Variety (February 1959)

P&RIETY 47 ^Wednesday, February 4, 1959 TELEVISION RHVIEWS Tele Follow-Up Comment Chevy Show * The inter-cultural relations be¬ tween Japan and the United fStates entered another phase on Sunday (1) when NBC-TV displayed the accomplishments of a Japanese talent delegation , on the Chevy show. It .did look somewhat like an Ed Sullivan Show with an Ori¬ ental accent. But withal it bad a lot of charm and appeal and pro¬ duced entertainment values. The kill showed American in¬ fluences on Japanese theatre rather than a display of the classical Jap¬ anese culture. There were quick glimpses of some classical bits, but, in many cases these were just lead- ins to' something out of Ldew’s State. For example, Haru Tominaga plays a classical zither-like instru¬ ment known as the koto, and after a brief illustration of its traditional use went into “Saints Go Marching In ” Wakana Hanayagi started in classical dance and wound up in something infinitely more modern, in concert with hostess Shirley MacLaine. The major singers were James Shigets and Izumi Yukimura, both of whom' are on the bigtime in Japan, Izumi is reminiscent of Teresa Brewer, a cute birdlike creature, who looks fragile and sings big. Shigeta has a sexy voice. Both did well in solo and in con¬ cert. The comedy is by a pair of Jap¬ anese turns, the Rice Paddies, in which a troupe prepares the dough for rice cakes out of a batch of cooked rice. There’s some simple and basic lines that hit home. They were accomped by a troupe of femme instrumentalists and sing¬ ers. The Nagata Baseball King’s, a family act, lampoons America's na¬ tional pasttime that has been adopted by Japan. There were some excellent comedy moments. Louis Jourdain, hosting the show along with Miss MacLaine, held the various ingredients together charm¬ ingly. Both adapted themselves to this Oriental frame. Miss MacLaine did so especially with her singing in Japanese at odd times. One of the most charming bits on the show, it says here, was the end commercial done by Miss Mac¬ Laine in the manner-of the Kabuki theatre. The sales spiel had imagi¬ nation, charm and humor and an entertaining quality. Also sales appeal. Jose, i General Electric Theatre Tuning up a trite tale turned out to be a helpful angle for GE’s “No Man Can Tame Me” shot on OBS-TV last Sunday (1). Although it was no great shakes as a musical, the 30 minutes did have enough spark to make it a pleasing session. The tunes were supplied by Ray Evans and Jay Livingston and were ably handled by Gisele MacKenzie, John Raitt and Eddie Foy. The score of necessity in the half-hour framework didn’t get much of a showcasing or development but it did manage to develop a tune¬ ful taste. * Of the players. Miss MacKenzie came off best and showed that she’d be a strong bet in larger musicomedy areas. . Gros. . Playhouse 90 I “A Quiet Game of Cards” broke up too late. Writer Reginald Rose, apparently not content with having penned a satisfactory and natural conclusion to his gripping, explo¬ sive teleplay, went an abortive step too far to further a point that stripped the whole work of its logical tone and cloaked it with the incongruity of fantasy. Until the bloom went off Rose’s little game, the “Playhouse 90” entry was the kind of tv now frequently referred to by sentimental set- siders as “the type of thing tv used to do in the good old days.” It was a tale of five successful businessmen whose 25 - year - old weekly card game with a 50-cent limit suddenly grows stale, leading them to develop a bizarre and idealistic murder plot to break the monbtony of success. The premise , is that these “five perfect examples of the fulfillment of the American dream” can gamble in murder on the assumption they are clever enough not to get caught, but the murder must also have a moral justification: At first, each is to bring in a name of a potential vic¬ tim who epitomizes evil, but this proves unsatisfactory. In the out¬ standing ironical twist of. the tele¬ play, .the five men decide to mur¬ der a completely good man, thus creating a martyr whose death, veiled as the, work 