Variety (January 1961)

50 RADIO-TELEVISION PSriety Wednesday, January 18, 1961 Foreign TV Followups ; Continued from page 44 ; billed as Abdul “Fatlah” Kasri. He garnered guffaws as a Cairo traffic cop trying to explain the . new lights, and fines for not obey-! ing them, to a country bumpkin. Widad Hamdi mc’d the shenani¬ gans, keeping them moving briskly. The show could still stand a ( ■couple of good femme vocalists to ; replace the pedestrian orchestra j numbers used as breathers for the 1 steady stream of comedy. Bower. hearsed, spontaneous air, the pro¬ gram did nothing to counter the belief that it’s good for many more hundreds yet. Sunday Night at the Palladium The 200th edition of Associated Television’s Sunday night institu¬ tional, aired Jan. 8, chose to re¬ affirm the constant values of the show rather than introduce any¬ thing revolutionary. In short, it was once again straight variety that went with plenty of zip, rely¬ ing on an American name — Mel Torme — for its big draw, and with plenty of homely gagging and by¬ play from its interlinker. Aforesaid emcee in this instance was Bruce Forsyth, who returned to the chore for the occasion and replaced the now-resident Don Arrol. Forsyth worked hard and well, even stealing some of the thunder from Torme by doing a stint after that billtopper who was in firstrate vocal and personality form. Another warbler, Sally Ann .Howes, also figured large In the proceedings, putting over three numbers in superb style even though her hairdo wasn’t all that fetching and though she offered a toy “Nice to be back” speech. Bill was virtually completed by the excellently-drilled Tiller Girls and the Atia Sahara Troupe who maybe could have done with some slicker opening tumbling and aero stuff for video. Evep on an occasion like the 200th, “Beat the Clock” had per¬ force to figure, though, the gag¬ ging thereof by the introduction of comic Harry Secombe and Don Arrol and their respective wives as “contestants” lifted the spot out of the rut. With Cyril Omadel and the orch providing competent backing, and with producer Albert Locke skillfully picking up several touches that had the right unre JUDSON HALL 165 W. 57 th Street AVAILABLE For Daytime Rehearsals Tv Theatrical Reasonable Rates CALL Mr. Trapp Cl 7-6900 Startime (British ATV) This sample of Val Parnell’s “Startime” proved a scintillating vaude outing. It featured Eartha Kitt in various guises, and she was in top attacking form. But, quite apart from her name-dropping ap¬ peal, much of the credit for the show’s undisputed sheen must go to. ATV producer, Francis Essex, and choreographer Paddy Stone. In conjunction with inventive lighting effects carried out by John Rook, they built a varied and a surpris¬ ing framework for the Kitt talents. These, as .everybody knows, are formidable, and she displayed most of them here. She moved ferociously into the 55--minute ses¬ sion with a cat-like “I Wanna Be Evil” — aided and abetted by a fetching leopard-skin outfit Then she went prone for “My Heart Be¬ longs to Daddy,” and changed the mood deftly for the semi-sentimen¬ tal “The Day the Circus Left Town.” By now she’d discarded the luxury covering for a bathingsuit — and a feature of the entire production was the way in which Essex got his star in and out of her various outfits without impairing continuity. Helpful in this device was a supporting team of four male terpers, who acted also as acolytes during the changes. Eartha Kitt, who seemed to be infected with the production’s en¬ thusiasm throughout, belted into a powerful “Beale Street Blues,” and then went into the more exotic stuff. This kicked off with a Jew¬ ish item, “Sholom,” and followed with the speaking of a slice of the “Song of Solomon,” with sound¬ track music from Jack Parnell’s ac¬ companying orchestra, which, in this instance, was pretty superflu¬ ous. Then she donned a derby for “Mack the Knife” and managed to convince that it wasn’t too irre¬ levant. And there was a telling rendering, in foreign-lingo, of “April in Portugal.” The star closed strongly with a gold-digging novelty, “Oldfashioned House,” and contrived, within the compass of the show, to show' as many aspects of her art¬ istry as could be reasonably ex¬ pected. She left viewers asking for more — and this wras a tribute to her skill at switching the moods. Paddy Stone, with his four ter¬ pers, was allotted a brisk dance routine of his own, and he joined Miss Kitt in a blood-racing Africantinged dance number. " Essex excelled in devising astute photography of the petulant Kitt personality, ;and continually in¬ trigued the eye with cunning var¬ iations of view, without ever get¬ ting fussy. In fact, this “Startime” was a near-ideal