Variety (November 1957)

48 P^RIETT RADIO-TELEVISION Wednesday, November 20, 1957 Radio Reviews FASHIONS IN MUSIC » | With Mai Bellairs, Connie Mitchell, | Bill Lawrence, Caesar Petrillo Orch, guest Toni Arden Producer: Howard Weaver Assoc. Producers: Art Thorse®, Norman E. Heyne 15 Mins.; Mon.-Fri., 7 pjn. MORRIS B. SACHS WBBM, Chicago (Wesley, Heyne & Cuca) Successor to the 23-year-old Mor¬ ris B. Sachs “Amateur Hour,” which halted its simulcasts early in the summer, this radio musical is pointed at prestige—and gets it. It’s an extravagant audio mount¬ ing, with a 25-piece orchestra, two excellent regular vocalists and a guestar from one of the local niteries. Not for years has a live variety show of such high calibre been produced in Chi for local f audiences, and this dessert-hour entry could spark a return to sin¬ gle-sponsored live nighttime shows. Format is a radio counterpart of *‘In Town Tonight,” successful late- night video strip on sister station WBBM-TV. Topping its assets is host Mai Bellairs, a polished and well spoken emcee who minimizes talk to get to the business of music. Regular singers Bill Lawrence and Connie Mitchell are exceptional for local talent, and the rich sound of Caesar Petrillo's full orch re¬ calls the bygone days of bigtime AM shows. Arrangements, pleasant and swingy, and repertoire of standards clearly are meant for adult ears. Toni Arden, toplining the current Palmer House show, guested the first show 111) in classy style with her new Decca ballad. Bellairs’ blurbs are soft pedaled against a rippling harp and unob¬ trusively act out the message of friendliness. Withal, it’s a smooth production and a picker-upper for the generally drab state of local radio programming. Les. PRESENTING POZY With Harry Pozy orch, Ian Fel- lowes Producer: Stephen Dale 30 Mins.; Sat., 7 p.m. CBC Trans-Canada, from Ottawa For dialers who want to dance or listen, “Presenting Pozy” on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.’s Trans-Canada we-b is a solid ses¬ sion of varied band tunes. Opener (16) teemed with Dixieland, a for¬ mat this w.k. showhaeking and dance band handles in great style. But it carried soft ballads. Latino and ritkytick stuff as well, and plenty of it, using nine tunes plus theme (“South Rampart St. Blues”) twice. Harry Pozy orchestra is house band at the Chaudiere Club where it went from four years on the stand at the Gatineau Club. Group is uniauely show-wise and rates big kudos from all acts it backs, plus being fave with dancing cus¬ tomers between show's. Big lack in this stint is the overall reso¬ nance it is accustomed to in a hall. Aired , from a hard, overly-dead- walled studio, show would be en¬ hanced by injection of some echo, physically or electronically, to broaden the sound and blend the instruments instead of separating them. Band is soeko as is but resonance would get bigger im¬ pact. A livelier announce job would also improve. the stanza, CBO staffer Ian Fellowes handling a bright script as though he was reading Shakespeare and didn’t like it. Scheduling break has “Present¬ ing Pozv” on radio opposite a video item about Indians and pioneers called “Radission” which sends most adults to the audio knobs. Gorm. UFO-FACT OR FANTASY? Narrator: Paul Parker Producer: Parker 30 Mins.: Mon. (11), 10:30 p.m. QUAKER CITY GROCERY CO. WIP, Philadelphia “Unknown Flying Objects.” doc¬ umentary pieced together by news! commentator Paul Parker from his quarter-hour, cross-the-board midday interview sessions, shaped up to a timely and absorbing half- hour. These were no crackpot in¬ terview subjects, but responsible citizens, scientists and Air Force bras*:, telling their reactions to the sighting by four separate wit¬ nesses. unknown to each other, of bright egg-shaped objects in Level- land, Tex. They reported identi¬ cal descriptions and received the same reactions to their automo¬ biles. according to a Texas sheriff, the first interviewee. The second speaker, Lee Cor¬ bin. news director WFBR, Balti¬ more. Md., told of similar sight¬ ings in Maryland, i|n 1952. Dr. Lincoln LajPaz, metereolo- gist .of Hie U. of -b}ew Mexico ana¬ lyzed the objects as ordinary | meteoric fireballs. A critic of the Air Force’s handling of the Inci-! dent felt the doctor had been pres¬ sured. into this reaction: At this point an Air Force colonel when questioned, hedged by saying he had only a sketchy report of inci¬ dent and promised to call back later. An engineer with the Air Force set the pace for the feeling of j credence given, by whole program, i A witness at the Levelland hap¬ penings, he never exploited the advantage of his momentary spot in the limelight. The objects did not