'of juvenile hoodlums; will outrage humanity . and instigate a.pFogram that would benefit thousands: of just such youthful delinquents as the ones blamed for the crime. The machinery for the murder is set in motion. It is not a very pre¬ cisely-calculated plot, but obvious¬ ly and fittingly the work of non¬ pros at the business of homicide. There is also a good deal of in¬ decision, self-doubt, and finally outright fear of the consequences on the part of members of the quintet. But, just as the knife is poised for the kill, the leader of the ‘group finds he cannot bring himself to commit the deed. At this point, investigating a disturb¬ ance, the Intended victim is mur¬ dered by a group of young hoods, precisely in the manner which the five plotters had hoped to have their own version interpreted. This tae, even accepted on a hypotheti¬ cal basis, seems contrived and un¬ worthy of the logical restraint ex-: hibited by the balance of Rose’s teleplay. ~ “ The five principals, Barry Sulli¬ van. Franchot Tone, Gary Merrill, E. G. Marshall and William Ben- dix, all contributed stimulating portrayals, and received able sup¬ port from Irene Eervev. Raymond Greenleaf, Katharine Warren and the balance of the cast. UntU the joker pooped out of writer Rose’s Doker. director Alex Segal did a beautiful job of building and main¬ taining suspense throughout most Of the Herbert Brodkin production. Tube. WHO SHALL NOT KILL? With Tom Mullahey Producer: Tom Mullahey Director: Vern Louden Writer: Tom Mnllahey 60 Mins.: Fri. (30), 8 p.m. KRON, San Francisco » One of the most controversial issues in California today is-aboli- tion of the death "penalty, but no tv or radio station has taken a stand on the issue—or, for tha‘ matter, done much reporting on it —until KRGN’s hour-long show came alorig. Writer - Producer - narrator Tom Mullahey handled the subject deftly and convincingly. He explored the historical back¬ ground briefly, starting with the Fifth Commandment, and the viewer was then taken through the step-by-step preparation cf a con¬ vict in his last 17 hours at San Quentin, culminating in an execu¬ tion at the prison gas chamber. Next came quick interviews with a pair of murderers (who have served a total of 59 years m prison) about whether they would have preferred death to their life sen¬ tences without hope of pardon--— both had spent years on “death row” until their sentences had been commuted. Workings of California’s Adult Authority (parole board) were de¬ scribed swiftly, viewer saw a brief filmed. interview with killer Bar¬ bara Graham (on the possibility of sending an innocent person to ^ death) and show wound up with a ’number of interviews with persons like Gov. Edmund G. Brown, San (Quentin’s warden, Frisco police chief, district attorney, a psychia¬ trist and “men in the street.” Final three minutes were de¬ voted to a plea by KRON General Manager Harold P. See for a five to 10-year moratorium on the death penalty and a plea to the State judiciary for revision of the “Mc- Naughton Rule”’ on sanity—under the McNaughton Rule (1843) the legal definition of a sane person is the ability to discriminate be¬ tween right and- wrong. In other words, legal sanity has little rela¬ tion to medical* sanity. Show was pre-filmed and ex¬ amined the subject of capital pun¬ ishment in death, making its points precisely and dramatically. A pro¬ fessional actor was used to imper¬ sonate murderer going to his death at the £an Quentin gas chamber, but otherwise all performers were the real thing, which made the show much more convincing. Mullahey’s script and narration were eloquent and it is to KRON’s credit that the station was: 1) bold enough to take a stand against the death penalty after an objective and penetrating analysis of both sides of the question, and 2) un¬ concerned enough about its rev¬ enue to preempt an hour of prime time on a Friday evening to air this documentary., ' Direction of Vern Louden and : camera work of Bob Gustavino and Leo Diner were good, and Doran Ford’s audio work was excellent. This was adult, thoughtful (Re¬ vision. Stef. FIDEL CASTRO With Stuart