Variety (May 1958)

RADIO-TELEVISION Foreign Pix on TV ; Continued from page 29 ; ceptance breaks down according to. the size of the city. Video outlets in large metropolitan areas accept foreign pix much more readily than the “stix,” a situation which prevails in theatrical exhibition, too. As, to what effect the telecasting of art.'house pictures might have on the patronge of the offbeat houses, there’s mixed feeling about that, also. One distributor is of the ooin.on that it will widen the potential audience for such cinematics. Opposing views that it might be another video bomb, hurting the arties, as the Holly¬ wood films harmed the nabe box- offices, aiso are . expressed. The latter argument runs why pay to see Brigitte Bardot in her latest, if she is available on tv in “Please, Mr. Balzac." But there’s no question at this stage that foreign producers are seeking the extra coin in the U. S. market that goes with a sell-off to tv. Distributors Corp. of America, via Flamingo Films is distributing the largest bloc of overseas pix; the total being 35. Also entering the market is Trans-Lux Televi¬ sion, with its “La Strada" entry. Richard Davis has sold “Rififi'* and “Hulot’s Holiday” to Flamingo. United Artists TV. in its new pack¬ age of 65, has many British im¬ ports, some of which have never seen the light of day theatrically. ABC Film Syndication is selling the “Galaxy 50’’ package to sta¬ tions, the group consisting of rer runs of J. Arthur Rank and other British pix initially telecast on the ABC-TV net. In the past, there have been some ^foreign imports telecast, such f as “Bitter Rice” and “Anna,” but I never in the present quantity. An- ! other attribute of the foreign pix is that most of them “are of recent i vintage and in many instances the teleeasting date has been delayed ! until the particular pix have com¬ pleted their theatrical engage¬ ments, For any extensive tv ex¬ posure, the import must be dubbed. Mrs. G. A REAL “DUTCH TREAT"... Continued from page 26 i poem was, of course, Sandra Mi- j chael. ! Oldtimers on Variety encoun- ; tered Elaine Sterne as a writer of | “sketches” which stars used to play. - the Palace in Times Square when lit was big time. She was a con- j temporary in that obscure art with Edgar Allen Woolf, long with ! Metro, Her writing began in child- | hood and continued until death. \ Indeed she resembled a number of the daytime serial queens in dram¬ atizing her own life, playing out i in private the mother-knows-best | to all her actors, actresses and I cronies. Her arrival in a restau- l rant or at a party with a retinue 'following after partook of broad-, cast aristocracy. A woman of considerable re¬ ticences for all her color, Mrs. Car¬ rington abominated the term “soap opera.” Others did, too. But the term stuck because the intellec¬ tuals and the editors picked it up. She also disliked speculation as to her-income. It certainly went very high some years with three and four properties on the air—and maintaining the straigthfaced claim that all were from her own "fingers arid her own keys—practically a physical impossibility, even for Larry Merikin, the strongest fingers ! in the script dodge. Inordinately conversational at all times about her children but not fated for happiness in marriage, . Elaine Sterne Carrington was in¬ deed one of the authentic and pic¬ turesque figures of the union of broadcasting and advertising. Chi Swing To Live Continued from pas* 27 - = factor by. returning abundantly to amateur shows. Held over from pre¬ vious local ventures in live are a number of record hop and polka parties, a Friday fashion show bn WBKB, bowling matches and mop¬ pet shows, some of them with heal, live moppets. About all it takes to produce , a local show anymore, getting away from the interview format, is a personable emcee, a handful ofcon- i testants, and maybe a staff orches¬ tra. For.pubaffairs a hit less, a lowr j paid instructor who might come j on for free. | The trend to amateur shows I started abruptly, considering noth¬ ing has been done in that area for : full six months since Morris B. Sachs’ longrunriing “Amateur Hour” went off the air. WBKB tried a Sunday morning sleeper in “TV Tryouts” a few weeks ago and aft¬ er some talk of cancelling has de¬ cided to keep it going. It has three sponsors. WGN-TV last Saturday (12) installed “Your Big Night,” a color show sponsored by Polk Bros.; is nearly ready to go with a teen- = age version of the show In a week- - end daytime slot;:and has a third VARWFt amateur format in blueprint. ; College lecturers on tv are old- hat, but since the outer space and satellite rage they are in excep¬ tional demand. WBKB captured 46 U. of Chicago science specialists for its early morning “Science ’58” I series, WBBM-TV tapped atom ex¬ pert Harold C. Urey for a weekly series, and the same station is mak¬ ing wide- pubaffairs use of DePaul U.; physicist Dan Q. Posin and Northwestern’s Jacob Sher. A num¬ ber of other profs froiri the local schools are conducting shortterm projects or are making one-shot guest appearances on the various stations. New trends in local live are mak¬ ing three of the stations painfully aware that they have only make¬ shift facilities for studio audiences. I WGN-TV alone has: an actual thea¬ tre with permanent upholstered seats. Dr. Brown Continued from page 31 by the Board of Regents, plans ul¬ timately to operate its own educa¬ tional tv station in New York City, according to Dr. Brown. The META topper also iold the legisla¬ tors that, “without finaricial support, the task facing META, and its con¬ stituency is difficult, if : not im¬ possible.” META, which has its own production base arid studio in the Carnegie Endowment inter¬ national. Center, has been subsist¬ ing on .financial support from