burn, he said, they felt more like the warmth of a suHlamp. The colonel making the return call vouched for the character of this witness. In-contrast a spokesman from the Pentagon sounded irri¬ tated and said an “evaluation" would come later. Session was fed to Mutual web Sunday afternoon, but not carried by local outlet WIP, at that time. Documentaries are usually consid¬ ered poison in the sales dept., but when Parker’s grocery chain spon¬ sor learned it was to be aired Mon¬ day night, they asked to buy in. Parker cased the tape and found three spots for institutional com¬ mercials. Quaker Stores bought it paying the full rate card tariff. Gagh. Radio Followups Counterpoint As the second half entry of a two-part series on motivational re¬ search; WNEW last Sunday (17) invited Dr. Ernest Dichter to re¬ but the arguments of VanceVPack- ard (Hidden Persuaders) made the preceding week when the author called the use of m.r. in advertis¬ ing immoral. Dr. Dichter parried the thrusts of host Professor William Kunts- ler effectively although he spent a lot of his time trying to tie down meanings and defining terms and intent exactly before giving any opinions. Referring to subliminal percep¬ tion and advertising, Dr. Dichter admitted that if a desire was al¬ ready present, the use of sublim¬ inal techniaues could stimulate a person to buy. He also pointed Dut. however, that distinguishing between brands in this type of ad¬ vertising would be most difficult if not impossible. Thus it would not be too difficult to induce peo- Dle to buy a soft drink but it might be auite another thing to get them to distinguish between the several brands offered. The psychologist did admit that the use of subliminal techniaues in advertising could be immoral (a Doint Packard makes reDeatedly) but then backtracked with a flock of definitions the UDshot being that t^e technique must be related to the intent and that 'it could be either moral or immoral depend¬ in'* on t^e intended use. From the specifics of subliminal perceDtion the discussion branched out to embrace advertising in gen¬ eral. Again Dr. Dichter parried a Packard auote accusing the ad¬ vertising bunch of creating a treadmill of material wealth by saving that they were really cre¬ ating “constructive discontent”; that this was a support for the economy and therefore beneficial to +1, e country. The problems of material versus spiritual well being also came in for its share of attention but it would seem that no discussion of subliminal perception and motiva¬ tional research can progress very far without running into these head problems. It made for in¬ teresting listening but the more technical and pressing aspects of the problem was buried in plethora Of verbiage. • Sya. WCKY Suing AFTRA Cincinnati, Nov. 19. Suit for $19,500 against the Cincy chapter of American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and three of its Officers has been brought by L. B. Wilson, Inc., operator of WCKY, which was struck in August. Deceit and restrictions in trade and commerce are charges in the petition filed last week in Common Pleas Court. Another allegation is that the union pressured sponsors into dropping the station, causing a $9,750 advertising loss. Named as agents are Andre Car- Ion and George Palmer, directors, and Jonas Katz, executive secretary and attorney for-the chapter. Reynolds, CBS Take A Cold, Hard Look At . 'Duchess’ & Her Future Sheldon Reynolds, producer of CBS-TV’s “Dick & the Duchess,” planed in from London last week for a Series of huddles with the network and sponsors and walked out with a promise of heavy ad¬ vertising-promotion on the falter¬ ing series at least through. April. Sponsors, Helene Curtis and. Mogen David, are tied to a 26-week commitment oil the show* which takes it through spring, but rather than resigning themselves to low ratings, for the rest of the spread, they’ve decided on an all-out push on the stanza. Understood Reynolds came in to talk cold c.facts to the sponsors, pointing out to them that it wasn’t realistic to expect a new show with no name stars to dent the Perry Como competition right at the start. If the show can top Como, he’s understood to have said, it’s the kind of entry which has to build slowly, and at the risk of taking an occasional bad rating heating at the hands of Como whenever he decides to bring on some top name guests. At the same time, he said, if they ex¬ pect it to build, it has to be sup¬ ported with some heavy advertis¬ ing and promotional values to let people know it’s on the air, Reynolds has already worked a couple of kinks out of the proper¬ ty. For one thing, he’s dubbing his own laughtrack now, after having