Novins, Richard Bate, . others Producer-Director: Don Hewitt Writer: John Sharnik Cameramen: Paul Rubenstein, Ralph Santos 30 Mins., Wed. (38), 8 p.m, CBS-TV (tape & film) Between sponsored shows, CBS- TV devoted last Wednesday’s (28) 8 p.m. time slot to a half-hour, part tape, part film o.o. of Fidel Castro and Cuba since Castro’s successful overthrow of the Batista regime. Though the stanza was visually’okay, the key to the one- shot was not in the tape, the film or the 24 or so minutes in which they were shown. Not to say that these visual portions weren’t inter¬ esting, but they were somewhat disjointed and not overly exciting. The star attraction* was Stuart Novins’ brief word summary of what has taken place economically, socially - and politically since the revolt, with special emphasis on the role the Communists might play in Cuba’s future. • Novins brought In several angles which were not covered pictorially. leav¬ ing the viewer ’ with the feeling that he might have been watching two distinct programs. interesting trade sidebar was the filmed interview with Goar Mestre, the big man in Cuban video. Mes¬ tre, a known Batista opponent (he had his share of tv troubles be¬ cause of.it, too), gave his view—a temperate one^-on the new Castro role. Political aspect of this inter¬ view was okay, but for the people in Stateside video, who’ve heard about his personality ar.d forqeful- ness but who’ve 'never met him, it offered an opportunity during five minutes of “Fidel Castro” to see part oL what, makes Jura po powerful in Latin American broad¬ casting. Art. THE MIKADO (CBC Folio) With Eric House, Roma Butler* Robert Reid, Alan Crofoot, Eric Treadwell, Irene Byatt, Arthur . Sclafer, Marie Gauley, Genevieve Gordon, others Producer-Director: Norman Camp¬ bell Stager (Musical Numbers): Gladys Forrester Music Director: Godfrey Ridout 120 Mins.: Toe. (27); 9:30 pjn. CEC-TV, frojn Toronto Filling two hours (no coramerr cials; it was -sustaining) so only -one minor musical item had to be omitted, the Canadian Broadcast¬ ing Corp.’s “The Mikado” provided viewers across the country with one of the finest performances of the Gilbert & Sillivan spoofer ever seen in this country on any medi¬ um. Norman Campbell, who pro¬ duced and directed this ‘tern in CBC’s intermittent '“Folio” series, deserves all the kudos he’s going to get because, from this side of the picture tube, there wasn’t a major flaw. Big disappointment is that it gets only a single showng. Since Canada has only one English- language web T it would be a mighty achievement if a U.S. network' could air it on telefilm. Besides the boffo production- direction* of Campbell, ton v/ork was done by costumer Suzanne Mess, who handled similar chores "n the Opera Festival; Robert Law- son, who based the sets on deep research through Japanese prints (and although it was a non-color airer he made hefty use of color on the sets to help the cist); and Godfrey Ridout who did-a stand¬ out job with a so^ko orchestra. , The cast "was excellent. Eric House, w.k. on Canadian radio, tv and stage, handled updated fat times) lines in the Ko-Ko role with slickness and ability.. House had to squeeze rehearsals and show between his nightly-plus-matinees vverk in a revue in Toronto’s Crest theatre. Alan Crofoot, who. is a tenor but trained his pipes to the bass for Poo-Ba, was smooth and often convincing as the Lord High Everything. Erie Treadwell’s title part Was solidly handled as was the unpleasant but satisfying part of Katisha by Irene Byatt. Other players measured at all times to the show’s thesping and chanting standards. Standout achievement in “The Mikado” on CBC-TV was the sharp tightening of action to fit camera limitations. An average D’Oyly- Carte production requires a full stage but in this production thes- pers were directed to hit the lens on the button every time although the studio (CBC’s largest) was used completely. Big effect was achieved with a camera operated oir a monoraff in the high rafters, plus a crane camera and two on pedestal^ This handling of “The Mikado” is bound to strengthen p ihlie appeal, already