This week in TV Guide: November 13, 1954

I trust that by now most of you know me well enough to understand that the only time I recycle a TV Guide story is when I don't have an issue for that week (hey, it happens!) and that, even then, I try to introduce something new to what I've written. I'll admit there are times, though, when I'm tempted to dip into the archives anyway, either because I'm short of time or simply unmotivated by an issue that doesn't seem to say much. (There's also laziness, but we'll let that pass.) And then I'll run across the hook, that one thing that jumpstarts everything else, and after that it all falls into place. 

For example, if you know your history, you're bound to notice a line (no pun intended) in Sunday's listing for What's My Line? (9:30 p.m. CT, CBS) that leaps out. Following the usual boilerplate ("John Daly moderates for panelists Arlene Francis, Dorothy Kilgallen, Bennett Cerf") the magazine, as it often does, adds a promo for an article elsewhere in the issue: "The panelist covers a murder trial in Cleveland, page 18." 

For many years, the 1954 murder trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard was considered the most famous American murder trial of the 20th century, if not all the nation's history; it certainly was the most widely reported. The accused, Dr. Sam, was a neurosurgeon from a prominent medical family in Cleveland. His wife, Marilyn, was found bludgeoned to death the morning of July 4, 1954, along with her unborn child, in the upstairs bedroom. Sheppard claimed that she had been murdered by a "bushy-haired intruder" whom he had tried and failed to fight off. The prosecution claimed Sheppard had done it himself because of an adulterous affair he was having with a nurse at his hospital. Now, he's on trial for his life.

The Sheppard case had, Dorothy Kilgallen would say, "'[a]ll the ingredients of what in [the] newspaper business we call a good murder. It has a very attractive victim, who was pregnant, and the accused is a very important member of the community, respectable, [a] very attractive man. Then added to that, you have the fact that it is a mystery as to who did it." Reporters converged on Cleveland from around the country and even from Europe, and the story dominated the local newspapers.

Dorothy Kilgallen is no stranger to the crime beat; although known primarily for her Broadway column, her appearances as a regular panelist on WML, and her daily radio show with her husband, Dick Kollmar, she's also a respected journalist (as was her father), a crime reporter (a regular at the biggest murder trials, some of which she reviewed in her posthumously published book, Murder One), and confidant of politicians and celebrities alike. And she knows how to cover a story, which is why she's in Cleveland, representing the Hearst newspapers.

Even before the start of the trial, Dorothy's made her presence felt. During jury selection, one prospect was dismissed for discussing the trial with a friend; she explained the friend had asked her if she'd gotten Dorothy's autograph. (Dorothy sent a note to the dismissed juror: "Dear Betty, the reporters thought you would have made a good juror.") She was even invited to meet with trial judge Edward Blythin in his chambers; the judge told her that he and his wife enjoy her on TV, and later said, "I can understand why she is so popular." She doesn't mind the publicity; "I've been working hard since I was 17 years old to get where I am now, and although the attention slows me down, I am grateful to give autographs."

Just because she's covering the Trial of the Century, though, doesn't mean she's quitting her weekend job. She arrives in Cleveland at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning after appearing on WML, is in bed in the hotel by 5, up at 8, and at the courthouse at 9:45. She then flies back to New York to spend the evening with her family, gets up at 5:30 Tuesday morning to record two sessions of their radio show, and is back in Cleveland and at the courthouse by noon. When she's not travelling, she pounds out her daily "Voice of Broadway" column. Oh, and she also covers the trial.

And now, as Paul Harvey would say, the rest of the story. You remember that quote from Dorothy, the one about this being a "good murder"? She made that comment to Judge Blythin in his chambers, when he asked her what brought her to Cleveland; he couldn't understand why such well-known newspeople as Bob Considine, Theo Wilson, and Marguerite Parton were covering the trial. That's when she said, "it is a mystery as to who did it." 

"Mystery?" Blythin replied, "It's an open and shut case."

"Well, what do you mean, Judge Blythin?" she asked, stunned.

He answered, "Well, he is guilty as hell. There is no question about it."

