Variety (June 1959)

20 TV-FILMS J^^SRlSTY Wednesday, June 3, 1959 Edelman: TV Not as Dependent Tokyo, May 26. Vacationing indie producer Louis F. Edelman said he didn’t think tv would become as depend¬ ent on the foreign market as has the motion picture industry during the post-war period. The exec producer of “Wyatt F.arp” and the “Danny Thomas Show” said the main problem in cultivating the market lies in dis¬ tribution. “It would push the costs too high/’ he said. Helen Winston’s Rights To Bedford’s Autobiog BORDER PATROL (Political Killer) With Richard Webb, Arthur Bata- nideg, Paul Sorenson, Stuart Randall* Stanley Farrar, Florida Friebus, others Producer: Sam Gallu Director: Jean Yarbrough Writer: Peter. Barry . Distributor: CBS Filins AMOCO London, June 2. __ ^ 'I Helen Winston, New York tv ; 30 Mins., Wed,; 10:30 P.m* packager and producer, has ac-! WABC-TV, N.Y. quired the rights to the Duke of : [Joseph Katz) Bedford’s autobiog, “Silver Plated f Commercially, this may be one Spoon,” which is to be published}.of the hotter numbers in the CBS in New York in the Fall by Dou- j Films distribution house, , buoyed Edelman added: -Art not all „f j Weday and Dorans . the product has mass appeal. I j. Miss Winston is hoping to ne- simpla entertainment, it’s a would say a great deal of it does j gotiate an Anglo-American co-pro-; s ist e r ; . not. Dialog comedy very often.}duction deal and to film a large] First outing in the series was cannot be translated. How do you | part of the story at the Duke’s hobbled by a routine cops and translate a wav of life in America * country residence, Woburn Abbey, i robbers script, penned, by Peter to a way of life in Japan? What j if someone is singing a song—how- do you translate the lyrics?” he questioned. i Although he has no particular j Interest in such a venture. Edel -\ man gave scant, encouragement to j the tv production interests that are | descending on Japan in increasing j numbers. “The idea of just mak-! irg film would not be my desire,” j. he said. “You'd have to have some-] body who could write the-stuff for.- vim and I don’t have any answers j on that. WCBS TV’s (i0€ Barry. It need not have, been so. Plot told of a Washington State politician who. hired a Greek assassin to kill a local political opponent in the States. Producer Sam Gallu and.scripter. Barry, took this unusual situation— supposedly based. on the files of the U.S. immigration service—and made a less than ordinary metier out of it. That takes some doing. Perhaps the. dynamite. in the in¬ herent . situation—hiring a foreign, assassin to commit political mur¬ der in the U/S.—was too much for WCBS-TV, N.Y., when it bought Gallu and CBS .Films to. handle. “You're at the mercy of people/one feature package after another. So the script played it vague, very who knew the background bejeause jculminating ; in the deal for the if ^'ou Jiaven’t cot that vou haven t •• vs » ,-v * about the situation T except that Li’ anxthin"’’Ede’man continued i ? ara mount library, raised many the bad politico^ was ,involved m -'it v/culd have to te in the hands ' industry.'.eyebrow How could the shady lumber. d eal| .inAhenorin, of artiets who know what the; Ration ever recover the millions^ fu^lv^to^catch^that) ^ ? background is about. I suppose,”«invested in cinematics was they, Instead the script and camera he acknowledged, “if someone ^question bandied .. a m;o ng . the focused on theactual slaying: cr.me cut here and got .-familiar j ifcepxics. •' '(knife plunged into man’s - stom- v.ith the operation he could, do ay/ station’s “Late Show” stripped achb the, slow. detection and the fai- job.” ! i • --—a;* .,- 1 — Of the' current heavy program- ning of Westerns on tv. EdelmaE thought the good shows would sur- vive as fixtures. Comedy he hoped. ■ fiigtic sliowcase usually is praeti- vould mark the next cycle. And u „ • . ... r. .. “ • ., j across the board beginning at 11:15 capture. To-give credit where due, ;P-m. has a . potential, gross billing 1 Of 1 of '; fectively by. Arthur Batanides! was vacant amusement 13# agency discounts! That cine-caught ic showcase usually is practi, ar g .