had it done for him by CBS in N. Y. Trouble with the CBS track, he said, was that it didn’t fit the show In terms of the pacing of the action, in filming it, he “cut it wide,” that is, had the actors take long pauses for the dubbed-in laughter, while the track done by CBS didn’t fill in the pauses prop¬ erly and left the actors “looking at each other.” producer flew to Chicago yes¬ terday (Tues.) to meet with the Curtis and Mogen David prexies, then was scheduled to return .to London. Episode No. 23 is current¬ ly in production there, though only eight episodes have been shown on the air thus far. He’s due to return to N. Y. in January to hud¬ dle with CBS on new properties, ‘VICTORY AT SEA’ AS SALOMON TOME “Victory at Sea,” which has cov¬ ered most media as a television series, motion picture .and LP al¬ bum, is due to go into book form and will be published some time next year by Doubleday* Book will be written by Henry (Pete) Salo¬ mon, now special projects director at NBC, Who produced ^Victory” and wrote the script. Because the original television series was so long, Salomon will use as the basis of the book his motion picture (UA) script and expand the tome from that. In signing contracts for the book, NBC, Salomon and Doubleday had to dispense with one of the stand¬ ard contract clauses, that covering television rights, natch. It’s prob¬ ably the first time a television orig¬ inal has been converted into book form (bther thanTeprints of tele¬ plays and merchandising offshoots of tv’ers). PhT Continued from page '43 ^ on ABC, “Wagon Train” on NBC and “Big Record" on CBS—all of which do not come together net- workwise. “Big Record” was selected as the centerpiece of the poll, presumably, because its disker personalities as guests are figured to lure the collegians. Certain presumptions made at the course lead the. instructor to believe that the idea is “99.7%” effective, and “will actually tell who will and who won’t be watch¬ ing the show in the future.” These were the results: Of the 100 persons phoned, 44 were watching “Big Record,” 32 were with Sinatra, four were ogl¬ ing “Wagon Train,” and 20 weren’t viewing anything. These statistics, under the'round figure of 100, translate directly into percentage' figures. The/supplier of the fig¬ ures observes' that, in. accordance with the laws of probability, never more, than 62% and never less than 23% will be tuned in to “Big Record.” Inside Stuff—Radio-TV .Producer Herb Sussan said last Tuesday (12), too late for inclusion in last week’s issue, that film clips or kinnies of Arthur Godfrey, Lu¬ cille Rkll & Desi Arnaz, Edward R. Murrow, Ken Murray, Phil Silvers and Jack Benny had been pulled from the NBC-TV Sunday (10) “Wide Wide World” subtitled “The Fabulous Infant,” because of objections from sponsors and some of the talent involved. In the case of Murrow and Godfrey, for example, Ford Motors objected; and in the case of Benny, Chrysler axe^ the clips, in each instance because of the Gen¬ eral Motors sponsorship of "WWW.” Sid Caesaf (ex-NBC) refuted to allow a clip of his old show, while Laurie Anders nixed the kine of her¬ self and Ken Murray. 5 First class in the Writers Workshop of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is tonight (Wed.) with CBS story editor leading off on the “basic mechanics” of video scripting. Workshop, first of its kind to be sponsored by an industry group, has several of the top names in the writing field—Ted Apstein, Robert Alan Aurthur, Paddy Chayefsky, David Davidson, Leo Davis, Ernie Kinoy, Howard Rodman, Reginald Rose, Jerome Ross, Rod Serling and . David Shaw—contributing ser¬ vices as faculty and lecturers. Course is strictly for pros, writers in other fields. Mort Abrahams, who is chairing the Workshop, has kept the first 15-week course to a limit of 24 students, broken into four separate seminars of six students and two instructors. The Budapest String Quartet, which made its tv debut via a one-hour concert Oct. 27 on WCBS-TV, N.Y., is returning for an encore Dec. 1 with a 105-minute concert on the same station. Produced in collabora¬ tion with the Metropolitan Educational Television Assn., which arranged the first telecast, the 3 to 4:45 p.m. telecast will be a remote pickup of an actual concert from the Frick Museum on upper Fifth Ave. in N.Y. Composer Norman dello Joio again will host the concert. Mac Shoub, tv playwright and copy director of Vickers & Benson, Montreal ad agency, is for the second time the only Canadian repre¬ sented in Harcourt Brace’s annual (seven) “Best Television Plays.” His script, “Thank You, Edmondo,” done last year on Canadian Broadcast¬ ing Corp.’s tv web, was repeated Nov. 6 on