example of show-casing a: star, though It must be admitted that few producers have the variety of Eartha Kitt’s talent to showcase. Otta. TV Followups Continued from page 44 and others with fascinating names adapted from tanbark events, failed to generate the necessary excite¬ ment. There was some mild awe at the leaps taken by the whales and porpoises, and the antics of the sea lions. Rogers and Miss Evans, pe^; usual, were easy and personable singers. Jose. American Musical Theatre “American; Musical Theatre,” in a new 12:30-1 p.m. Sunday slot on WCBS-TV, N.Y., is now concentrat¬ ing on musical developers rather than the development of musicals. This change in emphasis, on the basis of the show’s outing this past Sabbath (15), isn’t for the better. The program, which plays to a teenage studio audience and is de¬ signed primarily for that age group, previously combined entertainment with a sketchy, but somewhat in¬ formative rundown of the progres¬ sion of musicals in America. In its altered shape, there’s little offered other than entertainment. The kids are given a looksee at the talent responsible for the creation of musicals, but with the program limited to 30 minutes of running time there’s not too much they can learn. That was evident last Sun¬ day when Broadwav-Hollywood vets Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule-Styne guested on the showr. The three are currently repre¬ sented on Broadway by the re¬ cently-opened musical, “Do Re Mi,” for which Comden & Green wrote the lyrics and Styne the music. The questions asked by the young¬ sters and the answers and com¬ ments supplied by the . trio . were mostly surface scratches. However, the appearance of the words and music creators did provide a peg for the delivery of several songs from “Do Re Mi.” plus some other tunes identified with them. On hand as songsters were Susan Johnson and Earl Wrightson. Both were good. The program’s host, Jim Morske, was affable, as usual. Incidentally, there was one inter¬ esting point made by Green in his assertion that although the revue is a vanishing form elements of such shows are being incorporated in book musicals. Jess. Murrow — Continued from pace 35 r— r To encourage and help bring about improvement in the purvey¬ ing of information, discussion and argument by existing publications both written and oral.” This it would do in two chief ways: By “making the public more and more aw^re of what it wants and needs, thus creating consumer demand which is bound to react on all the information disseminating indus¬ tries” and by “finding out and helping others to find out by exper¬ imental methods what the public wants and needs, what helps and what hurts and what economically feasible methods can be developed to serve it better.” (2) To build a more favorable climate “in the form of readier public acceptance and reward for all those now controlling or manag¬ ing oral or written publishing en¬ terprises who want to do a5 better public service job in the informa¬ tion field and for all who wish to come into the field with high ideals and high purposes.” (3) “To analyze and publicize threats” to freedom of the press, including the efforts tending to hamper or limit deliverance of in¬ formation. This would Include re¬ strictive legislation, regulation or economics and e'iorts at censor¬ ship. (4) “To make ever larger num¬ bers of the public more and more proof against bad news handling, bad editorials or poor arguments by ^teaching people to weigh and jud^e for themselves In reading, .listening and looking and to detect ‘at least the more obvious devices of Inadequacy, unfairness or in¬ tellectual dishonesty,” Murrow urged the creation of the institute at once. “There can be no real, lasting and Imoroving democracy,” he. said, “un.’fss the people understand the basic politfcjil, social and economic Issues upon 'which their welfare depends. “If a deceived or a confused pub¬ lic is betrayed into creating or . al¬ lowing to be created an American In which it loses faith, democarcy will not survive.” Inside Stuff— Radio-TV First live television presentation of a scene from Arthur Miller** “Death of a Salesman” will be produced Friday (20) on “American Anthology” on WPIX, N. Y. Show, produced for the N. Y. City Board of Education, will be devoted to the works of Miller, and will star Howard Da Silva and Mildred Dunnock. Da Silva,, currently starring on Broadway in “Fiorello,” will enact the father-and-son scene from the drama, with Allen Miller as the son. Miss Dunnock, who costarred in the original stage version of “Sales¬ man,” will discuss Miller and his work. Also set for the show by producer Jerry Silverstein is an excerpt from the film version