-jj e . W as stalked in a horror I think the comedv that lasts wiiL^- sold °ot most-of the tiine. In ; houS e and finally was beaten off a cq^tion cmr-dv 1 of one k4d addltlon * there is - the. stripped - loop edifice, plunging to his death, of anothe?” hi s % ' kind ;‘‘Late. Late Show “ the “Early . But* the,, last’ few, minutes' ‘hardly, or anoiner. ne saia. Show” and the weekend cinematic compensated for.. the . preceding showcases, all revenue producers, tedium. : V . . ■ • /■ Frank Shakespeare, general man-'i .. Biehard Webb, f unning star, aser of the CBS N.Y. flagship.Is a : »rt. WS. iromwrat^ .mb strnop helipvar in the aur’ipnrp arirT ! Okay m the action .bit,' hut ... he « be ,1] er f ln - the a ^0 ie nce and . wasn’t too convincing as the. master .sponsor pull of cinematics: Impor-, detective. Supporting cast was all tant to get results for pix telecast-; right; There was some good locar ling, according to Shakespeare,, is! tion shooting, Frisco streets, dobk- ’ to huild a big, diverse library siry side, amusement park, etc., but ' that the station doesn’t bore its ■ director Jean. Yarbrough was Hollywood, June 2. [ Audiences with repeats or similar / boxed in by a routine pulp script. ^ II. G. Saperstein Associates has f y P e * are * I Horo. Signed a deal with Paramount Tele- ’ He acknowledges that some. sta- vision Produclions-KTLA, in Los / lions may not have the tall capital Angeles, for the video taping of • as WCBS-TV to build a gilt-edged 130 half-hours of “Ding Dong j library . of Metro, Paramount, and School.” Series, starring Dr. Fran- ' Pther pix. But he . argues that in cis Korwich in her familiar role, ; most eases they have sufficient is being distributed by Independ- i capital for an initial purchase, and; enl Television Corp. for fall airing. • |f the profits are ploughed back in For Par's KTLA; Produclions-KTLA, in Los / lions may not have the tall capital 1 Pa a of fR^JTV RncnlvPC ' BS. for the video tanim* nf • as WCBS-TV to huild a eiTt-edjied : vUttwl ww 1 f llVyvlVvy Hollywood, June 2. CBS-TV has all but restored the . -—i airing.; ) I ine proiics are . piougnea oack in | s t a tus quo in placing Its film series | . m Schuike, v.p, of Paramount tnore cinematics a bigger library ; a t studios, following blowup of its. Productions,. called the deal P an be built. ; ! five-series rental deal with Sam t»ie largest ; single video tape pro- • re§lats, WCBS-TV feels it has suf- i fiaent pix for seven years. In a I Comparative famine period, that p _ . ; currently exists on new pix being rrcm Screen terns’ File S a" 1 that s i coirt£orUWe WHDH-TV’s Pix Bundle Botton, June 2. , 'WHDH-TV, Channel 5, nabbed! new package of films, distributed ’ j by Screen. Gems, comprising 54 ‘ Columbia and 50 Cl films. The package contains 104 films j]: dating back as far as 1931 with!I; “The Iron Man,” with Lew Avres and. Jean Harlow, and up to 1948 with “Tap Roots,” Susan Hayward and Van Heflin, and “River Lady.” with Yvonne DeCarlo and Dan Duryea. position to view the future.. goes into production June 15. It’s the. second’CBS show at M-G k . other being the “Rawhide”; segment. Earlier, CBS had set “Gunsmoke,” “Have Gun, Will Travel” and “The Lineup” at California Studios. The second . Paris, June .2. ; Eurovision Tel e~ j lyislon Film Fest, which unspboled In addition, WHDH-TV bought a'{during the recent Cannes Film Matador,” Maureen O’Hara and Anthony Quinn; "New Faces,” Rob¬ ert Clary, Eartha Kitt; “Blue Gar¬ denia,” Anne Baxter, Richard Conte; “San Francisco Story,” Joel McCrea, Yvonne DeCarlo. Schubert Taps Stewart Bernard L. Schubert, Inc., has signed Herb Stewart as exec pro¬ ducer of its forthcoming series "Counterspy,” which will go before the cameras at the Goldwyn Stu¬ dios on the Coast this month. Thirty-nine episodes are slated for the series. Other projected Schubert skeins include “Alexan¬ der the Great!,” and “New