She didn't reveal this story at the time, or for many years afterward; she felt she was not at liberty to do so, she explained, since the conversation was off the record. Sheppard was found guilty of second-degree murder on December 21 after a 9-week trial (a verdict with which Kilgallen was outraged; as a result, her column was dropped by Cleveland newspapers) and was sentenced by Blythin to life in prison. Blythin died in 1958, and in 1964 Kilgallen casually mentioned her conversation with him at an event attended by Sheppard's new lawyer, F. Lee Bailey. Bailey got her testimony in a deposition in May, and included it in his appeal. A judge overturned Sheppard's conviction in July on grounds of pre-trial publicity and judicial prejudice; that decision was upheld in a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1966, which ordered a new trial. Sheppard was retried in October, 1966, in the same courthouse in which he had been convicted 12 years earlier, and was acquitted. He died in 1970. A 1975 TV-movie was made about the case; I wrote about that here.

By the time of Dr. Sam's retrial, Dorothy Kilgallen, who had so criticized the verdict and whose deposition played a role in the overturning of Sheppard's conviction, had been dead for a year, apparently of an accidental overdose. She had covered Jack Ruby's 1964 murder trial in Dallas and had interviewed Ruby, and she was skeptical of the Warren Report' conclusions regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy. There are many to this day who think her death was murder and was related to her investigation into the assassination.

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Well, if I can't build on that, I should probably just wrap it up, and judging by the number of lines you see below this one, it's probably apparent to you that I've decided to keep going, perhaps to my detriment. (You'll be the judge of that.) Two of America's most successful comics have also decided to keep going, and according to this week's joint review (probably written by Dan Jenkins), it may be detrimental to them as well.

For five seasons, one of the Golden Age's shining moments was Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. Then they split up, choosing to go their separate ways (as did their director, Max Liebman). Everyone agrees that the three of them, separate, are less than the sum of their parts; unfortunately, the one who seems to have suffered the most is Coca. (Saturday, 8:00 p.m., NBC)

Part of the challenge for Coca, Jenkins says, is that she is "a performer who must be given an idea, rather than a script; a direction, rather than set lines." After five years, she's exhausted the bits from her nightclub act, and "everyone has seen her several times more than once"; she also "appears to have run out of writers who know what to do what her gamin-like qualities." That's not to say that every sketch is a dud; she has excelled in some of them, but too often they run too long. And as everyone knows, "Brevity is still the soul of wit."

Our other star under the gun is Red Buttons, who in the off-season moved from CBS to NBC, from Monday nights to Friday nights (7:00 p.m.), and from one writing staff to another. But, says Jenkins, "he is still Red Buttons. If one is an aficionado, he is the greatest. Otherwise . . ."

The problem is that Buttons "has no comic traits peculiar to him alone. He is not funny per se. A Jack Benny can be hilarious just standing with his arms folded, staring at an old lady in the front row. Buttons can't. He needs material." And Red's writers, "whose numbers must by now be as forlorn as they are legion," can only recycle old bits. Television is a demanding medium, one that demands staying power, "a basic talent which can rise above material and carry its own weight on off-weeks." So far, Red "has displayed very little of it."

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Is there anything interesting to report from the industry? Well, here's something; at the Hollywood Teletype, Dan Jenkins reports that "New, young CBS comic Johnny Carson will replace Jack Paar for several weeks in January." That would be Paar's weekday morning show, which airs at 7:00 a.m. on CBS. It won't be the last time; Johnny takes Jack's place again in 1962, this time permanently. As I recall, that turns out pretty well.

The first reports are in on how television covered the 1954 midterm elections, and it's described as "generally creditable," which is probably better that what we just had. NBC pulled off something of a technical coup, with a four-way split screen discussion between their commentators in New York, D.C., Chicago, and Los Angeles. And here's something: since WRCA in New York broadcasts in color (it's the NBC affiliate, now known as WNBC), it asked the parties what they'd like for their "official TV color." The Democrats choose green, the Republicans blue. Red, of course, would have been unthinkable for either party given the Cold War.

And remember how I wrote about how companies get involved with the shows they sponsor? It seems that the Campbell Soup Company, which sponsors the sitcom Dear Phoebe on NBC, doesn't like canned laughter. Therefore, they've ordered the laugh track deleted from the show. Now, that's the kind of sponsor interference I can get behind.