foundations. It is now beginning a fund-raising canipaign to support future operations. IATSE Continued from page 29 to belong to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Employ¬ ees, which has lower wage scales than I A, FPA resisted the demand on the grounds , that it would de¬ stroy its members’ “freedom to sub-contract coriipetitively.” Third point in contention, was that IA wanted to allow, FPA only until December of this year to “explore” exactly Tvhat craft lo¬ cals of IA would be utilized in the production of tape video commer¬ cials. However* since only one FPA member now has tape mar chinery and since each . meiriber signs its union contracts individu¬ ally, even though FPA does the collective bargaining for them, FPA wants more time than seven months to “explore” the kinks in tape production. National Sales, Continued from page 29 ing sold “Tombstone Territory” and others. In thie desire: for a national sale, there are other benefits be¬ sides the usual 10 % accruing,to the telefilmery once a network deal is set. These benefits are those flowing from prestige, with adver¬ tising agency execs and stations looking more with favor on those telefilmeries abie to “make the big time” with network skeins. In short; most . well-established teiefilmeriei 6 can exist without the national sale, some better than others. But who wants only to ex¬ ist? There’s high living with na¬ tional winners apd most everyone wants toi live high. WGN-TV Continued from page 27 Roth departed on similar “amiable terms.” and in the recent past three directors and two announcers were .dismissed. . Urbach, who has a network background and who was brought in three years ago to revitalize “They Stand Accused” for the erstwhile DuMont net, of which WGN-TV was an anchor, re¬ vealed he was asked to resign be¬ cause the station would no longer be doing the network : size produc¬ tions that were his specialty. Ur¬ bach said he feels “no bitterness” over his departure from WGN-TV. It’s possible, however, that the promotion of A1 Field to program manager, vice Roth, had something to do with the “resignations” of Urbach and Pettersori. The latter pair had tenure with the company, while Field is a comparative new¬ comer, haying joined less than a year ago as pubaffairs and special broadcast services overseer. With Field’s new appointment has come an overhauling of the prograin department, complete with organization chart showing, for the first time, who reports to whom. Urbach’s post is being filled by LeRoy Olliger, formerly a producer, and Field’s pubaffairs spot has gone to Myrtle Stahl, ex- education and religion director. No one has been named yet to suc¬ ceed Petterson. Other promotions are Bud El- lingwood jo Field’s assistant; Shel¬ don Cooper and Jerry Gregoria, formely directors, to producers; and Don Willing and Mike Powers from floor managers to directors. Apparently the cutback in man¬ power is expected to be compen¬ sated for by the station’s newly ac¬ quired Ampex Videotape equips merit, and it figures too that dele¬ tions of high salaried personnel will help the indie station amor¬ tize the terrific outlay of coin for the equipment. The departure of programming nabobs should also reopen the doprs to outside producers, who in the past year have had a hard time presenting their cases at . WGN-TV. Local Strips Continued from page 26 the Top 10 network shows far-out- distance their counterpart in syn¬ dication, which is local program¬ ming. In Washington, Tor example, the highest rated syndicated show, “Gray Ghost ” with a 22.0 Tele¬ pulse rating, was lower than the lowest network, show among the Top 10 web shows, “Playhouse 90,” with.a 27.2. The local market rat¬ ing period was March 1-8, as pub¬ lished in the April 23 issue: It should be noted that different time periods are being compared. But the fact remains ihat in terms of mass circulation, m most every market, the toprated one-a-wegk and sometime “special” network shows get the greater audiences, compared to the top syndicated product in the same markets. 5 . But, once the strip operation is entered into and measured, the rating situation changes to an open race between local originated pro¬ grams and network shows.. WNTA-TV ^ Continued from page 31. gins, also in the 7 p.m. slot, with Joey Adams set to emcee the chore* Harry Hershfield and Jackie Kan- non are among the guest come¬ dians on this paneler: As previously indicated, Bert Lee Jr. will m.c. a 90-minute weekly sportscast every Tuesday, beginning May 13. Show will be from 9 to 10:30. On Sunday (1.1), a special one-hour video show will be done in which U S: chess champ the 15-year-old Bobby Fischer, will engage in 13 simultaneous chess games against opponents from the Marshall Chess Club in N, Y. On WNTA-AM-FM:, Mary Mar¬ garet McBride begins a 1 to 2 p.m. strip today, and her guest tomor¬ row will be Eleanor Roosevelt. Last night (Tues.), the new op¬ eration had an inauguration cere¬ mony at the parent NTA’s Coliseum Tower headquarters. Invitations were sent to Governors Averill Harriman arid Abraham RibicOff (latter Connecticut), N.Y.C. Mayor Robert F. Wagner and other of¬ ficials from N.Y., N.J., and Con¬ necticut. REQUIRED - Feature, Cartoon and T.V. Films by CARVAL ENTERPRISES. LTD. London, England On Agency Basis for Great Britain, Crown "Colonies, and Europe. 1st Class Distributing. Facilities Available. CONTACT US AT— SECOND FLOOR 20 BEDFORD ST. LONDON. W.C.2. SECRETARY AVAILABLE Motion Picture and TV Experience Excellent Skills, Top References Will Relocate, Will Travel Bex V-225-58,, VARIETY, 154 W. 46th Sb» New Yerlc 36, N. Y. FOR SALE_ LUXURIOUS COUNTRY ESTATE Hilltop Site w/vista (Ridgefield, Conn ) MsssIflcMt manor haute, 6 atree fully Udaepd. 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