strong, of s' C&S works. Gorrn. SECOND AGONY OF ATLANTA With Chet Huntley* others Producer: Reuven Frank Director: George Murray Writer: William Hill 60 Mins., Sun. (D 6 p.m. NBC-TV ffilm) One cannot help but turn melan¬ choly after viewing the illuminat¬ ing and controversial “Second Agony of Atlanta,” the full-hour NBC News special with Chet Huntley , on NBC-TV Sunday (1). This candid NBC probing of the Atlanta school integration crisis, like the recent CBS “Missing Class Of ’59” with Edward R. Murrow, should have a tremendous impact, on decent-thinking citizens of this land. It will, no doubt, provoke the anger of the Nat’l Assn, for the Advancement of Colored People. The ventilating of the school integration problem of the South on the NBC-TV program pointed up the unwholesome control of the situation by the bigot, the extrem¬ ist and the segregationist. It was. not a pretty or hopeful picture that Huntley and his camera crew captured in Atlanta and surround¬ ing territory. Currently there is a suit pending in the Federal courts to desegregate public schools. At¬ lanta has indicated a willingness to desegregate but a rural minor¬ ity which, under Georgia’s county unit voting system, controls the state government, can close down every one of the public schools if one Negro is admitted to a seg¬ regated white school. “Second Agony of Atlanta” made it plain thatjthere is massive resist¬ ance^ Federal pressure for school integration. NBC-TV took its cam¬ eras to a PTA meeting at the Northside H.S. where segregation¬ ists and integrationists had their say. A visit to McKee’s Beat, a canteen for white youngsters, pro¬ duced mostly segregation talk. Interviews with Negro students at Amos’ drugstore on the other side of the tracks were highly interest¬ ing. Here. the youngsters sought equal scholastic opportunities, ob¬ serving that in many instances southern schools were indeed sep¬ arate and unequal. This segment of the program evoked consider¬ able sympathy and understanding. Bitterly biased was segregation¬ ist Carter Pitman in an interview with an NBC-TV correspondent. Pitman- typified the prime bigot who insisted that it was absolutely impossible to integrate schools in the south as well as the north and that ultimately the north “will get tired of .their girls being raped . . . tired of policemen wa.king up and down corridors.”. A more hu¬ mane point of view was expressed by ^Atlanta Mayor. William B. Hartsfield and Ralph McGill, liberal editor of the Atlanta Con¬ stitution who described the NAAGP as “something of a whip¬ ping boy” and who lamented “the irresponsible loose talk” in the South and the folly of attempting to set Up a private school system in the event that Atlanta was forced to close its free public schools, o Huntley's closing remarks were sharp and undoubtedly faced up to the grave issues confronting Southern Communities. The pro¬ gram was certainly an important study of the widejy disparate forces at work trying to solve the turbulent public school crisis. It was also a stinging electronic editorial endeavor on the part of the NBC newsman, but Huntley’s final opinion that the problem might conceivably be eased if the present leadership of the NAACP were to undergo a change must have evoked rage in the hearts of Negro crusaders. If:, during the program, the NAACP’s position had been made clearer, there would have been some justifica¬ tion for Huntley’s final observa¬ tions. Under the circumstances, the NAACP got the short and messy end of the stick and conce- ouentiy deserves time on the air for a fuller explanation of its present position. Rans. Alex Gottlieb Original For Tlayhonse 90 ; Hollywood, Feb. 3. Herbert Brodkin, producer of CBS-TV’s “Playhouse 90” series, has signed Alex Gottlieb to. write an original comedy teleplay, “In¬ side My Wife’s Head,” for the se¬ ries. Brodkin, meanwhile, has slated “Diary of a Nurse,” by Arthur Hailey, for airing March 5, with Herbert Hirshraan to direct; “In Lonely Expectation,” by Mayo Simon, to be taped March 19 for April 2 airing, Franklyn Schaffner directing; Adrian Spies’ “A Trip to