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Here's another one of those stories that jumps off the page. I must have read Brooks and Marsh's Complete Director to Prime-Time Network TV Shows from cover to cover when it first came out in 1979, and one of the things that stuck with me for some reason was an anecdote about an episode of CBS's Studio One—the episode that's on this Monday night at 9:00 p.m., as it happens. It's called "Let Me Go, Lover," a drama about murder and corruption in the record industry, and since producer Felix Jackson needed a song, he went to Mitch Miller, head of recording for CBS's subsidiary, Columbia Records. "Miller gave [Jackson] an obscure ballad called 'Let Me Go, Devil,' and urged that it be sung on the soundtrack by an unknown songstress rather than by an established star, in order to heighten the dramatic impact. With remarkable foresight he then saw to it that, prior to the telecast, record stores were well stocked with her Columbia recording of the song."

The song, sung by Joan Weber, was renamed, "Let Me Go, Lover" to match the title, and was used throughout the story. The next morning, "record stores were deluged with customers wanting 'that song that was on TV last night'—and 'Let Me Go, Lover' became a phenomenal hit," selling a half-million copies in the next five days (it eventually became a million-seller) and hit #1 on the Billboard charts. Mitch Miller knew what he was doing, which is why he was the success he was, and after more than 40 years, I've finally gotten to use that anecdote.

What else is on? There's Orson Welles' noirish version of Macbeth (Sunday, noon, WTMJ), with Welles in the title role, plus Jeanette Nolan, Dan O'Herlihy, Roddy McDowall, and Alan Napier in a non-Alfred role as "A Holy Father." Also on Sunday afternoon, Hallmark Hall of Fame presents "A Matter of Principle," the story of how John Adams defended the British soldiers accused of the Boston Massacre (4:00 p.m., NBC). 

The latest NBC color spectacular is the Pulitzer Prize-winning romantic comedy "State of the Union," on Producer's Showcase (Monday, 7:00 p.m.), with Joseph Cotten and Margaret Sullivan in the roles previously played on the big screen by Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Wednesday's highlight is the World Lightweight Championship fight between champion Paddy DeMarco and challenger Jimmy Carter (no, not that one), from the Cow Palace in San Francisco (9:00 p.m., CBS). Carter, who lost the title to DeMarco in March, regains it with a TKO in the 15th round. And on Thursday, CBS presents its own spectacular, as Shower of Stars uses Betty Grable, Harry James, and other stars in sketches about entertainers traveling from gig to gig. The sponsor, incidentally, is Chrysler. Coincidence?

Before I forget, The Liberace Show airs on Wednesday at 9:30 on WBKB, and the young lady on the cover of this week's issue is Liberace's latest squeeze (pronounced "beard"), Joanne Rio, a struggling young actress who's described as "the only girl he takes home to mother." Despite the headline in one article entitled "Liberace Fiancee Tells of First Kiss," she denies that the couple are engaged, saying that "We just enjoy each other's company, that's all." 

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Finally, we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving next week with an appropriate issue, but in the meantime, the deadline is at hand to order tickets for TV Guide's Thanksgiving Day TV Party, which takes place live on WGN from 3 to 4:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 25. The tickets are free for both kids and adults, and all kids receive a free gift package.

The show will be hosted by Super Circus star Mary Hartline and features the top Chicagoland TV children's favorites: Uncle Johnny Coons; John Conrad and Elmer the Elephant; "Pied Piper" Art Hern; Two-Ton Baker, the Happy Pirate; singing cowboy Bob Atcher; and Romper Room's Miss Rosemary. There's also a contest to select two lucky kids as "Mr. Pilgrim" and "Miss Pilgrim," and in addition to appearing on the show, the lucky boy and girl each get this impressive haul of prizes:

• A 21-inch Sentinel table model television set.
• A genuine Schwinn Hornet bicycle, complete with horn, headlights and all features.
• A pedigreed cocker spaniel puppy and a month's supply of Rival Dog Food.
• A handsome 21-jewel Lady or Lord Elgin wrist watch.

Those kids are making out like bandits, aren't they? I wonder how many hundreds of them were begging their parents to let them send in their names and photos? I wonder how many parents were trading side glances about the dog? And I wonder how much the tax added up to for the winners?