Adven¬ tures of Mr. & Mrs, North.” here. He felt that this manifesta- tion, in its present form, did little ([good for television reps or tv i.filmmakers. j! Brandel felt most of the invites were from nationalized video webs and the commercial stations were somewhat ignored though they are the biggest utilizers, of vidfilms. He also pointed out that commer¬ cial station reps should have been more in evidence on the jury and that there were too many French-, 'men seated on it. . I Brandel suggested a special Organization Committee to also seat vidpic makers. He opined that the Eurovision setup missed opportunities to set up meetings [between station veeps and film producers for an exchange of views on . pic. usage, possible: vidpic , co- productibns, etc. He said that films should .have, been chosen by countries, ihstead of allowing in¬ dividual : participation by cprh- panies, and that there should liave been two categories, documentary, and dramatic, instead of lumping all types' of pix together fer the ■awards.... • He felt that, only pix .specificaliy made; for tv should be ; entered. He also felt that the organization in Cannes did not have, a good definite time, sked and ’ the press in attendance were not adequately notified to cash in on the big press pub potential. Many j oumal- ists at Cannes, according to Bran¬ del, did not even know about the Eurovision affair. Brandel spoke for himself and Ziv. MCA and Screen Gems, also had pix entered but have made no beefs or statements officially, though admitting that Brandel had many good points.. The prizewin-^ riing pix were French. WOR-TV, the RKO Teleradio outlet in N.Y., has made its big¬ gest feature film buy in five years. Station has paid'approximately : $1,000,000 for 78 full-lengthers, which come from the Columbia and Universal libraries. Deal was closed; by the station to pump up the supply of. flicks to “Million Dollar Movie,” the multi-run feature film format that WOR has been using since it first got the RKO library. Station closed about a month ago for a blodk of 20-odd films from Show . Corp. of America- Screen ’Gems sold the pix, which include “Tap Roots ” “Cover Girl,” “Arizona,” “Ride a Pink Horse,” “Song of India” and “Fol¬ low the Boys.” W.OR, short on new stuff, also bought a package of 26 features from Bernard Schubert’s distribbery. on BREAKDOWN OF PAR PIX 43>fc of Purchasing Stations Tied To CBS; 21% ABC, 19% NBC ;. MCA TV has racked up three new sales of its Paramount pre-’48 library. New stations inking in¬ clude KTVH, Hutchinson-Wichita; WAPI-TV, B i r mi ngh a m and WTPA-TV, Harrisburg; putting the Paramount library in 54 markets. Breakdown of sales since the pix were brought out into the market last spring shows that 43% of the purchasoing stations are CBS affils, 21%7 ABC. 19% NBC, 9%, duals NBC-ABC, 2%, NBC-CBS-ABC; and 4% indies. . Evaluating the number of sta¬ tions in each sold market, MCA TV has found that.89% have three of more stations, and 11% of the total are two-station markets. No sales to date, in Qne-'station markets. . Unique plan, offering ’ adver¬ tisers product exclusivity and de- commercialization of break periods, has been instituted by WPIX, N.Y. for Wednesday nights. Plan, titled “Night of Impact,” has beep bought by three leading advertisers: Sponsors Liggett & Myers, r Procter and Gamble and Bristpl' Myers have bought the en¬ tire “Mystery Night” block of prbr grams every Wednesday from 7:30 to 10:30 p.m. Station programs its telefilms thematically, one night comedy, another ^tion-adventure, etc. j Deal guarantees;^ whole night of j product. protection for the spom 1 sors, in contrast to the customary 15-minute protection offered in the N.Y. market. In addition, the. usual 10-second and 20-second an- 0 nouncements and station “plugs'* are being eliminated at the “break periods” between programs and only one announcement will be telecast in their place. ! Daily News indie “Impact Night” offers each; advertiser half sponsor- ship of two different programs every