of “All My Sons” with Edward G. Robinson and Burt Lancaster. This is Da Silva’s first tv appearance in several years. Five top winners this year of NBC’s third annual promotion manager* awards contest are Charles Cash, WSM-TV, Nashville; Kirt Harriss, KPRC-TV, Houston; Keith Strange, WFBM-TV, Indianapolis,-# James Knight, WTRF-TV, Wheeling, and Arthur Garland, WRGB-TV, Sche¬ nectady. There were also 15 lesser winners in the competition for the best local promotion campaigns supporting network programs. At the end of the month, the five big winners will begin a full week (totally free) In Hollywood and to Las Vegas. A1 Rylander, NBC promo chief, arranged the deal. Metropolitan Broadcasting Co. Thursday (12) found a good non¬ commercial use for its newly acquired international shortwave station, WRUL. The circumstances, however, weren’t the happiest for the company. Met public affairs v.p. Mark Evans was in Lambarene, French Equatorial Africa, the headquarters of Dr. Albert Schweitzer, shooting footage for a Met special on Schweitzer, when it got word that Evans* father.. had died. There was no way to reach Evans — the Schweitzer h.q. has no phones, no radio, no telegraph. Company thereupon beamed a news bulletin that afternoon at Africa, requesting anyone within the Lambarene area to please get to Evans with the news of his father’s death. The use of the station’s facilities for the purpose were cleared by Met with the FCC. Storer Broadcasting has loaned $190,000 to Nemlr Industries Inc., manufacturer of plastics — in exchange for an option to buy half of the company’s stock for $400,000. John C. Doerf er, former FCC chairman and presently counsel for the manufacturer, handled the deal and will serve, at Storer’s request, as secretary-treasurer and board member of Nemir from now on in. George B. Storer Jr. and Stanley F. Willis, Storer directors, have been members of the Nemir board since last October. Nemir trans¬ action is a step “ in the radio-tv chain’s diversification plans. Storer already holds interests in Standard Tube of Detroit and the Miami Beach Sun. National Labor Relations Board has given National Assn, of Broad¬ casters permission to declare its opposition to secondary boycotts in broadcasting by intervening in a case involving a dispute between the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and station WOGA, Chattanooga, Tenn. NAB was allowed to intervene to the extent of filing a brief stating its opinion that Congress specifically barred secondary boycotts in the broadcasting Industry. The WOGA case arose as result of “do not patronize” lists circu¬ lated to program sponsors. NAB contended Congress outlawed such activities in a 1959 amendment to the Taft-Hartley Act. Federal Communications Commission has given ITT Laboratories, Nutley, N. J., the greenlight to build an experimental station to bounce signals off the moon and space satellites. Purpose of the project is basic research and study of space communications theory. Authorization is for one year and specifies operation on 2120 of 2299.5mc. The station, to be located in Nutley, will use input power of 10 kw with a 40-foot steerable antenna for directing narrow-band transmis¬ sions spaceward. Signals reflected from the moon or space-objects will be picked up by the same station. WHLI, Hempstead, N. Y., asserted this week that It donated more than $347,266 in public service time during 1960. Station on Long Island broadcast 964 separate public service programs during 1960 for non-profit community service orgs. Additionally, WHLI says It did 9,708 announcements for non-profit groups. ‘Gershwin Tsars’ a— ■ Continued from page 35 the network received a fat pro¬ gram charge from the sponsor, in the neighborhood of $35,000. But In addition, It got a commission from CBS-TV for its sale of time on behalf of the Canadian web. Still another unusual feature of the deal was . that the Canadians saw the show earlier than the U.S. audience, though on the same night. CBS-TV shipped up a tape of the Leland Hayward special, completed only two days earlier, and CBS-TV edited out the GE commercials, inserted the Du Maurier blurbs, and had it on the air earlier than the U.S. Deal was handled out of the CBS-TV network sales depths sales service unit, by assistant business manager and director of station clearances Bob Jamieson. ' EVERY DAY ON EVERY CHANNEL 1 BROOKS COSTUMES 3 W*tt N.Y.C.*TtL M7-3 100 BRAND STAND? Like to know how your product stacks up with the competition in five big markets? Chances are we can tell you. TvAR Brand Comparisons meas¬ ure major categories every 6 months. Another unique service of . . . TELEVISION ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES, INC