Anyway, it sounds like a lot of fun, doesn't it? This whole idea of a Thanksgiving TV party, with celebrities from all the local stations—not quite like a family get-together, but something special. I know other stations did things like this, for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Of course, without local kids' shows, I don't suppose you'd see anything like it today. But then, sometimes it doesn't seem as if we have as much fun today, either. TV  

This week in TV Guide: November 15, 1975

This week's feature spotlight is on one of America's greatest murder cases, the 1954 conviction of Cleveland osteopath Dr. Sam Sheppard for the murder of his pregnant wife Marilyn, his 1964 release on appeal, and his 1966 retrial and acquital. The case transfixed the nation, resulted in a landmark Supreme Court decision, and catapulted Sheppard's young attorney, F. Lee Bailey, to overnight (and lasting) fame.

On Monday night, NBC reviews the story in a three-hour made-for-TV movie, Guilty or Innocent: the Sam Sheppard Murder Case (7:00 p.m.), starring George Peppard as the enigmatic Sheppard, who insisted from the very beginning that he was innocent, that the murder had actually been committed by a "bushy-haired intruder" who had then attacked Sheppard before escaping. The case is probably at least as well known for supposedly being the inspiration for The Fugitive as it is on its own merits.

I wrote about the Sheppard Case over at the other site back in 2007, on the eve of the anniversary of the murder, so no need to rehash the details here. What is interesting is Michael Fessier Jr.'s article on the challenges of casting such a challenging movie. The Sheppard story requires a huge cast; not just the principles, but the smaller roles as well, and don't let anyone tell you that it's the biggest roles that cause the biggest headaches. One actor was up for a minor role; casting director Milt Hammerman knew the actor's agent had grossly inflated his rate, based on a part he'd had in Chinatown, and the cost would hardly be worth it. But director Harold Gast took one look at him, said "That's my doctor," and Hammerman knew the budget would be taking another hit.

And so it goes. Barnard Hughes is scheduled to play Sheppard's first defense attorney, William Corrigan (called Philip Madden in the movie), but Hughes has just started a new series, Doc, on CBS and his contract prevents him from appearing in other programs this early in the new season. "I suppose it's too late to get Melvyn Douglas," director Bobby Lewis moans. (As it turns out, the difficulties are cleared up, and Hughes winds up playing Madden - brilliantly.) The tension is always there, as Hammerman experiences; there's always a delicate balance between the right actor and the right price.

The biggest challenge, not surprisingly, is casting the lead role, Dr. Sam. Since the actor playing Sheppard will be required to age 12 years, the length of time between the two trials, they have a choice either to sign a young actor and age him, or choose an older man and de-age him. He'll have to be physically fit, a trait which Sheppard maintained through most of his life. Most important, Fessier points out, "the actor selected would have to be able to handle the ambiguity of the role, the unknown guilt or innocence." Bruce Dern, a fine actor, was rejected for this very reason: "He's too guilty. The audience looks at him and knows he did it." On the flip side, James Garner, who was "a strong contenter" early on, was thought to be "too permanently winsomely 'innocent'." On it went - Hal Holbrook was "too cerebral," Beau Bridges "too soft," Jon Voight, Gene Hackman and James Caan were too big, i.e. too expensive, to be considered unless "somebody here knows them personally?" They finally settle on George Peppard, veteran of Breakfast at Tiffany's, The Carpetbaggers, and the series Banacek, who calls this "the best part I have ever been offered in my career."

Peppard (left) as Sam Sheppard, with Barnard Hughes
as his defense attorney.

They made the right choice. Peppard is outstanding in the role, constantly insisting on his innocence, radiating a certain charisma, yet, as Judith Crist says, he "treads a fine line" in his portrayal of Sheppard, with that necessary ambiguity that means you're never quite comfortable with him. In fact, the movie never definitively proclaims Sheppard's innocence, although it leans strongly in that direction - strong enough to convince me of his innocence when I saw it that night. The performances were compelling, and the period detail very affecting - for example, in drawing the contrast between the look of the two courtrooms Sheppard was tried in, it's not just the aesthetics that we notice, but subliminally the differences that they suggest - the dark, wood-paneled courtroom that suggests the traditions and morals and formalities of the time (the prosecution's motive was Sheppard's adultery), the oppressive heaviness of it all, versus the brighter, less ornamented courtroom of 1966 foretelling an era of openness, supposed enlightenment, the '60s bursting into bright color after the drab colorless, hypocritical '50s. A cliche perhaps, but an effective one. For those times when the movie does take liberty with the historical record, it's usually done to emphasize a point rather than distort it; the trial, for example, wasn't quite the zoo that the movie makes it out to be, but it captures the spirit, the essence of it all rather well.

