sees the “names for names’ sake” cycle in television reaching a point of diminishing returns. He believes there’s far too great a tendency among television’s pro¬ ducers to solve programming prob¬ lems with a name, too often the building of an idea around a name instead of fitting the ifame to an idea. As some specific examples within his own “Omnibus” _ bali- wick, he recalls the commission¬ ing, sight unseen, of three scripts by Maxwell Anderson some years ago, a mishap that resulted in an “Omnibus’.’ policy of creating the idea and then signing the writer. As another point, he refers to the upcoming (17) Part II of “Ameri¬ can Trial by Jury” on “Omnibus,” where he’s having script trouble. “We could leave the script alone, and it would play with tremendous dramatic impact on its own. But it’s not quite right—it doesn’t make the point we want to get across, of how justice works. Here’s a case where no name is going to help us solve our problem. But there’s a tendency among many producers to try just that, to shrug it off with the idea that by bringing.in a name star they’ll lick their problem.” Cart Before Horse Part of the reason, he theorizes, is that “a large number of tele¬ vision producers don’t produce for the public, but for the boys In Sardi’s. There’s an inbreeding, a Broadway-to-Hollywood orbit, in which the name’s the thing. ‘Let’s get so-and-so to star, aiid so-and-so to choreograph,’ they will say, and they will overdress a production just for the approval of the Broad¬ way crowd, instead of the millions of people who live in the 3,000 miles between Broadway and Hol¬ lywood.” He sees the^ “Broadway orbit” as a name-dropping, Lindy’s-to-South- ampton, dress - the - same, eat-the- same, think-the-same influence that plays to itself without heed to the public. “The college professor, the engineer, the lawyer, the doctor— they are all squares in the eyes of the Broadw’ay boys, but they are really the public that the producers should be aiming at. Instead, they seek the approval of each other.” Saudek concedes he’s generaliz¬ ing, and applies his characteriza¬ tion largely to the “fringe people” who never quite made it in legit or Hollywood but are now in im¬ portant positions in television. But fof all practical purposes, he in¬ sists, the “name-droppers” tend to think of the name first, then how to use him. “It’s as if I told every¬ body I’ve got Pat Boone for “Omni¬ bus,” and I put him on lecturing on the law. Everybody would think (Continued on page 52 > Insurance Company of North America has signed for Its third one-hour *Crosby special, set for Christmas Eve at 9 to 10 p.m., with pickups set frbm Rome, Montreal, The Hague, Ohemd&rf (Austria) and several American points. As for the Barrymore reading* it will be bankrolled by Penick & Ford Ltd. (out of BBD&O) on Dec. 22 from 6:30 to 7 p.m. Reading is a tape, owned by Dailey Paskman, which has also been released on disks via MGM Records. In more orthodox sales, the net- work,;wrapped up $250,000 in new business and renewals Via its day¬ time and “impact” segment plans. Hearst Publications bought 10 7^- minute daytime segments; Hudson Vitamins bought 13 “impact” units; Cowles Mags bought eight of the “impact” units; Studebaker-Pack- ard bought 28 of the five-minute “impacts” and P. Lorillard re¬ newed its kingsized deal for 16 weekly “impacts” for another 13 weeks.*i »*», i * • i * - u On 1-Hr. Pursuit’ Pleased with the continuing suc¬ cess of “Climax” and satisfied with the promising start shown by “Perry 'Mason,” CBS-TV is now planning a new one-hour live de¬ tective show titled “Pursuit” for the 1958-59 season.' Show' is still in its formative s’ages, with no producer set yet. but the network is already feeling out story and script possibilities. Program Would differ from “Climax” in that instead of doing all kinds of melodrama, it would reitrict itself to the detective story. It would differ from “Ma¬ son” in that it would be live and would constitute an anthology built around the sleuthing theme.