Paradise,” tentatively set for May 14; “Made in Japan,” by Jo¬ seph Ste'fano/in May. WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS (Du Pont Show of the Month) With Siobhan McKenna, James Donald, Cyril Cusack, Liam Red¬ mond, John Williams, Diana van der Vlis, ^ Martita Hunt, Tint O’Connor Producer: David Susskind Director: Robert Mulligan Writer: James M. Barrie Adaptation: Jacqueline Babbin, Audrey Gellen 90 Mins., Wed. (28), 9:30 p.m. DU PONT CBS-TV, from N.Y. (BBDOY Du Pont’s once-a-month video offerings continued their solid pace on CBS-TV Wednesday night (28) with a click adaptation of another standard legit work. This series may not be blazing any tv trails or developing any dramaturgical tal¬ ent by thus sticking to a safe re¬ pertory, but it is making an im¬ portant contribution by insisting on such high production standards. J. M. Barrie’s 50-year-old play, “What Every Woman Knows,” was tailored to an exact tv fit. The charm of the Barrie script was fully preserved in the adaptation by Jacqueline Babbin and Audrey Gellen while the performances retained the period flavor of this comedy of the war between the sexes. The central role of Maggie, the Scot girl who knew how to keep her man despite the fascinations of more beautiful women, was portrayed in superlative form by Siobhan McKenna. She played with vigor and wit, albeit lending a necessary feminine touch to her intelligence. The rest of the cast was of equal calibre. James Donald was out¬ standing as the humorless and am¬ bitious husband who finally comes to the shattering realization that his wife is indispensable. Martita Hunt, as the venerable countess who is an essential part of the somewhat old-fashioned plot mech¬ anism, played with aristocratic finesse. Other supporting roles were filled by a topnotch roster consisting of Diana van der Vlis, as the other woman; Cyril Cusack, Liam Redmond and Tim O’Connor, as Maggie’s family; and John Wil¬ liams, as a high British politician. The plot’s progression from the Scottish td English drawing room settings was kept firmlv under control by director Robert Mulli¬ gan. The play, done live, name off without a hitch. David Susskind produced for Talent Associates. Herm. BYLINE—MONTY HALL Witt Hall, host-moderator; guests Producer: Marlene Sanders Toobin Assoc. Producer: Herbert Dorfman Director: Arnee Nocks Writer: Milton Shefter PARTICIPATIONS 30 Mins.; M^n.-thru-Fri., 1 p.m. WNEW-TV, N. Y. A pleasant, informative show is offered in this half-hour afternoon strip, “Byline-Monty Hill," judg¬ ing from Wednesday’s (23) outing. When most stations in the seven- station N. Y. market are engaged in grinding out films, or in fun- same programs, the Metropolitan Broadcasting indie has settled for a chatter show in the pubaffairs groove. Host-interviewer Monty Hall doesn’t appear to do much digging on the subjects discussed, but he does some adroit steering of the expert*?’ talk. For this rea¬ son, it has an interestin'* appeal, if somewhat on the superficial level. Wednesday’s half-hour had Cleveland Amory. re^ogn ; zed chronicler of society, end D r ‘. Don¬ ald Keves and Dr. John Shuelort, the latter two cxTmrtizjn rt on the £ T aP T? ers of rcdioactwe fRlout in N. Y. Amory was on tar onlv about JO mimites, leavin'* th* 5 m^ior por¬ tion of tae pro'*rem to the radio¬ active fallout problem. Dr. Keyes ren»v\sentod Com¬ mittee for San Nuclear PoJtav and t°ok a more alarmin'* potion on the fallout danger. Dr. Shuelert. i*ead of the Turnout Geological Laboratories of Columbia U.. also saw the fallout darners, but his position was more moderate on the immediate dangers. The look-see at American So¬ ciety was uart of a three-day seg¬ ment on the subject. Amorv came off well, with a number of adroit observations and reallv deserves more than a 10-minute stint. By- liner Hall said Amory would be back at some future program. Pro¬ duction and direction were han¬ dled well. That coffee table, front¬ ing talkative guests on controver¬ sial subjects, is becoming a famil¬ iar trademark of the N. Y. tv scene. This WNEW entry is a pleasant, onee-over-lightly addition. Horo.