To this day the Sheppard case remains haunting, disturbing. I'd probably heard of the Sheppard case before (the retrial had only happened nine years before the movie was made), but I was captivated by the story; I bought and read as many books about the Sheppard case as I could, and I'm looking at four of them on my bookshelf as I write this; it's the reason I saved this particular issue of TV Guide. I was fascinated by F. Lee Bailey, who is of diminished stature today but was an enfant terrible as Sheppard's defender; the case made him world-famous overnight. In Cleveland, where the drama played out, it still arouses strong feelings on both sides, and old-timers remain convinced of the doctor's guilt.*  It is a story of a flawed marriage, one that either was on the road to recovery (Mrs. Sheppard was pregnant at the time of her murder) or doomed to tragedy; a story of a man, whether guilty or innocent, who was hounded by the press and public in a trial that at times resembled a circus more than a legal proceeding.

*During the retrial Vegas had odds of 20:1 on Sheppard's acquittal; in Cleveland it was only 6:5.

Most important, the conclusion tells us one of two things: either Sam Sheppard was guilty of murdering his wife and unborn child, and ultimately got away with it (albeit after spending a decade in jail), or he was a man unjustly deprived of that decade, an innocent man destroyed by the experience in prison. And if the truth points to the latter rather than the former, it also means that a murderer escaped detection, escaped punishment, and continued to wander in the darkness - even though the killer carried with him or her a pair of hands that, like Lady Macbeth, could not be cleansed of innocent blood. Jack Harrison Pollack, author of the book on which the movie was based, called the Sheppard case "An American Tragedy." Tragic it was, and will always remain.

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On weeks when we can, we'll match up two of the biggest rock shows of the '70s, NBC's The Midnight Special and the syndicated Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, and see who's better, who's best.

Kirshner: Steppenwolf, Graham Central Station and Emmylou Harris are guests. Music: "Mr. Penny Pincher" and "Caroline" (Steppenwolf); "Bluebird Wine," "Jambalaya" and "Amarillo" (Emmylou Harris).

Special: Hostess Helen Reddy, with Jimmie Walker, David Essex, Brenda Lee and instrumental jazz-rock group Tom Scott and the L.A. Express. This week's hit is Elton John's "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Also: a tribute to Jan and Dean.

Fun fact: during the days of the late, unlamented United States Football League*, the team in Los Angeles was called the L.A. Express. Now, does this outweigh a rock group named after a novel written by the famous German novelist Hermann Hesse? You might as well ask if a musician who shares his last name with the regal Essex House hotel in New York City measures up to a band who adapted their name from that same city's storied Grand Central Station. In the end, it all comes down to one question: do you like Emmylou Harris better than Brenda Lee? I do, and on that (admittedly esoteric) basis I award the week to Kirshner. 

*The league whose New Jersey franchise was owned by none other than a future President of the United States.

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Throughout the 60s and early 70s, TV Guide's reviews were written by the witty and acerbic Cleveland Amory. Whenever we get the chance, we'll look at Cleve's latest take on the series of the era. 

You'll recall that when it first debuted, Saturday Night Live was known simply as NBC's Saturday Night. That's because the "Live" moniker had already been taken by ABC's entry in the Saturday night variety sweepstakes, Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. The problem with this, explains Cleveland Amory, is that "the producers here now seem to spend their time thinking of ways to keep Cosell off camera. This is sad, because incisive interviewing and abrasive sportscasting were the making of Cosell's reputation. Being a host who is seldom seen on his own show could be the unmaking of it."