Wednesday night, and an ad¬ ditional announcement between Other programs in the night. . Sta¬ tion, mpst of whose revenues are derived from participation biz as ppposed to program buys, is going in for some heavy ad-promotion on “Impact Night.” Wednesday’s schedule is being backed by a $37,- 000 print, advertising campaign and; heavy On the air promotion./ [ Liggett and Myers, via .Dancer, Fitzgerald and Sample, inked for L&M Cigarets; P&G fori Spic Span through Young & : Rubicam; and Bristol Myers for four of its products, Ipana, Vitalis, Bufferin and Ban, via various agencies. Kiennaier Exits ITC Jack . Kiermaier, assistant to Walter Kingsley, prez of Iride L pendent Television Corp., has re¬ signed. There will be no replace¬ ment, with Kiermaier’s functions being absorbed by other execs. Another ankling at ITC is that of Robert Gaertner, research di¬ rector. ITC currently is looking for a replacement in the research post. Sterling; .Television;. which has acquired the vintage D. W. Griffith pix, including “Birth of a Nation”, has advised the National Assn, for the Advancement of Colored Peo¬ ple that “we have never had. any in¬ tention of releasing “Birth of a Nation” in its original version. In fact, we would oppose its release, in its. present state almost as Vig¬ orously: as you do.” : : Sterling Television’s, letter was addressed to Roy Wilkins, exec sec-’ retary of the NAACP, and signed by Sterling prez Saul j, Turell. Wilkins had-sharply protested; any telecasting of the pix, contending. that it glorified the Ku Klux Klan . and. sowed, racial hatred. Sterling Television, immediately after the Griffith acquisition, spoke . vaguely of trying . to sell: “Nation” as a Civil War tv spec, aS well as including excerpts ; in. an anthology series of cinema history, Tn . corti- junction with . the above plans. Sterling contended, that it \vbuld try .to present ;the . pic without. arousing racial feelings, Tureil’s letter to IVilkins appar- . ently, shows some tempering of initial, plans!. Said Turell ill part: “We intend only to use certain ex^ cerpts in our television series, a series on motion picture history. I believe you will approve of the continuity and commentaiy of the Version we create. - “However, bur plans are far from set and a program on ‘Birth of a Nation’ is still .not even bn. our presen t p r b d u c t i o n schedule. There has been some.discussion of using as excerpts only the truly great battle sequences and; the theme concerning the assassina¬ tion of Lincoln. I personally -think it would be wrbng to avoid men¬ tion. of the; significance of : tliia film and its history. “Certainly, when-.' we plan' this program w i;would : take the utmost. care in the selection of the scenes and in the script we write. I would, most appreciate your'help aiid ad¬ vice at that time! I should like to go over the entire half-hour ver- sioh of the . film with you' then.” Turell opened his letter; with the declaration, . “First, I would like you to know that neither I; nor my company, , would have any part of .a program that; would stimulate, ra¬ cial hatred. Nor would we in -any way obstruct the fight to establish complete and equal rights for the Negro in the United States.” N.Y. Key TVers Indications of how tight the sit¬ uation is for syndicated telefilms bn WCBS-TV and WRCA-TV in the New York market is supplied by the respective fall plans of the O&o’s! . , WRCA-TV at this point is only planning two first-run slots for syndication .’ properties. Tuesday nights from 10:30 m 11 p.m, and Thursdays from 7 to 7:30 p.m. WRCA-TV just bought “Lock-Up” from Ziv for fall airing. The^e may. be a few others if the net¬ work opens up some 7;30 and 10:30 periods. WCBS-TV only has one evening slot open next: fall for first-run syndication product, 7 to 7:30 p.m, Saturday nights! Four syndicated shows are set for daytime strip¬ ping. They are “Burns & Allen" and. probably “Suzie’? for 9 to ifl a.m.; “Our Miss Brooks,” 1:05 to 1:30 pm.; and “Life With Riley,’ 1 5 to 5:30 p.m.