NBC’s “Matinee Theatre,” His first Harcourt Brace winner was “Ashes In the Wind” in ’51. W. D. (Dub) Rogers* KDUB-TV in Lubbock celebrated its fifth anni last week, and to commemorate the event sunk a time capsule to be opened on its 25th anni on Nov. 13, 1977. Capsule included letters, rec¬ ords, etc., along with copies of trade papers, including last week’s Variety, which bears the Nov, 13 anni dateline. No More Fran Continued from page 43 considering Using two or three relatively unknown females in the act to function in the way Fran Allison did. “If and when we do the Broadway show,” Tillstrom says, “and as far as I know I have only to give the green light, I think it will be necessary to have live persons in It. And with Fran’s other contracts, it doesn’t seem possible to plan anything more to¬ gether, But her part in the show was too integral to simply. re¬ place.” Miss Allison has been contracted for the RCA Whirlpool and the Swift tv commercials this year, and she is continuing as Aunt Fanny on Don McNeill’s “Breakfast Club” on ABN. In addition, she has a; schedule of personal appearances and is guesting on Jack Paar’si NBC-TV. “Tonight” show next week (27-29). Tillstrom’s Kukla- poiitans have been doing a series of filmed commercials for S&H Green Stamps in Chicago, have a Dec. 1 date on Martin Agronsky’-s “Look Here” and are pencilled in return to “Perry Como Show” later next month. Unions . Continued from page 43 jurisdiction of taped tv? (Appar¬ ently, the two networks gave NABET conditional control of “the system of the future” in return for the technical union dropping all claims to film, which in all three networks is controlled by IATSE.) What concessions is CBS going to have to make to IBEW, its own live tv union, regarding tape, in order to get a decrease in staff em¬ ployees In N. Y.? What can the three webs do'to placate IATSE, if they give tape to IB and NABET? In the samb re¬ gard, will IA even permit a formal contractual’ arrangement among the networks which takes tape jurisdiction away from it? Being aware, and reportedly fearful, of the great power that the conference of studio unions, of which IA is an integral part, has on the Coast, how far, despite all the propaganda at present, will the webs want to go in moving their production activities to Holly¬ wood? And how far will CBS, NBC and ABC be willing to go in increasing flie IB and NABET Coast shops in return for decreases in New York? (The latter question raises sec¬ tional problems: The live technical unions might find their New York local boys fighting any tradeoff in favor .-of the GoastiL - ^ ■» . ^ Gen. Mills Pacts New'Ranger Deal General Mills has signed a new deal with Jack Wrather, owner of Lone Ranger Inc., for the “Lone Ranger” telefilms through August-, 1960. It's a two-part arrangement, and, depending bn the various op¬ tions that can be exercised; the pact will cost the sponsor from under $2,000,000 to $3,000,000, with the latter appearing more likely. GM will pay Wrather for rental of “Lone Ranger” half-hour telepix on a 104-week, two-play-a-week deal. If only rerun films are used, cost to GM will be slightly under $2,000,000. If 13 new films are bought, the price will rise to over $2,000,000, with adjustments being made in lower costs of reruns. • However, the most likely course at this point was that the cereal company was going td buy a new 39 half-hours, bringing its talent i tab up to just $3,000,000. Wrather has the right to decide to produce new product, if he notifies the spon¬ sor by next spring, but GM has the right in return to buy only 13. New paet succeeds the original two-year pact between General Mills, handled by Dancer-Fitzger- ald-SampIe, and Lone Ranger Inc. GM has the prerogative of selling off half of its share in “Ranger” films. GM is only eight weeks away from pact renewals with CBS-TV and ABC-TV, each of which has a weekly “Ranger” rim. 33 EDUC’L STATIONS BY END OF YEAR Washington, Nov. 19. Noncommercial educational tv stations should reach the 33 mark by the end of the year, according to the Joiht Council on Education¬ al Television. Latest box score by JCET lists five new stations ex¬ pected to begin operations this month or December. They are in Atlanta, Salt Lake City, Jackson¬ ville, Fla., Albuquerque,' N. M., .and San Juan, P. R. All are VHF except Atlanta. There are now 28 ETV stations on the air in 20 states. Largest number is in Alabama Which has three. Illinois, Louisina, Michi¬ gan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wis¬ consin each have two. All but five of the 28 are VHF. y* An additional three stations are licensed to educational institutions imteperate commercially* v