It's not that ABC hasn't been able to attract names to the show. But, in the "nothing exceeds like excess" category, that doesn't mean you have to hype the daylights out of them. Shirley Bassey, for example, "was overplugged as 'the greatest singing star on the internation scene.' Charo, a sort of singer-cum-professional-talk-show-guest, was overplugged as 'that electrifying vivacious bombshell.' You perhaps hadn't been electrified by her on any other show for at least a couple of hours." And another thing, writes Amory: "At other times, we were frquently introduced to 'the No. 1 rock group - but it was a different group every time. Aren't there any No. 2s?"* Of course, any show featuring Cosell is, I'm afraid, going to be subject to hype of one kind or another.

*Nice no-apostrophe usage there.

Further examples of what viewers can expect are, frankly, a little embarrassing. While being interviewed, John Wayne comments about would-be assassins (there'd been a plague of them recently, as we'll see shortly) by saying that we should "bloody them up a bit," maybe tear out their hair, then put 'em on TV and say, "They missed. Think what we would have done to them if they hadn't." The very next week, who should show up but none other than F. Lee Bailey, who talked about his current client, Patty Hearst, and said "Despite everything you've read and seen, I find her to be a very nice young lady." A clearly-exasperated Cleve remarks that "One of the credits for this show reads 'Executive in Charge of Talent.' It's too bad they can't afford one in charge of taste."

It's not all bad - an interview with Joe Frazier's son was good; so was an appearance by Cosell's friend Muhammad Ali, and a stand-up by the always-funny Alan King. Surprisingly, a duet sung by Cosell and Barbara Walters, of all people, also seemed to work. And the Rockettes were "suburb," which leads Amory to conclude that "in television, where's there's live, there's hope." In two months, though, the plug will be pulled on the live-support machine, but even though Saturday nights lost a Cosell, Saturday Night gained a Live.

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That assassination thing I was talking about: back in September, in the course of seventeen days, President Ford had been the subject of not one but two assassination attempts. The first one, on September 5 in Sacramento, had been perpetrated by Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, a member of the Manson Family (this story just keeps getting weirder, doesn't it?), was no more than an arm's-length away from Ford when she pointed her gun at him and pulled the trigger.*  The attempt failed when the gun jammed; Fromme was dragged away by Secret Service agents, screaming, "It didn't go off. Can you believe it? It didn't go off".

*Said Ford later, "I saw a hand come through the crowd in the first row, and that was the first active gesture that I saw, but in the hand there was a gun"

Then, on September 22, it was Sara Jane Moore's turn. This one happened in San Francisco, and unlike Fromme, Moore did succeed in getting a shot off. However, like Fromme, her inexperience did her in; she was unaware that the sights were six inches off the point-of-impact at that distance. A former Marine, Oliver Sipple, grabbed her arm and her second shot went awry, wounding a bystander. Had her gun not been faulty, a judge later observed, her attempt likely would have succeeded.

This all leads up to "Assassination: An American Nightmare," an ABC Wide World Special on Monday night at 11:30 p.m., hosted by Peter Lawford (who, as a Kennedy in-law, knew a thing or two about assassinations), with Gov. George Wallace, confined to a wheelchair since surviving an assassination attempt in 1972; former Rep. Allard Lowenstein, who will himself be assasinated by a "mentally ill gunman" in 1980; and Paul Schrade, who was wounded in the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. That, my friends, is a remarkable lineup. The show covers, in film, the history of American assassinations beginning with McKinley in 1901 and culminating in the two attempts against Ford.

The following Saturday, November 22, will be the 12th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and another Wide World Special (Friday, 10:30 p.m.) called "JFK - A Time to Remember" looks back at the private side of the late President (although it probably doesn't cover the most private moments), with reminiscences by Sen. Ted Kennedy, Pierre Salinger, Dave Powers, and other Kennedy cronies.

And a final note on this point: on Sunday at 11:00 a.m., KSTP's Henry Wolf interviews the man who would have been president had either Miss Fromme or Miss Moore succeeded in their efforts: Vice President Nelson Rockefeller. He would have hated to get it that way, but Rocky would never be that close to the presidency again.

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In the mood for an all-star disaster flick? It's one of those things that TV picked up from the movies and does so well, or at least so often - example being Murder on Flight 502, an ABC telemovie Friday night at 8:00. The hook: "A plane ride that turns into an ordeal of suspense when a letter is found stating that someone will be murdered before the jet lands." The cast is a mixture of former A-listers, TV has-beens, and those trying to stay relevant: Ralph Bellamy, Hugh O'Brian, Theodore Bikel, Polly Bergen, Sonny Bono, Walter Pidgeon, Fernando Lamas, George Maharis, Dane Clark, Danny Bonaduce, Robert Stack and Laraine Day. Oh, and Stack's daughter Elizabeth.

Judith Crist doesn't have anything to say about Flight 502 - it was unavailable for preview - but she does note the irony about NBC's rerun of the gritty Sarah T. . .Portrait of a Teen-age Alcoholic, a "serious and alarming" drama starring Linda Blair, being followed by the Miss Teenage America Pageant. (Saturday, 9:00 p.m.) What was it Cleveland Amory said about having an Executive in Charge of Taste? Me, I'm just trying to figure out why "teen-age" is hyphenated in the name of the movie, but not the name of the pageant.

There's plenty more star power the rest of the week (or "star" power, if you prefer), beginning Sunday with The Donnie and Marie Osmond Show (6:00 p.m., ABC), with - as the ad puts it - Bob Hope! Paul Lynde! The Osmond Brothers! The Shipstads and Johnson Ice Follies! and Kate Smith! (singing "God Bless America!") Later on, ABC follows up with The Great Gatsby, the lavish Robert Redford-Mia Farrow adaptation of the Fitzgerald novel, which Crist labels "a bomb" in which "the actors seem to have come from Central Miscasting and gone before the cameras without meeting their colleagues." No wonder she says it will leave viewers thinking more about the $6,500,000 budget than with the novel's human tragedies.

*In two months, Donnie and Marie return in this time slot with their weekly series, which runs for three seasons.

Meanwhile, the very funny Don Rickles has a "wild new comedy special" on CBS Wednesday (9:00 p.m.), with Don Adams, Jack Klugman and Michele Lee, and special appearances by James Caan, Michael Caine, Jose Ferrer, Arthur Godfrey, Elliot Gould, Larry Linville, Otto Preminger and Loretta Swit. Well, it is Las Vegas, after all. And Thursday it's McLean Stevenson's turn on NBC (7:00 p.m.), with Raquel Welch as his guest. OK, he only gets one guest star, but with Raquel there wouldn't be room for much more, right? Besides, Tommy Newsom is conducting the orchestra. What more do you want? Personally, I'd answer that question by pointing to what follows McLean on NBC - it's the Bell System Family Theatre with "Ann-Margret Smith," her husband Roger Smith, Sid Caesar, Michel Legrand, and the Bay City Rollers.

Now, if you want real stars, check out CBS's broadcast of That's Entertainment! on Tuesday night, MGM's magnificent tribute to its 50 year history of musicals. It's hosted by Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Gene Helly, and it features ten times that number of stars in 72 of the studio's greatest films. It is, as Crist says, what movies are all about.

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When I criticize the dumbing down of the modern TV Guide, which I do from time to time, this is the kind of issue I point to as an example of how the magazine used to be. The News Watch section features a column by former presidential advisor John Roche, who askes the pointed question, "Does the TV generation lack a sense of history?" The answer back in 1975 is yes; God Himself only knows what Roche would think of today's students, who not only lack a sense of history, but sense itself.

And then there's one of the "Background" articles that the old magazine does so well. Michael Meyer, biographer of Swedish playwright Henrik Ibsen, puts into context the writing of Ibsen's great play "Hedda Gabler," which PBS televises on Thursday night with Janet Suzman, Ian McKellen, and (for all you Paul McCartney fans) Jane Asher. Meyer gives us a brief look at Ibsen's life, his personal and professional relationships, and the genesis of some of his most famous works. His article not only familarizes the reader with Ibsen, it adds to the viewing experience for those planning to watch "Gabler," or those who might be encouraged to check in after having read Meyer's piece. TV Guide published articles like this with some degree of frequency back in the day, part of the mission to educate readers and give legitimacy to television's endeavors. Given what many people call the new Golden Age that television has radiated in the last few years, these kinds of Background articles might have provided insight into series from The Young Pope to Mad Men. If, that is, it could for even a few minutes stop acting like a fan magazine.  TV